• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• 제48권3호
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• pp.255-261
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• 2021

Objective: This study aimed to investigate sperm motility and its changes after preparation as predictors of pregnancy in intrauterine insemination (IUI) cycles. Methods: In total, 297 IUI cycles from January 2012 to December 2017 at a single tertiary hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Patient and cycle characteristics, and sperm motility characteristics before and after processing were compared according to clinical pregnancy or live birth as outcomes. Results: The overall clinical pregnancy rate per cycle was 14.5% (43/297) and the live birth rate was 10.4% (30/289). Patient and cycle characteristics were similar between pregnant and non-pregnant groups. Sperm motility after preparation and the total motile sperm count before and after processing were comparable in terms of pregnancy outcomes. Pre-preparation sperm motility was significantly higher in groups with clinical pregnancy and live birth than in cycles not resulting in pregnancy (71.4%±10.9% vs. 67.2%±11.7%, p=0.020 and 71.6% ±12.6% vs. 67.3%±11.7%, p=0.030, respectively). The change in sperm motility after processing was significantly fewer in the non-pregnant cycles, both when the comparison was conducted by subtraction (post-pre) and division (post/pre). These relationships remained significant after adjusting for the female partner's age, anti-Müllerian hormone level, and number of pre-ovulatory follicles. According to a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, an initial sperm motility of ≥72.5% was the optimal threshold value for predicting live birth after IUI. Conclusion: Initial sperm motility, rather than the motility of processed sperm or the degree of change after preparation, predicted live birth after IUI procedures.

• 한국안광학회지
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• 제11권4호
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• pp.337-344
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• 2006

시력교정(라식, 라섹, 엑시머)수술이 근시환자의 삶의 질에 미치는 영향에 대하 기존 연구들이 있었으나, 수술을 받은 환자들을 대상으로 수술 전후의 삶의 질 변화를 조사하는데 그쳤다. 본 연구에서는 시력교정 수술을 받은 환자들과 수술을 받지 않고 안경이나 콘택트렌즈를 계속 착용하는 사람들의 삶의 질을 비교 분석하였다. 근시환자 470명에 시력관련 삶의 질을 평가하기 위하여 QIRC(The Quality of Life Impact of Refractive Correction)설문지를 한국어 번역판을 개발하여 사용하였다. 공분산분석(ANCOVA)을 이용하여 주요혼란변수를 보정 한 후 안경 및 콘택트렌즈 착용 자, 시력교정수술을 받은 자. 그리고 수술 후 안경을 재 착용하는 자 등 세집단간의 삶의 질을 비교한 결과 시력교정수술을 받은 군은 안경이나 콘택트렌즈로 교정을 받은 군에 비해서 삶의 질이 유의하게 높았다. 그러나 수술 후 근시로 이행하여 안경을 재 착용하게된 군의 삶의 질은 수술을 하지 않은 군보다 더 삶의 질이 낮은 것으로 조사되었다. 시력교정수술이 근시환자의 삶의 질에 미치는 영향을 평가하기 위해서는 시력교정수술 후에도 다시 안경을 착용해야 하는 경우 수술 전보다 삶의 질이 더 낮아질 수 있다는 점을 고려하여야 할 것으로 보인다.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• 제28권1호
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• pp.110-118
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• 2020

Migration presents a substantial social and public health issue. However, it is unclear whether diabetes is worse among Asian migrants than natives of South Korea over time. This longitudinal study investigated the nationwide population, including 2,680,495 adults aged 20 years and older (987,214 Asian migrants and 1,693,281 natives), who received health check-ups, using the Korean National Health Insurance Service data (2009-2015). Joinpoint regression was used to estimate the annual percentage change of diabetes, and multivariable logistic regression was used to examine differences in incident type 2 diabetes between Asian migrants and natives adjusting for age, sex, economic status, body mass index, smoking status, any alcohol use, and physical activity. The age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes increased among native men (from 8.8% in 2009 to 9.7% in 2015, APC=1.64, p<0.05) compared to Asian migrant men, and the age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes increased among native women (from 6.0% in 2009 to 6.7% in 2015, APC=1.88, p<0.05) compared to Asian migrant women. In the multivariate analyses, Asian migrants were less likely to get type 2 diabetes than natives (odds ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.78 to 0.86) between the first and last health check-ups. However, the odds ratio for developing type 2 diabetes was 1.15 (95% CI, 1.10 to 1.20) among low-income levels compared to high-income levels, regardless of whether they were Asian migrants or natives. The results could help to establish a new strategy for prevention, treatment, and management of diabetes among the Asian population.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제13권4호
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• pp.1845-1865
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• 2019

