• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.323-341
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• 2019

Background: Local anesthetics alone or in combination with adjuncts, such as oral medications, have routinely been used for pain control during endodontic treatment. The best clinical choice amongst the vast numbers of agents and techniques available for pain control for irreversible pulpitis is unclear. This network meta-analysis combined the available evidence on agents and techniques for pulpal anesthesia in the maxilla and mandible, in order to identify the best amongst these approaches statistically, as a basis for future clinical trials. Methods: Randomized trials in MEDLINE, DARE, and COCHRANE databases were screened based on inclusion criteria and data were extracted. Heterogeneity was assessed and odds ratios were used to estimate effects. Inconsistencies between direct and indirect pooled estimates were evaluated by H-statistics. The Grading of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation working group approach was used to assess evidence quality. Results: Sixty-two studies (nine studies in the maxilla and 53 studies in the mandible) were included in the meta-analysis. Increased mandibular pulpal anesthesia success was observed on premedication with aceclofenac + paracetamol or supplemental 4% articaine buccal infiltration or ibuprofen+paracetamol premedication, all the above mentioned with 2% lignocaine inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB). No significant difference was noted for any of the agents investigated in terms of the success rate of maxillary pulpal anesthesia. Conclusion: Direct and indirect comparisons indicated that some combinations of IANB with premedication and/or supplemental infiltration had a greater chance of producing successful mandibular pulpal anesthesia. No ideal technique for maxillary anesthesia emerged. Randomized clinical trials with increased sample size may be needed to provide more conclusive data. Our findings suggest that further high-quality studies are required in order to provide definitive direction to clinicians regarding the best agents and techniques to use for mandibular and maxillary anesthesia for irreversible pulpitis.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.832-841
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• 2013

In recent years, eutrophication in the Paldang Lake has become one of the major environmental problems in Korea as it may threaten drinking water safety and human health. Thus it is important to understand the phenomena and predict the time and magnitude of algal blooms for applying adequate algal reduction measures. This study performed seasonal water quality assessment and chlorophyll-a prediction using Bayseian simple/multiple linear regression analysis. Bayseian regression analysis could be a useful tool to overcome limitations of conventional regression analysis. Also it can consider uncertainty in prediction by using posterior distribution. Generally, chlorophyll-a of a P2(Paldang Dam 2) site showed high concentration in spring and it was similar to that of P4(Paldang Dam 4) site. For the development of Bayseian model, we performed seasonal correlation. As a result, chlorophyll-a of a P2 site had a high correlation with P5(Paldang Dam 5) site in spring (r = 0.786, p<0.05) and with P4 in winter (r = 0.843, p<0.05). Based on the DIC (Deviance Information Criterion) value, critical explanatory variables of the best fitting Bayesian linear regression model were selected as a $PO_4-P$ (P2), Chlorophyll-a (P5) in spring, $NH_3-N$ (P2), Chlorophyll-a (P4), $NH_3-N$ (P4) in summer, DTP (P2), outflow (P2), TP (P3), TP (P4) fall, COD (P2), Chl-a (P4) and COD (P4) in winter. The results of chlorophyll-a prediction showed relatively high $R^2$ and low RMSE values in summer and winter.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.77-88
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• 2022

Objective: Our study aimed to evaluate the quality of radiomics studies on brain metastases based on the radiomics quality score (RQS), Transparent Reporting of a multivariable prediction model for Individual Prognosis Or Diagnosis (TRIPOD) checklist, and the Image Biomarker Standardization Initiative (IBSI) guidelines. Materials and Methods: PubMed MEDLINE, and EMBASE were searched for articles on radiomics for evaluating brain metastases, published until February 2021. Of the 572 articles, 29 relevant original research articles were included and evaluated according to the RQS, TRIPOD checklist, and IBSI guidelines. Results: External validation was performed in only three studies (10.3%). The median RQS was 3.0 (range, -6 to 12), with a low basic adherence rate of 50.0%. The adherence rate was low in comparison to the "gold standard" (10.3%), stating the potential clinical utility (10.3%), performing the cut-off analysis (3.4%), reporting calibration statistics (6.9%), and providing open science and data (3.4%). None of the studies involved test-retest or phantom studies, prospective studies, or cost-effectiveness analyses. The overall rate of adherence to the TRIPOD checklist was 60.3% and low for reporting title (3.4%), blind assessment of outcome (0%), description of the handling of missing data (0%), and presentation of the full prediction model (0%). The majority of studies lacked pre-processing steps, with bias-field correction, isovoxel resampling, skull stripping, and gray-level discretization performed in only six (20.7%), nine (31.0%), four (3.8%), and four (13.8%) studies, respectively. Conclusion: The overall scientific and reporting quality of radiomics studies on brain metastases published during the study period was insufficient. Radiomics studies should adhere to the RQS, TRIPOD, and IBSI guidelines to facilitate the translation of radiomics into the clinical field.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.49-60
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• 2007

