• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.155-161
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• 2021

This study was attempted to investigate natural materials with antimicrobial activity and to apply as natural preservatives in cosmetics. The disc diffusion method was used to search for nine species of natural antibacterial material for three species of skin pathogenic bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and Candida albicans. As a result of measuring the size of inhibition zone, Rhus Semialata gall (Gallnut) extract, Oak vinegar, and ε-polylysine were showed strongest antibacterial activities (> 10 mm). The Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) of gallnut and oak vinegar ranged from 10 to 20 mg/mL and from 20 to 40 mg/mL against five human skin pathogens. The MBC of ε-polylysine ranged from 0.5 to 2 mg/mL in fungus. The synergic effect of gallnut extract/oak vinegar mixture and gallnut extract/ε-polylysine mixture were evaluated by checkerboard test. Compared to when used alone, the MBC of gallnut extract/oak vinegar mixture were at 4 times lower concentration against E. coli, C. albicans, and A. brasiliensis. Also Furthermore, the MBC of gallnut extract/ε-polylysine mixture were at 4 times lower concentration against C. albicans and A. brasiliensis. It was confirmed that the combination of gallnut extract with oak vinegar or ε-polylysine resulted in synergistic antibacterial effect against three human skin pathogens. Thus, it is expected that gallnut extract and natural product mixture can not only demonstrate antibacterial synergies, but also be applied in cosmetics as a natural preservative system with a wide antibacterial spectrum.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2023

Objectives: This study aims to discover how the spread of K-POP and the diversification of the Korean Wave affects Korea's national reputation. K-POP stars are diversifying their interactions with fandom by creating an online space to consume various products and services related to their stars and engage in fan activities. Because of this, this study aims to examine the relevance of K-POP to national reputation through a parasocial relationship with K-POP stars by fandom forming a community and utilizing media. Methods: An online survey was conducted in English using the Amazon survey company Mechanical Turk for BTS fans living in the United States. A total of 195 people's data, excluding incomplete responses, were used for the analysis. Results: It was found that BTS fans' social media participation activities themselves did not directly affect Korea's national reputation. But the mediating effect of BTS fans' parasocial relationship was found. That is, BTS fans' social media participation activities had a positive effect on their parasocial relationships with BTS which in turn had a positive effect on their national reputation. Conlusions: The use and participation of BTS fans in social media in Korea's national reputation has no significant effect on itself, but it has been found that it affects the national reputation through forming parasocial relationships. From the study results, the parasocial relationship of K-POP fans can be used as a strategic mechanism to enhance the national image and Korea's national reputation.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.64 no.6
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• pp.433-438
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• 2008

Background: Measurement of the maximum oxygen uptake in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been used to determine the intensity of exercise and to estimate the patient's response to treatment during pulmonary rehabilitation. However, cardiopulmonary exercise testing is not widely available in Korea. The 6-minute walk test (6MWT) is a simple method of measuring the exercise capacity of a patient. It also provides high reliability data and it reflects the fluctuation in one' s exercise capacity relatively well with using the standardized protocol. The prime objective of the present study is to develop a regression equation for estimating the peak oxygen uptake ($VO_2$) for men with moderate to very severe COPD from the results of a 6MWT. Methods: A total of 33 male patients with moderate to very severe COPD agreed to participate in this study. Pulmonary function testing, cardiopulmonary exercise testing and a 6MWT were performed on their first visits. The index of work ($6M_{work}$, 6-minute walk distance [6MWD]${\times}$body weight) was calculated for each patient. Those variables that were closely related to the peak $VO_2$ were identified through correlation analysis. With including such variables, the equation to predict the peak $VO_2$ was generated by the multiple linear regression method. Results: The peak $VO_2$ averaged $1,015{\pm}392ml/min$, and the mean 6MWD was $516{\pm}195$ meters. The $6M_{work}$ (r=.597) was better correlated to the peak $VO_2$ than the 6MWD (r=.415). The other variables highly correlated with the peak $VO_2$ were the $FEV_1$ (r=.742), DLco (r=.734) and FVC (r=.679). The derived prediction equation was $VO_2$ (ml/min)=($274.306{\times}FEV_1$)+($36.242{\times}DLco$)+($0.007{\times}6M_{work}$)-84.867. Conclusion: Under the circumstances when measurement of the peak $VO_2$ is not possible, we consider the 6MWT to be a simple alternative to measuring the peak $VO_2$. Of course, it is necessary to perform a trial on much larger scale to validate our prediction equation.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.109-131
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• 2014

As the demand of nuclear power plant equipment is continuously growing worldwide, the importance of handling nuclear strategic materials is also increasing. While the number of cases submitted for the exports of nuclear-power commodity and technology is dramatically increasing, preadjudication (or prescreening to be simple) of strategic materials has been done so far by experts of a long-time experience and extensive field knowledge. However, there is severe shortage of experts in this domain, not to mention that it takes a long time to develop an expert. Because human experts must manually evaluate all the documents submitted for export permission, the current practice of nuclear material export is neither time-efficient nor cost-effective. Toward alleviating the problem of relying on costly human experts only, our research proposes a new system designed to help field experts make their decisions more effectively and efficiently. The proposed system is built upon case-based reasoning, which in essence extracts key features from the existing cases, compares the features with the features of a new case, and derives a solution for the new case by referencing similar cases and their solutions. Our research proposes a framework of case-based reasoning system, designs a case-based reasoning system for the control of nuclear material exports, and evaluates the performance of alternative keyword extraction methods (full automatic, full manual, and semi-automatic). A keyword extraction method is an essential component of the case-based reasoning system as it is used to extract key features of the cases. The full automatic method was conducted using TF-IDF, which is a widely used de facto standard method for representative keyword extraction in text mining. TF (Term Frequency) is based on the frequency count of the term within a document, showing how important the term is within a document while IDF (Inverted Document Frequency) is based on the infrequency of the term within a document set, showing how uniquely the term represents the document. The results show that the semi-automatic approach, which is based on the collaboration of machine and human, is the most effective solution regardless of whether the human is a field expert or a student who majors in nuclear engineering. Moreover, we propose a new approach of computing nuclear document similarity along with a new framework of document analysis. The proposed algorithm of nuclear document similarity considers both document-to-document similarity (${\alpha}$) and document-to-nuclear system similarity (${\beta}$), in order to derive the final score (${\gamma}$) for the decision of whether the presented case is of strategic material or not. The final score (${\gamma}$) represents a document similarity between the past cases and the new case. The score is induced by not only exploiting conventional TF-IDF, but utilizing a nuclear system similarity score, which takes the context of nuclear system domain into account. Finally, the system retrieves top-3 documents stored in the case base that are considered as the most similar cases with regard to the new case, and provides them with the degree of credibility. With this final score and the credibility score, it becomes easier for a user to see which documents in the case base are more worthy of looking up so that the user can make a proper decision with relatively lower cost. The evaluation of the system has been conducted by developing a prototype and testing with field data. The system workflows and outcomes have been verified by the field experts. This research is expected to contribute the growth of knowledge service industry by proposing a new system that can effectively reduce the burden of relying on costly human experts for the export control of nuclear materials and that can be considered as a meaningful example of knowledge service application.