• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.65-73
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• 2021

This study aimed to provide the basic data for the development of a simulation training program for new infectious diseases by analyzing the knowledge and educational needs of 119 paramedics regarding COVID-19 infection control. Data was obtained through a structured questionnaire survey of 186 paramedics from November 15th to 30th 2020. The study showed that 98 of the 119 paramedic subjects (52.7%) had not been educated regarding COVID-19. The knowledge level was 18.21±1.98 out of 25 points, with environmental control securing the lowest correct answers. The highest need for education was in the areas of prevention of transmission and spread, and employee safety control. The total average for educational needs was 3.81±.28 (4 point scale) with the highest educational need in the area of prevention of the spread and dispersion of the disease and employee safety management. There was a statistically significant difference in the knowledge of the general characteristics according to gender (t=-1.999, p=.047) and the educational demand was related to career (t=-1.999, p=.047) and, education levels (t=2.336, p=.021). Accordingly, it is necessary to plan a new infectious disease simulation education program that addresses the low-scoring areas and items with high educational needs which include the propagation path and spread prevention, environmental management, and employee safety management as per the findings of this study.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.105-162
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• 2020

In the pandemic of infectious disease, restrictions of individual liberty have been justified in the name of public health and public interest. In March 2020, the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea passed the revised bill of the 「Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act.」 The revised bill newly established the legal basis for forced testing and disclosure of the information of confirmed cases, and also raised the penalties for violation of self-isolation and treatment refusal. This paper examines whether and how these individual liberty limiting clauses be justified, and if so on what ethical and philosophical grounds. The authors propose the theories of the philosophy of law related to the justifiability of liberty-limiting measures by the state and conceptualized the dual-aspect of applying the liberty-limiting principle to the infected patient. In COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the infected person became the 'Patient as Victim and Vector (PVV)' that posits itself on the overlapping area of 'harm to self' and 'harm to others.' In order to apply the liberty-limiting principle proposed by Joel Feinberg to a pandemic with uncertainties, it is necessary to extend the harm principle from 'harm' to 'risk'. Under the crisis with many uncertainties like COVID-19 pandemic, this shift from 'harm' to 'risk' justifies the state's preemptive limitation on individual liberty based on the precautionary principle. This, at the same time, raises concerns of overcriminalization, i.e., too much limitation of individual liberty without sufficient grounds. In this article, we aim to propose principles regarding how to balance between the precautionary principle for preemptive restrictions of liberty and the concerns of overcriminalization. Public health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic requires a population approach where the 'population' rather than an 'individual' works as a unit of analysis. We propose the second expansion of the harm principle to be applied to 'population' in order to deal with the public interest and public health. The new concept 'risk to population,' derived from the two arguments stated above, should be introduced to explain the public health crisis like COVID-19 pandemic. We theorize 'the extended harm principle' to include the 'risk to population' as a third liberty-limiting principle following 'harm to others' and 'harm to self.' Lastly, we examine whether the restriction of liberty of the revised 「Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act」 can be justified under the extended harm principle. First, we conclude that forced isolation of the infected patient could be justified in a pandemic situation by satisfying the 'risk to the population.' Secondly, the forced examination of COVID-19 does not violate the extended harm principle either, based on the high infectivity of asymptomatic infected people to others. Thirdly, however, the provision of forced treatment can not be justified, not only under the traditional harm principle but also under the extended harm principle. Therefore it is necessary to include additional clauses in the provision in order to justify the punishment of treatment refusal even in a pandemic.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.83-100
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• 2006

Antibiotics which produced by mushrooms discovered for last 40 years were described. Any antibiotic has not been used as infectious disease remudy but will be used as physiological active substance in near future. The antibiotic of mushrooms have not been published much in papers and do not have various finds of structures, compared to those of Streptomyces. Triple bond having compounds, terpenoid compounds aromatic compounds and some other compound have been known. These compounds are not dissolved well in water and mainly fat-soluble, except for cordycepin. Also, they are generally neutral, and some of them are acidic and almost none of them are basic compounds. However, acetylene and terpenoid compounds are the characteristic compounds of mushroom, and are not found in other microorganisms and plants. Especially, there are various terpenoid compounds in mushrooms. These metabolites of mushrooms were not used as antibiotic, but are interested as physiological active substance, such as enzyme inhibitor and immunomodulator. To promote studying on the antibiotics of mushroom, new screening methods must be developed, because strain belonged to the different genus produces different antibiotics, even though mushrooms belonged to the same genus and species. It is also known that mushrooms collected in different areas produce different antibiotics. Now, it is difficult to separate each pure compound from mushroom. It is important to find mushrooms which is impossible to cultivate artificially, or grow in the back land where is difficult to collect. Thousands of mushrooms grow on earth now, so that which species will be screened if not known. The biochemical and mycological study for usability of the metabolites of mushrooms is thought, as one of the important research areas, must be performed.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.394-407
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• 2011

