• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.419-428
• /
• 2013

The objectives of this research were to determine ecological characteristics and chemical gradients in two different loach populations-Misgurnus anguillicaudatus ($M_a$) and Koreocobitis rotundicaudata ($K_r$). Eight chemical parameters were compared to test the chemical preferences between the two species. The population of Kr occurred more in better water quality, compared to the $M_a$-population. The $M_a$-population co-occurred more with tolerant species (TS) and omnivores, whereas the $K_r$-population co-occurred more with sensitive species (SS) and insectivores. The differences in the tolerance and trophic composition matched well with the result of stream health assessment, based on the multi-metric model of Index of Biological Integrity (IBI). The IBI value in habitat with the $M_a$-population was "19.6" (range: 8~40) indicating a fair condition, and the IBI values of $K_r$-population was 29.4 (range: 12~40) indicating good condition. Similar results were found in physical habitat health analysis (QHEI). Overall, data analysis showed that the $M_a$-population belong to the tolerant species and $K_r$-population belong to sensitive species in the tolerance classification.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.48 no.1
• /
• pp.33-39
• /
• 2015

Background: This study aimed to investigate sternal healing over time and the incidence of poor sternal healing in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery using bilateral internal thoracic arteries. Methods: This study enrolled 197 patients who underwent isolated CABG using skeletonized bilateral internal thoracic arteries (sBITA) from 2006 through 2009. Postoperative computed tomography (CT) angiography was performed on all patients at monthly intervals for three to six months after surgery. In 108 patients, an additional CT study was performed 24 to 48 months after surgery. The axial CT images were used to score sternal fusion at the manubrium, the upper sternum, and the lower sternum. These scores were added to evaluate overall healing: a score of 0 to 1 reflected poor healing, a score of 2 to 4 was defined as fair healing, and a score of 5 to 6 indicated complete healing. Medical records were also retrospectively reviewed to identify perioperative variables associated with poor early sternal healing. Results: Three to six months after surgery, the average total score of sternal healing was $2.07{\pm}1.52$ and 68 patients (34.5%) showed poor healing. Poor healing was most frequently found in the manubrium, which was scored as zero in 72.6% of patients. In multivariate analysis, the factors associated with poor early healing were shorter post-surgery time, older age, diabetes mellitus, and postoperative renal dysfunction. In later CT images, the average sternal healing score improved to $5.88{\pm}0.38$ and complete healing was observed in 98.2% of patients. Conclusion: Complete sternal healing takes more than three months after a median sternotomy for CABG using sBITA. Healing is most delayed in the manubrium.

• Journal of Legislation Research
• /
• no.44
• /
• pp.63-101
• /
• 2013

This article firstly explores into the concepts, components, and pictures of institutional realization of competition and diversity respectively on the premise that competition and diversity comprise the primary objectives to be pursued by the broadcasting-related laws which provide the concrete measures of media policy, and argues that while the competition objective has differentiation factors, there are also particularities in the diversity value in the broadcasting-related laws as sector-specific competition laws. Then assuming that special competition rules including structural regulatory measures particularly in the broadcasting market are required in order to realize values of competition and diversity harmoniously, this article suggests the following improvement directions for regulations aimed at protection of competition and diversity in the broadcasting-related laws. The first one is with the improvement method for regulations aimed at protection of competition. Regulation on share of audience as an ex ante regulation of status and regulation on prohibited activities as an ex post regulation of conduct may play important roles in substituting the causative regulation while seeking for diversity value. For this purpose, it is needed to develop a concrete method that incorporates diversity-related factors as consideration factors in the standard for determining illegality of prohibited activities by inference to methods of determining illegality in the competition law. The second one is with the improvement method for regulations aimed at protection of diversity. This could be considered from three viewpoints that are the setting of regulatory objectives, the identification of alternative regulatory measures, and the choice of regulatory measures and levels suitable for regulatory objectives. From these viewpoints, the regulatory framework should be improved mainly with institutional measures in which diversity value is used for tools of assessment and analysis, not just remaining as mere rhetorical devices, and whether or to what extent to maintain regulations seemingly unreasonable in terms of harmonization with economic objectives such as competition should be discreetly reviewed.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.164-171
• /
• 2021

