• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.329-335
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• 2004

Background : The Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score can help to assess organ failure over time and is useful to evaluate morbidity. The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of SOFA score as a descriptor of multiple organ failure in critically ill patients in a local unit hospital, and to compare with APACHE III scoring system. Methods : This study was carried out prospectively. A total of ninety one patients were included who admitted to the medical intensive care unit (ICU) in Chuncheon Sacred Heart Hospital from May 1 through June 30, 2000. We excluded patients with a length of stay in the ICU less than 2 days following scheduled procedure, admissions for ECG monitoring, other department and patients transferred to other hospital. The SOFA score and APACHE III score were calculated on admission and then consecutively every 24 hours until ICU discharge. Results : The ICU mortality rate was 20%. The non-survivors had a higher SOFA score within 24 hours after admission. The number of organ failure was associated with increased mortality. The evaluation of a subgroup of 74 patients who stayed in the ICU for at least 48 hours showed that survivors and non-survivors followed a different course. In this subgroup, the total SOFA score increased in 81% of the non-survivors but in only 21% of the survivors. Conversely, the total SOFA score decreased in 48% of the survivors compared with 6% of the non-survivors. The non-survivors also had a higher APACHE III score within 24 hours and there was a correlation between SOFA score and APACHE III score. Conclusion : The SOFA score is a simple, but effective method to assess organ failure and to predict mortality in critically ill patients. Regular and repeated scoring enables patient's condition and clinical course to be monitored and better understood. The SOFA score well correlates with APACHE III score.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.709-728
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• 1995

The job related activities of sixty nine nurses, working in the emergency rooms of three university hospitals, were analyzed for six days according to preestablished checklist of nursing activities ; the frequency of these activities and the amount of time spent in each specific nursing activity. The established checklist was monitored every five minutes for the duration of the duty autu, thus producing 414 items of data. The data were not gathered on consecutive days but over the period of one month from May 6, 1994 to June 5, 1994. The following conclusions are derived from analysis of the data : 1. Twelve categories of nursing activities were obtained : The primary activity was communication related to the patient and all information pertaining to the patient. Other activities included maintaining the patient's record, observation and assessment of the patient, cooperation with other medical personnel, management of equipment and drugs, procedure and treatment, specimen collection, consultation and education for the patient, including drug management and personal hygiene and any other relevant education to the patient's condition. 2. The average frequency of categorized nursing activity can be classified as follows : communication related to patient was the highest at 17.6 times. The next was maintaining the patient's record at 17.3 times. The observation and assessment occurred 16.9 times. Consultation and education for patients and family, 8 times, medication, 5.7 times, and procedures and treatments, 6 times. 3. The average time required for each activity was as follows : 230.1 minutes (or maintaining the patient's record, 204.9 minutes for communication related to the patient, 199.2 minutes for observation and assessment, 71.2 minutes for medication, 66 minutes for consultation and education of the patient and family, and 51.8 minutes for procedures and treatment. 4. The most demanding nursing activity in the emergency room for the nurse was answering questions from the patient's family, maintaining communication between the medical staff, maintaining and reviewing the patient's charts, writing prescriptions and monitoring 1. V. infusion rates. 5. The most time consuming nursing activities for the emergency room nurse include maintaining and following the patient's charts, communication between the medical staff, answering questions from the patient's family, observation of the patient and relaying all of the appropriate patient information to the incoming nurses during a shift change. 6. The F-test was administered to measure the required time for the categorized nursing activities according to day, evening, and night-shift nurses. There were significant differences (p<.05) in specimen collection, observation and assessment, cooperation between medical staffs, personal hygiene, communication related to patient, education and re-search. Posterior multiple comparison test showed that specimen collection, cooperation between medical staffs and personal hygiene were mostly done by the evening-shift nurses. Also most observations and assessments were done by the night-shift nurses. Education and communication to patients were done by day-shift nurses. Thus there were significant difference between shifts for the main nursing activities. So there should considev a reallocation of the duty of nurses on each shift. 7. The F-test also indicated that there wes a similarity in time duration for procedures and treatments and for cooperation between medical staff and nurses in all three hospitals. However, the remaining categories of nursing activities also showed a significant difference between the three hospitals. This indicated that there were differences in each emergency room that influence time for each categorized nursing activities and this should be given more consideration. Recommendations : 1. A seasonal difference should be considered in the activities of nurses in the emergency room and a comparative analysis should be carried out to deter-mine seasonal differentiation. 2. A study on more objectively measurable nursing activities should be administered as well as one determining the subjective responds towards nursing activities in the emergency room.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.26-37
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• 2015

