• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.65-82
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• 2008

Statement of problem : Today's market economy has been changed more and more to consumer concerned. It is owing to not only consumers ' rising standard of living and education, but also purchasers' easy accessibilities to products through various mass media. The consumer centered market system, where customer can choose items with diverse alternatives to satisfy their self esteem, is also applied to the field of medical business, and accelerated by an increasing income level of shoppers and introducing the whole nations' medical insurance system. Today, the medical industry has become competitive due to increasing number of medical institutions and medical personnel, and this offers wide choices to consumers in the medical market place. At this point of time, it is essential to survey on the primary factor of gratification for the patient in the Dental clinic, as well as on the problems and suggestions in medical service. Purpose : The analysis in this study shows essential factors and expected influential elements in satisfaction of the patient in the Dental Hopsital, and strategic suggestions for the provider of dental service, which can be of benefit to the prospective customer as well as can make improvement in the quality of dental treatment service. Material and method : This study had been researched by collecting and analyzing the organized questionnaires, which were filled in directly from 784 patients, who visit Dental Hospital, Yonsei University in Seoul, from January 23rd to April 15th. Result : It can be summarized like the followings. 1. The social and demographical peculiarities of respondents are as follows. Samples of gender and marital status are adequately extracted, but data on occupation and treatment are are under a bias toward students, undergraduates and graduate students, and orthodontics. 2. 74% of patients who answer the questionnaire were highly satisfied with the service of dental clinic in the section of overall satisfaction. 3. The survey result about specific service of dental treatment, within sections of independent variables, is like the followings; Patients are highly gratified with service system, kindness, explanation, explanation on expected waiting hours, reservation system, emergency measures, expert treatment, existence of knowledge of dentistry, size of hospital, disinfection, equipment and parking, but lowly satisfied with expense of treatment, preparatory hours for treatment, waiting hours, treatment hours and the period of subscription. 4. The correlation analysis showed that there is no significant linear relationship between the independent variables. 5. The probit regression analysis showed that 8 out of 34 independent variables explained the dependent variables at the level of 0.01. 6. It shows that 8 independent variables, which can affect customers 'satisfaction, are clearing up of inconvenience, service system, kindness, explanation, treatment hours per attendance, reservation system, existence of knowledge of dentistry, and contentment of equipment in the hospital. Conclusion : The consumer's satisfaction totally relies on subjective evaluations of customers. Providing appropriate service, which can meet the criteria for the customer who demands various wares, pursues luxury goods, and expects high quality of medical service, is essential to fulfill patients' satisfaction. Many medical institutions do their best to satisfy their customer, touch their consumer, and offer patience centered services, and it is also applied to the field of dentistry. Establishing brand new strategic managements and elevating the quality of dental service based on this survey are required to improve the satisfaction of patience in the Dental Hospital.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.528-534
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• 2008

