• Title/Summary/Keyword: Effectiveness assessment

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Cost-effectiveness Analysis of Cervical Cancer Screening Strategies Based on the Papanicolaou Smear Test in Korea

  • Ko, Min Jung;Kim, Jimin;Kim, Younhee;Lee, Yoon Jae;Hong, Sung Ran;Lee, Jae Kwan
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.16 no.6
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    • pp.2317-2322
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    • 2015
  • Background: Despite the increasing number of screening examinations performed for cervical cancer utilizing the Papanicolaou smear test (Pap test), few studies have examined whether this strategy is cost-effective in Korea. Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of cervical cancer screening strategies incorporating the Pap test based on age at the start and end of screening as well as screening interval. Materials and Methods: We designed four alternative screening strategies based on patient age when screening was started (20 or 30 years) and discontinued (lifetime, 79 years). Each strategy was assessed at screening intervals of 1, 2, 3, or 5 years. A Markov model was developed to determine the cost-effectiveness of the 16 possible cervical cancer screening strategies, and this was evaluated from a societal perspective. The main outcome measures were average lifetime cost, incremental quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Results: Compared with various strategies comprising younger starting age, discontinuation age, and longer screening intervals, strategies employing annual screening for cervical cancer starting at a target age of 30 years and above were the most cost-effective, with an ICER of 21,012.98 dollars per QALY gained (with a Korean threshold of 30,000,000 KRW or US$27,272). Conclusions: We found that annual screening for cervical cancer beginning at a target age of 30 years and above is most cost-effective screening strategy. Considering the potential economic advantages, more intense screening policies for cervical cancer might be favorable among countries with high rates of cervical cancer and relatively low screening costs.

Verification of grouting effectiveness using geophysical methods in fractured rock (지구물리탐사법을 활용한 절리 발달 암반 지역에서의 그라우팅 효과 판정)

  • Kim, Hyoung-Soo;Baik, Keon-Ha;Kim, Jung-Yul;Kim, Yoo-Sung;Sohn, Ho-Woong
    • Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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    • v.5 no.3
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    • pp.175-198
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    • 2002
  • The techniques using geophysical methods were adopted to obtain quantitative criteria for assessment of grouting effectiveness. Various surface and borehole geophysical surveys including seismic, GPR(ground penetrating radar), resistivity and electromagnetic methods were conducted in fractured rock pilot site before and after grouting execution. However, it is not enough that geophysical data provide criteria for field engineers to confirm the grouting effectiveness in that site even though there is somewhat difference before and after grouting. This study will be continued for the detailed criteria and assessment of grouting effectiveness in other sites.

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Effectiveness of an Intervention Program on Knowledge of Oral Cancer among the Youth of Jazan, Saudi Arabia

  • Quadri, Mir Faeq Ali;Saleh, Sanaa Mahmoud;Alsanosy, Rashad;Abdelwahab, Siddig Ibrahim;Tobaigy, Faisal Mohamed;Maryoud, Mohamed;Al-Hebshi, Nezar
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.5
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    • pp.1913-1918
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    • 2014
  • Background: The study is the first of its kind to be conducted in Saudi Arabia (KSA), aiming to analyze the effectiveness of an intervention program in improving the knowledge of oral cancer among the youth. Materials and Methods: A total of 1,051 young Saudis (57% males and 43% females with a mean age of $20.4{\pm}1.98$) were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling. Knowledge assessment was accomplished using a closed-ended questionnaire which was subjected to reliability tests. Prevalence of risk factors in relation to gender was analyzed using the chi-squared test. Effectiveness was calculated by comparing the pre- and post-intervention means, using the two-tailed paired t-test. Multiple logistic regression was employed in order to determine factors associated with awareness of risk habits, signs/symptoms and prevention of oral cancer. The significance level in this study was set at 0.05. Results: Females were seen to be more into the habit of sheesha smoking (3.3% rather than the use of other forms of risk factors. Prevalence of diverse risk factors such as cigarette smoking (20%), sheesha (15.3%), khat (27%) and shamma (9%) was seen among males. Gender and the use of modifiable risk factors among the study sample were significantly (p<0.001) associated with effectiveness of the intervention. The intervention program was highly effective (p<0.001) in improving the knowledge of oral cancer among the youth in Jazan, KSA. Multivariate analysis revealed that age and gender are the most significant factors affecting knowledge. Conclusions: The study gives a direction for further public health initiatives in this oral cancer prone region.

