• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.259-264
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• 2010

This study was carried out to estimate genetic parameters and breeding values of Hanwoo cows for carcass traits. Carcass records were collected from Korean steers raised at the private farms located in rural area of Gangwon-do and slaughtered from December 2004 to June 2008 at the three slaughter houses near fattening farm. The results obtained in this study were summarized as follows; The means and standard deviations of the carcass traits were $5.57{\pm}2.01$ for marbling score (MS), $10.87{\pm}4.06mm$ for backfat thickness (BFT), $87.87{\pm}9.07cm^2$ for eye muscle area (EMA), $426.75{\pm}49.27kg$ for carcass weight (CW), and $65.80{\pm}3.80$ for yield index (YI). Heritability estimates using single trait analyses were 0.36 for MS, 0.35 for BFT, 0.24 for EMA, 0.29 for CW, and 0.40 for YI, respectively. Genetic correlation coefficients of MS with BFT, EMA, CW, and YI were -0.21, 0.30, -0.21 and 0.30, and those of BFT with EMA, CW and YI were -0.12, 0.57 and -0.97, and those of EMA with CW and YI were 0.32 and 0.27, respectively. And genetic correlation of CW with YI was -0.62. Single trait selection for MS might lead to reducing BFT, but might be an obstacle to increase CW due to negative genetic correlations of MS with BFT and CW.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.173-178
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• 2010

A privately held, third generation family owned company, Boom Technologies, Inc. (BTI), a provider of products and services to the electric utility, telecommunications and contractor markets, continues to make progress in exporting. Although export sales only equaled 5% of total revenue in 2008, BTI has an entire export division. Their export division's Managing Director reveals the trial and errors of a privately held company and their quest for success overseas. From its inception, BTI has always believed its greatest asset is its employees. When export sales struggled due to lack of strategy and direction, BTI hired a Managing Director for its export division. With leadership and guidance from BTI's president and from the Managing Director, they utilized the department's skills and knowledge. Structural changes were made to expand their market presence abroad and increase export sales. As a result, export sales increased four-fold, area managers in new countries were added and distribution networks were successfully cultivated. At times, revenue generation was difficult to determine due to the structure of the company. Therefore, in 1996, the export division was restructured as a limited liability company. This allowed the company to improve the tracking of revenue and expenses. Originally, 80% of BTI's export sales came from two countries; therefore, the initial approach to selling overseas was not reaching their anticipated goals of expanding their foreign market presence. However, changes were made and now the company manages the details of selling to over 80 countries. There were three major export expansion challenges noted by the Managing Director: 1. Product and Shipping - The major obstacle for BTI was product assembly. Originally, the majority of the product was assembled in the United States, which increased shipping and packaging costs. With so many parts specified in the order, many times the order would arrive with parts missing. The missing parts could equate to tens of thousands of dollars. Shipping these missing parts separately in another shipment also cost tens of thousands of dollar, plus a delivery delay time of six to eight weeks; all of which came out of the BTI's pockets. 2. Product Adaptation - Safety and product standards varied widely for each of the 80 countries to which BTI exported. Weights, special licenses, product specification requirements, measurement systems, and truck stability can all differ from country to country and can serve as a type of barrier to entry, making it difficult to adapt products accordingly. Technical and safety standards are barriers that serve as a type of protection for the local industry and can stand in the way of successfully pursuing foreign markets. 3. Marketing Challenges - The importance of distribution creates many challenges for BTI as they attempt to determine how each country prefers to operate with regard to their distribution systems. Some countries have competition from a small competitor that only produces one competing product; whereas BTI manufactures over 100 products. Marketing material is another concern for BTI as they attempt to push marketing costs to the distributors. Adapting the marketing material can be costly in terms of translation and cultural differences. In addition, the size of paper in the United States differs from those in some countries, causing many problems when attempting to copy the same layout and With distribution being one of several challenges for BTI, the company claims their distribution network is one of their competitive advantages, as the location and names of their distributors are not revealed. In addition, BTI rotates two offerings yearly: training to their distributors one year and then the next is a distributor's meeting. With a focus on product and shipping, product adaptation, and marketing challenges, the intricacies of selling overseas takes time and patience. Another competitive advantage noted is BTI's cradle to grave strategy, where they follow the product from sale to its final resting place, whether the truck is leased or purchased new or used. They also offer service and maintenance plans with a detailed cost analysis provided to the company prior to purchasing or leasing the product. Expanding abroad will always create challenges for a company. As the Managing Director stated, "If you don't have patience (in the export business), you better do something else." Knowing how to adapt quickly provides BTI with the skills necessary to adjust to the changing needs of each country and its own unique challenges, allowing them to remain competitive.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.30-37
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• 1996

