• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.30-37
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• 2021

Purpose: To investigate the differences in the colon microbiota composition of Hirschsprung's disease (HSCR) patients with and without a history of postoperative Hirschsprung's associated enterocolitis (HAEC). Methods: Colon tissue microbiota was characterized by bacterial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction and 16S rDNA sequencing for taxonomic classification and comparison. Results: The sequence diversity richness within samples was significantly higher in samples from patients with a history of postoperative HAEC. We observed an increased relative abundance of the phyla Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and Cyanobacteria in HAEC patients and Fusobacteria, Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria in HSCR patients and, an increased relative abundance of the genera Dolosigranulum, Roseouria and Streptococcus in HAEC patients and Propionibacterium and Delftia in HSCR patients. Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence that the colon tissue microbiota composition is different in HSCR patients with and without postoperative HAEC.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1913-1934
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• 2022

The emergence of technologies like Big data analytics, Industrial Internet of Things, Internet of Things, and applicability of these technologies in various domains leads to increased demand in the underlying execution environment. The demand may be for compute, storage, and network resources. These demands cannot be effectively catered by the conventional cloud environment, which requires an integrated environment. The task of finding an appropriate service provider is tedious for a service consumer as the number of service providers drastically increases and the services provided are heterogeneous in the specification. A service broker is essential to find the service provider for varying service consumer requests. Also, the service broker should be smart enough to make the service providers best fit for consumer requests, ensuring that both service consumer and provider are mutually beneficial. A service broker in an integrated environment named Global Manager is proposed in the paper, which can find an appropriate service provider for every varying service consumer request. The proposed Global Manager is capable of identification of parameters for service negotiation with the service providers thereby making the providers the best fit to the maximum possible extent for every consumer request. The paper describes the architecture of the proposed Global Manager, workflow through the proposed algorithms followed by the pilot implementation with sample datasets retrieved from literature and synthetic data. The experimental results are presented with a few of the future work to be carried out to make the Manager more sustainable and serviceable.

• Journal of Korean Dental Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 2023

Purpose: Culture-based methods for microbiological diagnosis and antibiotic susceptibility tests have limitations in the management of orofacial infections. We aimed to profile pus microbiota and identify antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) using a culture-independent approach. Materials and Methods: Genomic DNA samples extracted from the pus specimens of two patients with orofacial abscesses were subjected to shotgun sequencing on the NovaSeq system. Taxonomic profiling and prediction of ARGs were performed directly from the metagenomic raw reads. Result: Taxonomic profiling revealed obligate anaerobic polymicrobial communities associated with infections of odontogenic origins: the microbial community of Patient 1 consisted of one predominant species (Prevotella oris 74.6%) with 27 minor species, while the sample from Patient 2 contained 3 abundant species (Porphyromonas endodontalis 33.0%; P. oris 31.6%; and Prevotella koreensis 13.4%) with five minor species. A total of 150 and 136 putative ARGs were predicted in the metagenome of each pus sample. The coverage of most predicted ARGs was less than 10%, and only the CfxA2 gene identified in Patient 1 was covered 100%. ARG analysis of the seven assembled genome/metagenome datasets of P. oris revealed that strain C735 carried the CfxA2 gene. Conclusion: A metagenomics-based approach is useful to profile predominantly anaerobic polymicrobial communities but needs further verification for reliable ARG detection.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.476-483
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• 2022

The novel coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on society and everyday life. The pandemic imposed a global shutdown leading to many challenges such as the suspension of academic programs at universities. The result of this suspension contributed to the rapid overnight migration of educational activities from traditional face-to-face learning to a virtual environment which until then was unfamiliar to both instructors and students. This study identified the experiences faced by built environment higher education instructors in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa during this sudden switch to online teaching and learning. This pilot study employed a quantitative research approach to survey instructor experiences on online teaching and learning during a global pandemic. The data was computed and analyzed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data collected. The study sample comprised of 20 higher education instructors in the region of the KwaZulu Natal province in South Africa. Findings from the study revealed that instructors faced adaptive challenges with rapidly having to redesign and remodel the mode of academic course delivery and assessments to suit an online platform. Additionally, instructors observed that students faced technological challenges such as connectivity and navigating the online learning management system platforms. The challenges identified by instructors and students can be effectively transformed to opportunities for future learning under the 'new normal'.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.314-324
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• 2022

This study is aimed to design a membrane process that systematically removes contaminants including microplastics in sun-dried salt using a separation membrane. In this study, we selected the separation membrane material, pore size, and module suitable for the sun-dried salt fields, and proceeded with the experiments under the salt fields and laboratory conditions. A pilot plant was constructed and tested in our lab and in the actual saltern with the selected 200 kDa, 4 kDa ultrafiltration membranes, and 3 kDa nanofiltration membranes. Most of the impurities in the sea salt were 0.1 ㎛ in size, and more than 7 types of various microplastics were detected in the impurities. After that, as a result of checking the filtered water through the separation membrane process, no impurities were detected. As a result of comparing the existing sea salt component and the sea salt component prepared with separation membrane filtrate, impurities were effectively removed without change in the sea salt component.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.456-459
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• 2000

