• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2006

Changes in the soil physical property and the topographic condition derived from agricultural activities like as farming activities, land clearance and cutting down resulted in environmental and economic problems including the outflow of nutrient from farms and the water pollution. Several theories on the soil conservation have been developed and reviewed to protect soil erosion in the regions having a high risk of erosion. This study was done using the USLE model developed by Wischmeier and Smith (1978), and model for the slope length and steepness made by Desmet and Govers (1996), and Nearing (1997) to evaluate the potential of the soil erodibility. Therefore, several results were obtained as follows. First, factors affecting the soil erosion based on the USLE could be extracted to examine the erosion potential in farms. Soil erodibility (K), slope length (L), and slope steepness (S) were used as main factors in the USLE in consideration of the soil, not by the land use or land cover. Second, the soil erodibility increased in paddy soils where it is low in soil content, and the very fine sandy loam exists. Analysis of the slope length showed that the value of a flat ground was 1, and the maximum value was 9.17 appearing on the steep mountain. Soil erodibility showed positive relationship to a slope. Third, the potential soil erodibility index (PSEI) showed that it is high in the PSEI of the areas of steep upland and orchard on the slope of mountainous region around Dokjigol mountain, Dunji mountain, and Deummit mountain. And the PSEI in the same land cover was different depending on the slope rather than on the physical properties in soil. Forth, the analysis of land suitability in soil erosion explained that study area had 3,672.35ha showing the suitable land, 390.88ha for the proper land, and 216.54ha for the unsuitable land. For unsuitable land, 8.71ha and 6.29ha were shown in fallow uplands and single cropping uplands, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.149-156
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• 2022

Lipid accumulation product (LAP) is a new index reflecting central lipid accumulation and is known to be a strong independent indicator for identifying the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) or diabetes mellitus (DM). This study was conducted to assess the relationship between the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and LAP according to the presence or absence of obesity in Korean adults. The study was carried out using data from the 2019 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) and included 6,090 adults aged 20 years or older. There were several key findings. First, after adjusting for related variables, the mean of the HOMA-IR levels (M±SE, 95% confidence interval) was positively associated with the quartiles of LAP in the overall population (P<0.001), non-obese (P<0.001) or obese groups (P<0.001). Second, in all the groups (overall population, non-obese and obese groups), the mean value of the fasting blood glucose (all, P<0.001), insulin (all, P<0.001), and the metabolic syndrome score (all, P<0.001) increased with the increasing quartiles of LAP. Insulin resistance was thus positively associated with an increase in the LAP in Korean adults with or without obesity.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.335-344
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• 2012

Osteoporosis is increasing in Korea as it becomes an aging society with the rapid economic growth and the development of medical technology. Osteoporosis also develops due to chemo and radiation therapy of cancer which also increases owing to Westernized diet. Osteoporosis is caused by reduced bone density, has close relationship with the change of geometry of proximal femur, which is a factor of hip fracture risk. The purpose of this study was the analysis of the correlations of osteoporosis and the change of geometry of proximal femur, which was observed according to T-score variance. The 350 male and female patients are chosen from D hospital in Busan, who were classified by age, sex and T-score values (normal, osteopenia, and osteo porosis). The results show that the age and gender have significant difference in the incidence of osteoporosis; the disease classification according to T-score value has significant difference in the geometry of the proximal femur such as Cortical ratio calcar, Cortical ratio shaft, Hip/shaft Angle, Strength index, Section modulus, CSMI, and CSA, and is highly correlated with the incidence of osteoporosis. Therefore, the findings of this research is that the change of the geometry of the proximal femur could be used as an indicator in the diagnosis of osteoporosis, could enhance the accuracy of the diagnosis in the future, and could be used as a clinical predictive factors through the analysis of the correlations of T-score variance and the geometry changes of the proximal femur.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.229-238
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• 2017

Objectives: The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the factors related with additional administration of sedative agent during intravenous conscious sedation (IVS) using midazolam (MDZ). The secondary purpose was to analyze the factors affecting patient satisfaction. Materials and Methods: Clinical data for 124 patients who had undergone surgical extraction of mandibular third molar under IVS using MDZ were retrospectively investigated in this case-control study. The initial dose of MDZ was determined by body mass index (BMI) and weight. In the case of insufficient sedation at the beginning of surgery, additional doses were injected. During surgery, peripheral oxygen saturation, bispectral index score (BIS), heart rate, and blood pressure were monitored and recorded. The predictor variables were sex, age, BMI, sleeping time ratio, dental anxiety, Pederson scale, and initial dose of MDZ. The outcome variables were additional administration of MDZ, observer's assessment of alertness/sedation, intraoperative amnesia, and patient satisfaction. Descriptive statistics were computed, and the P-value was set at 0.05. Results: Most patients had an adequate level of sedation with only the initial dose of MDZ and were satisfied with the treatment under sedation; however, 19 patients needed additional administration, and 13 patients were unsatisfied. In multivariable logistic analysis, lower age (odds ratio [OR], 0.825; P=0.005) and higher dental anxiety (OR, 5.744; P=0.003) were related to additional administration; lower intraoperative amnesia (OR, 0.228; P=0.002) and higher BIS right before MDZ administration (OR, 1.379; P=0.029) had relevance to patient dissatisfaction. Conclusion: The preoperative consideration of age and dental anxiety is necessary for appropriate dose determination of MDZ in the minor oral surgery under IVS. The amnesia about the procedure affects patient satisfaction positively.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.267-274
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• 2016

