• Title/Summary/Keyword: Sampling technique

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A Study on the Effect of Cold Application Using a Sponge Bath in Healthy Adults (냉요법 적용방법에 따른 냉요법 효과에 관한 연구-건강한 성인 여성에서 스폰지 목욕방법을 중심으로)

  • Chung, Hyun-Sook;Kang, Kyu-Sook;Hwang, Ae-Ran
    • The Korean Nurse
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    • v.28 no.3
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    • pp.68-82
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    • 1989
  • This study was a quasi-experimental research study to test the characteristics of temperature regulation according to sponge bath methods of cold application. Thirteen volunteers were selected from among nursing college students according to an established criteria using a purposive sampling technique. Four different cold application methods were used: $\circled1$ tepid water sponge bath at $28^{\circ}C$, $\circled2$ 20% alcohol sponge bath at $28^{\circ}C$, $\circled3$ 40% alcohol sponge bath at $28^{\circ}C$ and $\circled4$ tepid water sponge bath at 28$^{\circ}$C plus an ice bag to the head. Changes in rectal temperature, mean skin temperature, mean body temperature, heat content change and thermal discomfort during the cold application were measured at 5 minute intervals over a 120 minute period. The data collection period was from Dec. 20, 1988 to Feb. 3, 1989. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, simple regression, ANOVA, Duncan's multiple range test and Pearson correlation coefficient using the SPSS-X Program. The results of the study are summarized as follows. Five general hypothesis were tested. Hypothesis 1 that "Change in heat content will be decreased for each cold application method according to the cold application time" was rejected. (tepid water sponge bath: after 10 minutes of cold application, 20% alcohol sponge bath: after 25 minutes of cold application: 40% alcohol sponge bath: after 45 minutes of cold application, tepid water sponge bath plus an ice bag to the head: after 80 minutes of cold application) Hypothesis 2 that "Thermal discomfort will be changed for each cold application method according to the cold application time" was rejected after 5minutes of cold application. Hypothesis 3 that "Change in heat content will differ among the cold application methods" was accepted except 0~5, 0~10, 0~65, 0~105 and 0~120 minute. This difference showed significance only between sponge bath methods and tepid water sponge bath plus an ice bag to the head. Hypothesis 4 that "Thermal discomfort will differ among the cold application methods" was accepted at 15, 20, 35, 45, 75, 80, 90, 95, 100, 105, 110, 115 and 120 minute of cold application time. This difference showed significance only between sponge bath methods and tepid water sponge bath plus an ice bag to the head. Hypothesis 5 that "The higher the change in heat content, the higher the thermal discomfort during the cold application time" was accepted for between 10~60 and 75 minute of cold application. In conclusion, this study showed that in sponge bath at $28^{\circ}C$, 10~80 minute was a effective cold application time in the view of heat loss through the skin. Concerning the effects of evaporation and thermal discomfort, it was found that there was no difference with regard to the solutions; tepid water sponge bath; 20% alcohol sponge bath or 40% alcohol sponge bath at a $28^{\circ}C$ controlled solution temperature. So it was thought that the type of solution itself did not have a big influence on the heat loss through skin. The combined effect of sponge bath with an ice bag to the head showed a significant difference and also showed a slight increase in thermal discomfort. On the basis of this research it can be concluded that cold application, for example, an ice bag to the head during a tepid water sponge bath is a good method as it increase heat loss through conduction, although fit can also cause a slight increase in thermal discomfort. The correlation between changes in heat content and thermal discomfort were not high. So factors other than change in heat content are considered to have an effect on the cognition of thermal discomfort.

