• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.96-112
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• 2006

1. Objectives This study focuses on the reliability of the Questionnaire about Sasang Constitution Classification for Mongolians 2. Methods Test-retest method and internal consistency method have been performed based on the absolutely diagnosed group of 87 cases who respond to the questionaries during the time interval of one yeat between July 2003 and July 2004 to verify the confidence level. 3. Results and Conclusions (1) In the test-retest for each question of the Questionnaire of Sasang Constitution Classification for Mongolians, the dependency ratio is 40% and the agreement ratio is 92%. Therefore, this questionnaire has credibility because it has question relations and high agreement ratio. (2) In the internal consistency method for the measure of the Questionnaire of Sasang Constitution Classification for Mongolians, the value of Cronbach alpha is mote than 0.60. As a result, this questionnaire has internal consistency for each question which explains each physical constitution and it has credibility (3) In the internal consistency method for the measure of the Questionnaire of Sasang Constitution Classification for Mongolians, the Pearson's correlation coefficient, r, falls between $+0.38\;{\sim}\;+0.54$ in each measure. Accordingly, this questionnaire has internal consistency between each physical constitution measure and it has credibility.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.1072-1079
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• 2013

The NLRP12 (NLR family, pyrin domain containing 12) serves as a suppressor factor in the inflammatory response and protects the host against inflammation-induced damage. In the present study, we aimed to study the polymorphisms of NLRP12 gene and its association with susceptibility to non-specific digestive disorder (NSDD) in rabbits. We re-sequenced the entire coding region of the rabbit NLRP12 gene and detected a total of 19 SNPs containing 14 synonymous and five non-synonymous variations. Among them, the coding SNP (c.1682A>G), which would carry a potential functional implication, was subsequently subjected to genotyping for case-control association study (272 cases and 267 controls). The results revealed that allele A was significantly protective against NSDD with an odds ratio value of 0.884 (95% confidence interval, 0.788 to 0.993; p = 0.038). We also experimentally induced NSDD in growing rabbits by feeding a fibre-deficient diet and subsequently investigated NLRP12 mRNA expression. The mRNA expression of NLRP12 in healthy status was significantly higher than that in severe NSDD (p = 0.0016). The highest expression was observed in individuals carrying the protective genotype AA (p = 0.0108). These results suggested that NLRP12 was significantly associated with the NSDD in rabbits. However, the precise molecular mechanism of NLRP12 involving in the development of rabbit NSDD requires further research.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.283-290
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• 2012

Objectives: People who have chronic diseases, as well as gait imbalance or psychiatric drug use, may be susceptible to injuries from falls and slips. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of musculoskeletal diseases on incidental fall-related injuries among adults in Korea. Methods: We analyzed data from the 4th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2009), which are national data obtained by a rolling survey sampling method. The 1-year incidence of fall-related injuries was defined by health service utilization within the last year due to injury occurring after a slip and fall, and musculoskeletal diseases included osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, and back pain. To evaluate the effects of preexisting musculoskeletal diseases, adults diagnosed before the last year were considered the exposed group, and adults who had never been diagnosed were the unexposed group. Results: The weighted lifetime prevalence of musculoskeletal disease was 32 540 per 100 000 persons. Musculoskeletal diseases were associated with a higher risk of fall-related injury after adjustment for sex, age, residence, household income, education, occupation, visual disturbance, paralysis due to stroke, and medication for depression (odds ratio [OR], 1.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03 to 1.93). As the number of comorbid musculoskeletal diseases increased, the risk of fall-induced injuries increased (p-value for trend <0.001). In particular, patients who had any musculoskeletal condition were at much higher risk of recurrent fall-related injuries (OR, 6.20; 95% CI, 1.06 to 36.08). Conclusions: One must take into account the risk of fall-related injuries and provide prevention strategies among adults who have musculoskeletal diseases.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.202-211
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• 2020

