• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.169-177
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• 2009

In the past decade there has been increasing concern about the atopic dermatitis (AD) associated with environmental diseases. AD has been increased in the last decade and known as one of the multifactoral diseases, which has the genetic background and environmental factors at the same time. The purposes of this study were to investigate the prevalence rate and etiologic risk factors of atopic dermatitis in preschool children in Changwon, which is a one of the Korean cities and has a large industrial complex. We reviewed and analyzed the statistical data, obtained from Korea National Health Insurance Corporation, related to prevalence rate by age and administrative district. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey, based on ISAAC (International Study of Allergy and Asthma in Childhood), was conducted on random samples of preschool children (5 to 8 years old) of large sized kindergartens in Changwon. The lifetime and last one years prevalence of AD in preschool children in Changwon was increased from 1998 to 2008. The prevalence rate of AD in the preschool children in Changwon city was 9.6%. The prevalence rate in boys was 9.7% and that in girls was 9.4%. The one year prevalence of AD was ranked as middle among other provincial cities in Korea in 2008. This study showed that the prevalence rate of the atopic disease in Changwon was 9% in 2008, which was increased especially compare to 2000. More active governmental approaches for control and prevention of atopic dermatitis for children are recommended. Further studies are needed for more accurate estimation of the prevalence of AD in Korea including different regional and age population.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.295-309
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• 2006

This study was conducted among 831 industrial workers in Gumi City in Gyung-Sang-Buk Do for the purpose of acquiring knowledge to improve quality of life though industrial workers' oral health promotion. Oral examination and questionnaire surveying were used to evaluate workers' oral health state and subjective health state and analyze their effect on quality of life. 1. The number of workers in the study were 831 in all; there were more males who accounted for 74.6%. 43.7% of the subject were 29 years old, accounting for the largest age group. Their academic backgrounds are 53.6% workers who graduated from high schools or lower educational institutions, and 46.4% workers who graduated from college or higher educational institutions. 80.7% of the subjects replied that their economic state belonged to the middle class. Their job classification indicates that 70.2% were working in production and engineering fields and that the seniority of 55.3% workers was less than 55.3%. 2. The result of evaluating the effects of oral health state on individual well-being and quality of life using OHIP indicates that younger people, singles(p<0.01) than the married, those in worse economic situation and those with shorter seniority(p<0.01) had higher effect of oral health state on quality of life. In addition, those whose health or oral health was not good (p<0.01), those with liked tough texture of food and snacks(p<0.05), those with more frequency of drinking(p<0.01) and those with more smoking tended to have higher effect of oral health state on daily life or quality of life. Besides, OHIP confirmed that oral health state is a measurement tool that can evaluate its effect on individual well-being and quality of life. The suggestion for future studies is to develop Korean style OHIP that can be used conveniently and efficiently by expanding the subject area up to the whole country and validating the samples gained from random sampling.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.224-236
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to develop a reasoning-based HTE-STEAM program for the development of the cognitive capacity of middle school students and enhancement of their STEAM literacy, and to investigate the effectiveness of this study in the school setting. The subjects of this study were the students of two middle schools located in the central region of Korea. The students participated in the HTE-STEAM program during their free-learning semesters and 202 of them were selected by random sampling method. Main findings were as follows: First, pre- and post-HTE-STEAM program has shown a significant value in statistical verification (p<.05) and the level of logical thinking ability of the research participants improved after the class compared to before the class. Second, the paired samples t-test comparing the difference between the pre and post scores of the STEAM attitude test has shown a significant value in statistical verification (p<.05), and the HTE-STEAM program has turned out to have a positive effect on the STEAM literacy of the research participants. Third, in the HTE-STEAM satisfaction scale test, the mean value of the sub-construct stood at 3.27~4.12, showing a positive overall response. Therefore, the HTE-STEAM program under the topic of earth science of 'Disaster and Safety' developed at the final stage of this study has proven to have a positive influence on the research participants in terms of the development of cognitive capacity by reasoning and collaborative learning, an important quality of communication and consideration necessary for STEAM literacy.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.247-261
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• 2023

Due to the non-uniform distribution of meso-structure, the diffusion of chloride ions in concrete show the characteristics of characteristics of randomness and fuzziness, which leads to the non-uniform distribution of chloride ions and the non-uniform corrosion of steel rebar in concrete. This phenomenon is supposed as the main reason causing the uncertainty of the bearing capacity deterioration of reinforced concrete structures. In order to analyze and predict the durability of reinforced concrete structures under chloride environment, the random features of chloride ions transport in concrete were studied in this research from in situ meso-structure of concrete. Based on X-ray CT technology, the spatial distribution of coarse aggregates and pores were recognized and extracted from a cylinder concrete specimen. In considering the influence of ITZ, the in situ mesostructure of concrete specimen was reconstructed to conduct a numerical simulation on the diffusion of chloride ions in concrete, which was verified through electronic microprobe technology. Then a stochastic study was performed to investigate the distribution of chloride ions concentration in space and time. The research indicates that the influence of coarse aggregate on chloride ions diffusion is the synthetic action of tortuosity and ITZ effect. The spatial distribution of coarse aggregates and pores is the main reason leading to the non-uniform distribution of chloride ions both in spatial and time scale. The chloride ions concentration under a certain time and the time under a certain concentration both satisfy the Lognormal distribution, which are accepted by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Chi-square test. This research provides an efficient method for obtain mass stochastic data from limited but representative samples, which lays a solid foundation for the investigation on the service properties of reinforced concrete structures.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.279-289
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• 2022