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Investigation of Diseases of Thai koi, Anabas testudineus (BLOCH) from Farming Conditions in Winter (겨울철 양식장 환경에서 Tai koi, Anabas testudineus (BLOCH)의 임상병리학적 특징)

  • Ahmed, Gias Uddin;Dhar, Mili;Absar Khan, Mohammed Nurul;Choi, Jae-Suk
    • Journal of Life Science
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    • v.17 no.10
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    • pp.1309-1314
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    • 2007
  • Investigation on health conditions of Thai koi (Anabas testudineus) were carried out through clinical and histopathological observations from different farms of Mymensingh district for seven months during August 2006 to February 2007. Fish sampling and water quality parameters (temperature, dissolved oxygen and pH) were monitored on a monthly basis. Clinical examination of fishes was also carried out for any kind of abnormalities at monthly intervals. Samples of skin, muscle, gill, liver and kidney were observed by histological technique. Among the water quality parameters the values of water temperature, dissolved oxygen were found to be at unfavorable level for fish during the colder months in the farms. Clinically it was observed that fishes were more affected from December to January and almost normal in appearance during August to September and February. Different clinical symptoms like scale loss, dermal lesion, ulcer and loss of caudal fin were noticed in December and January. In histopathological study, structures of fish organs were normal from August to September. In the months of October and November, minor pathologies were found to be started. Marked pathological changes like necrosis, pyknosis, inflammation, hemorrhage, hypertrophy, hyperplasia, missing of primary and secondary gill lamellae were observed in the months of December and January. Whereas, in the month of February the pathological condition of fish gradually reduced. Again when considered individual fish farm, fishes of Reliance Aqua Farm were more affected than Sotota Matshya Hatchery. The study showed that severity of clinical and pathological changes were increased in December and January. During the period EUS and protozoan diseases were noticed in A. testudineus of the investigated farms.

Factor Analysis of Soil and Water Quality Indicators in Different Agricultural Areas of the Han River Basins (한강수계 농업지대에서 토양과 수질 지표에 대한 요인 분석)

  • Jung, Yeong-Sang;Yang, Jae-E;Joo, Jin-Ho;Kim, Jeong-Je;Kim, Hyun-Jeong;Ha, Sang-Keun
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.32 no.4
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    • pp.398-404
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    • 1999
  • Factor analysis technique was employed to screen the principal indicators influencing soil and water qualities in the intensively cultivated areas of the Han River Basin. Soil chemical parameters were analyzed for the soil samples collected at intensive farming area in Pyungchang-Gun, and water quality monitoring data were obtained from the agricultural small catchments of Han River Basin during 1996 and 1997. Among the $11{\times}11$ cross correlation matrix, 29 correlations were significant out of 55 soil quality indicator pairs. The overall Kaiser's measure of sampling adequacy(KMS) value was acceptable with 0.60. Most indicators except iron were acceptable. Among soil indicators, the first factors showing high factor loadings were pH, Ca and Mg. The factor loading was the highest for Ca. The second factor could be characterized as phosphate and micronutrient. The third factor was organic matter and EC, and the fourth factor was potassium and Fe. Out of 190 water quality indicators, 86 correlations were significant. Overall KMS value was 0.74, but the KMS values for pH, TSS, Cd, Cu and Fe were lower than 50. The first factor of EC accounts 27.1 percents of the total variance, and showed high factor loadings with Na, Ca, $SO_4$, Mg, K, Cl, $NO_3$, and T-N. The second factor showed high loadings with Zn, Fe, Mn and Cd. The third to seventh factors could be characterized as $PO_4$, TSS, inorganic nitrogen, pH and T-P, and Cu factors, respectively. The factor score for EC was the highest in Kuri, followed by Chunchon, Dunnae and Daegwanryng. The factor score for heavy metals were the highest in the Daegwanryng. The results demonstrated that the factor analysis could be useful to select the most principal factor influencing soil and water qualities in the agricultural watershed.