Current Internet is designed by lots of service providers with different objects and policies which make the direct deployment of radically new architecture and protocols on Internet nearly impossible without reaching a consensus among almost all of them. Network virtualization is proposed to fend off this ossification of Internet architecture and add diversity to the future Internet. As an important part of network virtualization, virtual network embedding (VNE) problem has received more and more attention. In order to solve the problems of large embedding cost, low acceptance ratio (AR) and environmental adaptability in VNE algorithms, cognitive method is introduced to improve the adaptability to the changing environment and a cognitive virtual network embedding algorithm based on weighted relative entropy (WRE-CVNE) is proposed in this paper. At first, the weighted relative entropy (WRE) method is proposed to select the suitable substrate nodes and paths in VNE. In WRE method, the ranking indicators and their weighting coefficients are selected to calculate the node importance and path importance. It is the basic of the WRE-CVNE. In virtual node embedding stage, the WRE method and breadth first search (BFS) algorithm are both used, and the node proximity is introduced into substrate node ranking to achieve the joint topology awareness. Finally, in virtual link embedding stage, the CPU resource balance degree, bandwidth resource balance degree and path hop counts are taken into account. The path importance is calculated based on the WRE method and the suitable substrate path is selected to reduce the resource fragmentation. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve AR and the long-term average revenue to cost ratio (LTAR/CR) by adjusting the weighting coefficients in VNE stage according to the network environment. We also analyze the impact of weighting coefficient on the performance of the WRE-CVNE. In addition, the adaptability of the WRE-CVNE is researched in three different scenarios and the effectiveness and efficiency of the WRE-CVNE are demonstrated.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제45권6호
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• pp.374-380
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• 2012

Objectives: Stress is considered a causal factor in many diseases, allergic disease being one of them. The prevalence of allergic disease is increasing in Korea, but the relationship between allergic symptoms and stress is not empirically well known. We aimed to evaluate the relationship between allergy-related symptoms and stress in children and adolescents. Methods: We investigated 698 children and adolescents living in Gwangyang Bay, Korea, using a multi-stage cluster sampling method. Using the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood and the Psychosocial Well-being Index, these subjects were surveyed on allergy-related symptoms and psychosocial stressors in their lives, respectively. We used a multivariate logistic analysis for odds ratios for the complaint rate of allergic symptoms, after adjusting for age, gender, household income, body mass index, and residence. Results: After adjustments, lifetime rhinitis (odds ratio [OR], 1.024), rhinoconjunctivitis (OR, 1.090), diagnosis of itchy eczema (OR, 1.040), treatment of itchy eczema (OR, 1.049), 12-month allergic conjunctivitis (OR, 1.026), diagnosis of allergic conjunctivitis (OR, 1.031), and treatment of allergic conjunctivitis (OR, 1.034) were found to be significantly associated with stress. Conclusions: Our results support the notion that there is a relationship between stress and allergic symptoms in children and adolescents. Further research into any causal relationship between stress and allergies, as well as preventative public health plans for decreasing stress in children and adolescents are needed.

• 대한병리학회지
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• 제52권6호
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• pp.386-395
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• 2018

Background: Previous studies on synchronous colorectal carcinoma (SCRC) have reported inconsistent results about its clinicopathologic and molecular features and prognostic significance. Methods: Forty-six patients with multiple advanced tumors (T2 or higher category) who did not receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy and who are not associated with familial adenomatous polyposis were selected and 99 tumors from them were subjected to clinicopathologic and molecular analysis. Ninety-two cases of solitary colorectal carcinoma (CRC) were selected as a control considering the distributions of types of surgeries performed on patients with SCRC and T categories of individual tumors from SCRC. Results: SCRC with multiple advanced tumors was significantly associated with more frequent nodal metastasis (p=.003) and distant metastasis (p=.001) than solitary CRC. KRAS mutation, microsatellite instability, and CpG island methylator phenotype statuses were not different between SCRC and solitary CRC groups. In univariate survival analysis, overall and recurrence-free survival were significantly lower in patients with SCRC than in patients with solitary CRC, even after adjusting for the extensiveness of surgical procedure, adjuvant chemotherapy, or staging. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that tumor multiplicity was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (hazard ratio, 4.618; 95% confidence interval, 2.126 to 10.030; p<.001), but not for recurrence-free survival (p=.151). Conclusions: Findings suggested that multiplicity of advanced T category-tumors might be associated with an increased risk of nodal metastasis and a risk factor for poor survival, which raises a concern about the guideline of American Joint Committee on Cancer's tumor-node-metastasis staging that T staging of an index tumor determines T staging of SCRC.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• 제54권1호
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• pp.71-80
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• 2024