The alpine agricultural activities are usually performed at higher and steep areas in nature. Thus, significant amounts of soil erosion are occurring compared with those from other areas. Thus, the soil erosion induced environmental impacts in these areas are getting greater. The Doam watershed is located at alpine areas and it has been well known that the agricultural activities in the watershed are causing accelerated soil erosion and water quality degradations. Many modeling approaches were employed to solve soil erosion and water quality issues. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was utilized to simulate the hydrologic and sediment behaviors in the Doam watershed. In many previous modeling studies, the digital soil map and its corresponding soil properties were used without modification to reflect soil conditioning at many agricultural fields of the Doam watershed. Thus, the soil sample was taken at the agricultural field within the Doam watershed and analyzed for its physical properties. In this study, the digital topsoil properties in the agricultural fields within the Doam watershed were replaced with the soil properties for reconditioned soil analyzed in this study to simulate the impacts of using soil properties for reconditioned soil in hydrologic and sediment modeling at the Doam watershed using the SWAT model. The hydrologic component of the SWAT model was calibrated and validated for measured flow data from 2002 to 2003. The $R^2$ value was 0.79 and the EI value was 0.53 for weekly simulated data. The calibrated model parameters were used for hydrologic component validation and the $R^2$ value was 0.86 and the EI value was 0.74 for weekly data. For sediment comparison, the $R^2$ value was 0.67 and the EI value was 0.59. These statistics improved with the use of soil properties of the reconditioned soil in the field compared with the results obtained without considering soil reconditioning. The simulated sediment amounts with and without considering the soil properties of the reconditioned soil were 284,813 ton and 158,369 ton, respectively. This result indicates that there could be approximately 79% of errors in estimated sediment yield at the Doam watershed, although the model comparison with the measured data gave similar satisfactory statistics with and without considering soil properties from the reconditioned soil.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.139-150
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• 2010

In recent years, more generic drug products became available. The current regulation for assessing the bioequivalence of two drug formulations is based on the concept of average bioequivalence. This approach has been indicated to be insufficient for assessing switchability between two drug formulations and US FDA has adopted individual bioequivalence as one of the bioequivalence criterion since 2001. The US FDA recommends that individual bioequivalence be assessed based on $2\;{\times}\;4$ crossover design, while a $2\;{\times}\;3$ crossover design may be used as an alternative design to reduce the length and cost of the study. In this paper, a statistical procedure for assessment of individual bioequivalence under $3\;{\times}\;2$ crossover designs is proposed and some statistical points are discussed with $2\;{\times}\;3$ crossover design and $2\;{\times}\;3$ extra-reference design through simulation studies.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.473-481
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• 2017

It is well known that the air quality of 92% of the world is known to exceed the standard of WTO and the death caused by air pollution is almost 6 million per year. The $PM_{2.5}$ concentration in Korea is the second most serious among the OECD countries following Turkey. Since the $PM_{2.5}$ has a direct effect on the respiratory system, it has been actively studied in domestic and foreign countries. But current research on the $PM_{2.5}$ is limited in weather factor or air pollutants. In this paper, we consider the influence of spatial neighbor with weather factor or air pollutants using spatial panel model. We applied the proposed method to 25 borough of Seoul in Korea. The result shows a significant effect of spatial neighbor on the $PM_{2.5}$ concentration fields.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.45-54
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• 2022

Purpose: The study aims to identify the theme list and priority criteria of patient safety theme reports in South Korea. Methods: The survey was conducted twice, and the importance of each criterion and theme was measured on a nine-point scale using the Delphi technique by a panel of 19 patient safety experts. The criteria included severity, universality, preventability, and organizational-social impact. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, median, and interval quartile range were used to analyze the data. Results: The parameters were assigned a weighted average of 35% for severity, 20% for universality, 30% for preventability, and 15% for organizational-social impact, respectively. The final top three rankings were surgery safety, blood transfusion safety, and medication safety. In addition to expert opinion, for the theme that is selected based on the priority ranking, one to five sub-topics can be derived from the theme based on the priority ranking, societal demands, or the yearly priority list of patient safety incidents. Conclusion: It is recommended that the official patient safety center distribute the report in the form of a summary that can be utilized nationwide at medical institutions, government institutions, and other places. Updates, as well as accumulated theme reports, will serve as the baseline data for the proposal of the system and for the policy designed to implement and improve institutions' safety practices as a standard of domestic patient safety practice guidelines.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.908-926
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• 2014