Purpose: Marginal fit is one of the important components for the successful prosthodontic restoration. Poor fitting margin of the restoration causes hypersensitivity, secondary caries, and plaque accumulation, which later result in prosthodontic failure. CAD/CAM zirconia all-ceramic restorations, such as $LAVA^{(R)}$ (3M ESPE, St.Paul, MN) and $EVEREST^{(R)}$ (KaVo Dental GmbH, Biberach, Germany) systems were recently introduced in Korea. It is clinically meaningful to evaluate the changes of the marginal fit of the CAD/CAM zirconia systems before and after build-up. The purposes of this study are to compare the marginal fit of the two CAD/CAM all-ceramic systems with that of the ceramometal restoration, before and after porcelain build-up Material and methods: A maxillary first premolar dentiform tooth was prepared with 2.0 mm occlusal reduction, 1.0 mm axial reduction, chamfer margin, and 6 degree taperness in the axial wall. The prepared dentiform die was duplicated into the metal abutment die. The metal die was placed in the dental study model, and the full arch impressions of the model were made. Twenty four copings of 3 groups which were $LAVA^{(R)}$, $EVEREST^{(R)}$, and ceramometal restorations were fabricated. Each coping was cemented on the metal die with color-mixed Fit-checker $II^{(R)}$ (GC Cor., Tokyo, Japan). The marginal opening of each coping was measured with $Microhiscope^{(R)}$ system (HIROX KH-1000 ING-Plus, Seoul, Korea. X300 magnification). After porcelain build-up, the marginal openings of $LAVA^{(R)}$, $EVEREST^{(R)}$,and ceramometal restorations were also evaluated in the same method. Statistical analysis was done with paired t-test and one-way ANOVA test. Results: In coping states, the mean marginal opening for $EVEREST^{(R)}$ restorations was $52.00{\pm}11.94\;{\mu}m$ for $LAVA^{(R)}$ restorations $56.97{\pm}10.00\;{\mu}m$, and for ceramometal restorations $97.38{\pm}18.54\;{\mu}m$. After porcelain build-up, the mean marginal opening for $EVEREST^{(R)}$ restorations was $61.69{\pm}19.33\;{\mu}m$, for $LAVA^{(R)}$ restorations $70.81{\pm}12.99\;{\mu}m$, and for ceramometal restorations $1115.25{\pm}23.86\;{\mu}m$. Conclusion: 1. $LAVA^{(R)}$ and $EVEREST^{(R)}$ restorations in comparison with ceramometal restorations showed better marginal fit, which had significant differences (P < 0.05) in coping state and also after porcelain build-up . 2. The mean marginal opening values between $LAVA^{(R)}$ and $EVEREST^{(R)}$ restorations did not showed significant differences after porcelain build-up as well as in coping state (P > .05). 3. $EVEREST^{(R)}$, $LAVA^{(R)}$ and ceramometal restorations showed a little increased marginal opening after porcelain build-up, but did not show any statistical significance (P > .05).

• Journal of Aquaculture
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.84-89
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• 2006

Effect of dietary inclusion of various sources of green tea on growth, immune system and challenging test of juvenile olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus was investigated. Five experimental diets with triplicates were prepared: control, raw leaves, dry leaves, by-product and extract. Twenty five (an initial body weight of 52.5 g) were randomly distributed into 15 of 180 L flow-through tanks. Nutrient requirements of the experimental diets satisfied growth of juvenile olive flounder. The feeding trial lasted for 7 weeks. After 7-week feeding trial, blood were sampled from three randomly chosen fish for serum analysis of Iysozyme and bactericidal activity, and ten fish were infected with Edwardsiella tarda for challenging test from each tank. Weight gain (g/fish) of fish fed the diet containing extract and control diet was significantly higher than that of fish fed the other diets. Feed efficiency ratio for fish fed the diet containing extract and control diet was significantly higher than that for fish fed the diets containing raw leaves and by-product, but not significantly different from that for fish fed the diet containing dry leaves. Serum Iysozyme activity (units/ml) of fish fed the diets containing dry leaves and extract was significantly higher than that of fish fed the diets containing raw leaves and by-product, but not significantly different from that of fish fed the control diet. Serum bactericidal activity (${\times}10^6$ bacteria/ml) of fish fed the diet containing dry leaves and extract was significantly lower than that of fish fed the diets containing raw leaves, by-product and control diet in 3 hour. However, serum bactericidal activity of fish fed the diet containing extract was significantly lower than that of fish fed the other diets in 6 hour. And serum bacterial activity was low in fish fed the diets containing dry and raw leaves, by-product, and control in 6 hour in order. Accumulative mortality (%) of fish fed the control diet was low compared to that of fish fed the diets containing raw leaves and by-product, but high compared to that of fish fed the diets containing dry leaves and extract although no significant difference was found among treatments. In considering above results, dietary inclusion of extract and dry leaves of green tea seemed to be highly effective to improve immune system and endurance against E. tarda infection of juvenile olive flounder.