Since the frequency of heavy rainfall is increasing due to climate change, water levels in the river exceed past historical records. The rating-curve is to convert water level into flow dicscharge from the regression analysis of the water level and corresponding flow discharges. However, the rating-curve involves many uncertainties because of the limited data especially when observed water level exceed past historical water levels. In order to compensate for insufficient data and increase the accuracy of flow discharge data, this study estimates the flow discharge in the river computed mathematically using Monte Carlo simulation based on a 1D hydrodynamic numerical model. Based on the existing rating curve, a random combination of coefficients constituting the rating-curve creates a number of virtual rating curve. From the computed results of the hydrodynamic model, it is possible to estimate flow discharge which reproduces best fit to the observed water level. Based on the statistical evaluation of these samples, a method for mathematically estimating the water level and flow discharge of all cross sections is porposed. The proposed methodology is applied to the junction of Yochoen Stream in the Seomjin River. As a result, it is confirmed that the water level reproducibility was greatly improved. Also, the water level and flow discharge can be calculated mathematically when the proposed method is applied.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.39-48
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• 2023

This study presents the experimental results to measure the adsorption amount of methane gas by coal according to the conditions of a coalbed methane (CBM) reservoir. Adsorbed gas to coal seam particles was measured under reservoir conditions (normal pressure ~ 1,200 psi pressure range, temperature range15 ~ 45℃) using coal samples obtained from random mines in Kalimantan Island, North Indonesia. The obtained amount of absolute adsorbed gas was applied to triangular with linear interpolation to calculate the maximum amount of adsorbed gas according to temperature and pressure change, at which no experiment was performed. As a result, it was revealed that the amount of adsorbed gas to coal particles increased as the pressure increased and temperature decreased, but the increase of the amount of adsorbed gas decreased at more than an appropriate depth(1,000 ft). In the cleat permeability and cleat porosity for each depth of the coal bed considering the effective stress, the cleat permeability was 28.86 ~ 46.81 md, and the cleat porosity was 0.83 ~ 0.98%. This means that the gas productivity varies significantly with the depth because the reduction of the permeability according to the depth in the coal seam is significant. Therefore, a coalbed depth should be considered essential when designing the spacing of production wells in a coalbed methane reservoir in further study.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.2082-2093
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• 2021

Objective: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the tissue adequacy and complication rates of percutaneous transthoracic needle biopsy (PTNB) for molecular analysis in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Materials and Methods: We performed a literature search of the OVID-MEDLINE and Embase databases to identify original studies on the tissue adequacy and complication rates of PTNB for molecular analysis in patients with NSCLC published between January 2005 and January 2020. Inverse variance and random-effects models were used to evaluate and acquire meta-analytic estimates of the outcomes. To explore heterogeneity across the studies, univariable and multivariable metaregression analyses were performed. Results: A total of 21 studies with 2232 biopsies (initial biopsy, 8 studies; rebiopsy after therapy, 13 studies) were included. The pooled rates of tissue adequacy and complications were 89.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 85.6%-92.6%; I² = 0.81) and 17.3% (95% CI: 12.1%-23.1%; I² = 0.89), respectively. These rates were 93.5% and 22.2% for the initial biopsies and 86.2% and 16.8% for the rebiopsies, respectively. Severe complications, including pneumothorax requiring chest tube placement and massive hemoptysis, occurred in 0.7% of the cases (95% CI: 0%-2.2%; I² = 0.67). Multivariable meta-regression analysis showed that the tissue adequacy rate was not significantly lower in studies on rebiopsies (p = 0.058). The complication rate was significantly higher in studies that preferentially included older adults (p = 0.001). Conclusion: PTNB demonstrated an average tissue adequacy rate of 89.3% for molecular analysis in patients with NSCLC, with a complication rate of 17.3%. PTNB is a generally safe and effective diagnostic procedure for obtaining tissue samples for molecular analysis in NSCLC. Rebiopsy may be performed actively with an acceptable risk of complications if clinically required.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.353-362
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• 2024

