• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.63-73
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• 2008

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in interactive agents motivating human learners to engage in edutainment systems which are designed to be entertaining and educational at the same time. Especially, work on socio-emotional processes has focus on understanding of human's social behavior in training and entertainment a applications. In contrast with work on social emotion, where research groups have developed detailed models of emotional processes, models of personality have emphasized shallow surface behavior. Here, we build on computational appraisal models of emotion to better characterize dispositional differences in how people come to understand social situations. Known as explanatory style, this dispositional factor plays a key role in social interactions and certain socio-emotional disorders, such as depression. Building on appraisal and attribution theories, we model key conceptual variables underlying the explanatory style, and enable agents to exhibit different explanatory tendencies with respect to their personalities. Furthermore, we developed an interactive AR agent based on our framework and applied it into an interactive teaming system that allows participants to explore individual differences in the explanation of social events, with the goal of encouraging the development of perspective laking and emotion-regulatory skills.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.463-476
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• 2016

Objectives: Environmental, social and personal factors influence eating patterns. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between unhealthy food outlets within a residential area and obesity using nationally representative Korean survey data and data from the Census on Establishments. Methods: Data on the food intakes and socioeconomic variables of a total of 9,978 adults aged ${\geq}19$ years were obtained from the 2013-2014 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Geographic locations of restaurants were obtained from the 2013 Census on Establishments in Korea. Administrative area was categorized into tertiles of count of unhealthy food outlets based on the distribution of number of unhealthy food outlets among all urban (Dong) and rural (Eup or Myun) administrative districts in Korea. Multilevel logistic regressions model were used to assess the association between the number of unhealthy food outlets and obesity. Results: People living in the district with the highest count of unhealthy food outlets had higher intakes of fat (45.8 vs. 44.4 g/day), sodium (4,142.6 vs. 3,949.8 mg/day), and vitamin A (753.7 vs. $631.6 {\mu}gRE/day$) compared to those living in the district with the lowest count of unhealthy food outlets. A higher count of unhealthy food outlets was positively associated with frequent consumption of instant noodles, pizza, hamburgers and sandwiches, sweets and sour pork or pork cutlets, fried chicken, snacks, and cookies. Higher exposure to unhealthy food outlets was associated with increased odds of obesity (1st vs. 3rd tertile; OR 1.689; 95% CI 1.098-2.599). Conclusions: A high count of unhealthy food outlets within a residential area is positively associated with the prevalence of obesity in Korea. The results suggest that food environmental factors affects the health outcomes and interventions aiming to restrict the availability of unhealthy food outlets in local neighborhoods may be a useful obesity prevention strategy.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.645-652
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• 2016

Toxocara vitulorum has been rarely reported in yaks at high altitudes and remote areas of Sichuan Province of Tibetan Plateau of China. The current study was designed to investigate the prevalence, associated risk factors, and phylogenetic characteristics of T. vitulorum in yak calves on the Qinghai Tibetan plateau. Fecal samples were collected from 891 yak calves and were examined for the presence of T. vitulorum eggs by the McMaster technique. A multivariable logistic regression model was employed to explore variables potentially associated with exposure to T. vitulorum infection. T. vitulorum specimens were collected from the feces of yaks in Hongyuan of Sichuan Province, China. DNA was extracted from ascaris. After PCR amplification, the sequencing of ND1 gene was carried out and phylogenetic analyses was performed by MEGA 6.0 software. The results showed that 64 (20.1%; 95% CI 15.8-24.9%), 75 (17.2; 13.8-21.1), 29 (40.9; 29.3-53.2), and 5 (7.6; 2.5-16.8) yak calves were detected out to excrete T. vitulorum eggs in yak calve feces in Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan, and Gansu, respectively. The present study revealed that high infection and mortality by T. vitulorum is wildly spread on the Qinghai Tibetan plateau, China by fecal examination. Geographical origin, ages, and fecal consistencies are the risk factors associated with T. vitulorum prevalence by logistic regression analysis. Molecular detection and phylogenetic analysis of ND1 gene of T. vitulorum indicated that T. vitulorum in the yak calves on the Qinghai Tibetan plateau are homologous to preveiously studies reported.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.561-573
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• 1999