Halophyte distribution pattern and area in the Suncheon-bay and Beolgyo estuary coastal wetlands were analyzed using KOMPSAT-2 landsat images were taken in 2008 and 2009, and field investigations were fulfilled for confirming the precise boundaries of individual halophyte areas. The salt-marsh vegetation in those areas can be classified mainly into two dominant communities: Suaeda japonica-dominant and Phragmites communis-dominant communities. In order to identify sedimentary characteristics, tidal-flat surface leveling and sedimentary facies analysis had been conducted. The sedimentary facies of marsh area are mostly silty clayey and clay facies with a little seasonal change and its slope is very gentle (0.0007~0.002 in gradient). Phragmites communis and Suaeda japonica communities were distributed in the mud-flat zone between 0.7 m and 1.8 m higher than MSL (mean sea level): zone of 1.1~1.8 m in the former and zone of 0.7~1.3 m in the latter. In the Suncheon-bay estuarine wetland, on the basis of 2009 distribution, Phragmites communis-dominant and Suaeda japonica-dominant communities are about $0.79km^2$ and $0.22km^2$ in distribution area, respectively. On the other hand, Bulgyo estuarine marsh shows that the distribution areas of Phragmites communis-dominant and Suaeda japonica-dominant communities are about $0.31km^2$ and 0.031km2 in distribution area, respectively. Individual 105 and 60 dominant community areas and their distribution patterns can be well defined and indicated in the Suncheon-bay and Bulgyo estuarine marshes, respectively. The distribution pattern and area of hylophyte communities analyzed in this study based on 2008/2009 satellite images would be valuable as a base of future monitoring of salt-marsh related studies in the study area which is the most important salt-marsh research site in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.187-203
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• 2009

This study monitored marine environments in system coastal waters of the South Sea of Korea during the period of 2005-2007 and analyzed the data from environmental parameters and nutrients, which contributed to fluctuate marine environmental characteristics in aquaculture. On the basis of the fluctuation of temperature depending on seasons and sampling sites, too seasons of winter and summer showed a remarkable temperature gap of $5^{\circ}C$ compared with spring and autumn. Salinity in spring and summer approached 9 psu in Morkpo. Most of sampling sites showed COD below 2mg/L, indicating somewhat optimal environmental conditions. T-N and T-P also had desirable horizontal distributions all year round the concentration of SS was higher, but Chi. a was well-distributed horizontally except for Morkpo. Marone environmental parameters of surface water were similar to those of bottome water except for Morkpo. Most of sampling sites showed the ratio of N/P below 16, impling that nitrogen played an important role in growth of phytoplankton as a limiting factor. The relationship between Chi. a and nutrients was positive linear, whereas the relationship between Chi. a and COD were very strong positive. winder, Spring and Summer showed the strong relationship between Chi. a and COD. In the analysis of dendogram based on environmental parameters using SPSS ver. 10.0, the station 7 did not belong to other stations, and kept an independent place. The relationships of waters between Jindo, Wando and Heanam ware close, compared with other waters. Consequently, these regions except for Morkpo into which fresh water is introduced by the dike showed somewhat optimal environmental parameters and nutrients in year, and were assumed to maintain the desirable marine conditions for aquaculture.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.144-155
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• 1997