This study investigated the community structure and health assessment of macrobenthic assemblages in Wonmun Bay, in the southern coast of Korea. The total number of species and mean density were 170 species and $1,269\;indivuduals/m^2$, respectively. The major dominant species were the bivalve Theora fragilis ($230{\pm}446\;indivuduals/m^2$) and the polychaetes Lumbrineris longifolia ($180{\pm}339\;indivuduals/m^2$), Sigambra tentaculata ($124{\pm}153\;indivuduals/m^2$), Paraprionospio patiens ($104{\pm}293\;indivuduals/m^2$) and Capitella capitata ($82{\pm}223\;indivuduals/m^2$). Community statistics [cluster analysis and nonmetric multidimentional scaling (NMDS) ordination] revealed that the macrobenthic community structure in the study area was classified into three station groups for both seasons. Several biotic indices based on macrobenthic communities have been developed to assess the ecological quality of coastal ecosystems. In this study, the ecological status was assessed by four biotic indices Shannon's H', the AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI), multivariate-AMBI (M-AMBI) and the Ecological Conservation Index (ECI). The ecological statuses of the macrobenthic communities in Wonmun Bay were poorer in the summer than in the spring. The results of the present study indicate that three biotic indices ( i.e.; Shannon's H', M-AMBI and ECI ) were better correlated with bottom dissolved oxygen than the AMBI in Wonmun Bay.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.49-59
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• 2017

Objectives: To measure the quality of life in patients according to virtual cerebral palsy severity by using the Korean version of EQ-5D-Y proxy, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), and Time Trade-Off method (TTO). Methods: The study was conducted in parents of children and adolescents aged 4 to 15 years in Seoul. We analyzed the difference in the utility value according to five levels of cerebral palsy severity in the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) and test-retest reliability. Results: 1. There were significant differences in VAS, TTO, and EQ-5D-Y proxy according to the cerebral palsy severity (p<.001). 2. VAS was significantly different according to the respondent's visit to the medical institution, the presence of disease in the respondent, a visit to the child's medical institution, the age of the child, and the sex of the child. The value of TTO was significantly different according to the respondent's visit to the medical institution, respondent's sex, and the age of the child. Also, EQ-5D-Y proxy was significantly different according to the age of the child. 3. Intraclass correlation coefficient values were more than 0.6 for both VAS and TTO at all stages. But for the EQ-5D-Y proxy, the value was less than 0.6 at all stages. Conclusions: The quality of life assessment using EQ-5D-Y proxy showed significant differences in the severity of cerebral palsy. However, large-scale studies using EQ-5D-Y proxy are needed because of low test-retest reliability.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.511-524
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• 2020

Purpose: This study aims to examine the effect of increased physical activity (PA) regarding health-related quality of life (QOL) and nutrition intake in hemodialysis patients. Methods: The research was quasi-experimental using pre-test and posttest design. The participants were 60 patients, 30 each in the experimental and control group. The program was up to eight weeks long and involved two kinds of aerobic exercises: intradialytic aerobic exercise to be performed thrice a week and walking for up to seven days a week. The 60 patients undergoing hemodialysis for end-stage renal disease underwent assessment of International Physical Activity Questionnaires (IPAQ), 24-hour diet recall and a 12-item short-form health survey (SF-12; physical component summary score(PCS) and mental component summary score(MCS)) before and after the exercise program. Nutrition intake was assessed using CAN-2.0. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, 𝑥2 test, and Mann-Whitney U test. Results: In the experimental group, PA post-test scores were also significantly higher than the pre-test scores and the levels of physical component summary score (PCS) in QOL were significantly improved post-test, but the scores on nutrient intake did not improve. The levels of PCS were significant correlations animal protein, manganese, selenium, and Vitamin C. Although there was no group effect, total calorie of nutrition intake was higher than the comparison group. Conclusion: Combined intradialytic exercise and walking was found to be effective on PA, and PCS in QOL. Therefore, the findings of the current study may provide an appropriate guidance for encouraging exercise by hemodialysis patient.