Better understanding of the complex factors leading to human diseases will be necessary for both long term prevention and for managing short and long-term health problems. The underlying causes, leading to a global health crisis in both acute and chronic diseases, include finite global health care resources for sustained healthy human survival, the population explosion, increased environmental pollution, decreased clean air, water, food distribution, diminishing opportunities for human self-esteem, increased median life span, and the interconnection of infectious and chronic diseases. The transition of our pre-human nutritional requirements for survival to our current culturally-shaped diet has created a biologically-mismatched human dietary experience. While individual genetic, gender, and developmental stage factors contribute to human diseases, various environmental and culturally-determined factors are now contributing to both acute and chronic diseases. The transition from the hunter-gatherer to an agricultural-dependent human being has brought about a global crisis in human health. Initially, early humans ate seasonally-dependent and calorically-restricted foods, during the day, in a "feast or famine" manner. Today, modern humans eat diets of caloric abundance, at all times of the day, with foods of all seasons and from all parts of the world, that have been processed and which have been contaminated by all kinds of factors. No longer can one view, as distinct, infectious agent-related human acute diseases from chronic diseases. Moreover, while dietary and environmental chemicals could, in principle, cause disease pathogenesis by mutagenic and cytotoxic mechanisms, the primary cause is via "epigenetic", or altered gene expression, modifications in the three types of cells (e.g., adult stem; progenitor and terminally-differentiated cells of each organ) during all stages of human development. Even more significantly, alteration in the quantity of adult stem cells during early development by epigenetic chemicals could either increase or decrease the risk to various stem cell-based diseases, such as cancer, later in life. A new concept, the Barker hypothesis, has emerged that indicates pre-natal maternal dietary exposures can now affect diseases later in life. Examples from the studies of the atomic bomb survivors should illustrate this insight.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.653-659
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• 2014

Surgery remains the preferred treatment for hydatid cyst (cystic echinococcosis, CE). Various scolicidal agents have been used for inactivation of protoscolices during surgery, but most of them are associated with adverse side effects. The present study aimed to evaluate the in vitro scolicidal effect of Nigella sativa (Ranunculaceae) essential oil and also its active principle, thymoquinone, against protoscolices of hydatid cysts. Protoscolices were aseptically aspirated from sheep livers having hydatid cysts. Various concentrations of the essential oil (0.01-10 mg/ml) and thymoquinone (0.125-1.0 mg/ml) were used for 5 to 60 min. Viability of protoscolices was confirmed by 0.1% eosin staining. Furthermore, the components of the N. sativa essential oil were identified by gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS). Our study revealed that the essential oil of N. sativa at the concentration of 10 mg/ml and its main component, thymoquinone, at the concentration of 1 mg/ml had potent scolicidal activities against protoscolices of Echinococcus granulosus after 10 min exposure. Moreover, thymoquinone (42.4%), p-cymene (14.1%), carvacrol (10.3%), and longifolene (6.1%) were found to be the major components of N. sativa essential oil by GC/MS analysis. The results of this study indicated the potential of N. sativa as a natural source for production of a new scolicidal agent for use in hydatid cyst surgery. However, further studies will be needed to confirm these results by checking the essential oil and its active component in in vivo models.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.126-129
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• 2017

