• Title/Summary/Keyword: Performance tests

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Evaluation of the Clinical Usefulness of the Xeniss Rapid TB kit for the Diagnosis of Tuberculosis (결핵진단에서 Xeniss Rapid TB kit의 임상적 유용성)

  • Park, Seung-Kyu;Lee, Woo-Chul;Hwang, Soo-Hee;Kwon, Eun-Si;Lee, Hung-Soon;Lee, Duk-Hyoung
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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    • v.53 no.4
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    • pp.389-400
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    • 2002
  • Background : The rapid diagnostic tests for tuberculosis are needed to facilitate early treatment of tuberculosis and prevention of Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission. The Xeniss Rapid TB kit is a rapid, card-based immunochromatographic test for the detection of antibodies directed against M. tuberculosis antigens including antigen 5(38-kDa antigen). The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of the Xeniss Rapid TB kit for the diagnosis of active tuberculosis with serums from patients, asymptomatic healthy and close contact controls. Methods : 188 patients with active tuberculosis were tested; 177 with pulmonary tuberculosis(18 with combined pleurisy), and 11 with extrapulmonary tuberculosis. The control groups were composed of 82 close contacts and 57 healthy adults. Study subject were drawn from one national tuberculosis hospital for patients and close contacts, and another private hospital for healthy adults in Masan city, Korea. The Xeniss Rapid TB kit(Xeniss Life Science Co., Ltd., Seoul, Korea) was evaluated by using serum samples according to the instructions of the manufacturer by an investigator masked to the clinical and microbiological status of the study subjects. Results : The diagnostic sensitivity of the Xeniss Rapid TB kit was 73.9% in patients and specificities were 73.2% and 93.0% in close contact and healthy adults respectively. The positive predictive value in patients was 84.2% and the negative predictive value in controls was 85.8%. Conclusion : This study shows that the Xeniss Rapid TB test is a simple and fast method to diagnose active TB. The results of the sensitivity and specificites suggest that serodiagnosis using this point of care testing(POCT) device would be valuable and advantageous for screening tuberculosis in the clinical field.

Diagnostic Performance of HPV E6/E7 mRNA and HPV DNA Assays for the Detection and Screening of Oncogenic Human Papillomavirus Infection among Woman with Cervical Lesions in China

  • Wang, Hye-young;Lee, Dongsup;Park, Sunyoung;Kim, Geehyuk;Kim, Sunghyun;Han, Lin;Yubo, Ren;Li, Yingxue;Park, Kwang Hwa;Lee, Hyeyoung
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.16 no.17
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    • pp.7633-7640
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    • 2015
  • Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide and it is responsible for most cases of cervical uterine cancer. Although HPV infections of the cervix do not always progress to cancer, 90% of cervical cancer cases have been found to be associated with high risk HPV (HR-HPV) infection. HPV DNA testing is widely used, along with Papanicolaou (Pap) testing, to screen for cervical abnormalities. However, there are no data on the prevalence of genotype-specific HPV infections assessed by measuring HPV E6/E7 mRNA in women representative of the Chinese population across a broad age range. Materials and Methods: In the present study, we compared the results with the CervicGen HPV RT-qDx assay, which detects 16 HR-HPV genotypes (Alpha-9: HPV 16, 31, 33, 35, 52, and 58; Alpha-7: HPV 18, 39, 45, 51, 59, and 68; and Alpha-5, 6: HPV 53, 56, 66, and 69), and the REBA HPV-ID assay, which detects 32 HPV genotypes based on the reverse blot hybridization assay (REBA) for the detection of oncogenic HPV infection according to cytological diagnosis. We also investigated the prevalence and genotype distribution of HPV infection with a total of 324 liquid-based cytology samples collected in western Shandong province, East China. Results: The overall HPV prevalences determined by HPV DNA and HPV E6/E7 mRNA assays in this study were 79.9% (259/324) and 55.6% (180/324), respectively. Although the positivity of HPV E6/E7 mRNA expression was significantly lower than HPV DNA positivity, the HPV E6/E7 mRNA assay showed greater specificity than the HPV DNA assay (88.6% vs. 48.1%) in normal cytology samples. The prevalence of Alpha-9 (HPV 16, 31, 33, 35, 52, and 58) HPV infection among these women accounted for up to 80.3% and 76.1% of the high-grade lesions detected in the HPV mRNA and DNA tests, respectively. The HR-HPV genotype distribution, based on HPV DNA and E6/E7 mRNA expression by age group in patients with cytologically confirmed lesions, was highest in women aged 40 to 49 years (35.9% for cytologically confirmed cases, Pearson correlation r value=0.993, p<0.001) for high-grade lesions. Among the oncogenic HR-HPV genotypes for all age groups, there was little difference in the distribution of HPV genotypes between the HPV DNA (HPV -16, 53, 18, 58, and 33) and HPV E6/E7 mRNA (HPV -16, 53, 33, 58, and 18) assays. HPV 16 was the most common HPV genotype among women with high-grade lesions. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the HPV E6/E7 mRNA assay can be a sensitive and specific tool for the screening and investigation of cervical cancer. Furthermore, it may provide useful information regarding the necessity for early cervical cancer screenings and the development of additional effective HPV vaccines, such as one for HPV 53 and 58. Additionally, gaining knowledge of HPV distribution may also inform us about ecological changes in HPV after the vaccination.

