• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.161-165
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• 2021

Objectives: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spreads heterogeneously, disproportionately impacting poor and minority communities. The relationship between poverty and race is complex, with a diverse set of structural and systemic factors driving higher rates of poverty among minority populations. The factors that specifically contribute to the disproportionate rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection, however, are not clearly understood. Methods: We evaluated SARS-CoV-2 test results from community-based testing sites in Los Angeles, California, between June and December, 2020. We used tester zip code data to link those results with United States Census report data on average annual household income, rates of healthcare coverage, and employment status by zip code. Results: We analyzed 2 141 127 SARS-CoV-2 test results, of which 245 154 (11.4%) were positive. Multivariable modeling showed a higher likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 test positivity among Hispanic communities than among other races. We found an increased risk for SARS-CoV-2 positivity among individuals from zip codes with an average annual household income

• Investigative and Clinical Urology
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.376-382
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• 2018

Purpose: The authors performed this study to investigate the risk factors for predicting stent failure and to evaluate its impact on prognosis. Materials and Methods: Between January 2002 and March 2017, we retrospectively reviewed 117 consecutive patients who underwent retrograde ureteral stenting and exchanging at least once every 3 months for malignant ureteral obstruction. The patients were classified according to their pre-stenting chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage. The factors affecting stent failure were analyzed using a logistic regression model. Overall survival (OS) was estimated, and the prognostic significance of each variable was estimated using Cox proportional-hazards regression modeling. Results: Before stenting, 91 patients were CKD stages 1-3 and 26 patients were CKD stages 4-5. These two groups differed significantly only in pre-stenting estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), bilateral obstruction, and pre-stenting pyuria. Among the 117 patients, stent failure occurred in 30 patients (25.6%), and there were no differences between the groups. Pre-stenting pyuria and post-stenting complications were significant predictors of stent failure. There were 79 deaths in total, including 56 in the CKD stages 1-3 group and 23 in the CKD stages 4-5 group. In the multivariate analysis predicting patient OS, pre-stenting eGFR and post-stenting disease progression were significant factors. Conclusions: Internal ureteral stenting was effective for maintaining renal function in malignant ureteral obstruction. However, it did not restore renal function, which is related to the prognosis of the patients. Therefore, to improve patients' renal function and prognosis, patients who require stenting must be quickly recognized and treated.

• Healthcare Informatics Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.346-358
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• 2018

Objectives: The association between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and mortality or serious cardiovascular events over a long period of time is not clearly understood. The aim of this observational study was to estimate the clinical effectiveness of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment on an outcome variable combining mortality, acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and cerebrovascular insult (CVI) during a follow-up period of 15.5 years ($186{\pm}58$ months). Methods: The data set consisted of 978 patients with an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) ${\geq}5.0$. One-third had used CPAP treatment. For the first time, a data-driven causal Bayesian network (DDBN) and a hypothesis-driven causal Bayesian network (HDBN) were used to investigate the effectiveness of CPAP. Results: In the DDBN, coronary heart disease (CHD), congestive heart failure (CHF), and diuretic use were directly associated with the outcome variable. Sleep apnea parameters and CPAP treatment had no direct association with the outcome variable. In the HDBN, CPAP treatment showed an average improvement of 5.3 percentage points in the outcome. The greatest improvement was seen in patients aged ${\leq}55$ years. The effect of CPAP treatment was weaker in older patients (>55 years) and in patients with CHD. In CHF patients, CPAP treatment was associated with an increased risk of mortality, AMI, or CVI. Conclusions: The effectiveness of CPAP is modest in younger patients. Long-term effectiveness is limited in older patients and in patients with heart disease (CHD or CHF).

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.113-122
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• 2019

In this study, the flow analysis to evaluate the extent of groundwater decline and the effect of the small valleys caused by the decrease of groundwater level in the construction of road tunnel, and the pollutant movement analysis to evaluate pollution of nearby water source by pollutant discharge during tunnel construction, respectively. The decrease of the groundwater during the 30 month tunnel excavation period was maximum 27 m and it was found to be the largest within 50 m from the tunnel center. The flow of groundwater is shown in the form of flowing into the tunnels and the effects of groundwater level decline were observed up to a tunnel radius of 200 m. As a result of the numerical modeling of the contaminant transport to examine the influence of the polluted water discharge from the tunnel, the range of the turbid water generated at the end of the tunnel is up to 120 m and it is estimated that the risk of contamination of the small river is not large.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2019

For the allergy patient who needs to know the situation about the extent of pollen risk, the National Institute of Meteorological Sciences developed a pollen forecasting system based on the Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling (CMAQ). In the old system, pollen emission from the oak was estimated just based on the airborne concentration and meteorology factors, resulted in high uncertainty. For improving the quality of current pollen forecasting system, therefore the estimation of pollen emission is now corrected based on the observation of pollen emission at the oak forest to better reflect the real emission pattern. In this study, the performance of the previous (NIMS2014) and current (NIMS2016) model system was compared using observed oak pollen concentration. Daily pollen concentrations and emissions were simulated in pollen season 2016 and accuracy of onset and end of pollen season were evaluated. In the NIMS2014 model, pollen season was longer than actual pollen season; The simulated pollen season started 6 days earlier and finished 13.25 days later than the actual pollen season. The NIMS2016 model, however, the simulated pollen season started only 1.83 days later, and finished 0.25 days later than the actual pollen season, showing the improvement to predict the temporal range of pollen events. Also, the NIMS2016 model shows better performance for the prediction of pollen concentration, while there is a still large uncertainty to capture the maximum pollen concentration at the target site. Continuous efforts to correct these problems will be required in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.33-45
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• 2019

