• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.164-171
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• 2014

Background: Safety of drugs has become a major issue in public healthcare. Spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reaction (ADR) is the cornerstone in management of drug safety. We aimed to investigate the awareness and knowledge of spontaneous ADR reporting in general public of Korea. Methods: A total of 1,500 study subjects aged 19-69 years were interviewed with a questionnaire for their awareness and knowledge related to spontaneous ADR reporting. Computer assisted telephone interview was performed from 27th February 2013 to 4th March 2013. Target population was selected with quota sampling, using age, sex, and residence area. Healthcare professionals such as physicians, pharmacists, and nurses were excluded. The survey questions included awareness of spontaneous ADR reporting, opinions on ways to activate ADR reporting, and sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Overall awareness of spontaneous ADR reporting system was 8.3% (${\pm}2.53%$) among general population of Korea. Major source from which people got the information regarding ADR reporting was television/radio (69.9%), followed by internet (19.3%), and poster/brochure (6.1%). Awareness level differed between age groups (p<0.0001) and education levels (p<0.0001). Upon learning about the ADR reporting system, 88.5% of study subjects agreed on the necessity of ADR reporting system, while 46.6% thought promotion through internet and mass media as an effective way to activate ADR reporting. Conclusion: The overall awareness of spontaneous ADR reporting should be enhanced in order to establish a firm national system for drug safety. Adequate promotions should be performed targeting lower awareness groups, as well as various publicity activities via effective channels for the general population.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.174-184
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• 2010

Objectives: This study shows the issues that should be considered when applying standardized rates using Community Health Survey(CHS) data. Methods: We analyzed 2008 CHS data. In order to obtain the reliability of standardized rates, we calculated z-score and rank correlation coefficients between direct standardized rate and indirect standardized rate for 31 major indices. Especially, we assessed the change of correlations according to population composition (age and sex), and characteristics of the index. We used Mantel-Haenszel chi-square to quantify the difference of population composition. Results: Among 31 major indices, 29 indices' z-score and rank correlation coefficients were over 0.9. However, regions with larger differences in population composition showed lower reliability. Low reliability was also observed for the indices specific to subgroups with small denominator such as 'permanent lesion from stroke', and the index with large regional variations in age-related differences such as 'obtaining health examinations'. Conclusions: Standardized rates may have low reliability, if comparison is made between areas with extremely large differences in population composition, or for indicies with large regional variations in age-related differences. Therefore, the special features of standardized rates should be considered when health state are compared among areas.

• Journal of Bone Metabolism
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.235-241
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• 2018

Background: Procollagen type I N-terminal propeptide (PINP) is one of the most clinically useful bone formation biomarkers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to independently evaluate the performance of automated total PINP assay and established age- and gender- specific reference intervals for PINP in healthy Korean population. Methods: The imprecision, linearity, and detection capability of Elecsys total PINP assay was determined and reference interval was established using 599 serums from Korean population with normal bone mineral densities based on bone densitometry. Age groups were divided into 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and over. Results: Elecsys total PINP had excellent performance in imprecision, linearity, and detection capability. When partitioning age groups in Korean male and female populations, there was significant difference in total PINP between different age groups. In male populations, PINP level was decreased with increasing age, then it remained steady after middle-age. In female populations, there was a decreasing tendency similar to that in the male population with a sharp increase in the 50 to 59 age group. Conclusions: Elecsys total PINP assay showed precise and reliable performance in our study. We established age-related PINP reference intervals for Korean male and female population with normal bone mineral densities.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.99-104
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• 2014

We estimated the influence of environmental factors on zooplankton communities at 25 reservoirs during winter (December 2010 to January 2011). Among zooplankton groups, Cyclops vicinus is more dominant during winter, and this is positively related to withered vegetation area and dissolved oxygen level. Therefore, the presence of withered vegetation might be considered as an important factor to determine C. vicinus distribution during winter. We considered that withered vegetation might be utilized as a habitat for C. vicinus, as well as provide an attachment substrate for periphytic algae. Abundance of periphytic algae can lead to high concentration of dissolved oxygen. Although copepods prefer high water temperatures for increasing their population growth, if Cyclops can overcome low temperature stress that leads to disruption of population, their population growth initiation in the next growing season (i.e. next spring) is possibly propelled by the winter population.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.877-884
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• 2011