A Study on Empirical Analysis and a Plan to Improve the Policy for Performance Assesment of National R&D Projects (국가연구개발사업 성과평가 정책 실증분석 및 발전방안 연구)

  • Kim, Yun Myung;You, Hwa Sun
    • Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.191-229
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    • 2016
  • As Korean national R&D projects have steadily grown in size, the needs of enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the national R&D budge spending has been also discussed. Therefore, many efforts have been made to establish performance assessment system to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the national R&D project. One example of such efforts is the stipulation of connecting the results of performance evaluation ranking of the national R&D projects with the budge allocation of for the coming fiscal year. Unlike the stipulated article in the law/regulation that 'more budge shall be allocated to a project rated over excellent grade and vice versa', however, precedent studies have been casting mixed opinions over to the effectiveness of the connection between assessment results and budge allocation. In this respect, the present study attempted to empirically examine if the laws and institutions related to the results of performance evaluation ranking of the national R&D projects with the budge allocation work properly, using panel regression analysis and quantitative data. In addition, this study investigated into the deterrent factors to the connectivity between the performance results of the national R&D projects and budge allocation and sought for a way to improve the system of performance assessment and enhance the reliability of the results by minimizing the hindrance factors.

Using Immersive Augmented Reality to Assess the Effectiveness of Construction Safety Training

  • Kim, Kyungki;Alshair, Mohammed;Holtkamp, Brian;Yun, Chang;Khalafi, SeyedAmirhesam;Song, Lingguang;Suh, Min Jae
    • Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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    • v.9 no.4
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    • pp.16-33
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    • 2019
  • The increasing size and complexity of modern construction projects demands mature capabilities of onsite personnel with regard to recognizing unsafe situations. Construction safety training is paper or computer-based and suffers from a distinct gap between the classroom training environment and real-world construction sites; even trained personnel can find it difficult to recognize many of the potential safety hazards at their jobsites even after receiving construction safety training. Immersive technologies can overcome the current limitations in construction safety training by reducing the gap between the classroom and a real construction environment. This research developed and tested a new Augmented Reality (AR)-based assessment tool to evaluate the hazard recognition skills of students majoring in construction management as part of a construction safety course. The quantitative and qualitative results of this research confirmed that AR-based assessment can become a very effective assessment tool to evaluate safety knowledge and skills in a construction safety course, outperforming both paper and computer-based assessment methods. The students preferred AR-based assessment because it provides a realistic visual context for real world safety hazards.

Decision Making of Improvement Priority by Deterioration Risk Assessment of Water Supply Infrastructures (물공급시설의 노후 위험도 평가를 통한 개선 우선순위 결정)

  • Chae, Soo-Kwon;Lee, Dae-Jong;Kim, Ju-Hwan
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.18 no.6
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    • pp.367-376
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    • 2009
  • This paper proposes an application methodology of AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) based decision making theory for improvement priority by assessment of various risk factors affecting on deterioration of water supply systems, as major social infrastructure. AHP method is organized with three level of hierarchy which is introduced for multi-criteria decision making in this study. In the first level, assessment outputs are calculated by AHP for each affecting factor. In the second level, criteria are estimated by using assessment results with respect to structural and environmental factors. Consequently, ranking decision is performed in the third level. In order to present the effectiveness, a proposed method is compared with FCP(Fuzzy Composite Programming) for decision making. Since the results of the proposed method show better performance with consistent results, it can be applied as an efficient information for the determination for improvement priority of the study infrastructure.

Vulnerability Assessment of a Large Sized Power System Using Neural Network Considering Various Feature Extraction Methods

  • Haidar, Ahmed M. A;Mohamed, Azah;Hussian, Aini
    • Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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    • v.3 no.2
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    • pp.167-176
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    • 2008
  • Vulnerability assessment of power systems is important so as to determine their ability to continue to provide service in case of any unforeseen catastrophic contingency such as power system component failures, communication system failures, human operator error, and natural calamity. An approach towards the development of on-line power system vulnerability assessment is by means of using an artificial neural network(ANN), which is being used successfully in many areas of power systems because of its ability to handle the fusion of multiple sources of data and information. An important consideration when applying ANN in power system vulnerability assessment is the proper selection and dimension reduction of training features. This paper aims to investigate the effect of using various feature extraction methods on the performance of ANN as well as to evaluate and compare the efficiency of the proposed feature extraction method named as neural network weight extraction. For assessing vulnerability of power systems, a vulnerability index based on power system loss is used and considered as the ANN output. To illustrate the effectiveness of ANN considering various feature extraction methods for vulnerability assessment on a large sized power system, it is verified on the IEEE 300-bus test system.

