• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.427-434
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• 1999

Objectives: This study was conducted to determine, by reviewing the literature, whether treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection in patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia affects symptoms. Methods: We retrieved the literature using MEDLINE search, with nonulcer dyspepsia and Hericobacter pylori and treatment as key words, which were reported from 1984 to 1998, and manual literature search. The criteria for inclusion was as follows; 1) The paper should have confirmed nonulcer dyspepsia as case definition. 2) The paper should have peformed a randomized, blind trial. 3) Confirmation of Helicobacter pylori eradication should be done 4 weeks after treatment. 4) studies with no information on measurement of symptoms after treatment were not accepted. The percentage of patients with symptom improvement after eradication therapy for Helicobacter pylori infection was calculated. Cumulative odds ratio was compared by fixed effect model and random effect model as sensitivity and funnel plot was used to evaluate publication bias. Results: The overall effect size of symptom improvement was calculated by cumulative odds ratio. Cumulative odds ratio of random effect model was 4.16(95% CI: 1.55-11.19). Before integrating each effect sizes into common effect size, the homogeneity test was conducted and random effect model was selected(Cochran's Q=41.08 (d.f=10, p<0.001)). The heterogeneity across studies was evaluated and the different methodological aspects of studies led to differences between study results Conclusions: The results suggest that the eradication of Helicobacter pylori in patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia results more symptom improvement. In studios that shows the opposite results there are methodological aspects explaining the heterogeneity.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.419-429
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• 2020

To investigate the effect of spatial variability on hydraulic properties of unsaturated soils, a numerical model is set up which can simulate seepage process in an unsaturated heterogeneous soil. The unsaturated heterogeneous soil is composed of matrix sand embedded with a small proportion of clay for simulating the heterogeneity. Soil-water characteristic curve and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity curve of the unsaturated soil are expressed by Van Genuchten model. Hydraulic parameters of the matrix sand are considered as random fields. Different autocorrelation lengths (ACLs) of hydraulic parameter of the matrix sand and different proportions of clay are assumed to investigate the influence of spatial variability on the equivalent hydraulic properties of the heterogeneous soil. Four model sizes are used in the numerical experiments to investigate the influence of scale effects and to determine the sizes of representative volume element (RVE) in the numerical simulations. Through a number of Monte Carlo simulations of unsaturated seepage analysis, the means and the coefficients of variations (COVs) of the equivalent hydraulic parameters of the heterogeneous soil are calculated. Simulations show that the ACL and model size has little influence on the means of the equivalent hydraulic parameters, but they have a large influence on the COVs of the equivalent hydraulic parameters. The size of an RVE is mainly affected by the ACL and the proportion of heterogeneity. The influence of spatial variability on the hydraulic parameters of the heterogeneous unsaturated soil can be used as a guidance for geotechnical reliability analysis and design related to unsaturated soils.

• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.405-417
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• 2022

Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic inflammatory immune-mediated condition that has been identified as a potentially malignant oral disorder. Various therapies have been proposed for its management as alternative to corticosteroids. However, no definitive treatment has been identified that can result in complete remission or minimal recurrence. Hyaluronic acid has recently been used as an alternative therapy for the management of OLP. This study aimed to systematically review the effectiveness of Hyaluronic acid in the management of symptomatic OLP. Online electronic databases and manual searches were performed for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in English between January 2010 and April 2022. RCTs were identified that compared the efficacy of hyaluronic acid and other interventional therapies at baseline and during follow-up. The Cochrane Risk of Bias tool was used to assess the quality of the included studies. Visual analog scale (VAS) scores, Thongprasom sign scores, lesion size, degree of erythema, clinical severity, and disease severity were assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Seven studies were analyzed. Five studies reported a high risk of bias while the remaining two studies reported an unclear risk of bias. The overall quantitative assessment of size, symptoms, degree of erythema, and sign score in OLP lesions treated with HA was not statistically significant compared to that in the control group (P > 0.05). In addition, subgroup analysis comparing HA with placebo or corticosteroids did not yield statistically significant (P > 0.05) results. Qualitatively, both HA and tacrolimus resulted in an effective reduction in signs and symptoms. Clinical/disease severity index/scores were inconsistent. A high degree of heterogeneity was observed among the included studies. None of the included studies reported the side effects of HA. These findings suggest that corticosteroids, tacrolimus, placebo, and HA could be equally effective in OLP management. The clinical/disease severity index or score reduction cannot be determined with certainty. Thus, OLP can be treated with HA as an alternative therapy. Owing to limited clinical trials on HA, high heterogeneity, and high risk of bias in the included studies, definitive conclusions cannot be derived.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.23-32
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• 2008