• Journal of Aquaculture
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.25-42
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• 1996

The study has been conducted to know an appropriate feeding strategy and effects of the rearing density on larval growth of the rockfish, Sebastes schlegeli. The results obtained are as fellowed ; 1. Thirty-day-old larvae reached at $25.25{\pm}3.76$ mm in total length and $0.23{\pm}0.07$ g in body weight in experiment A, at which rotifer was provided from the beginning to the end of 30-day experiment, Anemia from 3th to 18th day, and artificial feed from 13th to 30th day after hatching. When rotifer was provided for 30 days, Artemia from 6th to 18th day, and artificial feed from 18th to 30th day after hatching (experiment B), these larvae grew up to $27.52{\pm}2.50$ mm in total length and $0.26{\pm}0.06$ g in body weight. On the other hand, when rotifer and artificial feed were supplied with the same time schedule as shown in experiment B, and Artemia was feed from 6th to 30th day after hatching (experiment C), the total length and body weight of those larvae were $23.22{\pm}3.44$ mm and $0.15{\pm}0.05$ g, respectively. The best result for larval growth was obtained from experiment B. The survival rates estimated were $57.6\%$ in experiment A, $66.4\%$ in experiment B, and $44.4\%$ in experiment C. 2. The growth in total length of the larvae according to their rearing days could be represented by the following equations : Experiment A : Y=4.350+0.116X+$1.887X^2$ (r=0.993) Experiment B : Y=4.500+8.931X+$2.221X^2$ (r=0.994) Experiment C : Y=4.478+5.734X+$1.881X^2$(r=0.990) The average number of Artemia nauplius intaken by the larvae was rapidly increased between 15th and 20th day afer hatching, and 9, 212, 242, 750, and 1,171 nauplius were found in the different sizes of larvae, whose total length were 5.65, 6.81, 9.45, 14.96, and 24.52 mm, respectively. 3. Larval growth in total length and body weight reared at four different densites (A: 1.8 $kg/m^3$, B; 4.0 $kg/m^3$, C; 5.0 $kg/m^3$, D; 6.2 $kg/m^3$) indicated that the best growth was found in experiment A, at which the larval were reared at the lower density and the final survival rates extimated were $92.9\%$ in exp. A, $99.5\%$ in exp. C, $89.0\%$ in exp. B, and $88.2\%$ in exp. D. The amount of production per cubic meter turned out to be 30.45 kg in exp. D, 25.89 kg in exp. C, 20.75 kg in exp. B and 10.48 kg in exp. A. therefore, considering both larval growth and survival rate, higher yields seemed to be attainable at the relatively high-rearing density.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.109-134
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• 2014

Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation of assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights (Regulation No 261/2004) provides extra protection to air passengers in circumstances of denied boarding, cancellation and long-delay. The Regulation intends to provide a high level of protection to air passengers by imposing obligations on air carriers and, at the same time, offering extensive rights to air passengers. If denied boarding, cancellation and long-delay are caused by reasons other than extraordinary circumstances, passengers are entitled for compensation under Article 7 of Regulation No 261/2004. In Wallentin-Hermann v Alitalia-Linee Aeree Italiane SpA(Case C-549/07, [2008] ECR I-11061), the Court did, however, emphasize that this does not mean that it is never possible for technical problems to constitute extraordinary circumstances. It cited specific examples of where: an aircraft manufacturer or competent authority revealed that there was a hidden manufacturing defect on an aircraft which impacts on safety; or damage was caused to an aircraft as a result of an act of sabotage or terrorism. Such events are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier concerned and is beyond the actual control of that carrier on account of its nature or origin. One further point arising out of the court's decision is worth mentioning. It is not just necessary to satisfy the extraordinary circumstances test for the airline to be excused from paying compensation. It must also show that the circumstances could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. It is clear from the language of the Court's decision that this is a tough test to meet: the airline will have to establish that, even if it had deployed all its resources in terms of staff or equipment and the financial means at its disposal, it would clearly not have been able - unless it had made intolerable sacrifices in the light of the capacities of its undertaking at the relevant time - to prevent the extraordinary circumstances with which it was confronted from leading to the cancellation of the flight.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.103-122
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• 2011