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The Effect of the Characteristics of Agri-Food Open Market on the Repurchase Intention: Focusing on the Moderating Effect of Innovation (농식품 오픈 마켓 특성이 재구매 의도에 미치는 영향: 혁신성의 조절효과를 중심으로)

  • Kim, Sangmi;Ha, Gyusu
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.153-165
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    • 2021
  • With the disappearance of boundaries between online and offline, the O2O(online to offline) platform service is rapidly growing. Unlike general products, freshness is an important decision-making factor for agri-food, and there are many limiting factors for growth as an open market among O2O platforms due to the characteristics of difficult refunds and exchanges compared to other items and new transaction methods. In order to overcome these obstacles, consumer innovation must be considered. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of O2O(online to offline) platform characteristics perception on agri-food repurchase intentions. And an empirical survey of the hypothesis is made that innovation will show a moderating effect between agri-food O2O platform characteristics and repurchase intention. And an empirical survey of the hypothesis is made that innovation will show a moderating effect between agri-food O2O platform characteristics and repurchase intention. For this purpose, Using a convenience sampling technique, an online survey was conducted through Google survey from April 1 to April 15, 2021. A total of final analysis data were collected from a total of 270 purchase experienced of agri-food O2O(online to offline) platform. The SPSS program was used for analysis, and multiple regression analysis was used for hypothesis verification. The results showed that Economic, Interaction, and Playfulness had a significant positive effect on agri-food repurchase intend. Also, Interactivity × innovation, playfulness × innovation were found to have a significant positive (+) effect on repurchase intention. The results of this study show that innovation reduces the burden on consumers for new systems and mobile transactions. The results of this study suggest that convenient interface design is important for activating O2O transactions of agri-food. In addition, education and support are needed to strengthen the IT competency of farmers. The results of this study will be able to contribute to the establishment of infrastructure for agri-food open market shopping malls. In future studies, the influence of the O2O platform type on the purchase intention should be studied continuously.

Media Habits of Sensation Seekers (감지추구자적매체습관(感知追求者的媒体习惯))

  • Blakeney, Alisha;Findley, Casey;Self, Donald R.;Ingram, Rhea;Garrett, Tony
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.179-187
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    • 2010
  • Understanding consumers' preferences and use of media types is imperative for marketing and advertising managers, especially in today's fragmented market. A clear understanding assists managers in making more effective selections of appropriate media outlets, yet individuals' choices of type and use of media are based on a variety of characteristics. This paper examines one personality trait, sensation seeking, which has not appeared in the literature examining "new" media preferences and use. Sensation seeking is a personality trait defined as "the need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experiences and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experiences" (Zuckerman 1979). Six hypotheses were developed from a review of the literature. Particular attention was given to the Uses and Gratification theory (Katz 1959), which explains various reasons why people choose media types and their motivations for using the different types of media. Current theory suggests that High Sensation Seekers (HSS), due