• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2012

Objectives : A protocol called "critical pathway" was developed to standardize the management of hospital patients the day after they underwent gamma knife radiosurgery. The quality of improvement in patient outcomes was evaluated. Methods : Critical pathway was developed, according to the regulations of the I hospital, by analyzing the medical records of 22 inpatients who underwent gamma knife surgery within the period from January to April 2011 on the day of the surgery. The study included a group of 22 patients admitted to the hospital the day after they underwent gamma knife radiosurgery, between July and September 2011. The control group included 22 patients who had surgery employing the same method within the period from May to June 2011. To measure the effects on quality improvement, the average length of stay, the execution rate of the hospital discharge notice system, daily hospital revenue, and the satisfaction of the patients and the medical team were assessed. The patient questionnaire employed a four-point Likert scale while the medical-staff questionnaire employed a five-point Likert scale. Result : The average length of stay was significantly shorter in the study group compared to the control group (2.3 days vs. 3.8 days, P<0.05). The execution rate of the hospital discharge notice system was higher in the study group (100% vs. 72%) than in the control group. Daily hospital revenues were higher by 264,178 Korean won in the study group when compared to the control group. The study group showed greater satisfaction of patients compared to the control group based on a four-point Likert scale (P<0.05). The study group showed greater satisfaction in medical team compared to the control group based on a five-point Likert scale (P<0.05). Conclusion : The development and implementation of a critical pathway protocol for hospital admission the day after gamma knife radiosurgery is an effective care process that improves the clinical quality.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.92-102
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate if subjective well-being could be improved by visiting urban forests near residential areas. Because visiting an urban forest is not an intense positive experience, this research is focused on frequency of affective experience rather than intensity. The independent variables are number of visits and length of stay. The dependent variables are positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction. A polling agency was employed to select 600 respondents by quota sampling, and data was collected by online survey. The results of ANOVA showed that there was no interaction between the number of visits and length of stay. Regardless of the number of visits, the subjective well-being of visitors of urban forests was enhanced: (a) positive affect of respondents who had visited in the past 2 weeks was increased while negative affect was decreased, and (b) life satisfaction for those who had visited at least 1 time per month was enhanced among usual visitors. The stay of length, however, had little effect on the increase or decrease of these three variables. The results of this study support the existing theory that one could reset their genetically determined happiness set point to a higher level by participating in intentional activities such as visiting urban forests that offer ways to achieve long-lasting changes in well-being. This means that it would be a valuable government investment to construct and maintain urban forests for improving citizens' welfare. A few comments were suggested regarding data collection and inclusion of influencing variables to make future subjective well-being studies more reliable.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.197-211
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• 2018

The study presents the earthquake performance of the Bosphorus Bridge under multi-point earthquake excitation considering the spatially varying site-specific earthquake motions. The elaborate FE model of the bridge is firstly established depending on the new considerations of the used FEM software specifications, such as cable-sag effect, rigid link and gap elements. The modal analysis showed that singular modes of the deck and the tower were relatively effective in the dynamic behavior of the bridge due to higher total mass participation mass ratio of 80%. The parameters and requirements to be considered in simulation process are determined to generate the spatially varying site-specific ground motions. Total number of twelve simulated ground motions are defined for the multi-support earthquake analysis (Mp-sup). In order to easily implement multi-point earthquake excitation to the bridge, the practice-oriented procedure is summarized. The results demonstrated that the Mp-sup led to high increase in sectional forces of the critical components of the bridge, especially tower base section and tensile force of the main and back stay cables. A close relationship between the dynamic response and the behavior of the bridge under the Mp-sup was also obtained. Consequently, the outcomes from this study underscored the importance of the utilization of the multi-point earthquake analysis and the necessity of considering specifically generated earthquake motions for suspension bridges.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.182-192
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• 2014

Demands for geriatric hospital have increased in an era of rapidly aging population. Most of aged patients tend to stay in institutions for long terms. This means that the patient rooms of geriatric hospital should be given different considerations from those of normal hospital in designing interior features. They should be a homelike places for the aged patients and designed to take care of specific needs of the aged. However, most of geriatric hospitals are designed with little attention to such point. They appear almost same to normal ones. This study attempts to examine how users evaluate patients' rooms. The users are nurses, care-givers and family members of aged patients in six geriatric hospitals in Busan. They rated 12 features of patient rooms from 0 point to 100 points and described reasons why they rated in that way. Also, the walk-through was done for these six hospitals. 12 features are sizes of patient rooms, sizes and fixtures of bathrooms, sizes and locations of windows, bed layout, numbers and types of chairs, sizes and types of closet, lighting, color scheme, finishes of floor and wall, and interior design tone. Followings are findings : The users evaluated patients' rooms relatively positive. However, extra chairs for visitors, closet in patients rooms and storage in bathroom, and sizes of patients rooms and bathrooms were evaluated relatively negative.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.67 no.7
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• pp.981-986
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• 2018

AC(alternating current) CB(circuit breaker) at the fault occurred in the existing AC distribution system is limiting the fault current through zero cross-point. However, DC(direct current) CB does not have zero cross-point. Therefore, arc occurred by on-off operation of DC CB is very huge. Nowadays, many research team are studying the way to decrease breaking time, which is one of the essential conditions in DC CB. We suggested novel arc-induction type DC CB in this paper. The proposed arc-induction type DC CB is composed of the mechanical Arc ring and DC CB. We confirmed the operation of arc-induction type DC CB through the HFSS(High Frequency Structure Simulator) 3D simulation program and performed the experiment for operation characteristics. Results showed that arcing time of the arc-induction type DC CB by using induction ring was faster than existing mechanical DC CB. On the transient system, we confirmed stable operation characteristics of the arc-induction type DC CB through the simulation and experimental results. We expect that the proposed arc-induction type DC CB technology is will go to stay ahead of the existing DC CB technology.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.21-33
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• 2007

