• Title/Summary/Keyword: Cost effectiveness

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A study of the Guidelines for Investigation and Management of Uterine Myomas with Korean Medicine Therapies in Korea (자궁근종의 한의학 연구 경향과 임상적 접근에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Dong-Il
    • The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.240-260
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    • 2006
  • Purpose : The objective of this study is to serve guidelines for the investigation and management of uterine myomas with KM therapies. Methods : English-language articles from PubMed and Korean-language articles from the database of the journal of oriental gynecology were reviewed from 2000 to 2005, using the key words 'uterine myoma', 'uterine leiomyoma', 'fibroid', 'uterine artery embolization', 'endometrial ablation', 'myomectomy', and jagungguenjong(子宮筋腫)'. Results and Limits : The areas of clinical practices considered in formulating this guideline are assessment, KM therapies, medical treatments, myolysis, selective artery occlusion, endometrial ablation and surgical therapies including myomectomy and hysterectomy. Implementation of this guideline would optimize the decision-making process of women with uterine myomas and further investigation or therapy of their KM doctors. But we don't have abundant evidences of clinical trials of uterine myoma treated with KM therapy, though we treat or manage that with every-day clinical practices. Moreover cultural gaps between Korea and other western countries make many differences in the attitude to surgical therapies, especially hysterectomy. So it is very difficult to compare W therapies with other therapies. Moreover it is much difficult to estimate cost-effectiveness and benefit of those therapies in QOL. Conclusions : The majority of uterine myoma is asymptomatic and will not require any intervention or further investigation. But unmarried women who wish to marry and get pregnant want to find safe therapy for their asymptomatic uterine myomas. In that case, most of the patients prefer non-surgical therapy to surgical therapy. So KM herbal medicinal therapy is a good alternative method for those patients. For the symptomatic myomas, hysterectomy offers a definitive solution. However, it is not the best solution for women who wish to preserve their uterus. So KM therapy is a good alternative for them. But the predicted benefits of alternative therapies including KM therapy must be carefully weighed against the Possible risks of these therapies. To improve the quality of life of both women with asymptomatic and symptomatic myomas, selecting and treating patients should be done carefully. Moreover, the effect of KM therapy has to evaluated, comparing the possible situation without treatment and the benefit of constant treatment as a health-care system.

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Studies of Physicochemical Properties of Baby Powder Developed from Rice-flour (쌀 분말을 이용한 유아용 파우더의 이화학적 특성 연구)

  • Han, Sang-Ik;Jang, Ki Chang;Seo, Woo Duck;Oh, Seong-Hwan;Ra, Ji-Eun;Song, Yu-Cheon;Lee, Jong-Hee;Kim, Byung-Joo;Nam, Min-Hee;Lee, Jin-Tae
    • Journal of Life Science
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    • v.23 no.7
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    • pp.879-885
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    • 2013
  • Baby powder is an astringent powder used to prevent diaper rash. It also has other cosmetic uses. In general, it is composed of talc powder (talcum powder). Talc powder is harmful if inhaled because it can cause significant lung damage. With the aim of developing a new rice-based baby powder, three kinds of rice varieties were selected and pulverized. To determine the cost-effectiveness of the different states of rice powder, several milling processes were tried, and the powder characteristics of the resulting rice powder, such as particle size, biological activities, digitalized color value, and moisture content before and after coating treatment with essential oil and silicon oil, were examined. "Goami" showed good flour characteristics with respect to lightness (92.0, $L^*$[D65] value) and particle size ($8.9{\mu}m$). SEM analysis showed that the rice powder particles coated in the essential oil and silicon oil showed a smoother and rounder appearance than those of the talc powder. In addition, the average particle size was decreased by the essential oil and silicon oil coating. The silicon oil coating solved the problem of moisture absorption in rice flour. Rice flour properly coated with essential oil and silicon oil shows great potential as a new material source of powder.