Increasing sugar intake of population has become a nutritional issue in Korea. Sweet taste perception may be related to behaviors such as eating sweet food including high sugars and total sugar intake. This study aimed to evaluate objective and subjective sweet taste perception and the association among objective sweet taste perception, dietary behaviors related to eating sweet snack food including high sugar, and total sugar intake from the snacks. Participants were 261 healthy female college students (mean age: $21.0{\pm}1.6years$), who were divided into three subgroups based on oral sweet taste evaluation using a sweet taste assessment tool provided by Ministry of Food and Drug Safety: sweet-seeker group (n=139), medium sweet-seeker group (n=54), and unsweet-seeker group (n=68). There was no significant difference in weight and body mass index (BMI) among the three groups; however, the sweet-seeker group had significantly higher sweet taste preference than that of the other groups. Though more people in the sweet-seeker group thought they tended to eat sweet foods than the medium sweet-seeker and unsweet-seeker groups, over half of the sweet-seekers did not think they tended to eat sweet foods. The sweet-seeker group was more likely to eat sweet snacks such as breads, chocolate products, sugar-sweetened milk, and so on than the unsweet-seeker group. Total sugar intake from the selected sweet snacks was 44.4 g for the sweet-seeker group, 34.4 g for the medium sweet-seeker group, and 28.0 g for the unsweet-seeker group with a significant difference. These results indicated the absence of relationship between objective sweet taste perception and the obesity index; however, significant associations were detected among objective sweet taste perception, eating sweet snacks and total sugar intake from the snacks. We also found high disagreement between objective and subjective sweet taste perception of the subjects. The present study provided the novel insight that measuring objective sweet taste perception may be useful for assessing the risk of high sugar consumption and undesirable dietary behaviors.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.51 no.10
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• pp.875-886
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• 2018

This study evaluated drought severity by bivariate frequency analysis using drought magnitude and precipitation deficit. A drought event was defined by Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the precipitation deficit was estimated using reference precipitation corresponding to the SPI -1. In previous studies, drought magnitude and duration were used for bivariate frequency analysis. However, since these two variables have a largely linear relationship, extensibility of drought information is not great compared to the univariate frequency analysis for each variable. In the case of drought in 2015, return periods of 'drought magnitude-precipitation deficit' in the Seoul, Yangpyeong, and Chungju indicated severe drought over 300 years. However, the result of 'drought magnitude-duration' showed a significant difference by evaluating the return period of about 10, 50, and 50 years. Although a drought including the rainy season was seriously lacking in precipitation, drought magnitude did not adequately represent the severity of the absolute lack of precipitation. This showed that there is a limit to expressing the actual severity of drought. The results of frequency analysis for 'drought magnitude-precipitation deficit' include the absolute deficit of precipitation information, so which could consider being a useful indicator to cope with drought.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.280-295
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• 2021

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the characteristics of patients according to their nutritional status as assessed by five nutritional screening tools: Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA), NUTRISCORE, Nutritional Risk Index (NRI), Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI), and Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) and to compare the agreement, sensitivity, and specificity of these tools. Methods: A total of 952 gastric cancer patients who underwent gastrectomy and chemotherapy from January 2009 to December 2012 at the Samsung Medical Center were included. We categorized patients into malnourished and normal according to the five nutritional screening tools 1 month after surgery and compared their characteristics. We also calculated the Spearman partial correlation, Cohen's Kappa coefficient, the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity of each pair of screening tools. Results: We observed 86.24% malnutrition based on the PG-SGA and 85.82% based on the NUTRISCORE among gastric cancer patients in our study. When we applied NRI or CONUT, however, the malnutrition levels were less than 30%. Patients with malnutrition as assessed by the PG-SGA, NUTRISCORE, or NRI had lower intakes of energy and protein compared to normal patients. When NRI, PNI, or CONUT were used to identify malnutrition, lower levels of albumin, hemoglobin, total lymphocyte count, total cholesterol, and longer postoperative hospital stays were observed among patients with malnutrition compared to those without malnutrition. We found relatively high agreement between PG-SGA and NUTRISCORE; sensitivity was 90.86% and AUC was 0.78. When we compared NRI and PNI, sensitivity was 99.64% and AUC was 0.97. AUC ranged from 0.50 to 0.67 for comparisons between CONUT and each of the other nutritional screening tools. Conclusions: Our study suggests that PG-SGA and NRI have a relatively high agreement with the NUTRISCORE and PNI, respectively. Further cohort studies are needed to examine whether the nutritional status assessed by PG-SGA, NUTRISCORE, NRI, PNI, and CONUT predicts the gastric cancer prognosis.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.205-222
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• 2022