This study examined the spectral characteristics of sediments according to moisture content using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based hyperspectral sensor and evaluated the efficiency of moisture content detection at different flight altitudes. For this purpose, hyperspectral images in the 400-1000nm wavelength range were acquired and analyzed at altitudes of 40m and 80m for sediment samples with various moisture contents. The reflectance of the sediments generally showed a decreasing trend as the moisture content increased. Correlation analysis between moisture content and reflectance showed a strong negative correlation (r < -0.8) across the entire 400-900nm range. The moisture content detection model constructed using the Random Forest technique showed detection accuracies of RMSE 2.6%, R² 0.92 at 40m altitude and RMSE 2.2%, R² 0.95 at 80m altitude, confirming that the difference in accuracy between altitudes was minimal. Variable importance analysis revealed that the 600-700nm band played a crucial role in moisture content detection. This study is expected to be utilized in efficient sediment moisture management and natural disaster prediction in the field of environmental monitoring in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.3
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• pp.215-224
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• 2009

A review was given of the role of traditional morphometrics in plant morphological studies using 54 published studies in three major journals and others in Korea, such as Journal of Korean Forestry Society, Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy, Korean Journal of Breeding, Korean Journal of Apiculture, Journal of Life Science, and Korean Journal of Plant Resources from 1997 to 2008. The two most commonly used techniques of data analysis, cluster analysis (CA) and principal components analysis (PCA) with other statistical tests were discussed. The common problem of PCA is the underlying assumptions of methods, like random sampling and multivariate normal distribution of data. The procedure was intended mainly for continuous data and was not efficient for data which were not well summarized by variances or covariances. Likewise CA was most appropriate for categorical rather than continuous data. Also, the CA produced clusters whether or not natural groupings existed, and the results depended on both the similarity measure chosen and the algorithm used for clustering. An additional problems of the PCA and the CA arised with both qualitative and quantitative data with a limited number of variables and/or too few numbers of samples. Some of these problems may be avoided if a certain number of variables (more than 20 at least) and sufficient samples (40-50 at least) are considered for morphometric analyses, but we do not think that the methods are all mighty tools for data analysts. Instead, we do believe that reasonable applications combined with focus on objectives and limitations of each procedure would be a step forward.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2004.09a
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• pp.119-120
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• 2004

Urban groundwater has a unique hydrologic system because of the complex surface and subsurface infrastructures such as deep foundation of many high buildings, subway systems, and sewers and public water supply systems. It generally has been considered that increased surface impermeability reduces the amount of groundwater recharge. On the other hand, leaks from sewers and public water supply systems may generate the large amounts of recharges. All of these urban facilities also may change the groundwater quality by the recharge of a myriad of contaminants. This study was performed to determine the factors controlling the recharge of deep groundwater in an urban area, based on the hydrogeochemical characteristics. The term ‘contamination’ in this study means any kind of inflow of shallow groundwater regardless of clean or contaminated. For this study, urban groundwater samples were collected from a total of 310 preexisting wells with the depth over 100 m. Random sampling method was used to select the wells for this study. Major cations together with Si, Al, Fe, Pb, Hg and Mn were analyzed by ICP-AES, and Cl, N $O_3$, N $H_4$, F, Br, S $O_4$and P $O_4$ were analyzed by IC. There are two groups of groundwater, based on hydrochemical characteristics. The first group is distributed broadly from Ca-HC $O_3$ type to Ca-C1+N $O_3$ type; the other group is the Na+K-HC $O_3$ type. The latter group is considered to represent the baseline quality of deep groundwater in the study area. Using the major ions data for the Na+K-HC $O_3$ type water, we evaluated the extent of groundwater contamination, assuming that if subtract the baseline composition from acquired data for a specific water, the remaining concentrations may indicate the degree of contamination. The remainder of each solute for each sample was simply averaged. The results showed that both Ca and HC $O_3$ represent the typical solutes which are quite enriched in urban groundwater. In particular, the P$CO_2$ values calculated using PHREEQC (version 2.8) showed a correlation with the concentrations of maior inorganic components (Na, Mg, Ca, N $O_3$, S $O_4$, etc.). The p$CO_2$ values for the first group waters widely ranged between about 10$^{-3.0}$ atm to 10$^{-1.0}$ atm and differed from those of the background water samples belonging to the Na+K-HC $O_3$ type (<10$^{-3.5}$ atm). Considering that the p$CO_2$ of soil water (near 10$^{-1.5}$ atm), this indicates that inflow of shallow water is very significant in deep groundwaters in the study area. Furthermore, the P$CO_2$ values can be used as an effective parameter to estimate the relative recharge of shallow water and thus the contamination susceptibility. The results of our present study suggest that down to considerable depth, urban groundwater in crystalline aquifer may be considerably affected by the recharge of shallow water (and pollutants) from an adjacent area. We also suggest that for such evaluation, careful examination of systematically collected hydrochemical data is requisite as an effective tool, in addition to hydrologic and hydrogeologic interpretation.ion.ion.