Foundation Methods for the Soft Ground Reinforcement of Lightweight Greenhouse on Reclaimed Land: A review (간척지 온실 기초 연약지반 보강 방법에 대한 고찰)

  • Lee, Haksung;Kang, Bang Hun;Lee, Su Hwan
    • Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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    • v.29 no.4
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    • pp.440-447
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    • 2020
  • The demand for large-scale horticultural complexes utilizing reclaimed lands is increasing, and one of the pending issues for the construction of large-scale facilities is to establish foundation design criteria. In this paper, we tried to review previous studies on the method of reinforcing the foundation of soft ground. Target construction methods are spiral piles, wood piles, crushed stone piles and PF (point foundation) method. In order to evaluate the performance according to the basic construction method, pull-out resistance, bearing capacity, and settlement amount were measured. At the same diameter, pull-out resistance increased with increasing penetration depth. Simplified comparison is difficult due to the difference in reinforcement method, diameter, and penetration depth, but it showed high bearing capacity in the order of crushed stone pile, PF method, and wood pile foundation. In the case of wood piles, the increase in uplift resistance was different depending on the slenderness ratio. Wood, crushed stone pile and PF construction methods, which are foundation reinforcement works with a bearing capacity of 105 kN/㎡ to 826 kN/㎡, are considered sufficient methods to be applied to the greenhouse foundation. There was a limitation in grasping the consistent trend of each foundation reinforcement method through existing studies. If these data are supplemented through additional empirical tests, it is judged that a basic design guideline that can satisfy the structure and economic efficiency of the greenhouse can be presented.

Water Treatment Application of a Large Pore Micro-Filtration Membrane and Its Problems (대기공 정밀여과막의 수처리 응용 및 문제점)

  • Yun, Chang-Han;Kim, Jeong-Hak;Lee, Kang Won;Park, Sung Ho
    • Membrane Journal
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.194-200
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    • 2014
  • The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of newly developed Large Pore Micro-Filtration (LPMF) membrane in Lab size for the application of water treatment, and to find its problems with solutions. The out-to-inside filtration hollow fiber LPMF membrane of which average pore size was $5{\mu}m$ was used at this study and its material was the PET braid reinforced PVDF. Filtration tests were done through gravity with 30 cm water head difference or pressure below 1.5 bar, and the backwash was done instantaneously with the filtrate after pressurizing it to about 4 bar. The water flux of the LPMF membrane with 0.2 bar TMP (Trans Membrane Pressure) was 2 times higher than $0.4{\mu}m$ MF membrane with $0.05{\mu}m$ UF filtrate of the tap water and it was measured also with 20~30 cm water head difference which showed over 800 LMH at 30 cm water head difference. And Time-To-Filter (TTF) was performed by using $5{\mu}m$ filter paper to optimize coagulants and dosage which enhanced filtrate's turbidity and stabilized filtration flux. When the LPMF was operated with 30 cm gravity with very high dose of inorganic coagulants, the flux was maintained over 80 LMH with 93.5~99.5% turbidity removal. Especially, the filtration was maintained stably in the flux and about 97% of the recovery rate by instantaneous pressurized backwash with about 4 bar of the filtrate when the packing density was about 19%. But there was instability in filtration, since the TMP was continuously going up by inefficient backwash when the packing density was 43%.