Purpose: This study was to investigate the prognostic significance of the preoperative fibrinogen and systemic inflammation response index (F-SIRI) in a Chinese cohort of resectable gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: Baseline characteristics, preoperative fibrinogen levels and peripheral neutrophil, monocyte, and lymphocyte counts were retrospectively reviewed in 240 patients who underwent radical gastrectomy. The optimal cut-off values for fibrinogen and SIRI were defined as 4.0 g/L and 1.2. Then patients with hyperfibrinogenemia (≥4.0 g/L) and high SIRI (≥1.2) were assigned with an F-SIRI of 2 (both of these hematological abnormalities), 1 (one of these abnormalities), and 0 (neither abnormality), respectively. The prognostic value was examined by univariate and multivariate survival analysis. Results: Preoperative F-SIRI was significantly correlated with tumor size, fibrinogen level, and adjuvant chemotherapy. Whereas there was no significant difference in age, gender, tumor location or other characteristics between groups. In addition, high preoperative F-SIRI was significantly associated with worse disease-free survival (DFS) (hazard ratio [HR], 2.299; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.482-3.566; P<0.001) and overall survival (OS) (HR, 2.461; 95% CI, 1.584-3.824; P<0.001) by univariate survival analysis. Moreover, it remained an independent predictor for impaired DFS (HR, 2.023; 95% CI, 1.273-3.215; P=0.003) and OS (HR, 2.341; 95% CI, 1.480-3.705; P<0.001) in multivariate Cox regression analysis. Conclusions: Preoperative F-SIRI could serve as a significantly prognostic marker for long-term survival in Chinese patients who underwent radical gastrectomy.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.17-25
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• 2019

PHM (Prognostics and Health Management) of aircraft engines is applied to predict the remaining useful life before failure or the lifetime limit. There are two methods to establish a predictive model for this: The physics-based method and the data-driven method. The physics-based method is more accurate and requires less data, but its application is limited because there are few models available. In this study, the data-driven method is applied, in which a multi-layer perceptron based neural network algorithms is applied for the life prediction. The neural network is trained using the data sets virtually made by the C-MAPSS code developed by NASA. After training the model, it is applied to the test data sets, in which the confidence interval of the remaining useful life is predicted and validated by the actual value. The performance of proposed method is compared with previous studies, and the favorable accuracy is found.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.741-750
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• 1995

The purpose of this study was to develop a role conflict scale for nurses in hospitals. The process of study was as follows. The first step was the study of selected literature on role conflict in general and to translate into Korean language the role conflict and ambiguity scale developed by House. From this process, a scale for role conflict inventory-general was made by consulting with two professors majored in educational evaluation and one professor who is an authory on educational administration. In the second step, 24 clinical nurses were asked to describe the situations having job-related role conflict. In the third step, the role conflict inventory-specific was derived from the role conflict inventory -general, and data selected from the step two. The confidence and clarity of this role conflict inventory-specific was strengthed by consulting one clinical psychologist, two professors of nursing college and ten doctoral students of nursing. With this tool being tested, the results are summarized as follows. 1. Reliability Internal consistency reliability was tested by cronbach alpha, corrected item total correlation and correlation matrix. The cronbach alpha level was .94 and one item among 37 items was below .35 and the rest items were .42 above in the corrected item total correlation. There was no negative correlation in the correlation matrix. 2. Construct validity In the construct validity test, four factors have an eigen value 1.0 over, Factor 1 represented role ambiguity, composed of 15 items with .90 reliability level. Factor 2 represented deficiency of ability and skill, composed of 11 items with .90 of reliability level. Factor 3 represented working environment, composed of 6 items with .85 of reliability level. Final factor represented deficiency of job-related collaboration, composed of 5 items with .69 reliability level. These results contribute to measuring the level of role conflict for nurses, and to the managment of the nurses' role conflict.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.115-122
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• 2016

The classical statistical approach using test data samples to estimate true value of Random Variables by calculating mean and variation (standard deviation or coefficient of variation) of samples is very useful to understand the existing condition of the structure. But with this classical approach, our prior knowledge through educational background and professional experience cannot provide any benefit to make decisions by the structural engineers. This paper shows the role of Bayesian methodology by providing chance of using valuable prior knowledge to come up with more accurate estimation of structural condition. This paper also shows how important it is to have a proper prior estimate of Random Variables and corresponding confidence level through gathering and studying more relevant information.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2012

