• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.416-420
• /
• 2006

Compare to testing sera individually, pooled-serum testing has considered as a cost-effective method, particularly on a large population-based seroprevalence studies. This study was to determine the relationship between individual sera and pooled sera titers for detection of avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) and to evaluate suitability of pooled sera by comparing prevalences estimated from both samples. A total of 5,000 individual samples were collected from 500 flocks in Chungcheong, Gyunsgi, and Kangwon provinces between January 2005 and February 2006. Ten samples were randomly selected from each flock. Five-hundred pooled sera were prepared by mixing equal amount of each 10 individual serum from the original samples. IBV antibody titers were measured by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test. The least squares regression analysis was performed to construct equation between pooled and mean individual titers. To determine whether the flock is infected 4 arbitrary criteria were used: detection of at least 1 chicken with HI titer ${\ge}$ 9 (criterion 1), detection of at least 2 samples with HI titer ${\ge}$9 (criterion 2), detection of at least 1 sample with HI titer ${\ge}$ 10 (criterion 3), and filially detection of at least 1 sample with HI titer ${\ge}$ 11 (criterion 4). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to examine the cut-off points of pooled titers showing optimal diagnostic accuracy. The area under the curve (AUC), sensitivities (Se), specificities (Sp), and positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values were calculated. The regression equation between pooled titers (pool) and mean individual titers (mean) was: $pool= 1.2498+0.8952{\times}mean$, with coefficient of determination of 87% (p< 0.0001). The optimal cut-off points of pooled titers were titer 8 for criterion 1 (AUC=0.975, Se=0.883, Sp=0.959, PPV=0.985, NPV=0.728), titer 8 for criterion 2 (AUC=0.969, Se=0.954, Sp=0.855, PPV=0.926, NPV=0.907), titer 9 for criterion 3 (AUC=0.970, Se=0.836, Sp=0.967, PPV=0.978, NPV=0.772), and titer 9 for criterion 4 (AUC= 0.946, Se=0.928, Sp=0.843, PPV=0.857, NPV=0.921). The difference of 'prevalence estimated by individual and pooled sample showed a minimum of 2% for criteria 2 and a maximum of 9.1:% for criteria 3. These results indicate that the use of pooled sera in HI test for screening IBV infection in laying hen flocks is considered as a cost-effective method of testing large numbers of samples with high diagnostic accuracy.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.36 no.5
• /
• pp.891-901
• /
• 2016

By comparing test blasting data experimented in three layered-structure polymorphic grounds to a geological profile, influence of blast vibration with respect to uncontrollable ground characteristics was analyzed. Inefficient blast have been performed without sufficient verifications or confirmations because insufficiencies with regard to experiments and data of blasting engineering on the layered structures to be irregularly repeated clinker layer consisted of volcanic clastic zones. It is difficult to quantify N values of clinkers within test blasting region because they have diverse ranges, or coverages. An absolute value of attenuation coefficient N in a field, estimated by blasting vibration predictive equation (SRSD), are lesser than criteria of a design instruction, meaning that vibrations caused by blast can spread far away, and the vibrational characteristics of blasting test No.1, indicating relatively small values, inferred by the geological profile, pressures of gas by the explosion may be lost into a widely distributed clinker layers by penetrating holes resulted from blast into vicinity of clinker layers located in bottom of soft rock layers at the moment of blast. As a result, amounts of spalling rocks are decreased by almost half. Also, ranges of primary frequencies in the fields are identified as similar to those of natural frequency of typical structures.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.783-786
• /
• 2015

Background: Utilizing geriatric screening tools for the identification of vulnerable older patients with cancer is important. The aim of this study is to evaluate the hospitalization risk of elderly hematologic cancer patients based on geriatric assessment and laboratory parameters. Materials and Methods: In this cross sectional study 61 patients with hematologic malignancies, age 65 years and older, were assessed at a hematology outpatient clinic. Standard geriatric screening tests; activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), timed up and go test (TUG), geriatrics depression scale (GDS) were administered. Demographic and medical data were obtained from patient medical records. The number of hospitalizations in the following six months was then recorded to allow analysis of associations with geriatric assessment tools and laboratory parameters. Results: The median age of the patients, 37 being males, was 66 years. Positive TUG test and declined ADL was found as significant risk factors for hospitalization (p=0.028 and p=0.015 respectively). Correlations of hospitalization with thrombocytopenia, vitamin B12 and folic acid deficiency were statistically significant (p=0.004, p=0.011 and p=0.05 respectively). Conclusions: In this study, geriatric conditions which are usually unrecognized in a regular oncology office visit were identified. Our study indicates TUG and ADL might be use as predictive tests for hospitalization in elderly oncology populations. Also thrombocytopenia, and vitamin B12 and folic acid deficiencies are among the risk factors for hospitalization. The importance of vitamin B12 and folic acid vitamin replacement should not be underestimated in this population.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.18 no.7
• /
• pp.23-35
• /
• 2013