In December 1990, Occupational Safety and Health Law was amended to reinforce employer's responsibilities on employees' health and safety. Among the amended law it was important to expand the role of an occupational health nurse to the role of an occupational health manager. An occupational health manager should take charge of coordinating periodic health examination and environmental hazard evaluation, providing primary care, monitoring employees' health status, giving the workplace walk-through, selecting safe protection equipment, providing health information, counseling and health education, independently. This position of occupational health nurse is equivalent to the role of doctors or occupational hygienists. In 1991, government made a master plan to prevent occupational disease and injury. Under the plan, Korea Industrial Nursing Association (KINA) was established in 1994 with the purpose of improving health services and upgrading career opportunities for members. Therefore, this study was designed to analyze the transition of occupational health nursing education with the changes of law and policy in Korea between 1991 and 1996. In details, it was to analyze the rate of school providing occupational health nursing practice based lecture, lecture hours, lecture contents in undergraduate curriculum, program contents of graduate school, kinds of continuing education, etc. For this purpose, we conducted survey two times. In February 1991, baseline study was conducted with all nursing programs in Korea (19 BSN programs and 43 nursing departments of junior college). From April to May in 1996, the second survey was conducted with all nursing programs (38 BSN programs and 69 junior colleges). The first response rate was 66.1% and the second was 40.6%. Structured questionnaires were mailed to the deans or the community health nursing faculties. In the case of graduate school, telephone survey was conducted with 10 school of public health or environmental health area. Data from the yearbook of Industrial Safety Training Institute (ISTI), the history of Korea Industrial Health Association, and the journals of KINA were also included in the analysis. As the results, we found that there were remarkable improvement in undergraduate and graduate programs, obligatory as well as voluntary continuing education in terms of occupational health nursing expertise between 1991 and 1996. 1) The number of school providing occupational health nursing practice-based lecture was increased with the rate from 7.3% to 25.6%. The rate of school giving over 15 class-hours was increased from 33.3% to 46.6%. 2) Content areas were composed of introduction of occupational health, occupational epidemiology, industrial hygiene, occupational disease and injury, law and policy, health education, concept of occupational health nursing, role of occupational health nurse, occupational health nursing process, etc. Of content areas, occupational health nursing process was more emphasized with the increased rate from 43.9% to 88.4%. 3) In the case of graduate school, occupational health programs were increased from 4 to 10. One of them has developed occupational health nursing program as an independent course since 1991. 4) The law increased educational hours from 28 hours to 36 hours for introductory course at the time of appointment, and from 14 hours to 24 hours every 2 years for continuing education. Course contents were Occupational safety and health law, introduction of occupational health, health education methodology, planning and evaluation, periodic health exam, occupational disease care, primary care, emergency care, management, industrial environment evaluation, etc. In 1996, Korea Industrial Nursing Association has begun to provide continuing education after Industrial Safety Training Institute. 5) Various educational programs in voluntary base were developed such as monthly seminar, CE articles, annual academic symposium, etc. It was shown that changes of law and policy led rapid growth of occupational health nursing education in various levels. From this trend, it is expected that occupational health nurse expertise be continuously to be enhanced in Korea. Legal and political supports should proceed for the development of occupational health nursing in early stage.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.444-452
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• 2012