Purpose: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Brain atrophy in this disease spectrum begins in the medial temporal lobe structure, which can be recognized by magnetic resonance imaging. To overcome the unsatisfactory inter-observer reliability of visual evaluation, quantitative brain volumetry has been developed and widely investigated for the diagnosis of MCI and AD. The aim of this study was to assess the prediction accuracy of quantitative brain volumetry using a fully automated segmentation software package, NeuroQuant^®, for the diagnosis of MCI. Materials and Methods: A total of 418 subjects from the Korean Brain Aging Study for Early Diagnosis and Prediction of Alzheimer's Disease cohort were included in our study. Each participant was allocated to either a cognitively normal old group (n = 285) or an MCI group (n = 133). Brain volumetric data were obtained from T1-weighted images using the NeuroQuant software package. Logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed to investigate relevant brain regions and their prediction accuracies. Results: Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that normative percentiles of the hippocampus (P < 0.001), amygdala (P = 0.003), frontal lobe (P = 0.049), medial parietal lobe (P = 0.023), and third ventricle (P = 0.012) were independent predictive factors for MCI. In ROC analysis, normative percentiles of the hippocampus and amygdala showed fair accuracies in the diagnosis of MCI (area under the curve: 0.739 and 0.727, respectively). Conclusion: Normative percentiles of the hippocampus and amygdala provided by the fully automated segmentation software could be used for screening MCI with a reasonable post-processing time. This information might help us interpret structural MRI in patients with cognitive impairment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.36 no.2
• /
• pp.49-57
• /
• 2021

In the case of military supplies, any potential failure and causes of failures must be considered. This study is aimed at examining the failure modes of a rotorcraft landing system to identify the priority items. Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is applied to the rotorcraft landing system. In general, the FMEA is used to evaluate the reliability in engineering fields. Three elements, specifically, the severity, occurrence, and detectability are used to evaluate the failure modes. The risk priority number (RPN) can be obtained by multiplying the scores or the risk levels pertaining to severity, occurrence, and detectability. In this study, different weights of the three elements are considered for the RPN assessment to implement the FMEA. Furthermore, the FMEA is implemented using a fuzzy rule base, similarity aggregation model (SAM), and grey theory model (GTM) to perform a comparative analysis. The same input data are used for all models to enable a fair comparison. The FMEA is applied to military supplies by considering methodological issues. In general, the fuzzy theory is based on a hypothesis regarding the likelihood of the conversion of the crisp value to the fuzzy input. Fuzzy FMEA is the basic method to obtain the fuzzy RPN. The three elements of the FMEA are used as five linguistic terms. The membership functions as triangular fuzzy sets are the simplest models defined by the three elements. In addition, a fuzzy set is described using a membership function mapping the elements to the intervals 0 and 1. The fuzzy rule base is designed to identify the failure modes according to the expert knowledge. The IF-THEN criterion of the fuzzy rule base is formulated to convert a fuzzy input into a fuzzy output. The total number of rules is 125 in the fuzzy rule base. The SAM expresses the judgment corresponding to the individual experiences of the experts performing FMEA as weights. Implementing the SAM is of significance when operating fuzzy sets regarding the expert opinion and can confirm the concurrence of expert opinion. The GTM can perform defuzzification to obtain a crisp value from a fuzzy membership function and determine the priorities by considering the degree of relation and the form of a matrix and weights for the severity, occurrence, and detectability. The proposed models prioritize the failure modes of the rotorcraft landing system. The conventional FMEA and fuzzy rule base can set the same priorities. SAM and GTM can set different priorities with objectivity through weight setting.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.131-140
• /
• 2022