RGB Channel Selection Technique for Efficient Image Segmentation (효율적인 이미지 분할을 위한 RGB 채널 선택 기법)

  • 김현종;박영배
    • Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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    • v.31 no.10
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    • pp.1332-1344
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    • 2004
  • Upon development of information super-highway and multimedia-related technoiogies in recent years, more efficient technologies to transmit, store and retrieve the multimedia data are required. Among such technologies, firstly, it is common that the semantic-based image retrieval is annotated separately in order to give certain meanings to the image data and the low-level property information that include information about color, texture, and shape Despite the fact that the semantic-based information retrieval has been made by utilizing such vocabulary dictionary as the key words that given, however it brings about a problem that has not yet freed from the limit of the existing keyword-based text information retrieval. The second problem is that it reveals a decreased retrieval performance in the content-based image retrieval system, and is difficult to separate the object from the image that has complex background, and also is difficult to extract an area due to excessive division of those regions. Further, it is difficult to separate the objects from the image that possesses multiple objects in complex scene. To solve the problems, in this paper, I established a content-based retrieval system that can be processed in 5 different steps. The most critical process of those 5 steps is that among RGB images, the one that has the largest and the smallest background are to be extracted. Particularly. I propose the method that extracts the subject as well as the background by using an Image, which has the largest background. Also, to solve the second problem, I propose the method in which multiple objects are separated using RGB channel selection techniques having optimized the excessive division of area by utilizing Watermerge's threshold value with the object separation using the method of RGB channels separation. The tests proved that the methods proposed by me were superior to the existing methods in terms of retrieval performances insomuch as to replace those methods that developed for the purpose of retrieving those complex objects that used to be difficult to retrieve up until now.

A Study on Antecedents of Ethical Leadership of Power Retailers, : Focusing on the Relationship between Discount Stores and Their Suppliers (대형 유통업체 윤리적 리더십의 선행변수에 관한 연구 : 할인점과 공급업체 간 관계를 중심으로)

  • Kim, Sang-Deok
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.59-92
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    • 2012
  • With accumulated research evidence, there is little doubt that leadership behavior is related to a wide variety of positive individual and organizational outcomes. Indeed, leadership behavior has been empirically linked to increased employee satisfaction, organizational commitment, extra effort, turnover intention, organizational citizenship behavior, and overall employee performance. Although leadership behavior has been linked to a number of positive organizational outcomes, research regarding the antecedents of such behavior is limited. Especially there is little research dealing with the antecedents of inter-organizational leadership behavior. This study interests in inter-organizational ethical leadership among marketing channel members. In both the mass media and the academic association, there has been a surge in interest in the ethical and unethical behavior of leaders. Although the corporate scandals in recent years may explain much of the mass media and popular focus, academics' interest has been limited by evidence that ethical leadership behavior is associated with both positive and negative inter-organizational processes and performances. This study tried to contribute to this body of knowledge by examining antecedents of ethical leadership. Ethical leadership is defined "the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making." Ethical leaders not only inform individuals of the behefits of ethical behavior and the cost of inappropriate behavior, such leaders also set clear standards and use rewards and fair and balanced punishment to hold followers accountable for their ethical conduct. Despite the assume importance and prominence of ethical leadership among organizations, there are still many questions relating to its antecedents and consequences. One is whether the likelihood of an leading organization being perceived as an ethical leader among other following organizations in marketing channels can be predicted using its characteristics and inter-organizational relationship maintenance skills. Identifying trait and skill antecedents will aid in the development of strategies for selecting and developing ethical leaders and determining the best means to reinforce ethical behaviors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of three categorized variables on ethical leadership of channel leader. To be concrete, this study develops a model of the antecedents of three conceptually distinct forms of channel leader characteristics, such as organizational traits, inter-organizational relationship maintenance strategies, and supplier management strategies, and tests the hypothesized differential effects on ethical leadership of marketing channel leaders. The reason why this study deals with discount store channel is that there is very strong inter-dependence between a discount store and its suppliers. Their strong inter-dependence makes their relationship as the relationship between a leader and suppliers and creates an atmosphere that leadership occur without difficulty. The research model is as follows. For the purpose of empirical testing, 295 respondents of suppliers of discount store channel in Korea were surveyed. The procedures included scale reliability, and discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than .70. This study conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. All items loaded significantly on their respective constructs(with the lowest t-value being 15.2), providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted(AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than .70. The AVE of each construct was greater than .50. This study tested research model using Partial Least Square(PLS). The estimation of the structural equation model revealed an acceptable fit of the model to the data($r^2$=.851). Thus, This study concluded that the model fit was considered acceptable. The results of PLS are as follows. The results indicated that conscientiousness, openness, conflict management, social networks, training, fair reward had positive effects on ethical leadership of channel leaders. On the other hand, emotional insecure had negative effect and agreeableness, assurance, and inter-organizational communication had no significant effect on supply chain leadership.

