• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.47-57
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• 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to discover the nature from the life experience of a person with unilateral acquired blindness and his/her family after losing the eyesight and adapting in the environment and to find the meaning of life and how to solve the problem in psychosocial aspect. Methods: This study uses one of the qualitative research methods which explains how families with the unilateral acquired blind perceive blindness after experiencing it and observes how they signify it. starts with interest in lifestyles of individuals and their families and tries to understand the subjective existences of participants in accessible ways and draw the experiences after becoming one-side blind. It cyclically uses deductive verification process through inductive method and establishing hypothesis using materials. Results: According to the results of this study, unilateral acquired blindness studies, due to shattered life, they did not know what to do. Also, discomfort from struggling in a big tunnel and even will to live were found. trying to go out to the world, seeing the new world, and trying to encourage myself, strong attachment to life was shown to by saying, appeared. Each includes sub-topics such as feeling abandoned after confirmed the blindness, feeling disappointed to doctors, family, and friends, trying to live with hope, struggling in a tunnel with thinking how to live, closing the mind from the world, seeing outside the world in the midst of struggling, trying to forget the past with the will of life, having hope to live with care of family, and trying to keep the rest vision. Conclusion: Firstly, in nursing aspect for their adaptation, programs for disable people and nursing intervention focused on their families should be developed. Secondly, since it can be economic and psychological burden for their families and acquaintances, it is necessary to support the blind so that they can find fitted rehabilitation programs and come back to society. Thirdly, active participation of health care providers may influence social interest the improvement of national welfare policy for the unilateral acquired blind.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.372-375
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• 2003

The incidence of blindness resulting from diabetic retinopathy has significantly increased despite the intervention of insulin to control diabetes mellitus. Early signs are microaneurysms, exudates, intraretinal hemorrhages, cotton wool patches, microvascular abnormalities, and venous beading. Advanced stages include neovascularization, fibrous formations, preretinal and vitreous microhemorrhages, and retinal detachment. Microaneurysm count is important because it is an indicator of retinopathy progression. The purpose of this paper is to apply data mining to detect diabetic retinopathy patterns in routine fundus fluorescein angiography. Early symptoms are of principal interest and therefore the emphasis is on detecting microaneurysms rather than vessel tortuosity. The analysis does not involve image-recognition algorithms. Instead, mathematical filtering isolates microaneurysms, microhemorrhages, and exudates as objects of disconnected sets. A neural network is trained on their distribution to return fractal dimension. Hausdorff and box counting dimensions grade progression of the disease. The field is acquired on fluorescein angiography with resolution superior to color ophthalmoscopy, or on patterns produced by physical or mathematical simulations that model viscous fingering of water with additives percolated through porous media. A mathematical filter and neural network perform the screening process thereby eliminating the time consuming operation of determining fractal set dimension in every case.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.6.1-6.8
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• 2023

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of irreversible blindness, and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is the most common type. Due to inadequate diagnosis, treatment is often not administered until symptoms occur. Hence, approaches enabling earlier prediction or diagnosis of POAG are necessary. We aimed to identify novel drugs for glaucoma through bioinformatics and network analysis. Data from 36 samples, obtained from the trabecular meshwork of healthy individuals and patients with POAG, were acquired from a dataset. Next, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified to construct a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. In both stages, the genes were enriched by studying the critical biological processes and pathways related to POAG. Finally, a drug-gene network was constructed, and novel drugs for POAG treatment were proposed. Genes with p < 0.01 and |log fold change| > 0.3 (1,350 genes) were considered DEGs and utilized to construct a PPI network. Enrichment analysis yielded several key pathways that were upregulated or downregulated. For example, extracellular matrix organization, the immune system, neutrophil degranulation, and cytokine signaling were upregulated among immune pathways, while signal transduction, the immune system, extracellular matrix organization, and receptor tyrosine kinase signaling were downregulated. Finally, novel drugs including metformin hydrochloride, ixazomib citrate, and cisplatin warrant further analysis of their potential roles in POAG treatment. The candidate drugs identified in this computational analysis require in vitro and in vivo validation to confirm their effectiveness in POAG treatment. This may pave the way for understanding life-threatening disorders such as cancer.

• Archives of design research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.111-122
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• 2003

We must not consider a culture as means of economy. Specially, it is not possible that is supposed to incorporate a cultural identity in a shape of product, but also international competitiveness can not be raised by it. Because an identify is based on the system of symbol such as language, it can be understood only in a same cultural area. While, the value-in-use of technology can be accepted universally as a formative language of international style. Therefore, the competitiveness of design will say as a special quality that can be acquired in connection with technology. For instance, that Korean mobile telephone could be recognized worldwide is not because it has the Koreanized shape but has a high technology. The public have only a superficial understanding about design. Because that is limited in the visual aspect of product, so called 'the pretty design', which exclude the value-in-use and the organic correlation of form and function in general, it may be a cause of socio-ethical dysfunction. It is providing an elbowroom for making a mistake that can regard the product design as an artistic experiment and try to raise the international competitiveness simply with the visual aspect. And the distorted understanding about design has been diffused rapidly owing to spread of black box products because the over-designed shape is known to the public as a proper result of designing. That reorganize the design category will do as a starting point that can get rid of such a misunderstanding, and do to achieve an ideological role of design for human and society. And it will be a warning to the moral slackening that is due to regarding a style as means of competitiveness and the blindness due to thinking culture as means of economy, and we may expect to offer a basic understanding about design which can prevent products from being visualized.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.154-159
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• 2007

The objective of this retrospective study was to investigate the prevalence of retinal diseases in dogs presented to the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, Seoul National University from April 2004 to December 2005. Sixty-five dogs (120 eyes) with retinal diseases involving blindness were included in this study. Age, breed, and gender data for all breeds were collected from medical records documenting vision loss. Generalized progressive retinal atrophy (gPRA) was the most common manifestation. Other prevalent findings included sudden acquired retinal degeneration (SARD) and retinal detachment (RD). Bilateral gPRA was found in 32 dogs with a female-to-male ratio of 1 : 1. The mean $age{\pm}SD$ of all dogs in this group was $4.66{\pm}2.30$ years with a range of 3 to 12 years. Breeds with highest prevalence of gPRA were Miniature Schnauzer (24/32, $mean{\pm}SD$ age: $3.79{\pm}0.78$ yr) and Poodle (2/32, $6.50{\pm}0.71$ yr). Twelve dogs (24 eyes) were diagnosed with SARD bilateraly, ranging from 3 to 13 years of age ($mean{\pm}SD:\;6.91{\pm}2.61$ yr). There were no abnormalities in fundus of 11 dogs at presentation. Electroretinography (ERG) without anesthesia was performed in 7 dogs, and all response was totally extinguished. Retinal detachment was identified in 21 dogs (32 eyes): 11 bilateral and 10 unilateral (7 right eye, 3 left eye). The most common breed was Shih Tzu (15/21, $mean{\pm}SD$ age: $4.39{\pm}3.24$ yr). Four other breeds comprised the remaining 6 cases (8 eyes). The everall mean age of the group was: $4.18{\pm}2.89$ years (range 0.8 to 14 years) with a female-to-male ratio of 1 : 1.1 (10 females, and 11 males).