Recently, numerous documents have been made available electronically. Internet search engines and digital libraries commonly return query results containing hundreds or even thousands of documents. In this situation, it is virtually impossible for users to examine complete documents to determine whether they might be useful for them. For this reason, some on-line documents are accompanied by a list of keywords specified by the authors in an effort to guide the users by facilitating the filtering process. In this way, a set of keywords is often considered a condensed version of the whole document and therefore plays an important role for document retrieval, Web page retrieval, document clustering, summarization, text mining, and so on. Since many academic journals ask the authors to provide a list of five or six keywords on the first page of an article, keywords are most familiar in the context of journal articles. However, many other types of documents could not benefit from the use of keywords, including Web pages, email messages, news reports, magazine articles, and business papers. Although the potential benefit is large, the implementation itself is the obstacle; manually assigning keywords to all documents is a daunting task, or even impractical in that it is extremely tedious and time-consuming requiring a certain level of domain knowledge. Therefore, it is highly desirable to automate the keyword generation process. There are mainly two approaches to achieving this aim: keyword assignment approach and keyword extraction approach. Both approaches use machine learning methods and require, for training purposes, a set of documents with keywords already attached. In the former approach, there is a given set of vocabulary, and the aim is to match them to the texts. In other words, the keywords assignment approach seeks to select the words from a controlled vocabulary that best describes a document. Although this approach is domain dependent and is not easy to transfer and expand, it can generate implicit keywords that do not appear in a document. On the other hand, in the latter approach, the aim is to extract keywords with respect to their relevance in the text without prior vocabulary. In this approach, automatic keyword generation is treated as a classification task, and keywords are commonly extracted based on supervised learning techniques. Thus, keyword extraction algorithms classify candidate keywords in a document into positive or negative examples. Several systems such as Extractor and Kea were developed using keyword extraction approach. Most indicative words in a document are selected as keywords for that document and as a result, keywords extraction is limited to terms that appear in the document. Therefore, keywords extraction cannot generate implicit keywords that are not included in a document. According to the experiment results of Turney, about 64% to 90% of keywords assigned by the authors can be found in the full text of an article. Inversely, it also means that 10% to 36% of the keywords assigned by the authors do not appear in the article, which cannot be generated through keyword extraction algorithms. Our preliminary experiment result also shows that 37% of keywords assigned by the authors are not included in the full text. This is the reason why we have decided to adopt the keyword assignment approach. In this paper, we propose a new approach for automatic keyword assignment namely IVSM(Inverse Vector Space Model). The model is based on a vector space model. which is a conventional information retrieval model that represents documents and queries by vectors in a multidimensional space. IVSM generates an appropriate keyword set for a specific document by measuring the distance between the document and the keyword sets. The keyword assignment process of IVSM is as follows: (1) calculating the vector length of each keyword set based on each keyword weight; (2) preprocessing and parsing a target document that does not have keywords; (3) calculating the vector length of the target document based on the term frequency; (4) measuring the cosine similarity between each keyword set and the target document; and (5) generating keywords that have high similarity scores. Two keyword generation systems were implemented applying IVSM: IVSM system for Web-based community service and stand-alone IVSM system. Firstly, the IVSM system is implemented in a community service for sharing knowledge and opinions on current trends such as fashion, movies, social problems, and health information. The stand-alone IVSM system is dedicated to generating keywords for academic papers, and, indeed, it has been tested through a number of academic papers including those published by the Korean Association of Shipping and Logistics, the Korea Research Academy of Distribution Information, the Korea Logistics Society, the Korea Logistics Research Association, and the Korea Port Economic Association. We measured the performance of IVSM by the number of matches between the IVSM-generated keywords and the author-assigned keywords. According to our experiment, the precisions of IVSM applied to Web-based community service and academic journals were 0.75 and 0.71, respectively. The performance of both systems is much better than that of baseline systems that generate keywords based on simple probability. Also, IVSM shows comparable performance to Extractor that is a representative system of keyword extraction approach developed by Turney. As electronic documents increase, we expect that IVSM proposed in this paper can be applied to many electronic documents in Web-based community and digital library.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.161-177