Introduction: Breast cancer is the second leading cancer in Korean women. To assess potential genetic associations between the prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) gene in the chromosome 8q24 locus and breast cancer risk in Korean women, 13 SNPs were selected and associations with breast cancer risk were analyzed with reference to hormone receptor (HR) and menopausal status. Methods:We analyzed DNA extracted from buffy coat from 456 patients and 461 control samples, using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) based upon region-specific PCR followed by allelespecific single base primer extension reactions. Risks associated with PSCA genotypes and haplotypes were estimated with chi-square test (${\chi}^2$-test), and polytomous logistic regression models using odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), by HR and menopausal status. Results: In case-control analysis, odds ratios (OR) of rs2294009, rs2294008, rs2978981, rs2920298, rs2976395, and rs2976396 were statistically significant only among women with estrogen receptor (ER) negative cancers, and those of rs2294008, rs2978981, rs2294010, rs2920298, rs2976394, rs10216533, and rs2976396 were statistically significant only in pre-menopausal women, and not in postmenopausal women. Risk with the TTGGCAA haplotype was significantly elevated in ER (-) status (OR= 1.48, 95% CI= 1.03~2.12, p<0.05). Especially risk of allele T of rs2294008 is significantly low in pre-menopausal breast cancer patients and AA genotype of rs2976395 in ER (-) status represents the increase of OR value. Conclusion: This report indicated for the first time that associations exist between PSCA SNPs and breast cancer susceptibility in Korean women, particularly those who are pre-menopausal with an estrogen receptor negative tumor status.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.103-110
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• 2012

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for resectable esophageal carcinoma has been a focus of study, but no agreement has been reached on clinical randomized controlled trials and relevant systematic evaluation. The purpose of this study was to perform a meta-analysis on published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery with surgery alone for resectable esophageal carcinoma. Medline and manual searches was conducted in PubMed, ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) meeting summary, Embase, the Cochrane Library (up to October 2010), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP Database, Wanfang Database. The selection contents were to identify all published and unpublished RCTs that compared neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery with surgery alone for resectable esophageal carcinoma. Sixteen RCTs which included 2,594 patients were selected. The risk ratio (RR) (95% confidence interval [CI]; P value), expressed as neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery versus surgery alone (treatment versus control), was 1.02 (0.95, 1.10; P=0.54) for 1-year survival, 1.29 (1.13, 1.47; P=0.0001) for 3-year survival, 1.31 (1.13, 1.51; P=0.0003) for 5-year survival, 1.00 (0.95, 1.04; P= 0.85) for rate of resection and 0.89 (0.64, 1.23; P=0.48) for operative mortality. The results showed that neoadjuvant chemotherapy for resectable esophageal carcinoma can raise the overall survival rate of patients with esophageal carcinoma, but it does not affect treatment-related mortality.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.19
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• pp.8271-8277
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• 2014

Aims: Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of nodes in diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) are widely used in differentiating metastatic from non-metastatic lymph nodes. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to demonstrate whether DWI could contribute to the precise diagnosis of breast cancer (BC) with and without lymph node metastasis (LNM). Materials and Methods: English and Chinese electronic databases were searched for relevant studies followed by a comprehensive literature search. Two reviewers independently assessed the methodological quality of the included trials based on the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS). Summary odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated. Results: Final analysis of 624 BC subjects (patients with LNM = 254, patients without LNM = 370) were incorporated into the current meta-analysis from 9 eligible cohort studies. Combined ORs of ADCs suggested that ADC values in BC patients without LNM were higher than in patients with LNM (OR=0.56, 95%CI: 0.11-1.01, p=0.015). Subgroup analysis stratified by country indicated a low ADC value in BC patients with LNM rather than those without LNM among Chinese (OR=1.27, 95%CI: 0.89-1.66, p<0.001), Italians (OR=0.75, 95%CI: 0.13-1.38, p=0.018), and Egyptians (OR=1.27, 95%CI: 0.71-1.84, p<0.001). The findings of subgroup analysis by MRI machine type revealed that ADC values from diffusion MRI may be potential diagnostic indicators for BC using Non-Philips 1.5T (OR=1.10, 95%CI: 0.84-1.36, p<0.001). Conclusions: The main findings of our meta-analysis demonstrated that increased signal intensity on DWI and decreased signals on ADC are helpful in diagnosis of BC patients with or without LNM. DWI could therefore be an important imaging investigation in patients suspected of BC.