Landscape structure is important to understand a complex patterns and interaction with adjacent habitat in rural area. The aim of this study is to analyze relationship between landscape structure and insect spatial distribution in rural area to suggest applicable possibility of landscape structure as biological indicator. For this purpose, first, four landscape structure criteria such as distance from the forest; density of farmland-forest ecotone; landscape continuity; and field size are selected. Secondly, these criteria are applied to Gangsang-myeon, Yangpyeong-gun where mosaic feature are conserved at various spatial scale. Thirdly, application of landscape structure criteria is verified using correlation with species number, species diversity, and species richness of insect. As a result, it could be suggested that the landscape structure criteria are useful for explaining insect spatial distribution.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.105-112
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• 1999

Landcover change is an important factor that changes structure and function of regional ecosystem. As the rise of concern on environment quality, many studies are trying to quantify and evaluate the landsacpe in recent days. In this study, using landscape indices with RS(Remote Sensing) and GIS(Geographic Information System) technology, spatio-temporal variations of areas and distribution of forest patches were examined in the Chonan from 1985 to 1996. Fragstats 2.0 was employed to analyze and compute 31 landscape indices from 52 landcover maps. A result of this study showed that area of forest and paddy decreased as a result of urban sprawl. Especially from 1993 to 1996, the change of land use progressed rapidly because of merging a city and a country in Chonan. The size of patch in forest had been smaller and irregular form, heterogeneity of size of forest patches within sub-basin increased, and variety of patch types around forest patches increased from 1985 to 1996.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.385-432
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• 2017

This paper investigates how firm age, size and ownership are related with job creation and destruction, and how these patterns differ across transition and non-transition economies. The analysis finds that age is inversely related with gross job creation and net job creation in the two samples. This finding is consistent with the theory of the learning effect. The relationship between age and job destruction is indifferent in non-transition economies. On the contrary, old firms in transition economies destroy more jobs than young ones. The paper further establishes an inverse relationship between size and gross job creation in the two groups. However, there is divergence between the two samples; small firms in non-transition economies also exhibit a higher gross job destruction rate. Consequently large firms have a higher net job creation rate. In transition economies, small and large firms exhibit similar rates of job destruction. But small firms retain a higher net job creation rate. A more intriguing finding is that state owned firms do not underperform domestic private ones. This means these countries may be using soft budget constraint which allows state owned firms to overstaff. Finally, crowding out of SMEs by foreign owned firms is not evident in transition economies.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.115-123
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• 2005

Quantitative understanding of spatial characteristics of the study site is a prerequisite to investigate water and carbon cycles in agricultural and forest ecosystems, particularly with complex, heterogeneous landscapes. The spatial characteristics of variables related with topography, vegetation and soil in Gwangneung forest watershed are quantified in this study. To characterize topography, information on elevation, slope and aspect extracted from DEM is analyzed. For vegetation and soil, a land-cover map classified from LANDSAT TM images is used. Four satellite images are selected to represent different seasons (30 June 1999, 4 September 2000, 23 September 2001 and 14 February 2002). As a flux index for CO₂ and water vapor, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is calculated from satellite images for three different grid sizes: MODIS grid (7km x 7km), intensive observation grid (3km x 3km), and unit grid (1km x 1km). Then, these data are analyzed to quantify the spatial scale of heterogeneity based on semivariogram analysis. As expected, the scale of heterogeneity decreases as the grid size decreases and are sensitive to seasonal changes in vegetation. For the two unit grids where the two 40 m flux towers are located, the spatial scale of heterogeneity ranges from 200 to 1,000m, which correspond well to the climatology of the computed tower flux footprint.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.251-258
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• 2011