Comparing Effects of Tai Chi Exercise, Tai Chi Self-help Program, and Self-help Management Program for Osteoarthritis Patients (골관절염 환자를 위한 타이치, 타이치-자조관리 및 자조관리과정의 효과 비교)

  • Cho, Kyung-Sook;Kang, Hyun-Sook;Kim, Jong-Im;Bak, Won-Sook;Song, Rha-Yun;Ahn, Yang-Heui;Lim, Nan-Young;Lee, In-Ok;Choi, Sun-Ha;Han, Sang-Sook
    • Journal of muscle and joint health
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.77-84
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    • 2007
  • Purpose: The purpose of the study was to compare the effects of Tai Chi exercise, Tai Chi self help program, and self help management program on arthritic pain, stiffness, fatigue and difficulties in performing daily activities in patients with osteoarthritis. Method: The pre-post experimental design was utilized with convenient sampling at Public Health Centers. Total of 38 subjects agreed to participate in the study with the inclusion criteria of being diagnosed as osteoarthritis and no previous regular exercise. The 12 subjects were assigned to Tai Chi exercise group, 13 subjects to Tai Chi exercise combined with self help management program, and the other 13 to self help management program. Tai Chi exercise group performed exercise twice a week for one hour per each session. Tai Chi self help management group came to the class twice a week, one hour for Tai Chi exercise, and another hour for self help management program. The third group came to the class once a week for one hour to participate self help management program. At the completion of 6 week programs, 10 subjects from Tai Chi exercise, 9 from Tai Chi self help, another 10 from self help management groups completed the post-test measures. The data were analyzed by SPSSWIN 11.0. The homogeneity tests for three experimental groups were conducted by $X^2-test$, Fisher's exact test, Kruskal-Wallis test. The final analysis of the post-test measures was conducted by ANCOVA with fatigue, pain, stiffness, and difficulties in daily activities of the pretest measures as covariates. Results: The results were as follows. There were no significant differences in fatigue, pain, and difficulties of daily activities among three groups for the pretest measures. The score of arthritic stiffness was significantly different among groups after controlled for covariates, but the post-hoc tests showed no group differences. Conclusion: The nursing interventions applied for osteoarthritis patients have been previously tested to show the cost effectiveness of symptoms management of this population.

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A study on the Improvement of the Performance Measurement Based on Lean Construction (린 건설에 기초한 성과 측정 방법 개선방향에 관한 연구)

  • Yun, Jung-Sook;Kim, Hyung-Il;Yu, Jung-Ho;Kim, Chang-Duk
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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    • 2008.11a
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    • pp.278-281
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    • 2008
  • As all industries field has changed very quickly, the field of construction faces in many changed. It is the representatively change that focus on the growth of quality level than increase of the quantity in construction. Whether the project successes or not is related to the survival of the company and it is necessity that we need performance measurement indicators to complete the project successfully. The domestic construction company considers overbearingly the cost-performance indicator in executing a project so far. It is rare of studies that suggest the methodology of more deeply measurement and analysis about the each project itself. The performance measured methodology based on Lean Construction is linked with the each project performance measurement methodology. This methodology uses three indicators such as the reliability, effectiveness and productivity at the sane their measuring whether each task is completed at the point of work. The measurement on the three performance indicators measure and evaluate whether the task is completed on the focus of construction duration. The research suggest the work plan reliability and weight of the performance measurement methodology based on the Lean Construction and the three considerately in the scope of measurement. If the suggestion is considered fully, we can indicate more objective and accurate construction project performance measurement indicators based on Lena Construction.

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Measuring the Corporate Readiness to Address Climate Challenges : Developing an Index of Climate Competitiveness (기업경쟁력에 미치는 기후변화의 영향 : 경쟁력 결정요인과 측정지표 개발)

  • Lee, Myung-Kyoon;Kim, Hoseok
    • Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.383-411
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    • 2010
  • Climate change and related policies and regulations influence the performance of the firms in various ways. Climate change influences corporate competitiveness through physical impacts, GHG regulations, changes in asset values, demand shift, etc. Therefore, corporate competitiveness could be maintained by reducing vulnerability to climate change and adapting to new circumstances. Without effective responses to the challenges, the firms would have difficulties in maintaining their competitiveness in the market and the cost of national economy will significantly increase as well. Even though it seems fairly easy to understand the meaning of competitiveness, deriving the driving forces of and measuring changes in competitiveness are complicated and disputable processes. A common way to overcome it is to develop a 'competitiveness index'. The objective of this study is to derive the main factors influencing corporate competitiveness related to climate change and develop 'competitiveness index' reflecting those factors. The index will make contribution to enhance the response capacity of the firms to climate change and increase the effectiveness of climate change policies for the industry by providing a quantitative tool to measure the changes in corporate competitiveness related to climate change.