Mesothermal gold deposits of the Heungdeok, Daewon and Ilsaeng mines in the Youngdong area occur in fault shear zones in Precambrian metamorphic rocks of central Sobaegsan Massif, Korea, and formed in single stage of massive quartz veins (0.3 to 3 m thick). Ore mineralogy is simple, consisting dominantly of pyrrhotite, sphalerite and galena with subordinate pyrite, chalcopyrite, electrum, tetrahedrite and native bismuth. Fluid inclusion data indicate that hydrothermal mineralization occurred at high temperatures (>240$^{\circ}$ to 400$^{\circ}$C) from $H_{2}O-CO_{2}(-CH_{4})$-NaCI fluids with salinities less than 12 wt. % equiv. NaC!. Fluid inclusions in vein quartz comprise two main types. These are, in decreasing order of abundance, type I (aqueous liquid-rich) and type II (carbonic). Volumetric proportion of the carbonic phase in type II inclusions varies widely in a single quartz grain. Estimated $CH_4$ contents in the carbonic phase of type II inclusions are 2 to 20 mole %. Relationship between homogenization temperature and salinity of fluid inclusions suggests a complex history of fluid evolution, comprising the early fluid's unmixing accompanying $CO_2$ effervescence and later cooling. Estimated pressures of vein filling are at least 2 kbars. The ore mineralization formed from a magmatic fluid with the ${\delta}^{34}S_{{\Sigma}S}$, ${\delta}^{18}O_{water}$ and ${\delta}D_{water}$ values of -2.1 to 2.2$\textperthousand$, 4.7 to 9.3$\textperthousand$ and -63 to -79$\textperthousand$, respectively. This study validates the application of a magmatic model for the genesis of mesothermal gold deposits in Youngdong area.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.268-278
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• 2021

Purpose: While several prognostic models for the stratification of death risk have been developed for patients with advanced gastric cancer receiving first-line chemotherapy, they have seldom been tested in the Chinese population. This study investigated the performance of these models and identified the optimal tools for Chinese patients. Materials and Methods: Patients diagnosed with metastatic or recurrent gastric adenocarcinoma who received first-line chemotherapy were eligible for inclusion in the validation cohort. Their clinical data and survival outcomes were retrieved and documented. Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and calibration curves were used to evaluate the predictive ability of the models. Kaplan-Meier curves were plotted for patients in different risk groups divided by 7 published stratification tools. Log-rank tests with pairwise comparisons were used to compare survival differences. Results: The analysis included a total of 346 patients with metastatic or recurrent disease. The median overall survival time was 11.9 months. The patients were different into different risk groups according to the prognostic stratification models, which showed variability in distinguishing mortality risk in these patients. The model proposed by Kim et al. showed relative higher predicting abilities compared to the other models, with the highest χ² (25.8) value in log-rank tests across subgroups, and areas under the curve values at 6, 12, and 24 months of 0.65 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.59-0.72), 0.60 (0.54-0.65), and 0.63 (0.56-0.69), respectively. Conclusions: Among existing prognostic tools, the models constructed by Kim et al., which incorporated performance status score, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, alkaline phosphatase, albumin, and tumor differentiation, were more effective in stratifying Chinese patients with gastric cancer receiving first-line chemotherapy.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review to investigate the socio-economic benefits of the poison control center (PCC) and to assess whether telephone counseling at the poison control center affects the frequency of emergency room visits, hospitalization, and length of stay of patients with acute poisoning. Methods: The authors conducted a medical literature search of the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases. Two reviewers evaluated the abstracts for eligibility, extracted the data, and assessed the study quality using a standardized tool. Key results such as the cost-benefit ratio, hospital stay days, unnecessary emergency room visits or hospitalizations, and reduced hospital charges were extracted from the studies. When meta-analysis was possible, it was performed using RevMan software (RevMan version 5.4). Results: Among 299 non-duplicated studies, 19 were relevant to the study questions. The cost-benefit ratios of PCC showed a wide range from 0.76 to 36 (average 6.8) according to the level of the medical expense of each country and whether the study included intentional poisoning. PCC reduced unnecessary visits to healthcare facilities. PCC consultation shortened the length of hospital stay by 1.82 (95% CI, 1.07-2.57) days. Conclusion: The systematic review and meta-analysis support the hypothesis that the PCC operation is cost-beneficial. However, when implementing the PCC concept in Korea in the future, it is necessary to prepare an institutional framework to ensure a costeffective model.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.155-161
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• 2023

Background: Surgical closure of an atrial septal defect (ASD) is infrequently indicated during infancy. We evaluated the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients who underwent surgical ASD closure during infancy. Methods: A single-center retrospective review was performed for 39 patients (19 males) who underwent surgical ASD closure during infancy between 1993 and 2020. The median body weight percentile at the time of operation was 9.3. Results: During a median follow-up of 60.9 months, 4 late deaths occurred due to chronic respiratory failure. A preoperative history of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) was the only risk factor for late mortality identified in Cox regression (hazard ratio, 3.54; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.75-163.04; p=0.015). The 5-year survival rate was significantly lower in patients with preoperative history of BPD (97.0% vs. 50.0%, p<0.001) and preoperative ventilatory support (97.1% vs. 40.4%, p<0.001). There were significant postoperative increases in left ventricular end-diastolic (p=0.017), end-systolic (p=0.014), and stroke volume (p=0.013) indices. A generalized estimated equation model showed significantly better postoperative improvement in body weight percentiles in patients with lower weight percentiles at the time of operation (<10th percentile, p=0.01) and larger indexed ASD diameter (≥45 mm/m², p=0.025). Conclusion: Patients with ASD necessitating surgical closure during infancy are extremely small preoperatively and remain small even after surgical closure. However, postoperative somatic growth was more prominent in smaller patients with larger defects, which may be attributable to an increase in postoperative cardiac output due to changes in ventricular septal configuration. The benefits of ASD closure in patients with BPD are undetermined.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.194-200
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• 2007