A Study on the System Readiness Assessment Procedure Development through a case study in Defense R&D Programs (국방연구개발 사례 연구를 통한 통합성숙도평가 절차 연구)

  • Woo, Soon;Lee, Jong Ho;Lim, Jae Sung
    • Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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    • v.42 no.1
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    • pp.111-127
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    • 2014
  • Purpose: Simple part or equipment is necessary TRA(Technology Readiness Assessment) or MRA(Manufacturing Readiness Assessment). But sole maturity like TRA, MRA has limit complex systems or SoS(System of System). Especially complex weapon system need from the System Maturity Point of view. This research shows necessity of SRA(System Readiness Assessment). Methods: In case of complex systems, it is essential to SRA(System Readiness Assessment). For the purpose of calculating SRL(System Readiness Level), TRL and IRL must be calculated. And then SRL can obtain know from equation of TRL and IRL. To prove SRA effectiveness, it is calculated SRL of JTDLS(Joint Tactical DataLink System) programs. Results: SRA procedure is proposed and case study shows as examples of JTDLS programs. Although result of TRA is TRL6, result of SRA is not 0.6. From this research, we can know necessity of SRA. Especially complex systems or SoS(System of System) is essential to SRA. Conclusion: SRA(System Readiness Assessment) is required to overcome limitation of sole maturity and to achieve a successful acquisition of high quality weapon system. This research intended to suggest SRA procedure and case study in complex defense system.

A Study on Development and Application of Water-friendly Environment Assessment System (하천 친수환경 평가체계 구축 및 적용에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Hyung-Sook
    • Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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    • v.24 no.4
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    • pp.81-88
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    • 2018
  • With the increase of the number of riverfront development projects an objective and systematized survey and assessment tool is required to understand and identify the characteristics and potentials of river environment for human uses. The purpose of this study was to develop an assessment system for the investigation and evaluation of the water-friendly environment and to examine its effectiveness by applying the system to the selected study sites. Literature reviews, expert consultation, and preliminary survey were conducted to select highly relevant indexes to evaluate water-friendliness in rivers and, as a result, an assessment system of ten items in four areas was established. The assessment system were applied to 139 reaches of six rivers including Bykgye Cheon, Seom River, Gap Cheon, Yudeng Cheon, Naesung Cheon, and Kumho River. The scores and grade of water-friendliness were calculated per rivers and reaches, and their differences were prominent according to urban river, rural river, mountainous area and city area. Bykgye Cheon and Naesung Cheon got high scores in visual quality and Kumho River and Gap Cheon in community needs and potential uses. The scores of each section in the same river can be used as a basic data for the selection of appropriate sites for the development of hydrophilic space. In addition, it is expected that identifying the characteristics of each river help establish an appropriate management plan for the river.

Steel Fiber Reinforcing Effect Analysis of Slab Panel Structure and Assessment Technics of Toughness (강섬유보강 패널구조의 보강효과 분석 및 인성평가 기법)

  • Jeon, Chan-Ki;Park, Sun-Kyu
    • Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.209-220
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    • 1999
  • This paper is aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of flexural toughness of slab panel structures($60{\times}60{\times}10$) reinforced by steel fiber instead of wire mesh. Steel fiber used in this study is double hooked Dramix type fiber. And the fiber length is 60mm, diameter is 0.8mm, Various assessment methods of toughness index are used to estimate the proper effectiveness. In this experimental study, we find that Johnston, JCI-SF4 and EFNARC method are more effective to assess the flexural toughness of slab panels than the others. And the steel fiber is very effective alternative material to reinforce slab panel structures instead of wire mesh. Fiber volume fraction of 0.5~0.75% is more useful than the others in enhancing the post-peak energy absorption and toughness index by Johnston's $I_{5.5}$ assessment method. And the slab panels reinforcing with steel fiber are more resistant to crack propagation than wire mesh reinforcing slabs.