A pilot scale experiment was performed for a year to develop a two-phase anaerobic process for piggery wastewater treatment (COD: 6,000mg/L, BOD: 4,000mg/L, SS: 500mg/L, pH 8.4, alkalinity 6,000mg/L). The acidogenic reactor had a total volume of 3㎥, and the methanogenic reactor, an anaerobic up-flow sludge filter, combining a filter and a sludge bed, was also of total volume 3㎥(1.5㎥ of upper packing material). Temperatures of the acidogenic and methanogenic reactors kept at 20$^{\circ}C$ and 35$^{\circ}C$, respectively. When the pH of the acidogenic reactor was controlled at 6.0-7.0 with HCl, the COD removal efficiency increased from 50 to 80% over a period of six months, and as a result, the COD of the final effluent fell in the range of 1,000-1,500 mg/L. BOD removal efficiency over the same period was above 90%, and 300 to 400 mg/L was maintained in the final effluent. The average SS in the final effluent was 270 mg/L. The methane production was 0.32㎥ CH$_4$/kg COD(sub)removed and methane content of the methanogenic reactor was high value at 80-90%. When the pH of the acidogenic reactor was not controlled over the final two months, the pH reached 8.2 and acid conversion decreased compared with that of pH controlled, while COD removal was similar to the pH controlled operation. Without pH control, the methane content in the gas from methanogenic reactor improved to 90%, compared to 80% with pH control.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.127-135
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• 2013

For the successful implementation of IT projects, individual consultant's competency in the project is very important. Especially, 3 key factors which are 1) Learning-by-Doing, 2) Learning-from-Others, and 3) Learning-by-Investment with individual consultant's competency, are required for solving various critical issues which can be occurred during implementing IT project. The objective of this research is to examine the effects of these learning processes on decision performance of consultants. Prior to setup the research model, we conducted 3 times in-depth interviews with IT consultants who have over 20 years IT project experiences. Through interviews with IT project expert, we tried to validate our research model and develop survey questionnaires. Over 100 consultants, who are working at SI companies those of Samsung SDS, LG CNS, SK C&C and other small SI companies, were participated to survey. In the contrary of our thoughts before conducted experiment, we got the interesting result from pilot experiment. Most influenced learning process was Learning-by-Doing and less influenced learning process was Learning-from-Others.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.70-74
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• 2013

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the impact of the application of whole body vibration training (WBV) on the balance ability of patients with an American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) type C or D spinal cord injury. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Methods: Twelve patients with spinal cord injury were enrolled in this study. The participants were randomized to an experimental group (n=6) or control group (n=6). The subjects in the experimental group received WBV exercise and the control group received the sham exercise without vibration. The vibrations were adjusted vertically to the patient at a 30 Hz frequency and 3 mm amplitude. The whole body vibration lasted for 16 minutes in total including 5-minutes warm-up and cool-down at the beginning and end of the program, respectively. The static sitting balance ability was assessed by measuring the postural sway while sitting on the force plate with the eyes opened or closed. Postural sway length was measured for 30 seconds with a self-selected comfortable position. Results: In the static balance test, the anterio-posterior, medio-lateral, and total postural sway length with the eyes open and closed was improved significantly before and after the intervention in the experimental group (p<0.05). The experimental group showed significantly more improvement than the control group (p<0.05). Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that WBV training has a positive effect on improving static sitting balance and enhanced control of postural sway in patients with an ASIA-C or D type spinal cord injury.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2017

In this study, bioelectrical impedance analysis, which has been used to assess an alteration in intracellular fluid (ICF) of the body, was applied to detect intravenous infiltration. The experimental results are described as follows. Firstly, when infiltration occurred, the resistance gradually decreased with time and frequency i.e., the resistance decreased with increasing time, proportional to the amount of infiltrated intravenous (IV) solution. At each frequency, the resistance gradually decreased with time, indicating the IV solution (also blood) accumulated in the extracellular fluid (ECF) (including interstitial fluid). Secondly, the resistance ratio started to increase at infiltration, showing the highest value after 1.4 min of infiltration, and gradually decreased thereafter. Thirdly, the impedance ($Z_C$) of cell membrane decreased significantly (especially at 50 kHz) during infiltration and gradually decreased thereafter. Fourthly, Cole-Cole plot indicated that the positions of (R, $X_C$) shifted toward left owing to infiltration, reflecting the IV solution accumulated in the ECF. The resistance ($R_0$) at zero frequency decreased continuously over time, indicating that it is a vital impedance parameter capable of detecting early infiltration during IV infusion. Finally, the mechanism of the current flowing through the ECF, cell membrane, and ICF in the subcutaneous tissues was analyzed as a function of time before and after infiltration, using an equivalent circuit model of the human cell. In conclusion, it was confirmed that the infiltration could be detected early using these impedance parameters during the infusion of IV solution.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.729-736
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• 1997

For the recovery of industrial waste heat, a chemical heat transformer based on the reversible reaction between metal chlorides and ammonia gas was designed and a pilot scale unit of 1 kW-1hr was developed. A static calculation, which determined the amount of reacting materials and operating condition of system, and dynamic simulations were performed for the optimal design. The temperature and output power of generator in the system were varying with the amount of salt and heat exchange area. Optimum conditions such as the amount of salt-graphite, apparent density and size of mechanical unit were determined by the dynamic simulation for the system. According to the operating cycle of 4 stages, experimental results of temperature and output power were well agreed with the simulation values. This chemical heat transformer is turned out to be a very promising system for recovery of industrial waste heat because of its effective feature of lifting temperature.