• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.51-60
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• 2000

Background and Objectives : Quality of life(QOL) is a construct representing physical, mental and social well-being. QOL has been used as a device for measuring the severity of health-related condition and treatment outcomes. As the social welfare system develops, the attention to QOL increases as well. The aims of this study was to examine whether the patients with voice disorder perceived significantly more the effects of voice disorder on QOL than nonpatient group did and if any, identify the sociodemographic risk factors influencing QOL of patients. Materials and Methods : This study asked 113 adults with voice disorders who were enrolled in Voice Clinic in the Department of Otolaryngology, Kangbuk Samsung Hospital between lune 1998 and January 1999 and 111 nonpatients to complete a questionnaire designed to elicit information about the effete of voice disorders on quality of lift. The questionnaire included items concerning sociodemographic areas, voice symptoms, job, effects of voice disorders on QOL domains(work, social, psychological, physical, and communication areas), potential risk factors to exposures, familial and medical history of voice disorders. Results : The sociodemographic characteristics of the patient group are as follows : (1) 75.2% of total patient group were female and the rest were male. (2) Age of total patient group ranged from 20 to 65 years. Hoarseness was the most commonly reported complaints, followed by complaints of high note difficulties during singing and voice fatigue. The patient group perceived effects of voice disorders on the areas of work, social, psychological, physical and communication more adversely than the comparison group did (p＜0.05). QOL impairments were evaluated as a function of age, gender, education, and income, controlling other independent effects. The results were that (1) age was significantly associated with work problems and (2) gender and income were significantly associated with psychological problems. Conclusions : The findings indicated that the patients with voice disorders would perceive markedly adverse effect on all QOL domains, that is, work, social, psychological, physical, communicational areas. Therefore, the results of study suggest that lurker investigations about the nature of voice disorders, the prevention, treatment, and coping strategies are needed in the future.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.203-209
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• 2014

Background: Coal mining is of significant economic importance to the Australian economy. Despite this fact, the related workforce is subjected to a number of psychosocial risks and musculoskeletal injury, and various psychological disorders are common among this population group. Because only limited research has been conducted in this population group, we sought to examine the relationship between physical (pain) and psychological (distress) factors, as well as the effects of various demographic, lifestyle, and fatigue indicators on this relationship. Methods: Coal miners (N = 231) participated in a survey of musculoskeletal pain and distress on-site during their work shifts. Participants also provided demographic information (job type, age, experience in the industry, and body mass index) and responded to questions about exercise and sleep quality (on-and off-shift) as well as physical and mental tiredness after work. Results: A total of 177 workers (80.5%) reported experiencing pain in at least one region of their body. The majority of the sample population (61.9%) was classified as having low-level distress, 28.4% had scores indicating mild to moderate distress, and 9.6% had scores indicating high levels of distress. Both number of pain regions and job type (being an operator) significantly predicted distress. Higher distress score was also associated with greater absenteeism in workers who reported lower back pain. In addition, perceived sleep quality during work periods partially mediated the relationship between pain and distress. Conclusion: The study findings support the existence of widespread musculoskeletal pain among the coal-mining workforce, and this pain is associated with increased psychological distress. Operators (truck drivers) and workers reporting poor sleep quality during work periods are most likely to report increased distress, which highlights the importance of supporting the mining workforce for sustained productivity.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.572-579
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• 2019

Background: Panax ginseng has been used in traditional medicine to strengthen the body and mental well-being of humans for thousands of years. Many elite ginseng cultivars have been developed, and ginseng cultivation has become well established during the last century. However, heat stress poses an important threat to the growth and sustainable production of ginseng. Efforts have been made to study the effects of high temperature on ginseng physiology, but knowledge of the molecular responses to heat stress is still limited. Methods: We sequenced the transcriptomes (RNA-Seq) of two ginseng cultivars, Chunpoong (CP) and Yunpoong (YP), which are sensitive and resistant to heat stress, respectively, after 1- and 3-week heat treatments. Differential gene expression and gene ontology enrichment along with profiled chlorophyll contents were performed. Results: CP is more sensitive to heat stress than YP and exhibited a lower chlorophyll content than YP. Moreover, heat stress reduced the chlorophyll content more rapidly in CP than in YP. A total of 329 heat-responsive genes were identified. Intriguingly, genes encoding chlorophyll a/b-binding proteins, WRKY transcription factors, and fatty acid desaturase were predominantly responsive during heat stress and appeared to regulate photosynthesis. In addition, a genome-wide scan of photosynthetic and sugar metabolic genes revealed reduced transcription levels for ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase under heat stress, especially in CP, possibly attributable to elevated levels of soluble sugars. Conclusion: Our comprehensive genomic analysis reveals candidate loci/gene targets for breeding and functional studies related to developing high temperature-tolerant ginseng varieties.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.96-101
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• 2021