We conducted a comprehensive monitoring for freshwater food web in a wetland system (Jangcheok Lake), from May to October, 2011. Monthly sampling for zooplankton, fish as well as organic matters, was implemented. In order to understand the food web structure and energy flow, we applied stable isotope analysis to the collected samples, based on ${\delta}^{13}C$ and ${\delta}^{15}N$ values of epiphytic particulate organic matter(EPOM) and particulate organic matter (POM), epiphytic and planktonic zooplankton, fish (Lepomis macrochirus). In the study site, epiphytic and planktonic zooplankton was 24 and 30 species, respectively, and coincidence species between epiphytic and planktonic zooplankton were 20 species. Epiphytic zooplankton were more abundant during the spring and early summer (May to July); however, planktonic zooplankton were more abundant during the autumn (September to October) season. Stable isotope analysis revealed that fish and epiphytic zooplankton had seasonal variations on their food sources. EPOM largely contributed epiphytic zooplankton in spring (May), but increasing contribution of POM in autumn (September) was detected. However, planktonic zooplankton depended on only POM in both seasons. Fish utilized both epiphytic and planktonic zooplankton, but small sized (1~3 cm), fish preferred epiphytic zooplankton, where as larger sized (4~7 cm) fish tended to consume planktonic zooplankton, and epiphytic zooplankton had important role in energy transfer. This pattern was clear when results of spring and autumn stable isotope analysis were compared. From the results of this study, we confirmed that wetlands ecosystem supported various epiphytic and planktonic zooplankton species, they depend on other food items, respectively. L. macrochirus also showed a difference of food source according to the body size, they depend on seasonal density change of zooplankton. In particular, epiphytic zooplankton was very important for growth and development of young fish in the spring.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.1039-1045
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• 2014

This study analyzed whether human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) induces ER stress via the IRE/XBP1 pathway in mouse Leydig tumor (mLTC-1) cells. In a previous study, we demonstrated that the unfolding protein response (UPR) plays an important role in the expression of steroidogenic enzymes by modulating the ATF6 pathway, as well as ER stress-mediated apoptosis in hCG-stimulated Leydig cells. Although UPR signaling has been reported to regulate the IRE1/XBP1 pathway, it is not known whether hCG-induced ER stress in Leydig cells can activate the pathway. To investigate the activation of the IRE1/XBP1 pathway in mLTC-1 cells after hCG treatment, we performed a Western blot analysis to detect the phospho-IRE1 protein and an RT-PCR analysis to validate splicing of XBP1 mRNA. We used ER stress-activated indicator (ERAI) constructs for monitoring the activity of IRE1 and then analyzed by fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. The expression levels of the phospho-IRE1 protein markedly increased in response to the hCG treatment. In the mLTC-1 cells transfected with an F-XBP1-venus/F-$XBP1{\Delta}DBD$-venus construct, the hCG treatment led to the appearance of green fluorescent cells and detectable fluorescence in the nucleus and cytosol, respectively. In addition, splicing of XBP1 mRNA significantly increased after the hCG treatment. Taken together, these results indicate that hCG-induced ER stress leads to activation of the IRE1/XBP pathway in Leydig cells.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.280-294
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• 2001

Despite to the reality that the outbreaks from flood poisoning in Korea have been continuously increasing in the last two decades, it was very much neglected even in the public health field in Korea. Food poisoning outbreaks resulted in many cases not only in the damage of health but also in the death of many lives. However, this problem can be effectively solved by effects through health education activities, but not solely by the legal measures. This study was carried out to provide information that can be used in planning health education programs and proposing new rules to prevent any possible outbreaks from flood poisoning. The main problems contributing to flood poisoning outbreaks in an institutional setting or school catering and at home were reviewed and analyzed through the epidemiological investigations and articles related to flood poisoning in the last a decade (1991 ∼ 2000). Accordingly, the data presented in this study are sufficient to show and prove the significant trends in food poisoning accidents in Korea. The major findings investigated in this study are as follows. The frequency of food poisoning accidents as well as the number of victims have continuously increased in Korea. The number of victims per food poisoning accident is also increased from 20 persons in 1990 to 69.8 persons in 2000. Therefore, we should realize that the group poisoning outbreaks occur more frequently and the size of group poisoning accidents is getting larger. Among four seasons, the food poisoning accidents occurred more frequently in the summer (May ∼September) until 1997, However, after 1997, the food poisoning accidents occurred evenly in three seasons except the winter. The most important bacteria that cause food poisoning in Korea were Salmonella spp., Vibrio spp. and Staphylococcus aureus. They occupied 85∼90% of the rates of accidents and the number of victims.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.285-294
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• 2003