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• 2014

Corporate credit rating assessment consists of complicated processes in which various factors describing a company are taken into consideration. Such assessment is known to be very expensive since domain experts should be employed to assess the ratings. As a result, the data-driven corporate credit rating prediction using statistical and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. In particular, statistical methods such as multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) and multinomial logistic regression analysis (MLOGIT), and AI methods including case-based reasoning (CBR), artificial neural network (ANN), and multiclass support vector machine (MSVM) have been applied to corporate credit rating.2) Among them, MSVM has recently become popular because of its robustness and high prediction accuracy. In this study, we propose a novel optimized MSVM model, and appy it to corporate credit rating prediction in order to enhance the accuracy. Our model, named 'GAMSVM (Genetic Algorithm-optimized Multiclass Support Vector Machine),' is designed to simultaneously optimize the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection. Prior studies like Lorena and de Carvalho (2008), and Chatterjee (2013) show that proper kernel parameters may improve the performance of MSVMs. Also, the results from the studies such as Shieh and Yang (2008) and Chatterjee (2013) imply that appropriate feature selection may lead to higher prediction accuracy. Based on these prior studies, we propose to apply GAMSVM to corporate credit rating prediction. As a tool for optimizing the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection, we suggest genetic algorithm (GA). GA is known as an efficient and effective search method that attempts to simulate the biological evolution phenomenon. By applying genetic operations such as selection, crossover, and mutation, it is designed to gradually improve the search results. Especially, mutation operator prevents GA from falling into the local optima, thus we can find the globally optimal or near-optimal solution using it. GA has popularly been applied to search optimal parameters or feature subset selections of AI techniques including MSVM. With these reasons, we also adopt GA as an optimization tool. To empirically validate the usefulness of GAMSVM, we applied it to a real-world case of credit rating in Korea. Our application is in bond rating, which is the most frequently studied area of credit rating for specific debt issues or other financial obligations. The experimental dataset was collected from a large credit rating company in South Korea. It contained 39 financial ratios of 1,295 companies in the manufacturing industry, and their credit ratings. Using various statistical methods including the one-way ANOVA and the stepwise MDA, we selected 14 financial ratios as the candidate independent variables. The dependent variable, i.e. credit rating, was labeled as four classes: 1(A1); 2(A2); 3(A3); 4(B and C). 80 percent of total data for each class was used for training, and remaining 20 percent was used for validation. And, to overcome small sample size, we applied five-fold cross validation to our dataset. In order to examine the competitiveness of the proposed model, we also experimented several comparative models including MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, ANN and MSVM. In case of MSVM, we adopted One-Against-One (OAO) and DAGSVM (Directed Acyclic Graph SVM) approaches because they are known to be the most accurate approaches among various MSVM approaches. GAMSVM was implemented using LIBSVM-an open-source software, and Evolver 5.5-a commercial software enables GA. Other comparative models were experimented using various statistical and AI packages such as SPSS for Windows, Neuroshell, and Microsoft Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Experimental results showed that the proposed model-GAMSVM-outperformed all the competitive models. In addition, the model was found to use less independent variables, but to show higher accuracy. In our experiments, five variables such as X7 (total debt), X9 (sales per employee), X13 (years after founded), X15 (accumulated earning to total asset), and X39 (the index related to the cash flows from operating activity) were found to be the most important factors in predicting the corporate credit ratings. However, the values of the finally selected kernel parameters were found to be almost same among the data subsets. To examine whether the predictive performance of GAMSVM was significantly greater than those of other models, we used the McNemar test. As a result, we found that GAMSVM was better than MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, and ANN at the 1% significance level, and better than OAO and DAGSVM at the 5% significance level.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.95-115
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• 2011