Background: Many studies have reported noticeable increases in the proportion of employees working either relatively short or relatively long hours. Such trends have been accompanied by an increasing concern regarding work hour mismatches defined as a discrepancy between actual and preferred work hours. The aim of this study was to investigate association between work hour mismatch and depression. Methods: Data regarding work hour mismatches for 47,551 adults were extracted from the 2017 Korean Working Conditions Survey. The World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index was used to measure depression. Multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the association between work hour mismatch and depression. Results: Men and women workers with work hour mismatch were more likely to have depression [underemployed males: odds ratio (OR) = 1.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.14-1.49, overemployed males: OR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.18-1.40; underemployed females: OR = 1.37, 95% CI = 1.20-1.56, overemployed females: OR = 1.12, 95% CI = 1.02-1.23]. Underemployed workers, workers who worked more than 52 hours per week, and workers with a high income level, all had higher ORs for depression. The greater the discrepancy between actual and preferred work hours, the higher OR for depression among both underemployed and overemployed workers. Conclusions: A difference between actual and preferred work hours was associated with depression. Underemployed workers had a higher risk of depression than that of overemployed workers. As a work hour mismatch negatively affected workers' mental health, it is important to reduce work hours mismatches as well as shorten the absolute number of work hours.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.933-942
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• 1997

There has recently been an increased interest in women's health from, various disciplines, with different perspectives presented according to each profession's academic background. This has led to many instances of incorrectly defining, or misinterpretation, of the issues even among professionals. Nurse scholars as well as practitioners who work in women's health care need to have a clear conceptual understanding of women's health in order to build a body of knowledge, delineate curricular activities, and set directions for professional nursing interventions. In addition, a conceptual model that may be directly utilized in practice is needed to maintain and promote women's health issues. The purpose of this study was to apply a Hybrid model, analyzing conceptual definitions and discussions related to women's health gathered from review of the literature. Further to compare analyticals the concepts and properties observed from field work, so as to present a final definition of women's health and, build a conceptual framework for a united comprehensive perspective on the concept as well as on nursing practice. Data collection and analysis consisted of a theoretical stage, field work stage, and final analysis. A heterogeneous group of professionals and lay persons, 39 in all, participated in the field work. Study findings Include several subconcepts under the concept of women's health : a woman's whole life, holistic health, quality of life, awareness of being a woman, individual nursing, self care ability, reproductive health, and family health. Thus, a comprehensive definition was built, 1. e., "Women's health care be defined as improvement in the quality of life of women through attainment of holistic health throughout the life span. With reproductive health at the core, the concept is directly related to family and national health, and includes taking care of one's own health based on awareness of being a woman and utilizing self care activities. Women's health care issues are unique and allow various responses, therefore women's health professionals need to apply individual approaches to reach solutions in attaining holistic health and improving quality of life." The constructual factors of women's health were found to be reproductive functions, diseases more common in woman, self actualization, mental health, women's health policies, sexuality, midlife changes, and marital relations, with each factor having more than three properties. Positive factors affecting women's health were found to be a normal childbearing process, a healthy lifestyle, active health management, health information, support, and resources, and interpersonal relationships. Negative factors were found to be overwhelming role stress, cultural oppression, gender inequality, distorted sexual identity, economic difficulties, misuse and/or abuse of substances, and stress. The model of women's health may be visualized as a balance scale set upon a woman's life, supporting 4 concentric circles. The innermost circle and second circle incorporate conceptual definitions of women's health, and the outer two circles represent the constructional factors and properties of women's health. Each circle has its own color that symbolizes the conceptual meaning. Positive and negative factors are represented as weights at either end of the scale, and are affected by nursing intervention, i. e., health and wellness increase when positive factors are stronger, whereas disease and illness increase when negative factors are stronger. This model is only a preliminary effort and requires much discussion and testing to be further developed. Continuous research is also required.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.19-33
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• 2002