to their needs for novelty, arousal and unconventional content and imagery, would exhibit higher frequency of use of new media. Specifically, we hypothesize that HSS will use the internet more than broadcast (H1a) or print media (H1b) and more than low (LSS) (H2a) or medium sensation seekers (MSS) (H2b). In addition, HSS have been found to be more social and have higher numbers of friends therefore are expected to use social networking websites such as Facebook/MySpace (H3) and chat rooms (H4) more than LSS (a) and MSS (b). Sensation seekers can manifest into a range of behaviors including disinhibition,. It is expected that alternative social networks such as Facebook/MySpace (H5) and chat rooms (H6) will be used more often for those who have higher levels of disinhibition than low (a) or medium (b) levels. Data were collected using an online survey of participants in extreme sports. In order to reach this group, an improved version of a snowball sampling technique, chain-referral method, was used to select respondents for this study. This method was chosen as it is regarded as being effective to reach otherwise hidden population groups (Heckathorn, 1997). A final usable sample of 1108 respondents, which was mainly young (56.36% under 34), male (86.1%) and middle class (58.7% with household incomes over USD 50,000) was consistent with previous studies on sensation seeking. Sensation seeking was captured using an existing measure, the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (Hoyle et al., 2002). Media usage was captured by measuring the self reported usage of various media types. Results did not support H1a and b. HSS did not show higher levels of usage of alternative media such as the internet showing in fact lower mean levels of usage than all the other types of media. The highest media type used by HSS was print media, suggesting that there is a revolt against the mainstream. Results support H2a and b that HSS are more frequent users of the internet than LSS or MSS. Further analysis revealed that there are significant differences in the use of print media between HSS and LSS, suggesting that HSS may seek out more specialized print publications in their respective extreme sport activity. Hypothesis 3a and b showed that HSS use Facebook/MySpace more frequently than either LSS or MSS. There were no significant differences in the use of chat rooms between LSS and HSS, so as a consequence no support for H4a, although significant for MSS H4b. Respondents with varying levels of disinhibition were expected to have different levels of use of Facebook/MySpace and chat-rooms. There was support for the higher levels of use of Facebook/MySpace for those with high levels of disinhibition than low or medium levels, supporting H5a and b. Similarly there was support for H6b, Those with high levels of disinhibition use chat-rooms significantly more than those with medium levels but not for low levels (H6a). The findings are counterintuitive and give some interesting insights for managers. First, although HSS use online media more frequently than LSS or MSS, this groups use of online media is less than either print or broadcast media. The advertising executive should not place too much emphasis on online media for this important market segment. Second, social media, such as facebook/Myspace and chatrooms should be examined by managers as potential ways to reach this group. Finally, there is some implication for public policy by the higher levels of use of social media by those who are disinhibited. These individuals are more inclined to engage in more socially risky behavior which may have some dire implications, e.g. by internet predators or future employers. There is a limitation in the study in that only those who engage in extreme sports are included. This is by nature a HSS activity. A broader population is therefore needed to test if these results hold.

