• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.10 no.1_2
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• pp.1-14
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• 1995

The purpose of this research is to assess the health risk of pollutants in drinking water and recommend the guidelines and management plans for maintaining good quality of drinking water. This study has been funded as a national project for three years from 1992 to 1995. This study(the second year, 1993-1994) was conducted to monitor 32 species of carcinogenic chemicals such as volatile organic compounds(VOCs), polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs), pesticides and heavy metals of drinking water at some area in six cities of Korea, and evaluate health risk due to these chemicals through four main steps of risk assessment in drinking water. In hazard identification, 32 species of carcinogenic chemicals were identified by the US EPA classification system. In the step of exposure assessment, sampling of raw, treated and tap water from the public water supply system had been conducted from 1993 to 1994, and 32 chemicals were analyzed. In dose-response assessment, cancer potencies, unit risk estimates and virtually safe doses of carcinogens were obtained by TOX-RISK (Version 3.1). In risk characterization of detected chemicals, health risk due to carcinogens such as vinyl chloride, carbon tetrachloride, dichloromethane, 1, 2-dichloromethane, chloroform, benzene and arsenic of tap water in several cities exceeded 10$^{-5}$ level. We suggest that non-regulated chemicals which exceed 10$^{-5}$ excess cancer risk level, such as vinyl chloride, carbon tetrachloride and 1, 2-dichloroethane, should be monitored periodically and be regulated by the Drinking Water Management Act, and database for exposure parameter of our own situation should be established.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.165-170
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• 2009

Objectives : We evaluated the risk of fracture associated with hypotension-related adverse drug reaction caused by taking alpha blockers to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Methods : We used the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service database from January 1st 2005 to June 30th 2006 for this study. The male patients with BPH and who had a prescription for alpha blockers following any fractures were defined as the cases. We set the 20 day long hazard period prior to the index date and the four control periods whose lengths were same with hazard period. After 1:4 matching of the hazard and control periods, conditional logistic regression was used to calculate the odds ratios for the risk of fractures as related to the alpha blocker exposure. Results : Doxazosin and tamsulosin showed the increased risk of fractures, whereas terazosin did not. After stratification using the defined daily doses, a protective effect was shown for the patients who took terazosin at the doses lower than 0.4 DDD and the hazardous effect at the doses higher than or equal to 0.4 DDD. There was no significant difference for the risk of patients taking tamsulosin at the doses higher than 1.0 DDD but there was a statistically significant increase in the risk at the doses higher than or equal to 1.0 DDD. Conclusions : Alpha blockers for BPH may increase the risk of fracture in elderly patients who have comorbidities and take the concomitant medications. Alpha blockers need to be prescribed with caution, although some have high prostate specificity.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.53-77
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• 2012

Financial firms, especially large scaled firms such as KB bank, NH bank, Samsung Card, Hana SK Card, Hyundai Capital, Shinhan Card, etc. should be securely dealing with the personal financial information. Indeed, people have tended to believe that those big financial companies are relatively safer in terms of information security than typical small and medium sized firms in other industries. However, the recent incidents of personal information privacy invasion showed that this may not be true. Financial firms have increased the investment of information protection and security, and they are trying to prevent the information privacy invasion accidents by doing all the necessary efforts. This paper studies how effectively a financial firm will be able to avoid personal financial information privacy invasion that may be deliberately caused by internal staffs. Although there are several literatures relating to information security, to our knowledge, this is the first study to focus on the behavior of internal staffs. The big financial firms are doing variety of information security activities to protect personal information. This study is to confirm what types of such activities actually work well. The primary research model of this paper is based on Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) that describes the rational choice of human behavior. Also, a variety of activities to protect the personal information of financial firms, especially credit card companies with the most customer information, were modeled by the four-step process Security Action Cycle (SAC) that Straub and Welke (1998) claimed. Through this proposed conceptual research model, we study whether information security activities of each step could suppress personal information abuse. Also, by measuring the morality of internal staffs, we checked whether the act of information privacy invasion caused by internal staff is in fact a serious criminal behavior or just a kind of unethical behavior. In addition, we also checked whether there was the cognition difference of the moral level between internal staffs and the customers. Research subjects were customer call center operators in one of the big credit card company. We have used multiple regression analysis. Our results showed that the punishment of the remedy activities, among the firm's information security activities, had the most obvious effects of preventing the information abuse (or privacy invasion) by internal staff. Somewhat effective tools were the prevention activities that limited the physical accessibility of non-authorities to the system of customers' personal information database. Some examples of the prevention activities are to make the procedure of access rights complex and to enhance security instrument. We also found that 'the unnecessary information searches out of work' as the behavior of information abuse occurred frequently by internal staffs. They perceived these behaviors somewhat minor criminal or just unethical action rather than a serious criminal behavior. Also, there existed the big cognition difference of the moral level between internal staffs and the public (customers). Based on the findings of our research, we should expect that this paper help practically to prevent privacy invasion and to protect personal information properly by raising the effectiveness of information security activities of finance firms. Also, we expect that our suggestions can be utilized to effectively improve personnel management and to cope with internal security threats in the overall information security management system.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.93-100
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• 2005