In the middle of economic and mental riches in the 21st century, the importance of well being and the pursuit of happiness are emerging as the new trend. Thus the lifestyle that values comfortable and practical naturalness and intrinsic merits has come to influence the human life rather than the old showing-off and formal desire. In addition to this, the spread of the five day week has given more leisure time, which has led to the increasing interest in health and leisure. The interest in sports has skyrocketed since the successful holding of the 2002 Korea and Japan World Cup event. All these changes to the lifestyle have contributed to the fusion of luxury wear and sports wear. As the result of the consumers in the 21st century having more classified and upgraded way of living thanks to the settlement of the above-mentioned lifestyle and the enlargement of the leisure sports culture, there has appeared the wellness kin, who value the importance of life and the nature and believe in the idea that they can reconstruct the environment in the way they can enjoy their lifestyle and pursue happiness. They favor healthy fashion items and think much of exercise, nutrition, and rest. They pursue the natural and comfortable style, whose ideas came from simple exercises such as health training and yoga and the easy and comfortable look observed at resorts. Their fashion style can be divided into three of fitness fashion, yoga fashion and resort fashion. First, the boxer fashion is characterized by the relaxing design and practicality. The major items of the fashion include running shirt-styled upper clothes, training pants, hooded shirts and sneakers. Simple and comfortable look should be induced from the combination of the items. Second, the yoga fashion was motivated by the comfortable yoga wear. It advocates stress-free spirit and comfortable and stable naturalism. Along with the advantages of the good feeling to wear and the functionality to help exercise better, the yoga fashion gives the wearer enough room to move around in, using the unique lines. Third, the resort wear refers to the kinds of clothes you tend to wear at the beach and the park. There are various kinds of the resort look; bathing suits, the beach wear you can wear with the bathing suit, the resort evening wear, the full-side look that you try on top of the bathing suit and is made of the same material of the bathing suit, and the marine look, the symbol of the summer. In short, the study attempted to investigate many trends occurring as the result of human recent increasing interest and concern in the quality of life, and the impacts of them on the fashion world. This kind of research that examines the background of the times and society will help to grasp with the fashion trends of the present and the future. And more studies should be conducted on the development of new and original design in clothes fashion, which reflects the characteristics identified in this kind of research.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1732-1741
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• 2006

Obesity is chronic disease which influenced on health severly. The causes of obesity have been known as life change, lack of excercise, genetic factor, mental and social economic factors. Especially the obesity of women increased the risk of the diseases such as DM, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and infertility. The limitations of the widely used negative definition of health as the absence of disease and WHO's 1946 definition of health as total social, psychological and physical well-being have long been recognized (WHO 1958). The Quality of Life (QoL) includes functional ability, the degree and quality of social and community interaction, psychological well-being as somatic sensation and life satisfaction. I investigated to compare the differences between obese women (n=63), non-obese women (n=37) in clinic and general women (n=43, control) on baseline characteristics and WHO QoL-BREF. The purpose of this study is to assist the diagnosis and treatment of obesity. WHO QoL-BREF is self administered type which consisted of 26 questions. The prospective question is calculated with 5 scores by Likert's method. The results are as follows : The means of physical, psychological, social, overall and total scores of QoL were significant among BMI group (P<0.05). The score of control group (BMI < 25) was higher than other groups significantly (P<0.05). In multiple regression analysis, the variable of high school/below middle school was significant in environmental and overall domain of QoL scores (P<0.05). The variable of college/below middle school was significant in environmental, overall domain and total score of QoL scores (P<0.05). The variable of above university/below middle school was significant in physical health, environmental, overall domain and total score in QoL scores (P<0.05). The variable of Health perception (moderate/bad) was positively significant in physical health, environmental, overall domain and total score of QoL scores (P<0.05). The variable of Health perception (good/bed) was positively significant in physical health, environmental, social, overall domain and total score of QoL scores (P<0.05). The variable as BMI non-=obese women/control was negatively significant in social domain of QoL scores (P<0.05). Above the results, It suggests that the variable as BMI did't affect on the QoL in patients and control, but the variables as education and health perception affected on the QoL scores. Further study is required to conduct QoL differences between before and after treatment of obese patients.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.427-440
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• 2018

