• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.135-152
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• 1983

Emergency medical service is an important part of the health care delivery system, and the optimal allocation of resources and their efficient utilization are essentially demanded. Since these conditions are the prerequisite to prompt treatment which, in turn, will be crucial for life saving and in reducing the undesirable sequelae of the event. This study, taking the hyperbaric chamber for carbon monoxide poisoning as an example, is to develop a stochastic approach for solving the problems of optimal allocation of such emergency medical facility in Korea. The hyperbaric chamber, in Korea, is used almost exclusively for the treatment of acute carbon monoxide poisoning, most of which occur at home, since the coal briquette is used as domestic fuel by 69.6 per cent of the Korean population. The annual incidence rate of the comatous and fatal carbon monoxide poisoning is estimated at 45.5 per 10,000 of coal briquette-using population. It offers a serious public health problem and occupies a large portion of the emergency outpatients, especially in the winter season. The requirement of hyperbaric chambers can be calculated by setting the level of the annual queueing rate, which is here defined as the proportion of the annual number of the queued patients among the annual number of the total patients. The rate is determined by the size of the coal briquette-using population which generate a certain number of carbon monoxide poisoning patients in terms of the annual incidence rate, and the number of hyperbaric chambers per hospital to which the patients are sent, assuming that there is no referral of the patients among hospitals. The queueing occurs due to the conflicting events of the 'arrival' of the patients and the 'service' of the hyperbaric chambers. Here, we can assume that the length of the service time of hyperbaric chambers is fixed at sixty minutes, and the service discipline is based on 'first come, first served'. The arrival pattern of the carbon monoxide poisoning is relatively unique, because it usually occurs while the people are in bed. Diurnal variation of the carbon monoxide poisoning can hardly be formulated mathematically, so empirical cumulative distribution of the probability of the hourly arrival of the patients was used for Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the probability of queueing by the number of the patients per day, for the cases of one, two or three hyperbaric chambers assumed to be available per hospital. Incidence of the carbon monoxide poisoning also has strong seasonal variation, because of the four distinctive seasons in Korea. So the number of the patients per day could not be assumed to be distributed according to the Poisson distribution. Testing the fitness of various distributions of rare event, it turned out to be that the daily distribution of the carbon monoxide poisoning fits well to the Polya-Eggenberger distribution. With this model, we could forecast the number of the poisonings per day by the size of the coal-briquette using population. By combining the probability of queueing by the number of patients per day, and the probability of the number of patients per day in a year, we can estimate the number of the queued patients and the number of the patients in a year by the number of hyperbaric chamber per hospital and by the size of coal briquette-using population. Setting 5 per cent as the annual queueing rate, the required number of hyperbaric chambers was calculated for each province and for the whole country, in the cases of 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent of the treatment rate which stand for the rate of the patients treated by hyperbaric chamber among the patients who are to be treated. Findings of the study were as follows. 1. Probability of the number of patients per day follows Polya-Eggenberger distribution. $$P(X=\gamma)=\frac{\Pi\limits_{k=1}^\gamma[m+(K-1)\times10.86]}{\gamma!}\times11.86^{-{(\frac{m}{10.86}+\gamma)}}$$ when$${\gamma}=1,2,...,n$$$$P(X=0)=11.86^{-(m/10.86)}$$ when $${\gamma}=0$$ Hourly arrival pattern of the patients turned out to be bimodal, the large peak was observed in $7 : 00{\sim}8 : 00$ a.m., and the small peak in $11 : 00{\sim}12 : 00$ p.m. 2. In the cases of only one or two hyperbaric chambers installed per hospital, the annual queueing rate will be at the level of more than 5 per cent. Only in case of three chambers, however, the rate will reach 5 per cent when the average number of the patients per day is 0.481. 3. According to the results above, a hospital equipped with three hyperbaric chambers will be able to serve 166,485, 83,242, 55,495 and 41,620 of population, when the treatmet rate are 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent. 4. The required number of hyperbaric chambers are estimated at 483, 963, 1,441 and 1,923 when the treatment rate are taken as 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent. Therefore, the shortage are respectively turned out to be 312, 791. 1,270 and 1,752. The author believes that the methodology developed in this study will also be applicable to the problems of resource allocation for the other kinds of the emergency medical facilities.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2020

This study investigated the probability of foodborne illness caused by raw oyster consumption contaminated with high risk Vibrio species such as V. vulnificus and V. cholerae. Eighty-eight raw oyster samples were collected from the south coast, west coast and Seoul areas, and examined for the prevalence of high risk Vibrio species. The growth patterns of V. vulnificus and V. cholerae in raw oysters were evaluated, and consumption frequency and amounts for raw oyster were investigated from a Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. With the collected data, a risk assessment simulation was conducted to estimate the probability of foodborne illness caused by intake of raw oysters, using @RISK. Of 88 raw oysters, there were no V. vulnificus- or V. cholerae-positive samples. Thus, initial contamination levels of Vibrio species in raw oysters were estimated by the statistical methods developed by Vose and Sanaa, and the estimated value for the both Vibrio spp. was -3.6 Log CFU/g. In raw oyster, cell counts of V. vulnificus and V. cholerae remained unchanged. The incidence of raw oyster consumers was 0.35%, and the appropriate probabilistic distribution for the consumption amounts was the exponential distribution. A risk assessment simulation model was developed with the collected data, and the probability of the foodborne illness caused by the consumption of raw oyster was 9.08×10^-15 for V. vulnificus and 8.16×10^-13 for V. cholerae. Consumption frequency was the first factor, influencing the probability of foodborne illness.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.65-77
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• 1996