Compound disaster is the type that increases the impact affected by two or more hazard events, and attention to compound disaster and multi-hazards risk is growing due to potential damages which are difficult to predict. The objective of this study is to analyze the possible impacts of post-fire landslide scenario quantitatively by using TRIGRS (Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Analysis), a physics-based landslide model. In the case of wildfire, soil organic material and density are altered, and saturated hydraulic conductivity decrease because of soil exposed to high temperature. We have included the change of soil saturated hydraulic conductivity into the TRIGRS model through literature review. For a case study, we selected the area of $8km^2$ in Pyeongchang County. The landslide modeling process was calibrated before simulate the post-wildfire impact based on landslide inventory data to reduce uncertainty. As a result, the mean of the total factor of safety values in the case of landslide was 2.641 when rainfall duration is 1 hour with rainfall intensity of 100mm per day, while the mean value for the case of post-wildfire landslide was lower to 2.579, showing potential landslide occurrence areas appear more quickly in the compound disaster scenario. This study can be used to prevent potential losses caused by the compound disaster such as post-wildfire debris flow or landslides.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2019

This paper presents a computational rational model to predict the ultimate and optimized load capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened by a combination of longitudinal and transverse fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite plates/sheets (flexure and shear strengthening system). Several experimental and analytical studies on the confinement effect and failure mechanisms of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) wrapped columns have been conducted over recent years. Although typical axial members are large-scale square/rectangular reinforced concrete (RC) columns in practice, the majority of such studies have concentrated on the behavior of small-scale circular concrete specimens. A high performance concrete, known as polymer concrete, made up of natural aggregates and an orthophthalic polyester binder, reinforced with non-metallic bars (glass reinforced polymer) has been studied. The material is described at micro and macro level, presenting the key physical and mechanical properties using different experimental techniques. Furthermore, a full description of non-metallic bars is presented to evaluate its structural expectancies, embedded in the polymer concrete matrix. In this paper, the mechanism of mechanical interaction of smooth and lugged FRP rods with concrete is presented. A general modeling and application of various elements are demonstrated. The contact parameters are defined and the procedures of calculation and evaluation of contact parameters are introduced. The method of calibration of the calculated parameters is presented. Finally, the numerical results are obtained for different bond parameters which show a good agreement with experimental results reported in literature.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.61-70
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• 2021

This study aimed to analyze the research trends of the abstract data of ergonomic studies registered in MEDLINE, a medical bibliographic database, using word embedding. Medical-related ergonomic studies mainly focus on work-related musculoskeletal disorders, and there are no studies on the analysis of words as data using natural language processing techniques, such as word embedding. In this study, the abstract data of ergonomic studies were extracted with a program written with selenium and BeutifulSoup modules using python. The word embedding of the abstract data was performed using the word2vec model, after which the data found in the abstract were vectorized. The vectorized data were visualized in two dimensions using t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE). The word "ergonomics" and ten of the most frequently used words in the abstract were selected as keywords. The results revealed that the most frequently used words in the abstract of ergonomics studies include "use", "work", and "task". In addition, the t-SNE technique revealed that words, such as "workplace", "design", and "engineering," exhibited the highest relevance to ergonomics. The keywords observed in the abstract of ergonomic studies using t-SNE were classified into four groups. Ergonomics studies registered with MEDLINE have investigated the risk factors associated with workers performing an operation or task using tools, and in this study, ergonomics studies were identified by the relationship between keywords using word embedding. The results of this study will provide useful and diverse insights on future research direction on ergonomic studies.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.9
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• pp.781-789
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• 2021

In this paper, we quantitatively analyzed the required UAV(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) failure rate of small UAV (≤25kg) based on the harm to human caused by UAV crash to fly over the populated area. We compute the number of harm to human when UAV falls to the ground at certain descent point by using population density, car traffic, building to land ratio, number of floors of building data of urban area and UAV descent trajectory modeling. Based on this, the maximum allowable UAV failure rate is calculated to satisfy the Target Level of Safety(TLS) for each UAV descent point. Then we can generate the failure rate requirement in the form of map. Finally, we divide UAV failure rate into few categories and analyze the possible flight area for each failure rate categories. Considering the Youngwol area, it is analyzed that the UAV failure rate of at least 10^-4 (failure/flight hour) is required to access the residential area.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.354-361
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• 2021

This study explored whether the transition to living with a chronic disease changes the level of depression symptoms among middle-aged and older adults in South Korea. We hypothesize that the transition to living with chronic disease leads to a higher level of depressive symptoms. A nationally representative sample (N = 6,284) of adults 45 years and older from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA) was analyzed. Multi-regression modeling was used to examine the association between the diagnosis of chronic disease and the level of depressive symptoms in patients. The findings highlight the need for policy makers, clinicians, as well as patients and their caregivers to become more aware of mental health risks in patients diagnosed with chronic diseases, particularly first-time patients. This study contributes to encouraging greater psychosocial support, including monitoring the level of depressive symptoms of patients who develop chronic conditions and providing appropriate treatments for those at the highest risk.