Purpose: $^{13}N$-ammonia is a well known radiopharmaceutical for the measurement of a myocardial blood flow (MBF) non-invasively using PET-CT. In this study, we investigated a correlation between MBF obtained from dynamic imaging and myocardial perfusion score (MPS) obtained from static imaging for usefulness of cardiac PET study. Methods: Twelve patients (11 males, 1 female, $57.9{\pm}8.6$ years old) with suspicious coronary artery disease underwent PET-CT scan. Dynamic scans (6 min: $5\;sec\;{\times}\;12,\;10\;sec\;{\times}\;6,\;20\;sec\;{\times}\;3,\;and\;30\;sec\;{\times}\;6$) were initiated simultaneously with bolus injection of 11 MBq/kg $^{13}N-ammonia$ to acquire rest and stress image. Gating image was acquired during 13 minutes continuously. Nine-segment model (4 basal walls, 4 mid walls, and apex) was used for a measurement of MBF. Time activity curve of input function and myocardium was extracted from ROI methods in 9 regions for quantification. The MPS were evaluated using quantitative analysis software. To compare between 20-segment model and 9-segment model, 6 basal segments were excluded and averaged segmental scores were used. Results: There are weak correlation between MBF (rest, 0.18-2.38 ml/min/g; stress, 0.40-4.95 ml/min/g) and MPS (rest 22-91%, stress, 14-90%), however the correlation coefficient between corrected MBF and MPS in rest state was higher than stress state (rest r=0.59; stress r=0.80). As a thickening increased, correlation between MBF and MPS also showed good correlation at each segments. Conclusions: Corrected and translated MPS as its characteristics using $^{13}N$-ammonia showed good correlation with absolute MBF measured by dynamic image in this study. Therefore, we showed MPS is one of good indices which reflect MBF. We anticipate PET-CT could be used as useful tool for evaluation of myocardial function in nuclear cardiac study.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.364-370
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• 1994

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the clinical application of the no carrier added $[^{51}Cr]Cr(III)$-EDTA complexes, produced at Korea Cancer Center Hospital. The $[^{51}Cr]Cr(III)$-EDTA complexes, usefut for measurement of GFR were prepared at room temperature in the presence of bicarbonate catalysts. The radiochemical purity of $[^{51}Cr]Cr(III)$-EDTA was over 99% by paper electrophoresis. The time activity curves were obtained by counting the blood samples from 5 volunteers and counting the head and neck regions with whole body counter after injection of the $^{51}Cr$-EDTA, respectively. After the nonlinear regression, the area under curve was obtained. The plasma clearance of the $^{51}Cr$-EDTA was calculated with injected dose/AUC. The clearance rate calculated with the head and neck counting data was in good agreement with the result from the plasma sample radioactivity at 1-3 hrs after injection. From this result, the counting of head and neck region and the nonlinear regression by 2-compartment model could be applied for the measurement of the clearance rate. Using MIRD system, the absorbed radiation dose was calculated by residence $time{\times}S$. The absorbed whole body radiation dose was negligibly small.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.50-60
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• 2010

For the last half a century, the personal computer and software industries have been prosperous due to the incessant evolution of computer systems. In the 21st century, the embedded system market has greatly increased as the market shifted to the mobile gadget field. While a lot of multimedia gadgets such as mobile phone, navigation system, PMP, etc. are pouring into the market, most industrial control systems still rely on 8-bit micro-controllers and simple application software techniques. Unfortunately, the technological barrier which requires additional investment and higher quality manpower to overcome, and the business risks which come from the uncertainty of the market growth and the competitiveness of the resulting products have prevented the companies in the industry from taking advantage of such fancy technologies. However, high performance, low-power and low-cost hardware and software platforms will enable their high-technology products to be developed and recognized by potential clients in the future. This paper presents such a platform for industrial embedded systems. The platform was designed based on Telechips TCC8300 multimedia processor which embedded a variety of parallel hardware for the implementation of multimedia functions. And open-source Embedded Linux, TinyX and GTK+ are used for implementation of GUI to minimize technology costs. In order to estimate the expected performance and power consumption, the performance improvement and the power consumption due to each of enabled hardware sub-systems including YUV2RGB frame converter are measured. An analytic model was devised to check the feasibility of a new application and trade off its performance and power consumption. The validity of the model has been confirmed by implementing a real target system. The cost can be further mitigated by using the hardware parts which are being used for mass production products mostly in the cell-phone market.