Food service is the major part of franchise business in Korea, accounting for 69.9% of the brands in the market. As the food service industry becomes mature, many franchisees have struggled to survive in the market. In general, consumers have higher levels of expectation toward service quality of franchised outlets compared that of (non-franchised) independent ones. They also tend to believe that franchisees deliver standardized service at the uniform food price, regardless of their locations. Such beliefs seem to be important reasons that consumers prefer franchised outlets to independent ones. Nevertheless, few studies examined the impact of qualify features of franchisees on customer satisfaction so far. To this end, this study examined the characteristics of various quality features of franchisees in the food service industry, regarding their relationship with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The quality perception of heavy-users was also compared with that of light-users in order to find insights for developing differentiated marketing strategy for the two segments. Customer satisfaction has been understood as a one-dimensional construct while there are recent studies that insist two-dimensional nature of the construct. In this regard, Kano et al. (1984) suggested to categorize quality features of a product or service into five types, based on their relation to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Must-be quality, Attractive quality, One-dimensional quality, Indifferent quality, and Reverse quality. According to the Kano model, customers are more dissatisfied when Must-be quality(M) are not fulfilled, but their satisfaction does not arise above neutral no matter how fully the quality fulfilled. In comparison, customers are more satisfied with a full provision of Attactive quality(A) but manage to accept its dysfunction. One-dimensional quality(O) results in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. For Indifferent quality(I), its presence or absence influences neither customer satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Lastly, Reverse quality(R) refers to the features whose high degree of achievement results in customer dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction. Meanwhile, the basic guidelines of the Kano model have a limitation in that the quality type of each feature is simply determined by calculating the mode statistics. In order to overcome such limitation, the relative importance of each feature on customer satisfaction (Better value; b) and dissatisfaction (Worse value; w) were calculated following the formulas below (Timko, 1993). The Better value indicates how much customer satisfaction is increased by providing the quality feature in question. In contrast, the Worse value indicates how much customer dissatisfaction is decreased by providing the quality feature. Better = (A + O)/(A+O+M+I) Worse = (O+M)/(A+O+M+I)(-1) An on-line survey was performed in order to understand the nature of quality features of franchisees in the food service industry by applying the Kano Model. A total of twenty quality features (refer to the Table 2) were identified as the result of literature review in franchise business and a pre-test with fifty college students in Seoul. The potential respondents of our main survey was limited to the customers who have visited more than two restaurants/stores of the same franchise brand. Survey invitation e-mails were sent out to the panels of a market research company and a total of 257 responses were used for analysis. Following the guidelines of Kano model, each of the twenty quality features was classified into one of the five types based on customers' responses to a set of questions: "(1) how do you feel if the following quality feature is fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit," and "(2) how do you feel if the following quality feature is not fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit." The analyses revealed that customers' dissatisfaction with franchisees is commonly associated with the poor level of cleanliness of the store (w=-0.872), kindness of the staffs(w=-0.890), conveniences such as parking lot and restroom(w=-0.669), and expertise of the staffs(w=-0.492). Such quality features were categorized as Must-be quality in this study. While standardization or uniformity across franchisees has been emphasized in franchise business, this study found that consumers are interested only in uniformity of price across franchisees(w=-0.608), but not interested in standardizations of menu items, interior designs, customer service procedures, and food tastes. Customers appeared to be more satisfied when the franchise brand has promotional events such as giveaways(b=0.767), good accessibility(b=0.699), customer loyalty programs(b=0.659), award winning history(b=0.641), and outlets in the overseas market(b=0.506). The results are summarized in a matrix form in Table 1. Better(b) and Worse(w) index indicate relative importance of each quality feature on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Meanwhile, there were differences in perceiving the quality features between light users and heavy users of any specific franchise brand in the food service industry. Expertise of the staffs was labeled as Must-be quality for heavy users but Indifferent quality for light users. Light users seemed indifferent to overseas expansion of the brand and offering new menu items on a regular basis, while heavy users appeared to perceive them as Attractive quality. Such difference may come from their different levels of involvement when they eat out. The results are shown in Table 2. The findings of this study help practitioners understand the quality features they need to focus on to strengthen the competitive power in the food service market. Above all, removing the factors that cause customer dissatisfaction seems to be the most critical for franchisees. To retain loyal customers of the franchise brand, it is also recommended for franchisor to invest resources in the development of new menu items as well as training programs for the staffs. Lastly, if resources allow, promotional events, loyalty programs, overseas expansion, award-winning history can be considered as tools for attracting more customers to the business.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.557-566