This paper proposes an effective technique that is used to automatically extract feature vectors from vibration signals for fault classification systems. Conventional mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) are sensitive to noise of vibration signals, degrading classification accuracy. To solve this problem, this paper proposes spectral envelope cepstral coefficients (SECC) analysis, where a 4-step filter bank based on spectral envelopes of vibration signals is used: (1) a linear predictive coding (LPC) algorithm is used to specify spectral envelopes of all faulty vibration signals, (2) all envelopes are averaged to get general spectral shape, (3) a gradient descent method is used to find extremes of the average envelope and its frequencies, (4) a non-overlapped filter is used to have centers calculated from distances between valley frequencies of the envelope. This 4-step filter bank is then used in cepstral coefficients computation to extract feature vectors. Finally, a multi-layer support vector machine (MLSVM) with various sigma values uses these special parameters to identify faulty types of induction motors. Experimental results indicate that the proposed extraction method outperforms other feature extraction algorithms, yielding more than about 99.65% of classification accuracy.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.12 no.7
• /
• pp.261-266
• /
• 2014

When the number of parameters in the time series model are diverse, it is hard to forecast because of the increasing error by a parameter estimation. If the homogeneity hypothesis which was obtained from the same model about severeal data for the time series is selected, it is easy to get the predictive value better. Nonlinear time-series panel data for each parameter for each time series, since there are so many parameters that are present, and the large number of parameters according to the parameter estimation error increases the accuracy of the forecast deteriorated. Panel present in the time series of multiple independent homogeneity is satisfied by a comprehensive time series to estimate and to test of the parameters. For studying about the homogeneity test for the m independent non-linear of the time series panel data, it needs to set the model and to make the normal conditions for the model, and to derive the homogeneity test statistic. Finally, it shows to obtain the limit distribution according to ${\chi}^2$ distribution. In actual analysis,, we can examine the result for the homogeneity test about nonlinear time series panel data which are 2 groups of stock price data.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.15 no.21
• /
• pp.9101-9105
• /
• 2014

Background: The purpose of this study was to compare the accuracy and effectiveness of automated breast volume scanning (ABVS) and hand-held ultrasound (HHUS) in the detection of breast cancer in a large population group with a long-term follow-up, and to investigate whether different ultrasound systems may influence the estimation of cancer detection. Materials and Methods: Institutional review board approval was obtained for this retrospective study, and informed consent was waived. From September 2010 to August 2011, a total of 1,866 ABVS and 3,700 HHUS participants, who underwent these procedures at our institute, were included in this study. Cancers occurring during the study and subsequent follow-up were evaluated. The reference standard was a combination of histology and follow-up imaging (${\geq}12months$). The recall rate, cancer detection yield, diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values were calculated with exact 95% confidence intervals. Results: The recall rate was 2.57 per 1,000 (48/1,866) for ABVS and 3.57 per 1,000 (132/3,700) for HHUS, with a significant difference (p=0.048). The cancer detection yield was 3.8 per 1,000 for ABVS and 2.7 per 1,000 for HHUS. The diagnostic accuracy was 97.7% for ABVS and 96.5% for HHUS with statistical significance (p=0.018). The specificity of ABVS and HHUS were 97.8%, 96.7%, respectively (p=0.022). Conclusions: ABVS shows a comparable diagnostic performance to HHUS. ABVS is an effective supplemental tool for mammography in breast cancer detection in a large population.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.45-60
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of knowledge and perception of environmental problems on pro-environmental behavior of youth. The data used for this study were collected using questionnaire. The sample for this study consisted of 654 junior and high school students living in Seoul and Gyeong-gi Province. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The following is a summary of the major findings. (1) The significant variables affecting pro-environmental behavior of youth were need of environmental education, source of environmental knowledge, level of perception on air pollution and scarcity of resources and energy, sex and total amount of allowance of students. These variables explained 20.5% of variance of pro-environmental behavior. (2) Environmental education related variables were the best predictor of pro-environmental behavior; knowledge of environmental problem variables had limited predictive power. (3) Recommendations for teaching-learning strategies have been suggested to enhance youth's pro-environmental behavior in school.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.76 no.1
• /
• pp.23-29
• /
• 2014