The Effect of Structured Information on the Sleep Amount of Patients Undergoing Open Heart Surgery (계획된 간호 정보가 수면량에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구 -개심술 환자를 중심으로-)

  • 이소우
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.1-26
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    • 1982
  • The main purpose of this study was to test the effect of the structured information on the sleep amount of the patients undergoing open heart surgery. This study has specifically addressed to the Following two basic research questions: (1) Would the structed in formation influence in the reduction of sleep disturbance related to anxiety and Physical stress before and after the operation? and (2) that would be the effects of the structured information on the level of preoperative state anxiety, the hormonal change, and the degree of behavioral change in the patients undergoing an open heart surgery? A Quasi-experimental research was designed to answer these questions with one experimental group and one control group. Subjects in both groups were matched as closely as possible to avoid the effect of the differences inherent to the group characteristics, Baseline data were also. collected on both groups for 7 days prior to the experiment and found that subjects in both groups had comparable sleep patterns, trait anxiety, hormonal levels and behavioral level. A structured information as an experimental input was given to the subjects in the experimental group only. Data were collected and compared between the experimental group and the control group on the sleep amount of the consecutive pre and post operative days, on preoperative state anxiety level, and on hormonal and behavioral changes. To test the effectiveness of the structured information, two main hypotheses and three sub-hypotheses were formulated as follows; Main hypothesis 1: Experimental group which received structured information will have more sleep amount than control group without structured information in the night before the open heart surgery. Main hypothesis 2: Experimental group with structured information will have more sleep, amount than control group without structured information during the week following the open heart surgery Sub-hypothesis 1: Experimental group with structured information will be lower in the level of State anxiety than control group without structured information in the night before the open heart surgery. Sub-hypothesis 2 : Experimental group with structured information will have lower hormonal level than control group without stuctured information on the 5th day after the open heart surgery Sub-hypothesis 3: Experimental group with structured information will be lower in the behavioral change level than control group without structured information during the week after the open heart surgery. The research was conducted in a national university hospital in Seoul, Korea. The 53 Subjects who participated in the study were systematically divided into experimental group and control group which was decided by random sampling method. Among 53 subjects, 26 were placed in the experimental group and 27 in the control group. Instruments; (1) Structed information: Structured information as an independent variable was constructed by the researcher on the basis of Roy's adaptation model consisting of physiologic needs, self-concept, role function and interdependence needs as related to the sleep and of operational procedures. (2) Sleep amount measure: Sleep amount as main dependent variable was measured by trained nurses through observation on the basis of the established criteria, such as closed or open eyes, regular or irregular respiration, body movement, posture, responses to the light and question, facial expressions and self report after sleep. (3) State anxiety measure: State Anxiety as a sub-dependent variable was measured by Spi-elberger's STAI Anxiety scale, (4) Hormornal change measure: Hormone as a sub-dependent variable was measured by the cortisol level in plasma. (5) Behavior change measure: Behavior as a sub-dependent variable was measured by the Behavior and Mood Rating Scale by Wyatt. The data were collected over a period of four months, from June to October 1981, after the pretest period of two months. For the analysis of the data and test for the hypotheses, the t-test with mean differences and analysis of covariance was used. The result of the test for instruments show as follows: (1) STAI measurement for trait and state anxiety as analyzed by Cronbachs alpha coefficient analysis for item analysis and reliability showed the reliability level at r= .90 r= .91 respectively. (2) Behavior and Mood Rating Scale measurement was analyzed by means of Principal Component Analysis technique. Seven factors retained were anger, anxiety, hyperactivity, depression, bizarre behavior, suspicious behavior and emotional withdrawal. Cumulative percentage of each factor was 71.3%. The result of the test for hypotheses show as follows; (1) Main hypothesis, was not supported. The experimental group has 282 minutes of sleep as compared to the 255 minutes of sleep by the control group. Thus the sleep amount was higher in experimental group than in control group, however, the difference was not statistically significant at .05 level. (2) Main hypothesis 2 was not supported. The mean sleep amount of the experimental group and control group were 297 minutes and 278 minutes respectively Therefore, the experimental group had more sleep amount as compared to the control group, however, the difference was not statistically significant at .05 level. Thus, the main hypothesis 2 was not supported. (3) Sub-hypothesis 1 was not supported. The mean state anxiety of the experimental group and control group were 42.3, 43.9 in scores. Thus, the experimental group had slightly lower state anxiety level than control group, howe-ver, the difference was not statistically significant at .05 level. (4) Sub-hypothesis 2 was not supported. . The mean hormonal level of the experimental group and control group were 338 ㎍ and 440 ㎍ respectively. Thus, the experimental group showed decreased hormonal level than the control group, however, the difference was not statistically significant at .05 level. (5) Sub-hypothesis 3 was supported. The mean behavioral level of the experimental group and control group were 29.60 and 32.00 respectively in score. Thus, the experimental group showed lower behavioral change level than the control group. The difference was statistically significant at .05 level. In summary, the structured information did not influence the sleep amount, state anxiety or hormonal level of the subjects undergoing an open heart surgery at a statistically significant level, however, it showed a definite trends in their relationships, not least to mention its significant effect shown on behavioral change level. It can further be speculated that a great degree of individual differences in the variables such as sleep amount, state anxiety and fluctuation in hormonal level may partly be responsible for the statistical insensitivity to the experimentation.

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Postoperative Radiotherapy in the Rectal Cancers Patterns of Care Study for the Years of $1998\~1999$ (직장암의 방사선치료에 대한 Patterns of Care Study: $1998{\sim}1999$년도 수술 후 방사선치료 환자들의 특성 및 치료내용에 대한 분석결과)