Background: The extraction methods of DNA from clinical samples are the major obstacle to use the PCR(polymerase Chain Reaction) in routine labortary for early detection of M. tuberculosis. We tried to improve the extraction method of DNA from sputum for establishment of the PCR in routine labortary by reducing the possibility of cross contamination and performing it easily and safely. Methods: We used the $InstaGene^{TM}$ DNA extraction kit(BioRad Co.) using Chelex 100 ion exchange resin for preparation of DNA. We compared InstaGene method in 100 cases of sputum from proteinase K method which is known as the most commonly used method for DNA purification(Experiment 1). And we compared InstaGene method in 98 cases of sputum from Microwave method developed by a company in Korea(Experiment 2). In experiment 1,245bps of IS6110 were amplified and then 188bps were amplified by nested PCR. In experiment 2,536bps in primary PCR and 276bps in nested PCR were amplified and analysed by agarose gel electrophoresis and EtBr staining. Results: When we chose AFB smear, culture, or AFB smear and culture as a standard test, PCR had low specificity and positive predictive value in both experiments. The InstaGene method has higher value in sensitivity and negative predictive value significantly than proteinase K method. The InstaGene method and the Microwave methods were similar in sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value. Conclusion: Even though both methods had lower possibility of cross contamination, shorter time requirement, simplicity, and economic advantages than Proteinase K method, the InstaGene method was a little simpler than the Microwave method. Therefore, in terms of usefulness in clinical application, the Instagene method seems to be the most useful method in DNA extraction for detection of M. tuberculosis using PCR. The reliability of this method will be clarified by further studies with enough clinical samples.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.71 no.2
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• pp.120-125
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• 2011

Background: Although the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis has progressively decreased all over the world, drug-resistant tuberculosis is major obstacle in treating tuberculosis. This study was performed to examine the current prevalence and risk factors of drug resistant tuberculosis in a single tertiary hospital in Busan, Korea. Methods: We enrolled 367 patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis on a retrospective basis who had undergone mycobacterium culture and drug sensitivity tests between January 2005 and December 2009. We analyzed all clinical and radiographic parameters to find predictors related to drug resistant tuberculosis. Results: At least one incident of drug resistance was found in 75 (20.4%) patients. Isoniazid (18.8%) was the most frequent resistant drug, followed by rifampin (10.9%), ethambutol (7.1%), streptomycin (4.9%), and fluoroquinolone (2.7%). Resistance to second-line drugs was found in 37 (10.1%) patients. Multidrug resistance and extensively drug resistance was evident in 39 (10.6%) and 4 (1.1%) patients, respectively. Using multiple logistic regression analysis, history of previous treatment including relapse (odd ratio [OR], 11.3; 95% confidence interval [CI], 4.92~26.08; p<0.01), treatment failure (OR, 24.1; 95% CI, 5.65~102.79; p<0.01) and an age of below 46 years-old (OR, 3.8; 95% CI, 1.62~8.65; p<0.01) were found to be independent predictors of multidrug resistant tuberculosis. Conclusion: We found that the prevalence of drug resistant tuberculosis was considerably high. A careful consideration for possible drug resistant tuberculosis is warranted in patients with a history of previous treatment or for younger patients.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.52-60
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• 2003

Objectives: Stage 1 sleep provides important information regarding interpretation of nocturnal polysomnography, particularly sleep onset. It is a short transition period from wakeful consciousness to sleep. The lack of prominent sleep events characterizing stage 1 sleep is a major obstacle in automatic sleep stage scoring. In this study, utilization of simultaneous EEG and EOG processing and analyses to detect stage 1 sleep automatically were attempted. Methods: Relative powers of the alpha waves and the theta waves were calculated from spectral estimation. A relative power of alpha waves less than 50% or relative power of theta waves more than 23% was regarded as stage 1 sleep. SEM(slow eye movement) was defined as the duration of both-eye movement ranging from 1.5 to 4 seconds, and was also regarded as stage 1 sleep. If one of these three criteria was met, the epoch was regarded as stage 1 sleep. Results were compared to the manual rating results done by two polysomnography experts. Results: A total of 169 epochs were analyzed. The agreement rate for stage 1 sleep between automatic detection and manual scoring was 79.3% and Cohen’s Kappa was 0.586 (p<0.01). A significant portion (32%) of automatically detected stage 1 sleep included SEM. Conclusion: Generally, digitally-scored sleep staging shows accuracy up to 70%. Considering potential difficulty in stage 1 sleep scoring, accuracy of 79.3% in this study seems to be strong enough. Simultaneous analysis of EOG differentiates this study from previous ones which mainly depended on EEG analysis. The issue of close relationship between SEM and stage 1 sleep raised by Kinnari remains a valid one in this study.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.5 no.4 s.20
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• pp.295-303
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• 2005