Objectives This study aimed to investigate whether the concurrent use of conventional and herbal medications affects liver and kidney function, by examining blood test data. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the electronic medical records of 590 inpatients with musculoskeletal diseases between 2013 and 2017. We investigated cases of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) according to the Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method criteria and cases of drug-induced kidney injury (DIKI) based on the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes definition. Results One case (0.17%) of DILI and one case (0.17%) of DIKI were identified. Significant improvements in serum laboratory data were observed after the concurrent use of both types of medications (p<0.05). The kappa coefficients ranged from 0.26 to 0.72, indicating that the values after the concurrent use of conventional and herbal medications showed a fair similarity to the baseline values of the patients. The linear regression test showed that female sex and high body mass index (BMI) were risk factors for an increase in the serum blood levels of liver function parameters. Conclusions The concurrent use of conventional and herbal medications for musculoskeletal disorders is relatively safe; however, clinicians should exercise caution when prescribing these medications to female patients and patients with a high BMI because of their potential effect on hepatic function.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
• /
• v.24 no.10
• /
• pp.983-995
• /
• 2023

Objective: To compare the diagnostic performance and interobserver agreement between contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) and contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (CE-MRI) with magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) for evaluating the resectability in patients with extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (eCCA). Materials and Methods: This retrospective study included treatment-naïve patients with pathologically confirmed eCCA, who underwent both CECT and CE-MRI with MRCP using extracellular contrast media between January 2015 and December 2020. Among the 214 patients (146 males; mean age ± standard deviation, 68 ± 9 years) included, 121 (56.5%) had perihilar cholangiocarcinoma. R0 resection was achieved in 108 of the 153 (70.6%) patients who underwent curative-intent surgery. Four fellowship-trained radiologists independently reviewed the findings of both CECT and CE-MRI with MRCP to assess the local tumor extent and distant metastasis for determining resectability. The pooled area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity of CECT and CE-MRI with MRCP were compared using clinical, surgical, and pathological findings as reference standards. The interobserver agreement of resectability was evaluated using Fleiss kappa (κ). Results: No significant differences were observed between CECT and CE-MRI with MRCP in the pooled AUC (0.753 vs. 0.767), sensitivity (84.7% [366/432] vs. 90.3% [390/432]), and specificity (52.6% [223/424] vs. 51.4% [218/424]) (P > 0.05 for all). The AUC for determining resectability was higher when CECT and CE-MRI with MRCP were reviewed together than when CECT was reviewed alone in patients with discrepancies between the imaging modalities or with indeterminate resectability (0.798 [0.754-0.841] vs. 0.753 [0.697-0.808], P = 0.014). The interobserver agreement for overall resectability was fair for both CECT (κ = 0.323) and CE-MRI with MRCP (κ = 0.320), without a significant difference (P = 0.884). Conclusion: CECT and CE-MRI with MRCP showed no significant differences in the diagnostic performance and interobserver agreement in determining the resectability in patients with eCCA.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.66-72
• /
• 2024

Background: This study examines the relationship between functional disability and work ability in workers affected by low back pain (LBP) through an analysis of correlations between the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Work Ability Index (WAI). The role of personal and work factors on functional disability/work ability levels has also been studied. LBP is the most common musculoskeletal problem and a major disabling health problem worldwide. Its etiology is multifactorial. Multidisciplinary approaches may help reduce the burden of pain and disability and improve job continuity and reintegration at work. Methods: A cohort of 264 patients affected by LBP from an Italian outpatient clinic were included in a clinical diagnostic/therapeutic trial aiming at rehabilitation and return to work through an integrated investigation protocol. Data were collected during the first medical examination using anamnestic and clinical tools. The final sample is composed of 252 patients, 57.1% man, 44.0 % blue collars, 46.4% with the high school degree, 45.6% married. Results: WAI and ODI reported a negative and fair correlation (r = -0.454; p = .000). Workers with acute LBP symptoms have a higher probability of severe disability than those with chronic LBP symptoms. White collars without depressive symptoms reported higher work ability - even in chronic disability conditions-than those with depressive symptoms. Conclusion: The study found that ODI and WAI have a convergent validity and this suggests that the two tools measure capture distinctive aspects of disability related to personal, environmental, and occupational characteristics. The most important and modifiable prognostic factors found for ODI and WAI were depressive symptoms, workday absence, and intensity of back pain. The study also found a mild association between age and ODI. The study's findings highlight the importance of using a multidisciplinary approach to manage and prevent disability due to LBP.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.337-343
• /
• 2017