Background: Interferon-${\gamma}$ assays based on tuberculosis (TB)-specific antigens have been utilized for diagnosing and ruling out latent TB and active TB, but their utility is still limited for TB incidence countries. The aim of this study is to understand the clinical utility of enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISpot) assays among patients with clinically suspected TB and healthy adults in clinical practices and community-based settings. Methods: The ELISpot assays (T SPOT.TB, Oxford Immunotec, UK) were prospectively performed in 202 patients. After excluding those with indeterminate results, 196 were included for analysis: 41 were TB patients, 93 were non-TB patients, and 62 were healthy adults. Results: The sensitivity and negative predictive values of the T SPOT.TB assays for the diagnosis of TB were 87.8% and 89.1%, respectively, among patients with suspected TB. The agreement between the tuberculin skin test (10-mm cutoff) and the T SPOT.TB assay was 66.1% (kappa=0.335) in all participants and 80.0% (kappa=0.412) in TB patients. Among those without TB (n=155), a past history of TB and fibrotic TB scar on chest X-rays were significant factors that yielded positive T SPOT.TB results. There was a significant difference in the magnitude of T SPOT.TB spot counts between TB patients and non-TB patients or healthy adults. Conclusion: The T SPOT.TB assay appeared to be a useful test for the diagnostic exclusion of TB. A positive result, however, should be cautiously interpreted for potential positives among those without active TB in intermediate TB incidence areas.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.75 no.6
• /
• pp.238-243
• /
• 2013

Background: The aim of our study was to evaluate the "diagnosis changed" rate in patients notified as tuberculosis (TB) on the Korean TB surveillance system (KTBS). Methods: A total of 1,273 patients notified as TB cases on the KTBS in one private tertiary hospital in 2011 were enrolled in the present study. Patients were classified into three groups: "diagnosis maintained", "diagnosis changed" (initially notified as TB, but ultimately diagnosed as non-TB), and "administrative error" (notified as TB due to administrative errors). Results: Excluding 17 patients in the "administrative error" group, the "diagnosis maintained" and "diagnosis changed" groups included 1,097 (87.3%) and 159 patients (12.7%), respectively. Common causes of "diagnosis changed" were nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) disease (51.7%, 61/118), and pneumonia (17.8%) in cases notified as pulmonary TB, and meningitis (19.5%, 8/41) and Crohn's disease (12.2%) in cases notified as extrapulmonary TB. Being older than 35 years of age (odds ratio [OR], 2.18) and a positive acid-fast bacilli stain (OR, 1.58) were positive predictors and a TB-related radiological finding (OR, 0.42) was a negative predictor for a "diagnosis changed" result via multivariate logistic regression analysis in pulmonary TB cases. Conclusion: Because of a high "diagnosis changed" rate in TB notifications to the KTBS, the TB incidence rate measured by the KTBS may be overestimated. Considering the worldwide trend toward increased NTM disease, the "diagnosis changed" rate may increase over time. Thus, when reporting the annual TB notification rate in Korea, the exclusion of "diagnosis changed" cases is desirable.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.180-186
• /
• 2014

Purpose: At present, a human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-based concept of tumor biology has been established, and trastuzumab ($Herceptin^{(R)}$; Genentech/Roche, San Francisco, CA, USA), a monoclonal humanized antibody directed against HER2, is a pivotal agent for the management of HER2 positive (HER2+) metastatic breast cancer. It is also known that HER2 has a predictive value in gastric cancer; however, its association with the prognosis of this disease remains uncertain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate both the relationship between HER2 overexpression in the tumors of gastric cancer patients, and the prognosis of these patients who have had curative resection. Materials and Methods: A total of 139 consecutive patients with gastric cancer who underwent surgery at the Kosin University Gospel Hospital between October 2011 and March 2012 were included in this retrospective study. All tumor samples were examined for HER2 expression by immunohistochemistry. A retrospective review of the medical records was conducted to determine the correlation between the presence of HER2 overexpression and clinicopathological factors. Results: The HER2+ rate was 15.1%. HER2 overexpression was associated with histological grade (P=0.044) and Lauren classification (P=0.036). There was no significant difference in the 2-year overall survival between HER2+ and HER2- patients (P=0.396). Multivariate analysis showed that HER2 was not an independent prognostic factor. Conclusions: HER2 overexpression in tumors was associated with histological grade and Lauren classification in gastric cancer patients with curative resection. However, HER2 was not an independent prognostic factor for gastric cancer in our study.