• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.108 no.3
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• pp.341-348
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• 2019

In order to reduce the safety risk of forestry operations, this research was conducted to examine the suitability of chainsaw protective pants after repeated laundering, testing four different products that are currently used in hand-held chainsaw operations. Laundering was repeated 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 times. After washing, we measured the shrinkage ratio of 17 measurement positions mostly affecting the safety of forest operations and suggested the expected safety life cycle of chainsaw protective clothes. The results showed that most of the products have only one measurement position where the standard shrinkage ratio (<6%) was exceeded after 20 washings, and that the lateral direction of measurement positions shrank more than the vertical one. The numbers of repeated launderings and measurement positions were found to be significant factors influencing the shrinkage ratio (p<0.05). In the shrinkage rates for 17 measurement positions, there were significant correlations between five of the measurement positions (a, b, g, j, and n) and the number of repeated launderings (p<0.05). Therefore, the results suggest that about 10 months would be suitable for an adequate safety lifetime for chainsaw protective pants. The relationship between the number of repeated launderings and the measurement positions will be further analyzed in detail to examine the durability of chainsaw protective pants.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.271-281
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• 2021

Objective : Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are approved for treating non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC); however, the safety and efficacy of combined ICI and Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKS) treatment remain undefined. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed patients treated with ICIs with or without GKS at our institute to manage patients with brain metastases from NSCLC. Methods : We retrospectively reviewed medical records of patients with brain metastases from NSCLC treated with ICIs between January 2015 and December 2017. Of 134 patients, 77 were assessable for brain responses and categorized into three groups as follows : group A, ICI alone (n=26); group B, ICI with concurrent GKS within 14 days (n=24); and group C, ICI with non-concurrent GKS (n=27). Results : The median follow-up duration after brain metastasis diagnosis was 19.1 months (range, 1-77). At the last follow-up, 53 patients (68.8%) died, 20 were alive, and four were lost to follow-up. The estimated median overall survival (OS) of all patients from the date of brain metastasis diagnosis was 20.0 months (95% confidence interval, 12.5-27.7) (10.0, 22.5, and 42.1 months in groups A, B, and C, respectively). The OS was shorter in group A than in group C (p=0.001). The intracranial disease progression-free survival (p=0.569), local progression-free survival (p=0.457), and complication rates did not significantly differ among the groups. Twelve patients showed leptomeningeal seeding (LMS) during follow-up. The 1-year LMS-free rate in treated with ICI alone group (69.1%) was significantly lower than that in treated with GKS before ICI treatment or within 14 days group (93.2%) (p=0.004). Conclusion : GKS with ICI showed no favorable OS outcome in treating brain metastasis from NSCLC. However, GKS with ICI did not increase the risk of complications. Furthermore, compared with ICI alone, GKS with ICI may be associated with a reduced incidence of LMS. Further understanding of the mechanism, which remains unknown, may help improve the quality of life of patients with brain metastasis.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.573-582
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• 2021

In this study, a series of processes for evaluating the effective protection against barriers that should be equipped in institutions that perform reliability tests on high-risk ammunition, such as high-explosive ammunition, were introduced. The impact that high-explosive bombs can have on personnel includes damage to the eardrum and lungs caused by explosion overpressure and penetrating wounds that can be received by fragments generated simultaneously with the explosion. Therefore, a high-explosive with COMP B explosives as its contents were set up, and an explosion protection theory investigation to calculate the degree of damage, numerical calculations and simulations were performed to verify the protection power. A numerical calculation revealed the maximum explosion overpressure on the protective wall when the high-explosive exploded and the penetration force of the fragment against a 50 mm-thick protective wall to be 77.74 kPa and 41.34 mm, respectively. In the simulation verification using AUTODYN, the maximum explosion overpressures affecting the firewall and personnel were 56.68 kPa and 18.175 kPa, respectively, and the penetration of fragments was 35.56 mm. This figure is lower than the human damage limit, and it was judged that the protective power of the barrier would be effective.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.149-157
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• 2021