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Synthesis of Amino-type Anion Exchanger from Acrylic Acid Grafted Polypropylene Nonwoven Fabric and Its Ion-Exchange Property (아크릴산 그라프트 폴리프로필렌 부직포로부터 아민형 음이온 교환체의 합성 및 이온교환특성(I))

  • Park, Hyun-Ju;Na, Choon-Ki
    • Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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    • v.28 no.5
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    • pp.527-534
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    • 2006
  • The purpose of this study is the development of more effective filter-type polymer adsorbent for removal of anionic pollutants from wastewater. In order to synthesize the polymer adsorbent that possesses anionic exchangeable function, carboxyl(-COOH) group of PP-g-AA nonwoven fabric was converted into amine($-NH_2$) group by the chemical modification using diethylene triamine(DETA). FT-IR data indicate that amine group was introduced into PP-g-AA through amidation of grafted acrylic acid by reaction with DETA. The degree of amination increased with increase in the reaction time and temperature of the chemical modification process, and was significantly improved by the pre-swelling treatment of PP-g-AA with solvent and addition of metal chlorides as a catalyst in following order as $NH_4OH>MeOH{\geq}HCl{\geq}H_2O\;and\;AlCl_3>FeCl_3{\geq}SnCl_2{\gg}ZnCl_2{\geq}FeCl_2$, respectively. However, the addition of catalyst limited the reusability of DETA, hence was less useful from the viewpoint of cost effectiveness and waste management. The anion exchange capacity of the aminated PP-g-AA(PP-g-AA-Am) increased with increase in the degree of amination, but it reached maximum value at the degree of amination as about $50{\sim}60%$. The anion exchange capacity of PP-g-AA-Am was higher than those of commercial anion resins.

Effect of Coating System to Prevent the Deterioration of Concrete Subjected to Compressive Stress (압축응력이 인가된 콘크리트의 열화제어를 위한 표면도막공법의 효과)

  • Yoon, In-Seok
    • Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.23-30
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    • 2012
  • For cracked concrete, it is obvious that cracks should be preferential channel for the penetration of aggressive substances such as chloride ions according to the previous researches. In order to extend the lifetime of cracked concrete, critical issues in the performance of the concrete is the risk of chloride-induced corrosion. Even though crack width can be reduced due to the high reinforcement ratio, the question is to which extend these cracks may jeopardize the durability of cracked concrete. If the size of crack is small, surface treatment system can be considered as one of the best options to extend the service life of concrete structures exposed to marine environment simply in terms of cost effectiveness versus durability performance. Thus, it should be decided to undertake an experimental study on the effect of surface coating system, which can be able to seal the concrete and the cracks to aggressive substances-induced corrosion in particular. In this study, it is excuted to examine the effect of surfaced treated systems on chloride penetration and carbonation through compressive stress induced cracks. Experimental results have showed conclusively that critical stress linked with deterioration, should be existed in compressive stress ratio 50 ~ 70% for chloride penetration and 70 ~ 80% for carbonation, respectively. When the critical stress is exceeded in concrete, a comparatively large deterioration was measured where the critical stress in concrete, the increase in the mass transportation is marginal in spite of the large increase in micro-cracks. As for the effect of surface coating system on crack-sealing, it can be seen conclusively that cracks can be healed.