This study is going to contribute the activation of ecosystem services written in the 3rd National Basic Plan for Nature Conservation(2016~2025) in Korea. Meanwhile we considered the benefits that the nature has given to the humankind as free goods or services which we may consume traditionally without due payment therefore. But on account of the expansion of cities and expedition of development, as the carrying capacity of the nature has been breached, people have come to try to restore and enhance artificially such vulnerable capacity. It is necessary to compensate the opportunity cost which the land owners or occupiers have to pay for conservation and maintenance of natural capitals which yield the ecosystem services. Therefore the institutionalization of ecosystem services should be established that the consumers who enjoy such services should share the interest from enjoying services with the land owners or occupiers who produce the ecosystem services, under the legal system which will make it possible to connect the benefit sharing with the conservation of environment. However it is the first task that the present legal system could not realize the fair and equitable benefit sharing between the producers and consumers of ecosystem services. And the second task in such legal system is that the value of ecosystem services could not be fully considered in the process of development planning. According to the analysis of this study, the institutionalization of ecosystem services in the government side and the civilian side could be realized to somewhat extent, although not sufficient. Especially the transactions of ecosystem services through the private contract among stakeholder are possible in the course of development planning or without any relevancy to a development project. The final task in the institutionalization of ecosystem services is how to assess the ecosystem services and to value the economic benefits therefrom on the basis of what kinds of procedures relating to some development processes. To overcome such difficulties, it is necessary that the state, trend and change of ecosystem services confronting with a developing project should be assessed concretely at the threshold of development. It is possible to integrate the ecosystem services into the environmental impact assessment(IEA), not by way of the Act of IEA, but by way of the Decree thereof.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.45 no.2
• /
• pp.218-231
• /
• 2012

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the physico-chemical water quality, trophic and tolerance guilds in the control ($C_o$) and impacted streams of the abandoned mine, along with the ecological health, using a multimetric health model and physical habitat conditions of Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI), during the period of three years, 2005~2007. Also, eco-toxicity ($EE_t$) enclosure tests were conducted to examine the toxic effects on the outflows from the mine wastewater, using the sentinel species of Rhynchocypris oxycephalus, and we compared the biological responses of the control ($C_o$) and treatment (T) to the effluents through a Necropybased Health Assessment Index ($N_b$-HAI). Tissue impact analysis of the spleen, kidney, gill, liver, eyes, and fins were conducted in the controlled enclosure experiments (10 individuals). According to the comparisons of the control ($C_o$) vs. the treatment (T) in physicochemical water quality, outflows from the abandoned mine resulted in low pH of 3.2, strong acid wastewater, high ionic concentrations, based on an electrical conductivity, and high total dissolved solid (TDS). Physical habitat assessments, based on Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI) did not show any statistical differences (p>0.05) in the sampling sites, whereas, the $M_m$-EH model values in a multimetric ecological health ($M_m$-EH) model of the Index of Biological Integrity (IBI), using fish assemblages, were 16~20 (fair condition) in the control and all zero (0, poor condition) in the impacted sites of mine wastewater. In addition, in enclosure eco-toxicity ($EE_t$) tests, the model values of $N_b$-HAI ranged between 0 and 3 in the controls during the three years, indicating an excellent~good condition (Ex~G), and were >100 (range: 100~137) in the impacted sites, which indicates a poor condition (P). Under the circumstances, organ tissues, such as the liver, kidney, and gills were largely impaired, so that efficient water quality managements are required in the outflow area of the abandoned mine watershed.