To investigate whether the rearing environmental factors (size heterogeneity, rearing density, and feeding frequency) affect the growth and cannibalism of fry in cultured puffer Takifugu obscurus, we conducted three experiments. To examine size effects, we used small (total length [TL] $26.0{\pm}0.5\;mm$, body weight [BW] $0.18{\pm}0.01\;g$), medium (TL $23.1{\pm}0.1\;mm$, BW $0.28{\pm}0.01\;g$), large (TL $26.0{\pm}0.2\;mm$, BW $0.48{\pm}0.01\;g$) and small-large size combination groups. For density, we used size-matched puffers (TL $25.0{\pm}0.5\;mm$, BW $0.53{\pm}0.03\;g$) and five density were examined ranging from 1.43 to 7.14 individuals/L. For the feeding frequency, we also used size-matched fry and feeding frequencies of three times/2 days, one time/day, two times/day, three times/day. We ran each experiment in triplicate and investigated the survival rate, daily food intake (DFI), feed efficiency (FE), and daily growth rate (DGR). The growth of the puffers increased with increasing size, density, and feeding frequency, while cannibalism increased with a greater size gap, density and lower feeding frequency. Therefore, we concluded that size, rearing density, and feeding frequency are major factors influencing growth and cannibalism of the puffer, T. obscurus.

• The Journal of Korean society of community based occupational therapy
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.43-55
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• 2015

Objective : This study was a meta-analysis of previous studies to examine the integration of related factors depression University students of Korea, and to determine the relative importance among the relevant factors based on it. Methods : 2000-2014 papers posted on the National Science and Technology Information Center (NDSL), Nurimedia (DBpia), Academic Research Information Service (RISS), Korea Research Information(KISS), provide the text of the Library of Congress were collected using the service. The Key words a 'University Student', 'Depression', 'Depression Factors' was used. Used the Down & Black level, evidence-based checklist was developed by the research (1998) (checklist) had analyzed the selected document metadata to assess the quality. Results : 47-studies selected research groups are divided into five factors(self-esteem, suicidal ideation, positive thinking, stresses, Internet and smartphone addiction). Using meta-analysis, we analyzed the effect sizes, statistical heterogeneity and publication amenities. As a result, the self-esteem of the five factors were not found heterogeneity. Effect size is a self-esteem and suicidal ideation "large effect size", positive thinking and stress "medium effect size", internet and smart phone addiction"small effect size". Conclusion : Self-esteem and suicidal ideation are among the factors associated with depression in University students of Korea was found that the most relevant. It identified the factors associated with depression in college students, and could utilized as basis for the prevention of depression.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.8
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• pp.223-234
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• 2017

Background: Spatial structure of plants in a population reflects complex interactions of ecological and evolutionary processes. For dioecious plants, differences in reproduction cost between sexes and sizes might affect their spatial distribution. Abiotic heterogeneity may also affect adaptation activities, and result in a unique spatial structure of the population. Thus, we examined sex- and size-related spatial distributions of old-growth forest of dioecious tree Torreya nucifera in extremely heterogeneous Gotjawal terrain of Jeju Island, South Korea. Methods: We generated a database of location, sex, and size (DBH) of T. nucifera trees for each quadrat ($160{\times}300m$) in each of the three sites previously defined (quadrat A, B, C in Site I, II, and III, respectively). T. nucifera trees were categorized into eight groups based on sex (males vs. females), size (small vs. large trees), and sex by size (small vs. large males, and small vs. large females) for spatial point pattern analysis. Univariate and bivariate spatial analyses were conducted. Results: Univariate spatial analysis showed that spatial patterns of T. nucifera trees differed among the three quadrats. In quadrat A, individual trees showed random distribution at all scales regardless of sex and size groups. When assessing univariate patterns for sex by size groups in quadrat B, small males and small females were distributed randomly at all scales whereas large males and large females were clumped. All groups in quadrat C were clustered at short distances but the pattern changed as distance was increased. Bivariate spatial analyses testing the association between sex and size groups showed that spatial segregation occurred only in quadrat C. Males and females were spatially independent at all scales. However, after controlling for size, males and females were spatially separated. Conclusions: Diverse spatial patterns of T. nucifera trees across the three sites within the Torreya Forest imply that adaptive explanations are not sufficient for understanding spatial structure in this old-growth forest. If so, the role of Gotjawal terrain in terms of creating extremely diverse microhabitats and subsequently stochastic processes of survival and mortality of trees, both of which ultimately determine spatial patterns, needs to be further examined.