Towards Safety Based Design Procedure for Ships

  • Bakker, Marijn;Boonstra, Hotze;Engelhard, Wim;Daman, Bart
    • Journal of Ship and Ocean Technology
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    • v.5 no.3
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    • pp.1-13
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    • 2001
  • Present-day rules and regulations for the design and construction of ships are almost without exemption of a prescriptive and deterministic nature. Often it is argued that this situation is far from ideal; it does no right to the advances, which have been made during the past decades in engineering tools in marine technology, both in methodology and in computational power. Within IMO this has been realized for some time and has resulted in proposals to use Formal Safety Assessment(FSA) as a tool to improve and to modernize the rule making process. The present paper makes use of elements of the FSA methodology, but instead of working towards generic regulations or requirements, a Risk Assessment Approach, not unlike a 'safety case'; valid for a certain ship or type of ship is worked out. Delft University of Technology investigated the application of safely assessment procedures in ship design, in co-operation with Anthony Veder Shipowners and safety experts from Safely Service Center BV. The ship considered is a semi-pressurized-fully refrigerated LPG carrier. On the basis of the assumption that a major accident occurs, various accident, scenarios were considered and assessed, which would impair the safety of the carrier. In a so-called Risk Matrix, in which accident frequencies versus the consequence of the scenarios are depicted, the calculated risks all appeared lo be in the ALARP('as low as reasonable practicable') region. A number of design alternatives were compared, both on safety merits and cost-effectiveness. The experience gained with this scenario-based approach will be used to establish a set of general requirements for safety assessment techniques in ship design. In the view that assessment results will be most probably presented in a quasi-quantified manner, the requirements are concerned with uniformity of both the safety assessment. These requirements make it possible that valid comparison between various assessment studies can be made. Safety assessment, founded on these requirements, provides a validated and helpful source of data during the coming years, and provides naval architects and engineers with tools experience and data for safety assessment procedures in ship design. However a lot of effort has to be spent in order to make the methods applicable in day-to-day practice.

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An Embedded FAST Hardware Accelerator for Image Feature Detection (영상 특징 추출을 위한 내장형 FAST 하드웨어 가속기)

  • Kim, Taek-Kyu
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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    • v.49 no.2
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    • pp.28-34
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    • 2012
  • Various feature extraction algorithms are widely applied to real-time image processing applications for extracting significant features from images. Feature extraction algorithms are mostly combined with image processing algorithms mostly for image tracking and recognition. Feature extraction function is used to supply feature information to the other image processing algorithms and it is mainly implemented in a preprocessing stage. Nowadays, image processing applications are faced with embedded system implementation for a real-time processing. In order to satisfy this requirement, it is necessary to reduce execution time so as to improve the performance. Reducing the time for executing a feature extraction function dose not only extend the execution time for the other image processing algorithms, but it also helps satisfy a real-time requirement. This paper explains FAST (Feature from Accelerated Segment Test algorithm) of E. Rosten and presents FPGA-based embedded hardware accelerator architecture. The proposed acceleration scheme can be implemented by using approximately 2,217 Flip Flops, 5,034 LUTs, 2,833 Slices, and 18 Block RAMs in the Xilinx Vertex IV FPGA. In the Modelsim - based simulation result, the proposed hardware accelerator takes 3.06 ms to extract 954 features from a image with $640{\times}480$ pixels and this result shows the cost effectiveness of the propose scheme.

Improvement of Address Pointer Assignment in DSP Code Generation (DSP용 코드 생성에서 주소 포인터 할당 성능 향상 기법)

  • Lee, Hee-Jin;Lee, Jong-Yeol
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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    • v.45 no.1
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    • pp.37-47
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    • 2008
  • Exploitation of address generation units which are typically provided in DSPs plays an important role in DSP code generation since that perform fast address computation in parallel to the central data path. Offset assignment is optimization of memory layout for program variables by taking advantage of the capabilities of address generation units, consists of memory layout generation and address pointer assignment steps. In this paper, we propose an effective address pointer assignment method to minimize the number of address calculation instructions in DSP code generation. The proposed approach reduces the time complexity of a conventional address pointer assignment algorithm with fixed memory layouts by using minimum cost-nodes breaking. In order to contract memory size and processing time, we employ a powerful pruning technique. Moreover our proposed approach improves the initial solution iteratively by changing the memory layout for each iteration because the memory layout affects the result of the address pointer assignment algorithm. We applied the proposed approach to about 3,000 sequences of the OffsetStone benchmarks to demonstrate the effectiveness of the our approach. Experimental results with benchmarks show an average improvement of 25.9% in the address codes over previous works.