• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.66-72
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• 2014

Although stress has been implicated to be a risk factor that can threaten physical and mental health, there have been no sufficient studies that analyze the different levels of stress among employees working in the different levels of the hospitals. We aim to identify the general characteristics of hospitals at different levels, to compare the stress levels among customer service representatives working in the tertiary care hospitals as well as acute general hospitals. In addition, we also wanted to analyze the relationship between the types of hospitals and the stress level. The work stress was measured using the Korean Occupational Stress scale. Study subjects' demographic characteristics and lifestyle factors were analyzed using analysis of frequency and multiple regression analysis. Our study revealed that the levels of medical facility were significantly associated with the levels of job stress(P=0.043), and the stress levels of employees working in the acute general hospital's medical facilities were higher than those who were working in tertiary care facilities. We also found that those with higher depression level tended to have higher job stress (P<0.001). Therefore, it is urgent to implement some kind of job stress interventions, especially in the acute general hospital's medical facilities. Moreover, further studies including social and policy research are necessary in order to analyze the overall impact of stress on physical and mental health and to reduce health inequalities among healthcare workers.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.129-141
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• 2015

This study evaluates user experience of streaming stick service through usability testing. Streaming stick services such as Roku, Chromecast, and Everoncast were tested in ten levels belonging to five usability variables that are composed of efficiency of use, accuracy, meaningfulness, flexibility, and consistency. Each variable has two levels respectively that are responsiveness, minimal action, error prevention, error detection, error recovery, understandability, learnability, substitutivity, predictability, and familiarity in order. Twenty five participants volunteerly joined this research, and the results showed that Roku is superior to another two OTTs in most levels and variables. It implies that participants prefer to remote control, many channels, and personalized service during experiencing the service.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.58-71
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• 2015

Ability of understanding students' ideas and thinking is critical to teachers' professional growth. In this study, 'pedagogical reasoning' was conceptualized as teachers' reasoning ability of students' misconceptions and possible causes of misconceptions when they hear and observe students' science discourses. To investigate elementary pre-service teachers' pedagogical reasoning levels, children's science discourses on light reflection and electric circuit were video recorded and 43 pre-service elementary teachers were asked to identify children's misconceptions and possible causes of misconceptions after watching the video clips. In conclusion, pedagogical reasoning levels of pre-service elementary teachers were not high enough, showing significant difference in light reflection and electric circuit. Possible explanations of this difference and educational implications were discussed.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.8
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• pp.291-313
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• 2001

This study is about service failure and recovery. Prior studies of service failure and recovery encounters have been limited to descriptive research based primarily on retrospectiveti.e., memory-based) self-reports. This study uses a survey method and utilize a 2*2*2 experimental design with service recovery scenarios across two services. Manipulations included two levels of controllability, two levels of procedural justice and interactional justice, and two levels of distributive justice. Accordingly, this research examines how the controllability of service failure affect recovery satisfaction, and how these relations are moderated by the justice of service recovery. Conclusively, bi-dimension(outcome and process) constitutes the service recovery and this result supports the insistence that even dissatisfied customers can be satisfied through the service recovery efforts of the organization that once failed to meet the needs and expectation of customers.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.51-75
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• 2018

This study was intended to confirm the perception of the users for the public libraries specialized service through the difference in library service quality according to the availability of specialized services by utilizing 'LibQUAL+' that is a service quality assessment tool. As a results, there is difference in the minimum and perceived levels between libraries that provide assessment result specialized services for service levels and those that did not. And there was no difference in the expected level. The degree of service showed generally higher user perception in the Adequacy Gap and Superiority Gap than libraries that do not offer specialized services. Therefore, the users of public libraries recognize that libraries that offer specialized services are better served than libraries that do not.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.671-677
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• 2007

This study examined the relationship between chlorophyll(Chl) and ascorbic acid(ASA) as an index of freshness for vegetables, when the general consumers purchase several kinds of vegetables at the market. The leaves and fruits of several types of vegetables were divided into top, middle, and basal sections. Chl was determined by a spectrophotometer, and ASA was analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography. For the vegetable sections, we found that Chl and ASA levels were highest in the top sections, followed by the middle, and were lowest in the basal portions. For the relationship between Chl and ASA in vegetables, there were seven classifications including high Chl(above 80mg/100g of fresh weight) and high ASA(above 80 mg/100 g of fresh weight) for mallow, and kail; the second group had high Chl and low ASA(below 80 mg), such as in spinach, burdock, and perilla leaves; the third group contained medium Chl($40{\sim}80mg$) and medium ASA($40{\sim}80mg$) levels, such as for gonddalbee, angelica, pumpkin leaf and coriander; the fourth group had medium Chl and low ASA levels, as in crown daisy and lettuce; the fifth group contained low Chl(below 40 mg) and high ASA, such as in hot peppers and parsley; the sixth group had low Chl and medium ASA levels, and included broccoli, pak choi, and sweet peppers; finally the seventh group contained low Chl and low ASA levels, as in dropwort, young radishes, shallots, cucumbers and swiss chard.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.24 no.1 s.33
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• pp.86-92
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• 1991