  • Kim, Jong-Hoon;Oh, Do-Hoon;Kang, Ki-Moon;Kim, Woo-Cheol;Kim, Won-Dong;Kim, Jung, Soo;Kim, June-Sang;Kim, Jin-Hee;Kil, Hak-Jae;Suh, Chang-Ok;Sohn, Seung-Chang;Ahn, Yong-Chan;Yang, Dae-Sik
    • Radiation Oncology Journal
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    • v.23 no.1
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    • pp.22-31
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    • 2005
  • Purpose : To conduct a nationwide survey on the principals in radiotherapy for rectal cancer, and produce a database of Korean Patterns of Care Study. Materials and Methods : We developed web-based Patterns of Care Study system and a national survey was conducted using random sampling based on power allocation methods. Eligible patients were who had postoperative radiotherapy for rectal cancer without gross residual tumor after surgical resection and without previous history of other cancer and radiotherapy to pelvis. Data of patients were Inputted to the web based PCS system by each investigators in 19 institutions. Results : Informations on 309 patients with rectal cancer who received radiotherapy between 1998 and 1999 were collected. Male to female ratio was 59 : 41, and the most common location of tumor was lower rectum ($46\%$). Preoperative CEA was checked in $79\%$ of cases and its value was higher than 6 ng/ml in $32\%$. Pathologic stage were I in $1.5\%$, II in $32\%$, III in $53\%$, and IV in $1.6\%$. Low anterior resection was the most common type of surgery and complete resection was peformed in $95\%$ of cases. Distal resection margin was less than 2 cm in $30\%$, and number of lymph node dissected was less than 12 in $31\%$. Chemotherapy was peformed in $91\%$ and most common regimen was 5-FU and leucovorine ($59\%$). The most common type of field arrangement used for the initial pelvic field was the four field box (Posterior-Right-Left) technique ($65.0\%$), and there was no AP-PA parallel opposing field used. Patient position was prone in $81.2\%$, and the boost field was used in $61.8\%$. To displace bowel outward, pressure modulating devices or bladder filling was used in $40.1\%$. Radiation dose was prescribed to isocenter in $45.3\%$ and to isodose line in 123 cases ($39.8\%$). Percent delivered dose over $90\%$ was achieved in $92.9\%$. Conclusion : We could find the Patterns of Care for the radiotherapy in Korean rectal cancer patients was similar to that of US national survey. The type of surgery and the regimen of chemotherapy were variable according to institutions and the variations of radiation dose and field arrangement were within acceptable range.

Study for Diagnostic Efficacy of Minibronchoalveolar Lavage in the Detection of Etiologic Agents of Ventilator-associated Pneumonia in Patients Receiving Antibiotics (항생제를 사용하고 있었던 인공호흡기 연관 폐렴환자에서의 원인균 발견을 위한 소량 기관지폐포세척술의 진단적 효용성에 관한 연구)

  • Moon, Doo-Seop;Lim, Chae-Man;Pai, Chik-Hyun;Kim, Mi-Na;Chin, Jae-Yong;Shim, Tae-Sun;Lee, Sang-Do;Kim, Woo-Sung;Kim, Dong-Soon;Kim, Won-Dong;Koh, Youn-Suck
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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    • v.47 no.3
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    • pp.321-330
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    • 1999
  • Background : Early diagnosis and proper antibiotic treatment are very important in the management of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) because of its high mortality. Bronchoscopy with a protected specimen brush (PSB) has been considered the standard method to isolate the causative organisms of VAP. However, this method burdens consumer economically to purchase a PSB. Another useful method for the diagnosis of VAP is quantitative cultures of aspirated specimens through bronchoscopic bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), for which the infusion of more than 120 m1 of saline has been recommended for adequate sampling of a pulmonary segment. However, occasionally it leads to deterioration of the patient's condition. We studied the diagnostic efficacy of minibronchoalveolar lavage (miniBAL), which retrieves only 25 ml of BAL fluid, in the isolation of causative organisms of VAP. Methods: We included 38 consecutive patients (41 cases) suspected of having VAP on the basis of clinical evidence, who had received antibiotics before the bronchoscopy. The two diagnostic techniques of PSB and miniBAL, which were performed one after another at the same pulmonary segment, 'were compared prospectively. The cut-off values for quantitative cultures to define causative bacteria of VAP were more than $10^3$ colony-forming units (cfu)/ml for PSB and more than $10^4$ cfu/ml for BAL. Results: The amount of instilled normal saline required to retrieve 25 ml of BAL fluid was $93{\pm}32 ml$ (mean${\pm}$SD). The detection rate of causative agents was 46.3% (19/41) with PSB and 43.9% (18/41) with miniBAL. The concordance rate of PSB and miniBAL in the bacterial culture was 85.4% (35/41). Although arterial blood oxygen saturation dropped significantly (p<0.05) during ($92{\pm}10%$) and 10 min after ($95{\pm}3%$) miniBAL compared with the baseline ($97{\pm}3%$), all except 3 cases were within normal ranges. The significantly elevated heart rate during ($l25{\pm}24$/min, p<0.05) miniBAL compared with the baseline ($1l1{\pm}22$/min) recovered again in 10 min after ($111{\pm}26$/min) miniBAL. Transient hypotension was developed during the procedure in two cases. The procedure was stopped in one case due to atrial flutter. Conclusion: MiniBAL is a safe and effective technique to detect the causative organisms of VAP.