Background : Cancer is the leading cause of death and one of the largest burdens of disease in Korea. In 1996, the Ten year Plan for Cancer Control was formulated and the government then adopted the plan as a national policy. As part of this plan, the National Cancer Screening Program (NCSP) for Medicaid recipients was formulated, and the government adapted this in 1999. For low-income beneficiaries of the National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC), the screening program has been in place since 2002. In 2002, the target cancers of NCSP were stomach, breast and cervical cancer. This study was conducted to examine the relationships between the participation rate, the abnormal screening rate and the socio-demographic factors associated with participation in the screening program. Methods : To analyze the participation rate and abnormal rate for the NCSP, we used the 2002 NCSP records. The information on the socio-demographic factors was available from the database of the beneficiaries in the NHIC and Medicaid. Results : The participation rate of the Medicaid beneficiaries for the stomach, breast and cervical cancer screening were 9.2%, 15.5% and 15.0%, respectively, and 11.3% and 12.5%, except cervical cancer which wasn't be included in the NCSP, for the beneficiaries of the NHIC. The abnormal rate of stomach, breast and cervical cancer screening were 25.7%, 11.2% and 21.0%, respectively, for the beneficiaries of Medicaid and 42.6% and 19.4% for the beneficiaries of the NHIC. On the multiple logistic regression analysis, gender, age and place of residence were significantly associated with participation rates of the NCSP. For stomach cancer, women participated in the NCSP more than men. The participation rate was higher among people in their fifties and sixties than for those people in their forties and those people over seventy years in age. For the breast and cervical cancer, people in their fifties were more likely to participate in the NCSP than people in their forties and people over sixty. For the place of residence, people in the rural areas participated more than those people in any other places. Conclusions : The above results show that the participation rate and abnormal rate were significantly associated with the socio-demographic factors. To improve the participation rate for the NCSP, more attention should be given to the underserved groups.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.467-474
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• 2007

Objectives : Gastric cancer is the most common incident cancer in Korea. Although Helicobacter pylori infection is the most important risk factor for the development of gastric cancer, cigarette smoking has also been suggested to play an important role in the development of gastric cancer. The objective of this study is to evaluate the relationship between cigarette smoking and gastric cancer risk in a Korean population. Methods : The study population consisted of 13,785 subjects who had been enrolled in the Korean Multi-Center Career Cohort between 1993 and 2002. As of December 2002, 139 incident gastric cancer cases were ascertained through the Korea Central Cancer Registry and the National Death Certificate Database. Relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for gastric cancer were estimated using Cox#s proportional hazard model adjusted for age, education, alcohol drinking status and history of gastritis or ulcer. Results : Significant dose-response relationships were observed between the duration of smoking and the risk of gastric cancer among the male subjects in comparison to non-smokers: men who smoked for 20-39 years had a 2.09-fold (95% CI 1.00-4.38) increase, and those who smoked for more than 40 years had a 3.13-fold (95% CI 1.59-6.17) increase in the risk of gastric cancer ($P_{trend}<0.01$). Conclusions : This study suggests that a longer duration of cigarette smoking may increase the risk of gastric cancer development in a dose-response manner in Korean men. The association between smoking and gastric cancer risk in women should be verified in future studies with a larger number of cases.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.504-511
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• 2010

Diabetes is a disease that contains a high concentration of glucose in blood and due to defects in either insulin secretion or insulin action. Although the distinctive causes and factors of diabetes have not been clarified, the genetic factors are suggested as a main susceptibility until now. SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism), as the most common genetic variation, has an influence on personal susceptibility for diseases. A nonsynonymous SNP, which changes the amino acid of the protein and its function, is especially important. Therefore, this study hypothesized that there are associations between specific SNPs of the targeted genes. Transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) and fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) genes were selected as target genes from the results of genome-wide association and other related research studies. Second, four nonsynonymous SNPs (three in TCF7L2 and one in FTO gene) were selected as target SNPs by using public database of NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information). The recruited personnel was classified into three subgroups of diabetes, impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and normal groups. The individual genotypes of each group were analyzed by resequencing. None of genetic variations at four targeted SNP sites was revealed in all samples of this study. However, this study found two new SNPs that were not reported in TCF7L2 gene. One is synonymous SNP, which is heterozygous of C/T and no amino acid change of asparagine/asparagines, was located at c1641 and found in one normal person. Another is nonsynonymous SNP, which is heterozygous of G/A, was located at c1501 and found in two samples. This new discovered nonsynonymous SNP induce the amino acid change from alanine to threonine. Moreover, this new nonsynonymous SNP was found among two persons, one of whom was a diabetes patient and the other one was a person at boundary between IFG and normal, suggesting that this variant might be associated with IFG or diabetes. Even if there is a limitation of sample number for statistical power, this study has an importance due to the discovery of new SNPs. In the future study, a large sample number of diabetes cohort will be needed to investigate the frequency and association with new discovered SNP.

