• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.582-593
• /
• 2015

Purpose: This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of a self-management program on patients with thyroid cancer, particularly during the time of waiting for surgery after cancer diagnosis. Psychological distress, biological responses of immune cell counts, and quality of life were the variables of this study. Methods: One group pre-post test design was used with the nature of a pilot study. Ten newly diagnosed thyroid cancer patients were recruited through physicians' referrals. After drop out of 4 participants, final data were collected from six participants. Small group technique, a one and half hour-session per week for one month (total 4 sessions, 6 hours) was used. Relaxation techniques, meditation training, and strategies to reduce distress were provided by researchers. Standardized questionnaires and an established bio-assay were used for collection of data. Results: Participants showed significant lowering of psychological distress (p<.05) and improvement in global quality of life (p<.05). Biological responses of immune cell counts did not show statistical significance. Conclusion: The self-management program may reduce psychological distress and improve quality of life of patients with thyroid cancer between the time of diagnosis and surgery. The self-management program would be a valuable approach for patients with an unexpected cancer diagnosis to prepare for their disease experience in a community setting.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.46-53
• /
• 2003

Under the strong leadership of Chinese Government to the anti-SARS struggle, the situation has been successfully controlled. Since May 1 of 2003, the Ministry of Health of China published daily the number of newly increased SARS patient of Beijing, the authors analyzed these data using $X_cs$$-R_scs$ cause-selecting control charts of Statistical Diagnosis(SPD) Theory. Data about number of newly increased SARS patient consists of two kinds of variation: random variation and tendency variation of SARS epidemic. It is concluded that SARS epidemic of Beijing was already controlled since May 9 of 2003.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.18 no.11
• /
• pp.124-131
• /
• 2001

Fault diagnosis of an assembled small motor relies usually on human experts hearing ability. The quality of diagnosis depends, however, heavily on physical conditions of the human experts. A fault diagnosis system for assembled small motors is developed using artificial neural network (ANN) in this paper. It is consisted of sound sampling device and fault diagnosis software package. Six parameters are defined to characterize the sampled sound waves. The Levenberg-Marquardt Backpropagation (LMBP) Algorithm is used to diagnose the fault of assembled small motors. Experimental results for more than two hundred small motors verify the performance of the developed system.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.186-207
• /
• 2001

Background : This study presented an analysis of healthcare quality indicators using data mining and a development of decision support system for quality improvement. Method : Specifically, important factors influencing the key quality indicators were identified using a decision tree method for data mining based on 8,405 patients who discharged from a medical center during the period between December 1, 2000 and January 31, 2001. In addition, a decision support system was developed to analyze and monitor trends of these quality indicators using a Visual Basic 6.0. Guidelines and tutorial for quality improvement activities were also included in the system. Result : Among 12 selected quality indicators, decision tree analysis was performed for 3 indicators ; unscheduled readmission due to the same or related condition, unscheduled return to intensive care unit, and inpatient mortality which have a volume bigger than 100 cases during the period. The optimum range of target group in healthcare quality indicators were identified from the gain chart. Important influencing factors for these 3 indicators were: diagnosis, attribute of the disease, and age of the patient in unscheduled returns to ICU group ; and length of stay, diagnosis, and belonging department in inpatient mortality group. Conclusion : We developed a decision support system through analysis of healthcare quality indicators and data mining technique which can be effectively implemented for utilization review and quality management in a healthcare organization. In the future, further number of quality indicators should be developed to effectively support a hospital-wide Continuous Quality Improvement activity. Through these endevours, a decision support system can be developed and the newly developed decision support system should be well integrated with the hospital Order Communication System to support concurrent review, utilization review, quality and risk management.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.126-143
• /
• 1996

Background : Little work has been carried out regarding quality assessment research in a primary care setting, comparing with that of hospitals. This study aims to evaluate the process of diagnosis and management of hypertension by public health doctors on the basis of pre-established clinical guideline, and to identify several modifying factors associated with them. Methods : Hypertension was selected as the target disease, because it is a chronic disease which is of great public health importance. Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to public health doctors practicing at health centers and health subcenters across the nation. The response rate was 20.9%. The questionnaire included the diagnosis and management process such as measuring blood pressure, history taking, physical examinations, and treatment approches and potentially modifying factors such as level of training, duration of practice as a public health doctor, and education on management of hypertension. Results : Public health doctors pay little attention in measuring BP, hypertension related history taking, performing physical examination and laboratory examination. But they devoted much effort in diagnosing hypertension exactly and giving nonpharmacological treatment. Among various antihypertensive drugs, calcium-channel blockers were the most preferred agent(50.9%). Level of training, duration of practice ad a public health doctor, and education on management of hypertension made no difference on quality of care(p>0.05). Conclusion : These public health doctors showed poor compliance with the pre-established clinical guidelines, which leaves much to be desired in diagnosing and managing hypertensive patients by public health doctors. This study might be able to contribute to develop some strategies, such as educational programs, which would be able to improve the process of care in hypertensives.