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• 2009

Purpose : To evaluate the clinical features and characteristics of childhood periodic syndromes (CPS) in Korea using the new criteria of the International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD)-II. Methods : The study was conducted at pediatric neurology clinics of five urban tertiary-care medical centers in Korea from January 2006 to December 2007. Patients (44 consecutive children and adolescents) were divided into three groups (cyclic vomiting syndrome [CVS], abdominal migraine [AM], and benign paroxysmal vertigo of childhood [BPVC]) by recurrent paroxysmal episodes of vomiting, abdominal pain, dizziness, and/or vertigo using the ICHD-II criteria and their characteristics were compared. Results : Totally, 16 boys (36.4%) and 28 girls (63.6%) were examined (aged 4-18 yr), with 20 CVS (45.5%), 8 AM (18.2%), and 16 BPVC (36.4%) patients. The mean age at symptom onset was $6.3{\pm}3.6$ yr, $8.5{\pm}2.7$ yr, and $8.5{\pm}2.9$ yr in the CVS, AM, and BPVC groups, respectively, showing that symptoms appeared earliest in the CVS group. The mean age at diagnosis was $8.0{\pm}3.4$ yr, $10.5{\pm}2.6$ yr, and $10.1{\pm}3.2$ yr the CVS, AM, and BPVC groups, respectively. Of the 44 patients, 17 (38.6%) had a history of recurrent headaches and 11 (25.0%) showed typical symptoms of migraine headache, with 5 CVS (25.0%), 2 AM (25.0%), and 4 BPVC (25.0%) patients. Family history of migraine was found in 9 patients (20.4%): 4 in the CVS group (20.0%), 2 in the AM group (25.0%), and 3 in the BPVC group (18.8%). Conclusion : The significant time lag between the age at symptom onset and final diagnosis possibly indicates poor knowledge of CPS among pediatric practitioners, especially in Korea. A high index of suspicion may be the first step toward caring for these patients. Furthermore, a population-based longitudinal study is necessary to determine the incidence and natural course of these syndromes.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.355-365
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• 2011

This study investigated how dietary fat affects muscle atrophy and lipid metabolism in various muscles during hindlimb immobilization in rats. Twenty-four male Sprague?Dawley rats had their left hindlimb immobilized and were divided into four groups by dietary fat content and composition. The contralateral hindlimb (control) was compared with the immobilized limb in all dietary groups. Rats (n = 6/group) were fed a 4% corn oil diet (CO), 2.6% corn oil + 1.4% fish oil diet (FO), 30% corn oil diet (HCO), or a 30% beef tallow diet (HBT)after their hind limbs were immobilized for 10 days. Data were collected for the gastrocnemius, plantaris and soleus muscles. Muscle atrophy was induced significantly after 10 days of hindlimb immobilization, resulting in significantly decreased muscle mass and total muscle protein content. The protein levels of peroxisome proliferator activated receptor ${\delta}$ (PPAR${\delta}$) in the plantaris, gastrocnemius, and soleus increased following hindlimb immobilization irrespective of dietary fat intake. Interestingly, the PPAR${\delta}$ mRNA level in the plantaris decreased significantly in all groups and that in the FO group was lower than that in the other groups. The soleus PPAR${\delta}$ mRNA level decreased significantly following hindlimb immobilization in the FO group only. Muscle carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1 (mCPT1) mRNA level was not affected by hindlimb immobilization. However, the mCPT1 mRNA level in the FO group was significantly lower in the plantaris but higher in the soleus than that in the other groups. The pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 (PDK4) mRNA level in the plantaris decreased significantly, whereas that in the soleus increased significantly following hindlimb immobilization. The plantaris, but not soleus, PDK4 mRNA level was significantly higher in the FO group than that in the CO group. The increased PPAR${\delta}$ protein level following hindlimb immobilization may have suppressed triglyceride accumulation in muscles and different types of dietary fat may have differentially affected muscle atrophy according to muscle type. Our results suggest that ${\omega}$-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids may suppress muscle atrophy and lipid accumulation by positively affecting the expression level and activity of PPAR${\delta}$ and PPAR${\delta}$-related enzymes, which are supposed to play an important role in muscle lipid metabolism.