The Korean laparoscopic Gastrointestinal Surgery Study Group made a survey of laparoscopic gastric surgeries which were performed in Korea during 2004. Thirty-eight surgeons from 36 Institutions responded to the questionnaires. One thousand eighty-nine laparoscopic gastric operations were performed during 2004. The cumulative number from 1995 to 2004 was about 2,386. Seven hundred fifty-four operations for a gastric adenocarcinoma were performed during 2004 which is almost two times the number performed during 2003. Laparoscopic radical procedures, such as a laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy or total gastrectomy (LADG and LATG) have increased rapidly since 2001 (55 cases in 2001, 150 cases in 2002, 364 cases in 2003 and 738 cases in 2004). Especially, laparoscopic total gastrectomies were explosively adopted last year (20 cases in 2003 and 112 cases in 2004). However, laparoscopic function-preserving gastrectomies, which included one laparoscopy-assisted pylorus-preserving gastrectomy and laparoscopy-assisted proximal gastrectomy, are rarely performed at this time. One hundred forty-two wedge resections for a gastric submucosal tumor were performed during 2004. Hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS) was performed in 39 cases in 2001, 55 in 2002, and 49 in 2003; however, only 5 such surgeries were performed during 2004. In 2003, laparoscopic bariatric surgery began, and during 2004, 49 operations were performed. In terms of indications of laparoscopic gastric surgery for adenocarcinoma, 19 surgeons performed a LADG only for a T1 lesion, and 7 surgeons extended their indications to T2N0 lesions. In the near future, laparoscopic procedures for gastric cancer will be widely adopted in Korea if the medical-insurance obstacle is overcome, and the long-term survival results are verified.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.3-18
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• 1992

This research was carried out on 1,017 production workers for four months from May to August, 1991, to search more effective management method of their health by grasping their knowledge and attitude on industrial health. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: 1. As for general characteristics, 74.2% were male and 25.8% were female among the 1,017 workers. The two largest age groups were 30~39, 38.7%. As for education level, graduation from high school was 58.6%, 61.2% were married, 35.9% owned their house, and workers who worked more than 1 year less than 5 years was 52.9%, workers who worked 8 hours a day was 46.7%, the largest group income level was 60~69 thousand won 21.2%, and the degree of satisfaction with work was ordinary, 45.6%. 2. The degree of recognition concerning occupational diseases was 92.5% at a very high rate. Causes of occupational diseases under the present work field were in order of noise, dust, heavy metal. The largest group of the counterplan for prevention was an improvement of working environment, 62.0%. 3. The major cause that threatens worker's health was poor working environment, 31.4%. As the best method for workers' health management, working environment management was pointed. 4. As for health examination result, the response that it is of use to health management was 53.8%. As for examination method and result, 42.7% responded that they are formal. The practice period was more than once every six months as the largest group, and the highest desire for improvement was that they wants an exact information of the result. 5. 49.3% of the respondents know about the measurement of working environment an the response that the measurement is necessary to improve working environment was 57.9%, and that the results from the measurement were reflected on improvement an management 57.5%. Appropriate period to take a measurement was more than once per six months, 40.2% and per three months, 29.1%. 6. As for safety and halth instruction, 34.5% were educated for both, 38.2% for only safety education and just 4.6% for only health education. 51.9% responded that they had never been educated out of work place. The period of its practice was more than once a month, 39.5% and every three months, 21.3%. 7. The importance of safety and health showed that the one is equal to the other, 59.8%, that the one is more important, 29.6%, and that other is more important, 7.6%. 67.7% said the necessity of a safety and health manager. 8. In spite of more or less health obstacle of work environment, 14.9% of the respondents wanted to overwork to gain an allowance for over-time work, 39.9% didn't, and 40.2% according to condition and state. 9. As the most important cause of industrial accident, 40.2% indicated unsafe behavior. As for the individual protective instrument, 66.1% of all the respondents said they have worn it to protect industrial diseases. 10. As for the degree of understanding of the contents in Industrial Safety and Health Law and Industrial Law of Accident Insurance, an affirmative response was respectively 49.3% and 50.8% and the sources of safety-health information were televisions and radios, 28.0%. Therefore, it is necessary that we do positive working environmental improvement, continuous management and health education's inforcement to increase their health and prevent occupational diseases.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.99-111
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• 2003