The study investigates the effects of luminance contrast, which is the contrast between text color and background color, on readability in VDT environments. Our research goals are to prove that the relationship between luminance contrast and readability is not linear and to explore the best luminance contrast level for optimal readability. We conducted two pretests before the main experiment to determine the operational readability and luminance contrast levels. We also conducted a controlled main experiment, in which luminance contrast, reading amount and screen size were tested in terms of its relation with readability. The results of the main experiment indicate that the readability has a non-linear relation with luminance contrast, and the optimal readability is obtained when the contrast is equal to 0.951. Furthermore, the non-linear function and optional point stay constant regardless of screen size and reading amount. The paper ends with implications of the results that maximal contrast does not always mean the optimal readability.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.879-891
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• 2021

With improvements in living conditions, an increasing number of people are choosing to spend their time traveling. Comfortable tour routes are affected by the season, time, and other local factors. In this paper, the influencing factors and principles of scenic spots are analyzed, a model used to find the available routes is built, and a multi-route choice model based on a game theory utilizing a path recommendation weight is developed. A Monte Carlo analysis of a tourist route subjected to fixed access point conditions is applied to account for uncertainties such as the season, start time, end time, stay time, number of scenic spots, destination, and start point. We use the Dijkstra method to obtain multiple path plans and calculate the path evaluation score using the Monte Carlo method. Finally, according to the user preference in the input path, game theory generates path ordering for user choice. The proposed approach achieves a state-of-the-art performance at the pseudo-imperial palace. Compared with other methods, the proposed method can avoid congestion and reduce the time cost.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.741-759
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• 2020

Steel plate-concrete composite slabs provide attractive features, such as more effective loading transfer, and more cost-effective stay-in-place forms, thereby enabling engineers to design more high-performance light structures. Although significant studies in the literatures have been directed toward designing and implementing the steel plate-concrete composite beams, there are limited data available for understanding of the composite slabs. To fill this gap, nine the composite slabs with different variables in this study were tested to unveil the impacts of the critical factors on the ultimate strength behavior. The key information of the findings included sample failure modes, crack pattern, and ultimate strength behavior of the composite slabs under either four-point or three-point loading. Test results showed that the failure modes varied from delamination to shear failures under different design factors. Particularly, the shear stud spacing and thicknesses of the concrete slabs significantly affected their ultimate load-carrying capacities. Moreover, an analytical model of the composite slabs was derived for determining their ultimate load-carrying capacity and was well verified by the experimental data. Further extensive parametric study using the proposed analytical methods was conducted for a more comprehensive investigation of those critical factors in their performance. These findings are expected to help engineers to better understand the structural behavior of the steel plate-concrete composite slabs and to ensure reliability of design and performance throughout their service life.

• Asian Oncology Nursing
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.204-212
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• 2012

Purpose: To investigate the effectiveness and variance of a critical pathway (CP) for laparoscopic colon resection in colon cancer patients, and nurses'satisfaction with the CP. Methods: A CP for laparoscopic colon resection was applied to the CP-group that included 50 patients, who underwent elective colon resection between March and May, 2011. The non-CP group included 51 patients who had the same operation without the CP applied from March to May, 2010. Results: The means of length of hospital stay were 11.7 and 7.3 days (p<.001) and the lengths of postoperative hospital stay were 8.6 and 5.1 days (p<.001) in the non-CP group and CP group, respectively. There was no significant difference between two groups for total healthcare costs, pain score, complications, or emergency room visits within 30 days after discharge. By examining variances of the CP, there were 162 variances and the most frequent cause was patient's condition. Nurses'satisfaction with the use of CP was favorable and the mean score of satisfaction was 3.76 on the 5 point Likert scale. Conclusion: There are clear benefits to use of CP, resulting in standardized and effective patient care. In conclusion, analysis of variance data can assist in evaluating and revising CP for optimal care and reducing variances.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.513-519
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• 2014

Background Currently, breast conservation therapy is commonly performed for the treatment of early breast cancer. Depending on the volume excised, patients may require volume replacement, even in cases of partial mastectomy. The use of the latissimus dorsi muscle is the standard method, but this procedure leaves an unfavorable scar on the donor site. We used an endoscope for latissimus dorsi harvesting to minimize the incision, thus reducing postoperative scars. Methods Ten patients who underwent partial mastectomy and immediate partial breast reconstruction with endoscopic latissimus dorsi muscle flap harvest were reviewed retrospectively. The total operation time, hospital stay, and complications were reviewed. Postoperative scarring, overall shape of the reconstructed breast, and donor site deformity were assessed using a 10-point scale. Results In the mean follow-up of 11 weeks, no tumor recurrence was reported. The mean operation time was 294.5 (${\pm}38.2$) minutes. The postoperative hospital stay was 11.4 days. Donor site seroma was reported in four cases and managed by office aspiration and compressive dressing. Postoperative scarring, donor site deformity, and the overall shape of the neobreast were acceptable, scoring above 7. Conclusions Replacement of 20% to 40% of breast volume in the upper and the lower outer quadrants with a latissimus dorsi muscle flap by using endoscopic harvesting is a good alternative reconstruction technique after partial mastectomy. Short incision benefits from a very acceptable postoperative scar, less pain, and early upper extremity movement.