• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.336-343
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• 2000

Purpose: Thallous-201 chloride produced at Korea Cancer Center Hospital(KCCH) is used in detecting cardiovascular disease and cancer. Thallium impurity can cause emesis, catharsis and nausea, so the presence of thallium and other metal impurities should be determined. According to USP and KP, their amounts must be less than 2 ppm in thallium and 5 ppm in total. In this study, the detection method of trace amounts of metal impurities in $[^{201}Tl]$TICI injection with polarography was optimized without environmental contamination. Materials and Methods: For the detection of metal impurities, Osteryoung Square Wave Stripping Voltammetry method was used in Bio-Analytical System (BAS) 50W polarograph. The voltammetry was composed of Dropping Mercury Electrode (DME) as a working electrode, Ag/AgCl as a reference electrode and Pt wire as a counter electrode. Square wave stripping method, which makes use of formation and deformation of amalgam, was adopted to determine the metal impurities, and pH 7 phosphate buffer was used as supporting electrolyte. Results: Tl, Cu and Pb in thallous-201 chloride solution were detected by scanning from 300 mV to -800 mV Calibration curves were made by using $TINO_3,\;CuSO_4\;and\;Pb(NO_3){_2}$ as standard solutions. Tl was confirmed at -450 mV peak potential and Cu at -50 mV Less than 2 ppm of Tl and Cu was detected and Pb was not detected in KCCH-produced thallous-201 chloride injection. Conclusion: Detection limit of thallium and copper is approximately 50 ppb with this method. As a result of this experiment, thallium and other metal impurities in thallous-201 chloride injection, produced at Korea Cancer Center Hospital, are in the regulation of USP and KP Polarograph could be applied for the determination of metal impurities in the quality control of radiopharmaceuticals conveniently without environmental contamination.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.187-192
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• 2009

Pepper powdery mildew, Leveillula taurica is one of the most important pathogens of pepper in the greenhouses and fields in Korea and is becoming a worldwide disease. These experiments were carried out to investigate the optimal germination, disease development conditions, disease incidence and effective inoculation methods of pepper powdery mildew. The incidence of powdery mildew was investigated throughout the country based on the major pepper growing areas in 2009. The average rate of infected leaves ranged from 15.3% to 81.8% in greenhouses and fields. Powdery mildew incidences were more severe in greenhouses than those of fields. The optimal temperature for conidial germination was $25^{\circ}C$ and showed the highest germination at 6 hs after treatment. The range of temperature for germination was $10^{\circ}C$ to $35^{\circ}C$. Temperature of greater than $30^{\circ}C$ and below $20^{\circ}C$ affected the abnormal germination and germ tube elongation. The optimal relative humidity for germination and germ tube elongation was 85% and germination increased as relative humidity increased. Disease development started 8 days after inoculation and showed the highest disease severity at 15 days in greenhouse and field regardless of varieties. Among three different inoculation methods tested the spore dropping method was better than touching with infected leaves and spraying with spore suspension. However, the method has limitation in mass inoculation due to the amount of time consumed.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.127-153
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• 2009

There is a growing concern about potential harmful effect of second-hand or environmental tobacco smoking. As a result, smoking bans in workplace become more prevalent worldwide. In Korea, workplace smoking ban policy become more restrictive in 2003 when National health enhancing law was amended. The new law requires all office buildings larger than 3,000 square meters (multi-purpose buildings larger than 2,000 square meters) should be smoke free. Therefore, a lot of indoor office became non smoking area. Previous studies in other counties often found contradicting answers for the effects of workplace smoking ban on smoking behavior. In addition, there was no study in Korea yet that examines the causal impacts of smoking ban on smoking behavior. The situation in Korea might be different from other countries. Using 2001 and 2005 Korea National Health and Nutrition surveys which are representative for population in Korea we try to examine the impacts of law change on current smoker and cigarettes smoked per day. The amended law impacted the whole country at the same time and there was a declining trend in smoking rate even before the legislation update. So, the challenge here is to tease out the true impact only. We compare indoor working occupations which are constrained by the law change with outdoor working occupations which are less impacted. Since the data has been collected before (2001) and after (2005) the law change for treated (indoor working occupations) and control (outdoor working occupations) groups we will use difference in difference method. We restrict our sample to working age (between 20 and 65) since these are the relevant population by the workplace smoking ban policy. We also restrict the sample to indoor occupations (executive or administrative and administrative support) and outdoor occupations (sales and low skilled worker) after dropping unemployed and someone working for military since it is not clear whether these occupations are treated group or control group. This classification was supported when we examined the answers for workplace smoking ban policy existing only in 2005 survey. Sixty eight percent of indoor occupations reported having an office smoking ban policy compared to forty percent of outdoor occupation answering workplace smoking ban policy. The estimated impacts on current smoker are 4.1 percentage point decline and cigarettes per day show statistically significant decline of 2.5 cigarettes per day. Taking into account consumption of average sixteen cigarettes per day among smokers it is sixteen percent decline in smoking rate which is substantial. We tested robustness using the same sample across two surveys and also using tobit model. Our results are robust against both concerns. It is possible that our measure of treated and control group have measurement error which will lead to attenuation bias. However, we are finding statistically significant impacts which might be a lower bound of the true estimates. The magnitude of our finding is not much different from previous finding of significant impacts. For cigarettes per day previous estimates varied from 1.37 to 3.9 and for current smoker it showed between 1%p and 7.8%p.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.47-56
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• 2001

Purpose : Surveying the effects on drop the anxiety of the hospice patients in spiritual nursing intervention with a quasi-experimental design using non-equivalent contrast group non-synchronized design to try in order to give the support which provide a holistic and individualizational nursing to comfort of hospice patients. Method : The results of survey were collected from 67 patients(67 subjects comprised 37 hospice patients of the experimental group and 30s of contrast) who were given hospice care from July to September of 2000 at the General Hospital in Cheon Ju city. The tool was used Spielberger's State Anxiety Scale, and the difference in the level of dropping anxiety among patient groups was analyzed with the mean, standard deviation, $x^2-test$. t-test and paired t-test. The spiritual nursing intervention was carried out through Hymn, Scripture, prayer, the therapeutic use of self over a period of three weeks. Results : 1) In general characters, men were a many more of the objects and the average age of the experimental and contrast group was 59.6, 55.9 respectively. The family of living together was $2{\sim}3$ members of most part. 2) There were not significant differences in the general, disease and therapeutic, religional characters between the experimental and contrast group. 3) The majority of the objects were cancer patients in disease and therapeutic characters(Experimental : 92%, Contrast : 95%). 4) After the spiritual nursing intervention state anxiety of the experimental group were remarkably lower than those of the contrast (t=-5.987, P=0.000). 5) Decreasing rate in the anxiety scores of before and post facto of the experimental group were remarkably lower than those of the contrast (t=6.237, P=0.000). Conclusion : The hospice patients who were offered spiritual nursing intervention became much lower than those who were not offered it in anxiety. Spiritual nursing intervention can be suited to field with one program of an effective that that relieved their anxieties. It is not only a very short time but has quite a little findings in part of spiritual nursing intervention. Therefore, further study in this field is necessary to concrete and substantial investigate in order to more and more increasing hospice patients in 21st century.