• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
• /
• v.32 no.6
• /
• pp.515-519
• /
• 2008

Using the analytical framework designed by Lester, this study analyzes self-governing capacity of ocean environmental management of Busan Metropolitan City pursuing establishment of ocean capital as one of the impending goals. Following Lester's methodology, this study analyzes the levels of two critical variables: will of chief executives and physical base. It was found that mayor of Busan Metrocity and high-level public managers concerned showed somewhat low levels of will, considering Busan is the top-ranked ocean city in South Korea. Comparison of number qf public servants and size of budget for ocean environmental management with seven other metropolitan cities in Korea also revealed that Busan Metropolitan City maintained a relatively low level of physical base. In conclusion, the level of self-governing capacity of ocean environmental management of Busan Metropolitan city is classified into the type of regressives or the type of delayers.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.1141-1145
• /
• 2013

Delay in seeking treatment for breast cancer is a barrier to the early diagnosis and management of the disease, resulting in a poorer prognosis. We here estimated the prevalence of delayed presentation for breast cancer and identified possible influential sociodemographic factors in a cross-sectional study of 250 patients diagnosed with primary breast cancer at the Radiotherapy and Oncology Clinic in Kuala Lumpur Hospital. Data were collected by face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire and from medical records. We examined associations between delayed presentation (presenting to a physician more than 3 months after self-discovery of a symptom) and sociodemographic characteristics, practice of breast self examination (BSE), history of benign breast disease, family history of breast cancer and type of symptom, symptom disclosure and advice from others to seek treatment using multiple logistic regression. Time from self-discovery of symptom to presentation ranged from tghe same day to 5 years. Prevalence of delayed presentation was 33.1% (95%CI: 27.4, 39.3). A significantly higher proportion of delayers presented with late stages (stage III/IV) (58.3% vs. 26.9%, p<0.001). Divorced or widowed women (OR: 2.23, 95% CI: 1.11, 4.47) had a higher risk of delayed presentation than married women and women who never performed breast self examination were more likely to delay presentation compared to those who regularly performed BSE (OR: 2.74, 95% CI: 1.33, 5.64). Our findings indicate that delayed presentation for breast cancer symptoms among Malaysian women is high and that marital status and breast self examination play major roles in treatment-seeking for breast cancer symptoms.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.1042-1058
• /
• 2024

Terahertz (THz) communication is becoming a key technology for future 6G wireless networks because of its ultra-wide band. However, the implementation of THz communication systems confronts formidable challenges, notably beam splitting effects and high computational complexity associated with them. Our primary objective is to design a hybrid precoder that minimizes the Euclidean distance from the fully digital precoder. The analog precoding part adopts the delay-phase alternating minimization (DP-AltMin) algorithm, which divides the analog precoder into phase shifters and time delayers. This effectively addresses the beam splitting effects within THz communication by incorporating time delays. The traditional digital precoding solution, however, needs matrix inversion in THz massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems, resulting in significant computational complexity and complicating the design of the analog precoder. To address this issue, we exploit the characteristics of THz massive MIMO communication systems and construct the digital precoder as a product of scale factors and semi-unitary matrices. We utilize Schatten norm and Hölder's inequality to create semi-unitary matrices after initializing the scale factors depending on the power allocation. Finally, the analog precoder and digital precoder are alternately optimized to obtain the ultimate hybrid precoding scheme. Extensive numerical simulations have demonstrated that our proposed algorithm outperforms existing methods in mitigating the beam splitting issue, improving system performance, and exhibiting lower complexity. Furthermore, our approach exhibits a more favorable alignment with practical application requirements, underlying its practicality and efficiency.