• Journal of Interdisciplinary Genomics
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.11-14
• /
• 2022

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is a genetic disorder that affects approximately 1 in 15,000-30,000 people, with the majority of patients inheriting the disorder via autosomal recessive inheritance. PCD is characterized by abnormal ciliary ultrastructure and/or function, which results in impaired mucociliary clearance and recurrent respiratory infections. Despite the presence of symptoms from birth, many patients with PCD remain undiagnosed until adulthood. Many advances in the diagnosis of PCD have occurred in recent years, including nasal nitric oxide assays, ciliary motility tests, and genetic sequencing. Early diagnosis and symptom management may reduce morbidity and mortality from PCD improving the patient's quality of life.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.1-15
• /
• 2004

Due to recent scientific innovations in mulberry cultivation, leaf yield has been increased manifold. However, with successive leaf harvest, a quantum drop in leaf yield and quality has been noted. This inturn has affected the silkworm rearing and farmers suffered by the frequent crop failures. This is mainly due to nutrient deficiencies in mulberry leaf. Moreover, no complete information is available about hunger signs of nutritional disorders, analytical diagnosis and critical levels of nutrients required. The present paper, thus, may serve as an important nutrient guide for identification of hunger signs, leaf nutrients status under deficiency and critical levels of the elements namely N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, B, Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn requirements for higher leaf yield and quality. The leaf nutrient status provided may help chemist for correcting the soil status. Besides, an integration of mulberry intercropping with legumes and applications of neem and castor oil cakes, VA-mycorrhizal inoculation, biofertilizer and vermicompost are suggested as integrated nutrient management for sustainable sericulture industry. Based on the information described in this paper, a model needs to be framed for maintaining continuous supply of nutrients to obtain desired quantity and quality of mulberry leaf for successful silkworm cocoon crop and increasing overall silk productivity.

• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.40-44
• /
• 2004

To evaluate the quality of fine needle aspiration cytology diagnosis on malignant salivary gland neoplasms, cytologic findings were correlated with histologic diagnosis of 56 surgically removed malignant salivary gland tumors. Seven cases (12.5%) were insufficient, 23 cases (41.1%) were diagnosed as malignant, 17 (30.4%) cases were accurately diagnosed by histologic subtype, and 9 cases (16%) were diagnosed as benign. Five out of 9 false negative cases were misdiagnosed as pleomorphic adenomas. Except the cases with insufficient specimen, overall sensitivity was 81.6%, and the sensitivity varied according to the histologic subtype; 91% in salivary duct carcinoma, 100% in carcinoma ex pleomorphic adenoma, 50% in mucoepidermoid carcinoma, 63% in adenoid cystic carcinoma, and 50% in acinic cell carcinoma. The diagnostic accuracy differed among cytopathologists irrespective of periods after acquisition of board of pathologists. These results confirm that salivary gland neoplasm can be easily misdiagnosed in fine needle aspiration cytology and a great caution should be given in diagnosing the benign appearing salivary aspirates to avoid under-diagnosis of malignant neoplasm with low grade cytologic atypia.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.84-92
• /
• 2006

Background : To examine the difference between ICD-10 and The Korean standard classification of disease(oriental medicine), and to aim at improve the practical use as statistical data. It is one of the reason of disease classification. On that account we convert the many to many correspondence presenting classification of oriental medicine into many to one correspondence. Method : The study tracked out 155 patients discharged from the university hospital which is located in Gyeonggi Province and managing hospital and oriental medicine hospital from July to October this year. The period of this study was from August 1 to November 18. We compared correspondence between the two services' diagnosis(hospital services and oriental medicine hospital services) at the same time and attempted many to one correspondence classification. That is for production of statistical data. Result : We investigated the group which have had medical treatment experience of two kinds of services at the same time. The result of this investigation was that the same oriental medicine diagnosis used differently in western medicine diagnosis. 44.5% was accorded with western medicine diagnosis. Correspondence of the western medicine diagnose with the top of the Korean standard classification of disease(oriental medicine) list's western medicine diagnosis was 13.5%. For many to one correspondence classification for statistics, one western medicine diagnosis was selected for one oriental medicine diagnosis. In case of the main diagnosis(I sign) was not enough to explain oriental medicine diagnosis' characteristic, we chose multiple other diagnosis, so other diagnosis(II sign) about patient's cause of disease could be selected for supplement after we examined the patient's records. The statistics was possible with this many to one correspondence. Conclusion : The result of this study about correspondence between western medicine diagnoses and those of oriental medicine confirms that The Korean standard classification of disease(oriental medicine) is hard to be standardized with western medicine diagnosis. Therefore, according to this study, we use new many to one correspondence classification, multiple oriental medicine diagnoses with one ICD-10, which can be used by statistical data.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.538-543
• /
• 2016

For a good product quality and plant safety, it is necessary to implement the on-line monitoring and diagnosis schemes of industrial processes. Combined with monitoring systems, reliable diagnosis schemes seek to find assignable causes of the process variables responsible for faults or special events in processes. This study deals with the real-time diagnosis of complicated industrial processes from the intelligent use of multivariate statistical techniques. The presented diagnosis scheme consists of a classification-based diagnosis using nonlinear representation and filtering of process data. A case study based on the simulation data was conducted, and the diagnosis results were obtained using different diagnosis schemes. In addition, the choice of future estimation methods was evaluated. The results showed that the performance of the presented scheme outperformed the other schemes.