By virtue of diverse advantages derived from digital media, eBook is getting started to use. And many market research agencies have predicted that its market will be greatly expanded soon. But against those expectations, copyright-related problems and the difficulties of its accessing inherited from various eBook content formats become an obstacle to its diffusion. The first problems can be solved by DRM technology. And to solve the second problems, each nation has published its own content standard format. But the domestic standards are useful only the domestic level, they still leave the problems in the national level. The variety of content formats has created a demand for mechanisms that allow the exchange of eBook contents. Therefore we study the mapping relations between eBook contents for conversion. To define the mapping relations, first we extract the mapping both between eBook contents and between normal XML documents. From those mappings, we define seven mapping relations and classify them by cardinality. And we analyze the classified relations, which can be generated by automatic, or not. Using these results, we also classify the eBook content conversion as automatic, semi-automatic, and manual. Besides, we provide the conversion templates for mapping relations for automatic generation of conversion scripts. To show the feasibility of conversion templates, we apply them to the eBook content conversion. Experiment shows that our conversion templates generate the conversion scripts properly. We expected that defined mapping relations and conversion templates can be used not only in eBook content conversion , but also in normal XML document conversion.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2005

Purpose : Uniform dose distribution of the target volume is very important in the radiation treatment. We will evaluate the usefulness of Field-in-Field Technique use to get uniform dose distribution of the target volume and try to find Apply possibility out to a whole brain treatment patient of various thickness. Material and method : We compare the dose distribution when we applied Field-in-Field Technique and parallel opposed fields technique. establish the treatment plan to a phantom(acryl 16cm spheral phantom) and do the measurement, assessment use the TLD and Low sensitivity film. Also the assessment did Apply possibility of Field-in-Field Technique to 20 patient object of various thickness. Result : In the case to use the parallel opposed fields at the whole brain treatment $10-12\%$ high dose region appeared but reduce to $3-4\%$ lesses when we used the Field-in-Field technique. We could get similar numerical value the film and TLD measurement result also. The change of the dose distribution appeared to its ${\pm}1{\sim}2\%$ although it applied such Field-in-Field technique to various patient so that we were identical. Conclusion : We can get uniform dose distribution of in the treatment region if we apply the Field-in-Field technique at the whole brain treatment. Also alternate can play the role of the wedge filter and 3D compensator and We are thought by minimizing the obstacle to be happened due to the high dose region when radiation treatment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1693-1699
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• 2008

Recent studies have suggested that inulin might be utilized as a prebiotics for the promotion of antimicrobial growth, but a major obstacle to the use of inulin has been its low bifidogenic effects, which were initially observed in the ceca of broiler chickens. Inulin has some problems with related to denaturation in air and lowering passage rate from upper digestive tract to caecum. To solve this problems, a newly developed compound derived by microencapsulation, inuloprebiotics, was hypothesized to enrich cecal bifidobacterial populations and reduce the colonization levels of Salmonella in the ceca of broiler chickens. The in vitro growth of intestinal beneficial bacteria including Bifidobacterium longum, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, and Lactobacillus casei grew effectively on the medium containing inulin, whereas the growth of Streptococcus aureus and Clostridium perfringens was not differences among the treatment groups. Broiler chickens consumed chow diets containing 0.5%, 0.7% or 1.0% inuloprebiotics, or a control diet without inuloprebiotics supplementation. The chickens on the inuloprebioticssupplemented diets evidenced significantly higher cecal levels of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus species as compared with the chickens on the control diet. The population of cecal E. coli and Salmonella was specifically reduced as the result of treatment with inuloprebiotics. However, we noted no significant differences in Bifidobacterium species, E. coli and Salmonella counts among the inuloprebiotics treatment groups. The inuloprebiotics-supplemented diets induced an increase in the serum IgG concentration. The thymus index was significantly increased in the broiler chickens that consumed diets containing 0.7% or 1.0% inuloprebiotics, with the exception of the chickens consuming the diet supplemented with 0.5% inuloprebiotics. These results indicate that the inuloprebiotic preparations exerted an immune system-promoting effect or selectively enriched the cecal Bifidobacterium species populations in the broiler chickens, and also suggest that inuloprebiotics may prove useful as a stable natural antimicrobial agent.