One year has passed since the pandemic of COVID-19, which occurred in Wuhan, China, in November 2019 began. Worldwide, as of January 2021, more than 95 million people have been infected, and the death toll is higher than 2 million. In Korea, there are 74,262 infected and 1,328 dead, and government policies such as social distancing to prevent infection are being implemented. Accordingly, many inconveniences occurred in the physical activity environment, such as the closure of various sports facilities. It was necessary to consider physical activities to maintain healthy life while cooperating with the national policy while preventing infection. This study investigated the benefits of physical activity to reduce the risk of trichomoniasis and diabetes, improve bone mineral density, prolong healthy lifespan, maintain activity performance with aging, and improve psychological anxiety and depression. In addition, the physiological changes that may occur in the situation of stopping exercise due to social distancing to prevent COVID-19 infection were reviewed. In addition, moderate-intensity exercise that helps strengthen immune function by activating natural killer cells, neutrophils, and antibody responses was investigated. In addition, it reduces the level and function of blood B-cells, T-cells, and natural killer cells for several hours, decreases phagocytosis of neutrophils in the nasal cavity, increases inflammatory cytokines, decreases immune function, and increases infection. High-intensity exercise was considered. Therefore, in the age of COVID-19, long-term high-intensity exercise such as marathon, which causes impaired immune function, should be refrained from. And you should do moderate-intensity regular aerobic exercise such as fast walking to help prevent infection. It is also recommended to participate in resistance exercises to prevent loss of muscle mass.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.94-100
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• 2022

Chronic infection by hepatitis B virus (HBV) greatly increases the risk for liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The outcome of HBV infection is shaped by the complex interplay of the mode of transmission, host genetic factors, viral genotype, adaptive mutations, and environmental factors. The pregenomic RNA transcription of HBV for their replication is regulated by the core promoter activation. Core promoter mutations have been the reason for acute liver failure and are associated with HCC development. We obtained HBV genes from a patient in Myanmar who was infected with HBV and identified gene variations in the core promoter region. For measuring the relative transactivation activity of the core promoter, we prepared the core-promoter reporter construct. Among the gene variations of the core promoter, the mutations of C1731T and G1806A were associated with increase in the transactivation of the HBV core promoter. Through computer analysis for searching for a tentative transcription factor binding site, we showed that the mutations of C1713T and G1806A newly created C/EBPβ and XBP1-responsive elements of the core promoter, respectively. The ectopic expression of C/EBPβ largely increased the HBV core promoter containing the C1713T mutation and that of XBP1 activated the M95 promoter containing the G1806A mutation. Our efforts to treat and prevent HBV infections are hampered by the emergence of drug-resistant mutations and vaccine-escape mutations. Our results provide the biological properties and clinical significance of specific HBV core promoter mutations.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.112 no.1
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• pp.93-104
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• 2023

Life expectancy is increasing due to the aging of the population, which is in turn exacerbating problems such as the prevalence of various geriatric diseases. This study was established to provide basic data for the expansion of forest healing activities for the elderly by systematically analyzing the literature on how such activities affect this age group. For the collection of studies, the Korean databases RISS, KISS, Korea Med, and Science On were used, while PubMed, Cochrane Central, MDPI, and Google Scholar were used to identify reports published elsewhere. To assess the quality of the methodology used in the collected studies, the risk of bias was analyzed using Cochrane's RoB2 and RoBANS. Among 1,856 reports initially identified, 21 were finally selected for analysis in this study, which were limited to research papers on forest healing activities for the elderly published between 2000 and January 2022. In this review, the subjects were those aged 60 or older, with a total of 750 participants, ranging from at least 7 to a maximum of 88 per study. The analysis showed that the most frequently performed tests in each category were on depression as a psychological indicator in 7 studies, MMSE(Mini Mental State Examination) as a cognitive indicator in 2 studies, on blood pressure as a physiological indicator in 4 studies, on melatonin as a biochemical indicator in 2 studies, and on body fat and muscle strength as physical indicators in 3 studies. Of the 21 studies, 19 used two or more test items, with psychological indicators being most commonly measured. For the future application of forest healing activities for the elderly, various forest healing programs to prevent cognitive function decline should be developed and distributed, and follow-up studies should be continuously presented to provide the basis for forest healing activities.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.387-401
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• 2023

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the preventive effect of herbal medicines on restenosis after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) by reviewing randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Methods: RCTs were searched for herbal medicine treatment after PCI using eight online databases (PubMed, CNKI, Wanfang, J-STAGE, OASIS, ScienceON, KTKP, and KISS). Studies that confirmed restenosis through coronary angiography at follow-up were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The primary outcome was the restenosis rate, and the secondary outcome was the angina recurrence rate. Data were extracted from the final selected studies according to the research methodology and then analyzed with Review Manager 5.4.1. Study quality was assessed using Cochrane's risk-of-bias (RoB) tool. Results: Of the 252 papers obtained through the primary search, nine studies that met the selection criteria were finally selected. In these nine studies, herbal medicine combined with western medicine was used for the experimental group, and western medicine treatment was used alone for the control group. The meta-analysis result revealed that the restenosis rate and angina recurrence rate were significantly lower in the experimental group than in the control group (RR=0.34, 95% CI: 0.22-0.53, p<0.00001, I²=0% and RR=0.47, 95% CI: 0.29-0.78, p=0.004, I²=0%, respectively). Furthermore, the quality of studies assessed by Cochrane's RoB was low. Conclusions: This study showed that the combined treatment of herbal medicine and western medicine was effective in preventing restenosis and angina after PCI. As the number of papers included in this study was small, a large number of high-quality clinical studies should be considered in the future.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.134-151
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• 2011