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An Analytical Approach Using Topic Mining for Improving the Service Quality of Hotels (호텔 산업의 서비스 품질 향상을 위한 토픽 마이닝 기반 분석 방법)

  • Moon, Hyun Sil;Sung, David;Kim, Jae Kyeong
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.21-41
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    • 2019
  • Thanks to the rapid development of information technologies, the data available on Internet have grown rapidly. In this era of big data, many studies have attempted to offer insights and express the effects of data analysis. In the tourism and hospitality industry, many firms and studies in the era of big data have paid attention to online reviews on social media because of their large influence over customers. As tourism is an information-intensive industry, the effect of these information networks on social media platforms is more remarkable compared to any other types of media. However, there are some limitations to the improvements in service quality that can be made based on opinions on social media platforms. Users on social media platforms represent their opinions as text, images, and so on. Raw data sets from these reviews are unstructured. Moreover, these data sets are too big to extract new information and hidden knowledge by human competences. To use them for business intelligence and analytics applications, proper big data techniques like Natural Language Processing and data mining techniques are needed. This study suggests an analytical approach to directly yield insights from these reviews to improve the service quality of hotels. Our proposed approach consists of topic mining to extract topics contained in the reviews and the decision tree modeling to explain the relationship between topics and ratings. Topic mining refers to a method for finding a group of words from a collection of documents that represents a document. Among several topic mining methods, we adopted the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm, which is considered as the most universal algorithm. However, LDA is not enough to find insights that can improve service quality because it cannot find the relationship between topics and ratings. To overcome this limitation, we also use the Classification and Regression Tree method, which is a kind of decision tree technique. Through the CART method, we can find what topics are related to positive or negative ratings of a hotel and visualize the results. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the representation of an analytical approach for the improvement of hotel service quality from unstructured review data sets. Through experiments for four hotels in Hong Kong, we can find the strengths and weaknesses of services for each hotel and suggest improvements to aid in customer satisfaction. Especially from positive reviews, we find what these hotels should maintain for service quality. For example, compared with the other hotels, a hotel has a good location and room condition which are extracted from positive reviews for it. In contrast, we also find what they should modify in their services from negative reviews. For example, a hotel should improve room condition related to soundproof. These results mean that our approach is useful in finding some insights for the service quality of hotels. That is, from the enormous size of review data, our approach can provide practical suggestions for hotel managers to improve their service quality. In the past, studies for improving service quality relied on surveys or interviews of customers. However, these methods are often costly and time consuming and the results may be biased by biased sampling or untrustworthy answers. The proposed approach directly obtains honest feedback from customers' online reviews and draws some insights through a type of big data analysis. So it will be a more useful tool to overcome the limitations of surveys or interviews. Moreover, our approach easily obtains the service quality information of other hotels or services in the tourism industry because it needs only open online reviews and ratings as input data. Furthermore, the performance of our approach will be better if other structured and unstructured data sources are added.