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Seed Longevity of Rice Germplasm in the National Agrobiodiversity Center (종자은행 보존 벼 유전자원의 생태형별 종자수명)

  • Na, Young-Wang;Choi, Yu-Mi;Baek, Hyung-Jin;Lee, Sok-Young;Kang, Jung-Hun;Kim, Seok-Hyeon
    • KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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    • v.59 no.3
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    • pp.216-222
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    • 2014
  • The purpose of this study was to know the seed longevity of rice (Oryza sativa L.) germplasm for effective viability monitoring. The longevity was determined via germination tests of 3,066 accessions of rice germplasm from the National Agrobiodiversity Center, Rural Development Administration, Korea. The rice germplasm accessions have been conserved at a mid-term storage ($4^{\circ}C$, 30% RH) in plastic bottle containing dehydrated (blue) silica-gel and long-term storage ($-18^{\circ}C$, 35% RH) in hermetically sealed metal can on either sides for 25~26.5 years. The final germination percentages of 3,066 rice germplasm accessions of $6.5{\pm}1.0%$ seed moisture content with 94% initial germination stored at $4^{\circ}C$ for 26.5 years declined to 47% while at $-18^{\circ}C$ for 25 years maintained high germinability as 93%. Germination time courses, which represent the average performance of rice ecotypes stored at $4^{\circ}C$ and 30% RH, were fitted regression equation, to calculate the time at which germination characteristically declined to 50% ($P_{50}$). These $P_{50}$ values of Indica, Japonica, Javanica and Tongil type in rice were 39.9, 22.9, 25.4 and 31.8 years, respectively. The rice germplasm stored at $4^{\circ}C$ could be clustered in 4 groups using quartile of final germination after 26.5 years storage. The seed longevity ($P_{50}$) of each group was estimated by regression equation of changed germination percentages according to storage periods. The $P_{50}$ values of group I, group II, group III and group IV were 21.1, 23.6, 30.0 and 75.7 years.

Treatment of Artificial Sewage Using a Zeolite Column (제올라이트 칼럼에 의한 인공생활하수처리)

  • Seo, Jeoung-Yoon
    • Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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    • v.21 no.3
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    • pp.178-188
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    • 2002
  • Constructed wetlands typically cost less to build and operate, and require less energy than standard mechanical treatment technology but they have similar performance to centralized wastewater treatment plants. Therefore, they were constructed especially many in rural areas, where are small villages but not industries. Plantless column tests were performed to investigate the possibility on using zeolite as a filter medium of constructed wetland for the wastewater treatment. Removal efficiency was $COD_{Cr}$ 94.63% T-P 41.41% and $NH_4^+-N$ 99.75% at hydraulic load 314 $L/m^2{\cdot}d$ and filtering height 100 cm filled with a zeolite mixture. This zeolite mixture consisted of 1 : 1 by volume of zeolites in the diameter range of 0.5 to 1 mm and 1 to 3 mm. Accordingly, hydraulic load 314 $L/m^2{\cdot}d$ was considered as optimal. Three zeolite mixtures were used to determine the optimal mixing ratio by volume of a zeolite (A) in the diameter range of 0.5 to 1 mm to a zeolite (B) in the diameter range of 1 to 3 mm 1 : 3, 1 : 1 and only B in A to B by volume were tested at hydraulic load 314 $L/m^2{\cdot}d$ and filtering height 100 cm $COD_{Cr}$ removal efficiency was more than 89% at mixing ratios of 1 : 3 and 1 : 1 in A to B. That of T-P ranged 56.42 to 58.72% and, that of T-N and $NH_4^+-N$ was 87% and 99% regardless of mixing ratios of two zeolites. Removal efficiency was lower at the column filled with only B. Removal efficiency was better at Inter medium filled with mixing ratio 1 : 1 in A to B than with the other mixing ratios. Thus, it was found that the mixture of mixing ratio 1 : 1 in A to B was appropriate far Inter medium of constructed wetland Removal efficiency was higher in down-flow than in up-flow, and all contaminants were removed most in 20 cm filter height near feeding area.