The strategy for brand alliance is a new type of franchise to iron out the problems like the hotel restaurant's structural contradiction and decreasing profits caused by keen competition with external restaurants. This study is purposed to present the decisive factors for the brand alliance throughexamining the correlations between the brand restaurant designation standards and the expected effects from local low- and mid-priced hotel's brand alliance. The questionnaires were distributed to instructors and professors who have experience in teaching the food and beverage sections at college's hotel and tourism departments and 100 specialists at managerial level of a hotel's food and beverage parts.This survey was conducted for 20 days from December 2 to 22, 2004 and analyzed by independent t-test and canonical correlation analysis. The findings of this survey are as follows.Firstly, the service of the expected effect factors of the brand alliance was recognized relatively high by the specialists in hotel industry, while the sales effect factor of restaurant designation standards was recognized higher by the academic experts.The specialists of the hotel industry recognized the factors of menu and corporate culture higher than the academic experts. Secondly, the entire factors of the brand restaurant designation standards showed a correlation with the whole factors of the restaurant designation standards.In particular, the 'menu' factor presented the most influential to the expected effects of brand alliance.The factors of 'risk reduction' and 'synergy effect' exerted the strongest effect on the restaurant designation standards, which indicated the mutual correlation between the expected effect of brand alliance and the restaurant designation standards. Based on this study, the correlation between the expected effect of brand alliance and brand restaurant designation standards may play a primary role to choose a partner for the brand alliance, a decisive factor for the success.The execution of the brand alliance or the method to designate the alliance partner may vary from the hotel's desirable effects when the brand alliance is determined.In other words, the partner designation standards should be corresponding to the expected effects from the brand alliance between hotel and brand restaurant, and the academic and industrial experts' perceived differences in the expected effects of brand alliance and restaurant designation standards should be clarified to display the direction of decision-making and find the potential risks.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3B
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• pp.283-296
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• 2008

The Urban Stream Assessment Technique (USAT) was suggested to give information about present urban stream condition. Domestic and foreign stream evaluation methods were analyzed and some streams were previously investigated to decide evaluation factors that could evaluate stream condition and have concern with characteristics and flood control of urban stream. The USAT consisted of three steps. High step has three characteristics concerned with functions of stream such as flood risk, stream, and ecology. In middle step, three characteristics were subdivided by ten features to describe changes and degradations of urban stream. Low step consisted of fifty three factors that explain the present condition of ten features. A survey of river experts was conducted to reflect weight among characteristics and features. The weights were calculated by analytic hierarchy process(AHP). The USAT was carried out to check over application of that in Suwon, Anyang, and Joongrang stream. The results of stream evaluation were expressed by factor index, feature index, characteristic index, total index, and evaluation grade. The results of the USAT were useful to realize changed and degraded areas. It is expected that the USAT can be used as base investigation for restoring and managing urban streams.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.4B
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• pp.383-392
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• 2008

It is not always easy to estimate the parameters in hydrologic models due to insufficient hydrologic data when hydraulic structures are designed or water resources plan are established. Therefore, uncertainty analysis are inevitably needed to examine reliability for the estimated results. With regard to this point, this study applies a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo scheme to the NWS-PC rainfall-runoff model that has been widely used, and a case study is performed in Soyang Dam watershed in Korea. The NWS-PC model is calibrated against observed daily runoff, and thirteen parameters in the model are optimized as well as posterior distributions associated with each parameter are derived. The Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo shows a improved result in terms of statistical performance measures and graphical examination. The patterns of runoff can be influenced by various factors and the Bayesian approaches are capable of translating the uncertainties into parameter uncertainties. One could provide against an unexpected runoff event by utilizing information driven by Bayesian methods. Therefore, the rainfall-runoff analysis coupled with the uncertainty analysis can give us an insight in evaluating flood risk and dam size in a reasonable way.