Objectives: This study examined the characteristics of patients according to nutritional status assessed by five nutritional screening tools: Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA), NUTRISCORE, Nutritional Risk Index (NRI), Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI), and Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) and to compare the agreement, sensitivity, and specificity of these tools. Methods: A total of 952 gastric cancer patients who underwent gastrectomy and chemotherapy from January 2009 to December 2012 were included. The patients were categorized into malnutrition and normal status according to five nutritional screening tools one month after surgery. The Spearman partial correlation, Cohen's Kappa coefficient, the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity of each two screening tools were calculated. Results: Malnutrition was observed in 86.24% of patients based on the PG-SGA and 85.82% based on the NUTRISCORE. When NRI or CONUT were applied, the proportions of malnutrition were < 30%. Patients with malnutrition had lower intakes of energy and protein than normal patients when assessed using the PG-SGA, NUTRISCORE, or NRI. Lower levels of albumin, hemoglobin, total lymphocyte count, and total cholesterol and longer postoperative hospital stays were observed among patients with malnutrition compared to normal patients when NRI, PNI, or CONUT were applied. Relatively high agreement for NUTRISCORE relative to PG-SGA was found; the sensitivity was 90.86%, and the AUC was 0.78. When NRI, PNI, and CONUT were compared, the sensitivities were 23.72% for PNI relative to NRI, 44.53% for CONUT relative to NRI, and 90.91% for CONUT relative to PNI. The AUCs were 0.95 for NRI relative to PNI and 0.91 for CONUT relative to PNI. Conclusions: NUTRISCORE had a high sensitivity compared to PG-SGA, and CONUT had a high sensitivity compared to PNI. NRI had a high specificity compared to PNI. This relatively high sensitivity and specificity resulted in 77.00% agreement between PNI and CONUT and 77.94% agreement between NRI and PNI. Further cohort studies will be needed to determine if the nutritional status assessed by PG-SGA, NUTRISCORE, NRI, PNI, and CONUT predicts the gastric cancer prognosis.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.41-53
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• 2023

E171, a mixture of titanium dioxide, has been widely used as a food additive due to its whitening effect and low toxicity. However, it has been proven that E171 is no longer safe for public health. So far, there are insufficient studies on the toxic effects of E171 on organisms especially using standardized test methods. In this study, toxicity assessments of E171 to two aquatic species, water flea (Daphnia magna) and zebrafish (Danio rerio), were performed using modified standardized test methods based on the physicochemical properties of E171. The hydrodynamic diameter, polydispersity index, and turbiscan stability index (TSI) were measured to ensure the dispersion stability of E171 in exposure media during the test period. The EC₅₀ for immobilization of water flea was 141.7 mg L^-1 while zebrafish was not affected until 100 mg L^-1 of E171. Measurements of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant enzyme activities confirmed that E171 induced oxidative stress, leading to the activation of superoxide dismutase and catalase in both water flea and zebrafish, although the expression of antioxidant enzyme genes differed between species. These results suggested the potential risk of E171 to aquatic organisms and provided toxicological insights into the impacts of E171 on the environment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.713-723
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• 2023

Climate change is significantly affecting coastal areas, and its impacts are expected to intensify. Recent studies on climate change adaptation and risk assessment in coastal regions increasingly integrate the concepts of recovery resilience and vulnerability. The aim of this study is to develop a measurement model for coastal hazard recovery resilience in the context of climate change adaptation. Before constructing the measurement model, a comprehensive literature review was conducted on coastal hazard recovery resilience, establishing a conceptual framework that included operational definitions for vulnerability and recovery resilience, along with several feedback mechanisms. The measurement model for coastal hazard recovery resilience comprised four metrics (MRV, LRV, RTSPV, and ND) and a Coastal Resilience Index (CRI). The developed indices were applied to domestic coastal erosion cases, and regional analyses were performed based on the index grades. The results revealed that the four recovery resilience metrics provided insights into the diverse characteristics of coastal erosion recovery resilience at each location. Mapping the composite indices of coastal resilience indicated that the areas along the East Sea exhibited relatively lower coastal erosion recovery resilience than the West and South Sea regions. The developed recovery resilience measurement model can serve as a tool for discussions on post-adaptation strategies and is applicable for determining policy priorities among different vulnerable regional groups.