To select an appropriate sampler for the environmental monitoring survey in coastal waters of Saemangeum, Jeollabuk-do, a macrobenthic sampling was conducted in April 2002. Employed samplers were dredge (type Charcot), a semi-quantitative sampler and Smith-McIntyre (SM) and van Veen grab (VV) as quantitative ones. One haul was tried for dredge and 3 replicates (0.1 ㎡${\times}$3) for SM and W at each of 11 stations. Comparisons of sediment volume in sampler bucket and of precision of biological parameters (i.e., density, biomass, species number and diversity index, H') were made between SM and VV. Sediment volume was significantly different (SM > VV) at p-value of 0.0050 (paired t-test) and, in average, 3 replicate samples of SM and VV satisfied a precision level of 0.2 by applying 4th root transformation. Patterns of observed and expected species numbers and H' were compared. Dredge-VV samples showed higher affinity than any other pair. Several dominant species in the area were underestimated in dredge samples (e.g., polychaete Heteromastus filiformis. Aricidea assimilis etc.). Quantifying the agreement pattern of multi-species responses was accomplished by estimating correlations between similarity matrices. Correlation between dredge and VV was slightly higher, but near-per-fect matches were found in general. Different ranks and composition among principal species lists were presumably linked to the effect of penetration depth that differs among samplers. Lower level of some species' abundance in VV samples (ca. 50％ compared with those of SM) was explained in this context. It seem appropriate to regard the effect as a probable cause of relatively higher correlations in dredge-VV, Overall bio-logica1 features indicated that a better choice could be SM in situations of requiring high data quality. The others work well, however, on observing and defining faunal characteristics and their capability cannot be questionted if we do not expect a first-order quality.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.123-131
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• 2009

Purpose: We tested a sample of nuclear medicine workers at Korean healthcare institutions for internal contamination with radioactive isotopes, measuring concentrations and evaluating doses of individual exposure. Materials and Methods: The detection and measurement was performed on urine samples collected from 25 nuclear medicine workers at three large hospitals located in Seoul. Urine samples were collected once a week, 100~200 mL samples were gathered up to 6~10 times weekly. A high-purity germanium detector was used to measure gamma radiations in urine samples for the presence of radioactive isotopes. Based on the detection results, we estimated the amounts of intake and committed effective doses using IMBA software. In cases where committed effective doses could not be adequately evaluated with IMBA software, we estimated individual committed effective doses for radionuclides with a very short half life such as $^{99m}Tc$ and $^{123}I$, using the methods recommended by International Atomic Energy Agency. Results: Radionuclides detected through the analysis of urine samples included $^{99m}Tc$, $^{123}I$, $^{131}I$ and $^{201}Tl$, as well as $^{18}F$, a nuclide used in Positron Emission Tomography examinations. The committed effective doses, calculated based on the radionuclide concentrations in urine samples, ranged from 0 to 5 mSv, but were, in the majority of cases, less than 1 mSv. The committed effective dose exceeded 1 mSv in three of the samples, and all three were workers directly handling radioactive sources. No nurses were found to have a committed effective dose in excess of 1 mSv. Conclusions: To improve the accuracy of results, it may be necessary to conduct a long-term study, performed over a time span wide enough to allow the clear determination of the influence of seasonal factors. A larger sample should also help increase the reliability of results. However, as most Korean nuclear medicine workers are currently not necessary to monitored routinely for internal contamination with radionuclides. Notwithstanding, a continuous effort is recommended to reduce any unnecessary exposure to radioactive substances, even if in inconsequential amounts, by regularly surveying workplace environments and frequently monitoring atmospheric concentrations of radionuclides.