The Usefulness of LEUR Collimator for 1-Day Basal/Acetazolamide Brain Perfusion SPECT (1-Day Protocol을 사용하는 Brain Perfusion SPECT에서 LEUR 콜리메이터의 유용성)

  • Choi, Jin-Wook;Kim, Soo-Mee;Lee, Hyung-Jin;Kim, Jin-Eui;Kim, Hyun-Joo;Lee, Jae-Sung;Lee, Dong-Soo
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.94-100
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    • 2011
  • Purpose: Basal/Acetazolamide-challenged brain perfusion SPECT is very useful to assess cerebral perfusion and vascular reserve. However, as there is a trade off between sensitivity and spatial resolution in the selection of collimator, the selection of optimal collimator is crucial. In this study, we examined three collimators to select optimal one for 1-day brain perfusion SPECT. Materials and Methods: Three collimators, low energy high resolution-parallel beam (LEHR-par), ultra resolution-fan beam (LEUR-fan) and super fine-fan beam (LESFR-fan), were tested for 1-day imaging using Triad XLT 9 (TRIONIX). The SPECT images of Hoffman 3D brain phantom filled with 99mTc of 170 MBq and a normal volunteer were acquired with a protocol of 50 kcts/frame and detector rotation of 3 degree. Filterd backprojection (FBP) reconstruction with Butterworth filter (cut off frequencies, 0.3 to 0.5) was performed. The quantitative and qualitative assessments for three collimators were performed. Results: The blind tests showed that LESFR-fan provided the best image quality for Hoffman brain phantom and the volunteer. However, images for all the collimator were evaluated as 'acceptable'. On the other hand, in order to meet the equivalent signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), total acquisition time or radioactivity dose for LESFR-fan must have been increased up to almost twice of that for LEUR-fan and LEHR-par. The volunteer test indicated that total acquisition time could be reduced approximately by 10 to 14 min in clinical practice using LEUR-fan and LEHR-par without significant loss on image quality, in comparison with LESFR-fan. Conclusion: Although LESFR-fan provides the best image quality, it requires significantly more acquisition time than LEUR-fan and LEHR-par to provide reasonable SNR. Since there is no significant clinical difference between three collimators, LEUR-fan and LEHR-par can be recommended as optimal collimators for 1-day brain perfusion imaging with respect to image quality and SNR.

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Comparison Study on Efficacies of Disinfectants and Sanitizers Among Methods for Quantitative Surface Test (살균소독제의 정량적 표면시험방법별 유효성 비교)

  • Kim, Ae-Young;Kim, Yong-Su;Ha, Sang-Do
    • Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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    • v.25 no.3
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    • pp.238-244
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    • 2010
  • Currently, in vitro suspension tests using tubes are used as a authorized test method for sanitizers and disinfectants. However, the methods could not accurately assess the efficacy of sanitizers and disinfectant on the food-contacted surfaces in the field. This study evaluated the effectiveness of 5 kinds of representative sanitizers and disinfectants against E. coli and S. aureus to compare three quantitative surface testing methods that have been internationally standardized. As a result, the ASTM E2111-05 (ASTM(1)) test method obtained 5.18 $\pm$ 0.03 and 5.27 $\pm$ 0.04 log cfu/carrier reduction in dealing with E. coli and S. aureus, respectively, the ASTM E2197-02 (ASTM(2)) test method obtained 4.63 $\pm$ 0.04 and 3.97 $\pm$ 0.03 log cfu/carrier reduction and the CEN EN 13697 test method should 6.14 $\pm$ 0.05 and 5.31 $\pm$ 0.10 log cfu/carrier reduction in clean condition (CEN(1)) but 4.37 $\pm$ 0.02 and 4.06 $\pm$ 0.01 log cfu/carrier reduction in dirty condition (CEN(2)). Among them, CEN(1) showed the highest bactericidal effects, whereas ASTM(2) and CEN(2) revealed low performance (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the bactericidal effects of the ASTM(2) method and the CEN EN 13697 method adopting stainless steel were lower than the ASTM(1) method, which uses glass. The effectiveness assessment results among nationally accredited test methods were different each other. This implies that they could not fit for in the accurate evaluation of sanitization and disinfection on food-contact surfaces in practical food-processing fields. These results could be used as a basic data for establishment of an official surface test methods applicable in the field.