Using the 2-D and 3-D Hoffman brain phantom, 3-D Jaszczak phantom and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, the effects of data acquisition parameter, attenuation, noise, scatter and reconstruction algorithm on image quantitation as well as image quality were studied. For the data acquisition parameters, the images were acquired by changing the increment angle of rotation and the radius. The less increment angle of rotation resulted in superior image quality. Smaller radius from the center of rotation gave better image quality, since the resolution degraded as increasing the distance from detector to object increased. Using the flood data in Jaszczak phantom, the optimal attenuation coefficients were derived as 0.12cm$\^$-1/ for all collimators. Consequently, the all images were corrected for attenuation using the derived attenuation coefficients. It showed concave line profile without attenuation correction and flat line profile with attenuation correction in flood data obtained with jaszczak phantom. And the attenuation correction improved both image qulity and image quantitation. To study the effects of noise, the images were acquired for 1min, 2min, 5min, 10min, and 20min. The 20min image showed much better noise characteristics than 1min image indicating that increasing the counting time reduces the noise characteristics which follow the Poisson distribution. The images were also acquired using dual-energy windows, one for main photopeak and another one for scatter peak. The images were then compared with and without scatter correction. Scatter correction improved image quality so that the cold sphere and bar pattern in Jaszczak phantom were clearly visualized. Scatter correction was also applied to 3-D Hoffman brain phantom and resulted in better image quality. In conclusion, the SPECT images were significantly affected by the factors of data acquisition parameter, attenuation, noise, scatter, and reconstruction algorithm and these factors must be optimized or corrected to obtain the useful SPECT data in clinical applications.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.329-341
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• 2016

Objectives: The goal of this study was to investigate the short-term effect of ambient air pollution on emergency department (ED) visits in Seoul for asthma according to patients' prior history of allergic diseases. Methods: Data on ED visits from 2005 to 2009 were obtained from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. To evaluate the risk of ED visits for asthma related to ambient air pollutants (carbon monoxide [CO], nitrogen dioxide [$NO_2$], ozone [$O_3$], sulfur dioxide [$SO_2$], and particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <$10{\mu}m$ [$PM_{10}$]), a generalized additive model with a Poisson distribution was used; a single-lag model and a cumulative-effect model (average concentration over the previous 1-7 days) were also explored. The percent increase and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated for each interquartile range (IQR) increment in the concentration of each air pollutant. Subgroup analyses were done by age, gender, the presence of allergic disease, and season. Results: A total of 33 751 asthma attack cases were observed during the study period. The strongest association was a 9.6% increase (95% CI, 6.9% to 12.3%) in the risk of ED visits for asthma per IQR increase in $O_3$ concentration. IQR changes in $NO_2$ and $PM_{10}$ concentrations were also significantly associated with ED visits in the cumulative lag 7 model. Among patients with a prior history of allergic rhinitis or atopic dermatitis, the risk of ED visits for asthma per IQR increase in $PM_{10}$ concentration was higher (3.9%; 95% CI, 1.2% to 6.7%) than in patients with no such history. Conclusions: Ambient air pollutants were positively associated with ED visits for asthma, especially among subjects with a prior history of allergic rhinitis or atopic dermatitis.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.278-290
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• 2016

Maximum traffic flow rate is an important performance measure of operational status in transport networks, and has been considered as a key parameter for transportation operation since a bottleneck in congestion decreases maximum traffic flow rate. Although previous studies for traffic flow analysis have been widely conducted, a detection method for changes in dynamic traffic flow has been still veiled. This paper explores the dynamic traffic flow detection that can be utilized for various traffic operational strategies. Turning point analysis (TPA), as a statistical method, is applied to detect the changes in traffic flow rate. In TPA, Bayesian approach is employed and vehicle arrival is assumed to follow Poisson distribution. To examine the performance of the TPA method, traffic flow data from Jayuro urban expressway were obtained and applied. We propose a novel methodology to detect turning points of dynamic traffic flow in real time using TPA. The results showed that the turning points identified in real-time detected the changes in traffic flow rate. We expect that the proposed methodology has wide application in traffic operation systems such as ramp-metering and variable lane control.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.246-257
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• 2015