The identification of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is clinically important for diagnosing cancer. We have previously developed a size-based filtration platform followed by epithelial cell adhesion molecule immunofluorescence staining for detecting CTCs. To characterize CTCs independently of cell surface protein expression, we incorporated a chromosomal fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assay to detect abnormal copy numbers of chromosomes in cells collected from peripheral blood samples by the size-based filtration platform. Aneuploid cells were detected in the peripheral blood of patients with lung cancer. Unexpectedly, aneuploid cells were also detected in the control group, which consisted of peripheral blood samples from patients with benign lung diseases, such as empyema necessitatis and non-tuberculous mycobacterial lung disease. These findings suggest that chromosomal abnormalities are observed not only in tumor cells, but also in benign infectious diseases. Thus, our findings present new considerations and bring into light the possibility of false positives when using FISH for cancer diagnosis.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.287-294
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• 2017

This study attempted to develop a beacon scanner based ward monitoring service in order to respond to the new paradigm of medical environment which is trying to introduce ICT technology as medical service to track and manage the spread path of large infectious diseases such as MERS. The study also included beacon hardware development, firmware development for the beacon low-power bluetooth 4.0, and server and web-based dashboard UI development. Using these, we have developed a customized monitoring system that provides functions such as locating patients by location based service and monitoring based on web UI. It is possible to maximize the efficiency of offline hospital services and to value active infection control and patient safety by integrating online technology into the area where online technologies such as beacons are not properly integrated.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.335-344
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• 2020

This study was a descriptive research study to identify of awareness about pandemic influenza, ethical awareness, and ethical decision-making in the situation of COVID-19 pandemic. The subjects were 194 nursing students in H and Y city. Data collected from May 1 to June 20, 2020 and analyzed using the SPSS 24.0 program. The subject's awareness about pandemic influenza was moderate, and ethical awareness and ethical decision-making were high. Ethics awareness and ethical decision-making levels were higher for those who had a history of infection with new type of infectious disease than those who did not. Awareness about pandemic influenza is positively correlated with ethical awareness(r=.291, p<.001) and ethical decision-making related to pandemic influenza(r=.143, p=.046), ethical awareness is a positive correlation with ethical decision-making(r=.274, p<.001). Based on result, propose the development of an educational program to make correct ethical decisions in the social disaster caused by infectious diseases for nursing students.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.311-319
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• 2020

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a newly emerging viral disease with fatal outcomes. However, no MERS-CoV-specific treatment is commercially available. Given the absence of previous structure-based drug discovery studies targeting MERS-CoV fusion proteins, this set of compounds is considered the first generation of MERS-CoV small molecule fusion inhibitors. After a virtual screening campaign of 1.56 million compounds followed by cell-cell fusion assay and MERS-CoV plaques inhibition assay, three new compounds were identified. Compound numbers 22, 73, and 74 showed IC₅₀ values of 12.6, 21.8, and 11.12 µM, respectively, and were most effective at the onset of spike-receptor interactions. The compounds exhibited safe profiles against Human embryonic kidney cells 293 at a concentration of 20 µM with no observed toxicity in Vero cells at 10 µM. The experimental results are accompanied with predicted favorable pharmacokinetic descriptors and drug-likeness parameters. In conclusion, this study provides the first generation of MERS-CoV fusion inhibitors with potencies in the low micromolar range.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.675-683
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• 2021

Objectives: This study aimed to verify the relations of COVID-19 infection-related knowledge, dental infection control performance, and psychosocial health of dental hygienists. Methods: From the data was analyzed through the frequency analysis, t-test, one way ANOVA, and pearson's correlation analysis with a total of 198 dental hygienists using SPSS Statistics 21.0. Results: The correct answer rate for knowledge about COVID-19 was higher with a bachelor's degree or higher. Thus, when the level of education was higher, the performance was also high (p<0.01). COVID-19 infection control performance was highly shown in case of high age (4.43) (p<0.05) and the married (4.42) (p<0.01). Infection control performance was high when they had an educational experience of COVID-19 infection control (4.46), and when the infection control guidebooks were equipped in their workplaces (p<0.001). Degree of psychosocial health of research subjects was shown in the order of potential stress (60.6%), high-risk stress (23.7%), and healthy (15.7%). Infection control performance was higher, the psychosocial health was healthy. Conclusions: For the response to COVID-19 infectious disease and the preparation for mutated viruses and new infectious diseases in the future, it would be necessary to establish the concrete measures for establishing the strict infection control system for dental clinics and also enhancing the psychosocial health of dental hygienists.