This study was a descriptive correlation investigation that assessed the caring burden of caregivers who care for dementia and examined the effects of the burden on the somatic symptoms and health perception. The subjects were 174 caregivers and data collection was conducted from April 1 to 30, 2018. The data were analyzed t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis. A Scheffe test was used for post-analysis. The caring burden and somatic symptoms were found to be mid-high and moderate, respectively. The health was perceived to be not good, and the subjective awareness of well-being appeared to be low. The caring burden showed a positive correlation with the somatic symptoms(r=.157, p<.05), and the somatic symptoms showed a positive correlation with the perceived health(r=.220, p<.01). As a result of the study, caregiving burden of caregivers showed the factors influencing their physical and mental health status, it is suggested to carry out research to find out whether there is a difference in burden of care according to the working place of caregiver. In addition, it is necessary to develop a tool to measure the burden of caregivers and to carry out repeated research.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.35-48
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• 2009

Purpose: Firefighters were subjected to be exposed to 24-hour shiftwork and high level of job stress, but there is little study of fire fighters about between Job Stress and Psychological stress in Korea. This study was performed to evaluate job stress of fire fighters grouped by different job types and analyze the health effect of job stress by using a PWI-SF(Psycho-social Well-being Index, Short Form). Methods : This study was to measure the degree of job stress and socio-psychological stress of firefighters working at 119 safety center and analyze the relationship between job stress and mental health, through self-administered questionnaire survey on 918 fire fighters working at fire department located in Korea, during October in 2008. Question items of the questionnaire consist of general characteristics, job stress, and socio-psychological stress. Job Stress Measurement Scale for Koreans was used to measure job stress, while PWI-SF used for socio-psychological stress. Collected data was analyzed through frequency analysis, ${\chi}^2$ test, one-way ANOVA, correlation analysis, multi-regression analysis using a statistic program, SPSS/10.0 Ver for Windows, and statistical significance level was 0.05. Result : Accordingly, this paper is written for the purpose of scrutinizing the reason of 119 rescuers' job stress and Socio-Psychological stress. This thesis tries to analyze a problem and provide contents through many variables concerned and theoretical investigation with the actual research of questionnaire. The results of the study are summarized as follows : Fire fighters feel relatively high stressful in their performance. Job stress, organizational commitment and burnout did not have been influence upon by individual cases such as economic condition, regular exercise etc. Finally, as a result of step by step regression analysis, the variable that can explain Socio-Psychological stress the best was negative emotion scale(NE). Conclusions : It is necessary to conduct repeated studies in the future, since the study implied that there was a contrary relationship between job stress and socio-psychological stress. In order to reduce job stress and maintain better mental health, it is more important than anything else to help firefighters have willingness and efforts to sustain a healthy life, so the development of various programs and education to raise their awareness should be implemented.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.165-172
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of Genibo program robot-based learning(R-Learning) on a pre-schooler's mental state. To achieve above study purpose, the subject of this study was selected 46(teacher 2, five years old pre-schooler 44) from pre-school childrens in Kyongki Y city(R-Learning activity participants group 21: boys 10, girls 11. non-participants 25: boys 13, girls 12). R-Learning program is consist of 5 field about 20 contents using Genibo robot, were applied to the experimental group and the pre-post test was conducted using the EQ assessment tool and observations. The data were analyzed by t-test using the SPSS(ver 18.0) program. The results were as follows: First, the exposure of robots to pre-schoolers in practical situation has shown positive influence to the children's emotional well-being. Positive improvements were observed in the four sub categories of the EQ assessment after exposure. Second, the Genibo used for this study, is a biomimetic AI based robot mimicking the behavior of a pet dog. This is related more or less to the specifications of a pre-school education where animals are used as a 'friendly medium' to facilitate the learning process. Third, the robot exposure gave benefit to all the ones in the sample, regardless of sex. Furthermore, It is suggested that promising potential for robots to be utilized as a new educational media plus facilitator, R-Learning is related more or less to the specifications of a pre-school education where animals are used as a 'friendly medium' to facilitate the learning process, and when applying them for education, stereotyping the likes of sex is overrated - instead, the focus should be more on the pre-schoolers' / childrens' individual traits, learning curve differences and alike.