The progressive degradation paths of structures have quantitatively been tracked by using stochastic processes, such as Wiener process, gamma process and compound Poisson process, in order to consider both the sampling uncertainty due to the usual lack of damage data and the temporal uncertainty associated with the deterioration evolution. Several important features of stochastic processes which should carefully be considered in application of the stochastic processes to practical problems have been figured out through assessing cumulative damage and lifetime distribution as a function of time. Especially, the Wiener process and the gamma process have straightforwardly been applied to armors of rubble-mound breakwaters by the aid of a sample path method based on Melby's formula which can estimate cumulative damage levels of armors over time. The sample path method have been developed to calibrate the related-parameters required in the stochastic modelling of armors of rubble-mound breakwaters. From the analyses, it is found that cumulative damage levels of armors have surely been saturated with time. Also, the exponent of power law in time, that plays a significant role in predicting the cumulative damage levels over time, can easily be determined, which makes the stochastic models possible to track the cumulative damage levels of armors of rubble-mound breakwaters over time. Finally, failure probabilities with respect to various critical limits have been analyzed throughout its anticipated service life.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.29 no.6 s.102
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• pp.481-485
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• 2005

The port entry system of the inner harbor in Pyeongtaek${\cdot}$Dangjin was planned as lock-gate in 'Master plan project on port planning in Asan industry base(1990)‘, but was changed to tidal harbor in 'Project maintaining Master plan for comprehensive development of Pyeongtaek${\cdot}$Dangjin port(2001)'. Accordingly, southern sea bank constructed under the lower part of Seohae-bridge will be removed so that inbound/outbound vessels for the inner harbor can navigate at all times. However, in the view of the safety on passing through the lower of Seohae-bridge, navigating conditions for the inner harbor will be restricted in the single-way of 50,000 DWT vessel and the two-way of vessel less than 30,000 DWT Therefore, this study carried out the estimation of traffic congestion arising from these vessels with above restrictions q[ter supposing annual inbound/outbound vessel's numbers for loading and unloading cargo surveyed on the inner harbor.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.191-195
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• 2005

The port entry system of the inner harbor in Pyeongtaek (Asan) was planned as lock-gate in 'Master plan project on port planning in Asan industry base(1990)', but was changed to tidal harbor in 'Project maintaining Master Plan for comprehensive development of Pyeongtaek (Asan) port(2001)'. Accordingly, southern sea bank constructed under the lower part of Seohae-bridge will be removed so that inbound/outbound vessels for the inner harbor can navigate at all times. However, in the view of the safety on passing through the lower of Seohae-bridge, navigating conditions for the inner harbor will be restricted in the single-way of 50,000 DWT vessel and the two-day of vessel less than 30,000 DWT. Therefore, this study carried out the estimation of traffic congestion arising from these vessels with above restrictions after supposing annual inbound/outboubd vessel's numbers for loading and unloading cargo surveyed on the inner harbor.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.107-135
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• 2007

This paper uses a static Gamma count model, a traditional hurdle model and an endogenous switching Poisson model, respectively for determining married women's completed fertility rates in Korea. This paper analyzes the impact of household income, women's wage and education, and women's job market participation on the number of children of married women above age 40 and on the expected number of children of women aged below 40. The paper shows that a household income significantly increases the number of children for at least women aged above 40, however, this income effect is disappearing for younger generation. The empirical model suggests that women having a job tend to have fewer children for a group 39 years old and below and find that there is an endogeneity problem between child birth and labor force participation, too. The education level of married women gives a positive effect for giving a birth, itself, while it gives a negative impact on the number of children. Based on the empirical results, it concludes that Becker's Quantity-Quality theory works for Korea, too.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.4193-4198
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• 2015

Background: Globally, retinoblastoma is the most common primary intraocular malignancy occurring in children. This paper documents the recent incidence rates of retinoblastoma by age and sex groups from the Population Based Cancer Registries (PBCRs) of Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata using the data from the National Cancer Registry Programme. Materials and Methods: Relative proportions, sex ratio, method of diagnosis, and incidence rates (crude and age standardized) for each PBCR and pooled rates of the five PBCRs were calculated for the years 2005/06 to 2009/10. Standard errors and 95% confidence limits of ASIRs by sex group in each PBCR were calculated using the Poisson distribution. Standardised rate ratios of ASIR by sex group and rate ratios at risk were also calculated. Results: The maximum retinoblastoma cases were in the 0-4 age group, accounting for 78% (females) and 81% (males) of pooled cases from five PBCRs. The pooled crude incidence rate in the 0-14 age group was 3.5 and the pooled ASIR was 4.4 per million. The pooled ASIR in the 0-4, 5-9 and 10-14 age group were 9.6, 2.0 and 0.1 respectively. The M/F ratio in Chennai (1.9) and Bangalore PBCRs (2.0) was much higher than the other PBCRs. Among the PBCRs, the highest incidence rate in 0-4 age group was found in males in Chennai (21.7 per million), and females in Kolkata (18.9 per million). There was a distinct variation in incidence rates in the PBCRs in different geographic regions of India.