Although peak loading coefficient is one of critical design factors for sewer works, its detailed affecting factors were not analyzed because of limited data availability. This study analyzed the affecting factors on peak loading coefficient with plenty data obtained from several newly constructed sewer works. Simple and multiple regression analysis methods were adopted to analyze the relationships of each variable with or without data filtering. Drainage population, drainage area, population density, and daily sewage flow per person showed very weak relationships under diverse characteristics of cities. However, daily sewage flow per person showed stronger relationships with peak loading when daily sewage flow per person was splitted into two ranges. Population density (i.e., drainage population divided by drainage area) and daily sewage flow per person considerably were related with peak loading coefficient when daily sewage flow per person is less than about 400 Lpcd.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.1210-1218
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• 2011

GA (Genetic Algorithms) are efficient for searching for global optima but may have some problems such as premature convergence, convergence to local extremum and divergence. These phenomena are related to the evolutionary operators. As population diversity converges to low value, the search ability of a GA decreases and premature convergence or converging to local extremum may occur but population diversity converges to high value, then genetic algorithm may diverge. To guarantee that genetic algorithms converge to the global optima, the genetic operators should be chosen properly. In this paper, we analyze the effects of the selection operator, crossover operator, and mutation operator on convergence properties, and propose the sweeping method of mutation probability and elitist propagation rate to maintain the diversity of the GA's population for getting out of the premature convergence. Results of simulation studies verify the feasibility of using these sweeping operators to avoid premature convergence and convergence to local extrema.

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.31-48
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• 2015

The purpose of this paper is to simulate drinking population, an alcoholic abuser and an alcoholic through therapy programs and system dynamic model. Then we try to research relationship between an alcoholic crime and related therapy programs. The results of the model simulation were consistently increased drinking population and 3 types drinkers until 2020 years. Specially the growth rate of drinking abusers will be passing that of a drinking population. Second, It showed clearly the decreasing effects of drinking crime on therapy programs(clinical treatment, preventive displine and counseling treatment). Finally, it will be positvely necessary the long-term and various alcoholic therapy program for reducing the ratio of drinking abusers and an alcoholic. In the second place, government and medical centers must be established a concrete information systems for collecting alcoholic datum.

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.105-126
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• 2010

The ecology of house swallow is closely related to the humans life because their life depend on the human settlements conditions and environments. 30 years ago house swallows are very common at the country side, but recently they are very rare. Almost the number of house swallows decrease as 1 of hundredth during 20 years. Why this dramatic population decrease are happening in the ecology of house swallow? The Population size impacted by many factors such as nesting, breeding, feeding, returning. The objective of this paper is to analyse the population dynamics of the ecology of House Swallow. This paper focuses on the important ecological changes-nests, foods, and return rates from wintering area-associated with recent country side development. In this paper, we explore the feedback loops of population dynamics and simulate the policy scenario model.

• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.10 no.1_2
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• pp.21-30
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• 1967

The aim of present study is to elucidate the relationship between decay rate of soil organic matter, and the change of soil microbial population under the oak and pine forest soils in Kwang-nung plantation stand. The results obtained are as follows: 1) The correlation coefficient between decay rate and the soil bacteria is 0.84 and fungi 0.93. 2) The distribution of soil microbial population is higher in both F horizon of the oak forest soil, and F and H horizon of the pine forest soil. However, the number of soil microorganisms decreases with the depth in each forest soil. 3) The population of soil microbes is related to moisture content, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, and exchangeable calcium, except organic carbon in fungi. 4) The soil organic matter has been mainly decomposed by fungi, and the size of its population are governed by the factors such as moisture content, organic carbon, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, and exchangeable calcium.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.315-320
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• 2012

The gDNA isolated from Cyclina sinensis from Gochang (GOCHANG), Incheon (INCHEON) and a Chinese site (CHINESE), were amplified by PCR. Here, the seven oligonucleotide decamer primers (BION-66, BION-68, BION-72, BION-73, BION-74, BION-76, and BION-80) were used to generate the unique shared loci to each population and shared loci by the three cyclina clam populations. As regards multiple comparisons of average bandsharing value results, cyclina clam population from Chinese (0.763) exhibited higher bandsharing values than did clam from Incheon (0.681). In this study, the dendrogram obtained by the seven decamer primers indicates three genetic clusters: cluster 1 (GOCHANG 01~GOCHANG 07), cluster 2 (INCHEON 08~INCHEON 14), cluster 3 (CHINESE 15~CHINESE 21). The shortest genetic distance that displayed significant molecular differences was between individuals 15 and 17 from the Chinese cyclina clam (0.049), while the longest genetic distance among the twenty-one cyclina clams that displayed significant molecular differences was between individuals GOCHANG no. 03 and INCHEON no. 12 (0.575). Individuals of Incheon cyclina clam population was somewhat closely related to that of Chinese cyclina clam population. In conclusion, our PCR analysis revealed a significant genetic distance among the three cyclina clam populations.