• Weed & Turfgrass Science
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.26-34
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• 2015

Korean Poaceae includes approximately 80 species of the agricultural weeds. Precise species identification is the first step for more effective weed management in the agricultural fields. However, the identification of species in Poaceae is not easy without the assistance of taxonomists or identification experts although they are relatively easy to distinguish from the plants of the other family by the unique characteristics of caryopsis. Thus, DNA barcode was suggested as an alternative powerful technique for species identification by using short sections of DNA from a specific region of the genome. Two standard barcode markers of vascular plants, chloroplast rbcL and matK, and a supplementary nuclear ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) region were used for barcode of major Korean Poaceae weeds, 403 individuals of 84 taxa. All the barcode markers revealed a good level of sequencing success with the lowest 73.7% for matK and the highest 88.8% for rbcL. The barcode sequences were deposited to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database for public use. Combined matK and ITS showed very high resolving power with 92.9%. Besides the identification of weeds for weed managment, the generated DNA barcode data could be used for many other applications such as rapid biodiversity assessment and conservation prioritization.

• Weed & Turfgrass Science
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.18-25
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• 2015

A universal DNA barcoding for agricultural noxious weeds is a powerful technique for species identification without morphological knowledge, by using short sections of DNA from a specific region of the genome. Two standard barcode markers, chloroplast rbcL and matK, and a supplementary nuclear ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) region were used to examine the effectiveness of the markers for Pooideae barcoding using 163 individuals of 29 taxa across 16 genera of Korean Pooideae. The rbcL and ITS revealed a good level of amplification and sequencing success while matK did not. Barcode gaps were 78.6% for rbcL, 96.2% for matK, and 91.7% for ITS, respectively. Resolving powers were 89.3% for rbcL, 92.3% for matK, and 79.1% for ITS. The matK obtained the best both barcode gap and resolving power. However, it should be considered not to employ matK for Pooideae barcode because of low rate of PCR amplification and sequencing success. As a single DNA marker, rbcL and ITS were reasonable for Pooideae barcode. Barcode gap and resolving power were increased when ITS was incorporated into the rbcL. The barcode sequences were deposited to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database for public use.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.415-421
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• 2012

In case of Korean housing complex, there became more mixed arrangement of buildings with different number of layers for a variety of urban skyline, recently. For example, around 33% of the construction sites of 'A' public corporation have gaps of more than 4 layers between high-rise buildings and low-rise ones in the same site, according to the survey. Generally, construction duration of the housing complex is estimated based on the layers of the highest building. Due to this baseline, whole construction duration could be extended so that the project cost could be increased. Therefore, framework duration of higher-rise buildings should be reduced to secure the feasibility of the project. On the other hands, these shortenings could adversely harm the feasibility in some cases because there are a wide range of combinations of the buildings with different number of layers in designing housing complex. Therefore, this study shows the results of analysis on effects of framework time shortening on the cost in housing complex project. Moreover, this could set the baseline of checking possibilities in condensing the construction duration of projects with buildings of different layers by supplying comprehensive database.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2015

The bacterial community structures of two marine sponges, Cinachyrella sp. and Plakortis sp., collected from Chuuk in the South Pacific in February 2012 were analyzed by PCR-DGGE (Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis) fingerprinting. After isolation of the total genomic DNAs from the sponges, the V3 regions of the 16S rRNA genes were amplified and subjected to DGGE profiling. The two species of sponges displayed different DGGE band patterns. The sequences derived from the DGGE bands revealed 85-100% similarities to known bacterial species in the public database. The bacterial community of Cinachyrella sp. was composed of 6 classes: Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, and Proteobacteria (Alpha-, Gamma-, Delta-). The bacterial community of Plakortis sp. included 7 classes: Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Spirochaetes, and Proteobacteria (Alpha-, Gamma-, Delta-). Though Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi and Proteobacteria were commonly found in both sponges, the predominant bacterial communities differed between the two. Namely, the predominant bacterial groups in Cinachyrella sp. and Plakortis sp. were Proteobacteria and Chloroflexi, respectively. The sponge-associated bacteria are sponge host-specific, as each of the tested sponges from the same geographical location had different predominant bacterial diversity.