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate age-stratified radiographic features in temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis using cone-beam computed tomography. Materials and Methods: In total, 210 joints from 183 patients(144 females, 39 males, ranging from 12 to 88 years old with a mean age of 44.75±19.97 years) diagnosed with temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis were stratified by age. Mandibular condyle position and bony changes (flattening, erosion, osteophytes, subchondral sclerosis, and subchondral pseudocysts in both the condyle and articular eminence, thickening of the glenoid fossa, joint space narrowing, and joint loose bodies) were evaluated through cone-beam computed tomography. After adjusting for sex, the association between age groups and radiographic findings was analyzed using both a multiple regression model and a multinomial logistic regression model(α=0.05). Results: The prevalence of joint space narrowing and protruded condyle position in the glenoid fossa significantly increased with age (P<0.05). The risks of bony changes, including osteophytes and subchondral pseudocysts in the condyle; flattening, erosion, osteophyte, and subchondral sclerosis in the articular eminence; joint loose bodies; and thickening of the glenoid fossa, also significantly rose with increasing age (P<0.05). The number of radiographic findings increased with age; in particular, the increase was more pronounced in the temporal bone than in the mandibular condyle (P<0.05). Conclusion: Increasing age was associated with a higher frequency and greater diversity of bony changes in the temporal bone, as well as a protruded condyle position in the glenoid fossa, resulting in noticeable joint space narrowing in temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제10권1호
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• pp.23-32
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• 2012

There are lots of studies attempting to identify the expression changes in oral squamous cell carcinoma. Most studies include insufficient samples to apply statistical methods for detecting significant gene sets. This study combined two small microarray datasets from a public database and identified significant genes associated with the progress of oral squamous cell carcinoma. There were different expression scales between the two datasets, even though these datasets were generated under the same platforms - Affymetrix U133A gene chips. We discretized gene expressions of the two datasets by adjusting the differences between the datasets for detecting the more reliable information. From the combination of the two datasets, we detected 51 significant genes that were upregulated in oral squamous cell carcinoma. Most of them were published in previous studies as cancer-related genes. From these selected genes, significant genetic pathways associated with expression changes were identified. By combining several datasets from the public database, sufficient samples can be obtained for detecting reliable information. Most of the selected genes were known as cancer-related genes, including oral squamous cell carcinoma. Several unknown genes can be biologically evaluated in further studies.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.65-69
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• 2007

We examined the associations between adiponectin or leptin and serum ICAM-1 levels in seventy-six hypercholesterolemic patients (mean age 59 yrs, 25 males and 51 females, LDL-cholesterol>=130mg/dL at screening). Blood lipid profiles and HOMA-IR derived from fasting glucose and insulin concentrations were determined. Serum levels of adiponectin, leptin and ICAM-1 were analyzed using ELISA The results showed that serum levels of leptin were positively associated with serum levels of ICAM-1 independent of age, sex and BMI (r=0.392, p<0.001). Serum levels of adiponectin were negatively associated with serum levels of ICAM-1 independent of age, sex and BMI (r=-0.343, p<0.005). Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis showed that serum leptin was an independent factor to be associated with serum ICAM-1 levels after adjusting for age, sex, BMI, alcohol intake, smoking status, blood lipids such as total cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol and HOMA-IR (p<0.001). With respect to adiponectin, its association with serum ICAM-1 was attenuated but still significant when further adjustments were made for age, sex, BMI, alcohol intake, smoking status, blood lipids such as total cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol and HOMA-IR (p<0.005). In conclusion, this study suggests that adiponectin and leptin are associated with endothelial derived inflammation.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.38-43
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• 2011

We have developed a simple model of a bright-room contrast ratio (BRCR) measurement system for plasma display panels (PDPs) adopting a contrast enhancement film (CEF) by using an illumination design tool. Only four model parameters were used, namely, total ambient illumination power delivered by fluorescent lamps, a panel scattering rate, illuminance of PDP white patterns, and the absorption coefficient of a color adjusting film. These parameters were determined by simple optical measurements and matching simulations. The proposed model was employed to predict the BRCR values of four different CEF samples, and the simulated ones were found to be in agreement with measured ones within about 10% relative-error.