To test if exposure history to rifle fire or cannonade training during military duty can induce hearing loss, history of personal military service and histroy of gunshot exposure were asked to 228 male college students with self -administrative questionnaire. Otoscopic examination and Rinne's test were performed if any abnormal finding was detected by pure-tone audiometry. Average hearing threshold levels of 500 Hz, 1,000 Hz, 2,000 Hz, 4,000 Hz and threshold levels at 4,000 Hz were calculated for 112 students who were remained after exclusion of cases with history of ear disease, of ototoxic drug administration, and of neuropsychiatric disease, and mean of those were compared between group of students who have completed military duty (completed group) and group of those who have not (not-completed group), and between group exposed (exposed group) and group unexposed to gunshot sound (unexposed group). Mean of average hearing threshold level and mean of threshold levels at 4,000 Hz of completed group and those of exposed group were higher than those of not-completed group and unexposed group, respectively. Proportion of cases that average threshold level was greater than 40 dB or threshold levels at 4,000 Hz was greater than 50 dB were higher also in completed group and exposed group than in duty not-completed group and unexposed group, respectively Multiple linear regression analysis including age, duration of military service, degree of gunshot sound exposure as independant variables and average hearing threshold level as dependant variable, was performed in order to estimate the effect of age on hearing, and any considerable effect of age on hearing could not be found. In conclusion, hearing impairment can be induced by rifle fire or cannonade training.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.195-212
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• 2011

Objectives: This study investigates the relationship between nurse staffing levels and differences in patient outcomes in terms of average length of stay, in-hospital mortality rate and 30-day death rate in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a policy that differentiates fees for inpatients on the basis of nurse-to-bed ratios. Methods: We obtained information on inpatients from health insurance claims data published by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service(HIRA) in 2008, organizational factors(type of hospital, ownership) from the records of the hospital report system in 2008, and nurse staffing levels, which were graded on a scale of 1 to 7, from data compiled between December 15, 2007, and September 20, 2008. The data were segregated according to type of hospital and quarter and finally 3,517 records of 1,182 hospitals were analyzed using multi-level analysis. Results: The average length of stay in grade 1~6 hospitals was lower than that in grade 7 ones, but the difference was much below one day. No significant difference was found among different grades in tertiary hospitals. Further, variations in staffing levels did not result in any significant difference in the in-hospital mortality rate and 30-day death rate. Conclusions: High nurse staffing levels did not result in better patient outcomes compared with low staffing levels. We therefore recommend modifying the above nurse staffing policy so as to make it more effective in improving patient outcomes.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.106-112
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• 2013

Objective : Several reports have found abnormal levels of androgen in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients. This abnormality in androgen is hypothesized to due to chronic psychological stress effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) system. The present study was conducted to estimate serum testosterone levels in PTSD patients in comparison with normal subjects. Methods : Seventy-five male Korean veterans of the Vietnam War volunteered for the study, of which eleven were excluded because of incomplete psychological assessment. To measure basal serum testosterone, blood samples were collected between 8.00 and 9.30 a.m. The clinician administered PTSD scale (CAPS), the structured clinical interview for DSM-IV (SCID), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D), Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview Plus (Korean version of MINI-Plus), CES-K (Korean version of combat exposure scale). Results : The serum testosterone level of PTSD patients ($5.4{\pm}2.5ng/mL$) was higher than that of a control group ($3.1{\pm}1.7ng/mL$, p<0.001). Testosterone levels were significantly correlated with CAPS (r=.38, p<.01), HAM-A (r=.35, p<.01) and HAM-D (r=.28, p<.01) in all subjects. Conclusion : The results of the present study suggest that chronic psychological stress affects the HPG system.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.91-96
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• 2014

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an important cause of occupational mortality in miners exposed to coal mine dust. Although the inflammatory mediators involved in COPD have not been defined, many studies have shown that inflammatory mediators such as reactive oxygen and nitrogen species are involved in orchestrating the complex inflammatory process in COPD. Methods: To investigate the relevance of exhaled biomarkers of oxidative and nitrosative stress in participants with COPD, we determined the levels of hydrogen peroxide, malondialdehyde (MDA), and 3-nitrotyrosine (3-NT) in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) in 90 retired elderly coal miners (53 non-COPD and 37 COPD participants). Results: Mean levels of MDA (4.64 nMvs. 6.46 nM, p = 0.005) and 3-NT (3.51 nMvs. 5.50 nM, p = 0.039) in EBC were significantly higher in participants with COPD. The median level of MDA did show statistical difference among the COPD severities (p = 0.017), and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve forMDA (0.67) for the diagnostic discrimination of COPD indicated the biomarker. The optimal cutoff values were 5.34 nM (64.9% sensitivity and 64.2% specificity) and 5.58 nM (62.2% sensitivity and 62.3% specificity) forMDA and 3-NT, respectively. The results suggest that high levels ofMDA and 3-NT in EBC are associated with COPD in retired elderly miners. Conclusion: These results showed that the elevated levels of EBC MDA and EBC 3-NT in individuals with COPD are biomarkers of oxidative or nitrosative stress.