• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.82 no.3
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• pp.234-241
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• 2019

Background: The utility of computed tomography (CT) in the differential diagnosis of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation remains uncertain. However, due to the low cost associated with CT scan along with the impact of Koreas' health insurance system, there has been a rise in the number of CT scans in the patients with initial diagnosis of COPD exacerbations. Therefore, the utility of CT in the differential diagnosis was investigated to determine whether performing CT scans affect the clinical outcomes of the patients with an initial diagnosis of COPD exacerbation. Methods: This study involved 202 COPD patients hospitalized with an initial diagnosis of COPD exacerbation. We evaluated the change in diagnosis or treatment after performing a CT scan, and compared the clinical outcomes of patient groups with vs. without performing CT (non-CT group vs. CT group). Results: After performing CT, the diagnosis was changed for two (3.0%) while additional diagnoses were made for 27 of the 64 patients (42.1%). However, the treatment changed for only one (1.5%), and six patients (9.3%) received supplementary medication. There were no difference in the median length of hospital stay (8 [6-13] days vs. 8 [6-12] days, p=0.786) and intensive care unit care (14 [10.1%] vs. 11 [16.7%], p=0.236) between the CT and non-CT groups, respectively. These findings remained consistent even after the propensity score matching. Conclusion: Utility of CT in patients with acute COPD exacerbation might not be helpful; therefore, we do not recommend chest CT scan as a routine initial diagnostic tool.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2014.05a
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• pp.215-217
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• 2014

A system architecture design relying only on the experience of its designer varies in quality in line with the designer's personal experience and knowledge ability. Likewise, a wrong estimation of hardware capacity ends up in waste of resources. In practice, a range of post-hoc monitoring tools are in operation, without providing any method for estimating and reflecting the performance at an early stage of architecture design. Provided capacity requirement is estimated in advance with simulation at the stage of design, the system capacity ends up in waste of resources. In practice, a range of post-hoc monitoring tools are in operation, without providing any method for estimating and reflecting the performance at an early stage of architecture design. Provided capacity requirement is estimated in advance with simulation at the stage of design, the system performance requirement can be met with a minimal cost while the waste of resources can be reduced to a great extent. In this context, the present study develops a pilot simulation model for hardware architecture design and then verifies its validity in an experiment. If the error rate falls within a permissible range in the experiment, the simulation model may be considered to reflect well the characteristics of real-life information system architecture.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.58 no.5
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• pp.543-550
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• 2020

Mosquitoes are globally distributed and important vectors for the transmission of many human diseases. Mosquito control is a difficult task and the cost of preventing mosquito-borne diseases is much lower than that for curing the associated diseases. Thus, chemical control remains the most effective tool for mosquito. Due to the long-term intensive use of insecticides to control mosquito vectors, resistance to most chemical insecticides has been reported. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between insecticide resistance and target site mutation of L1014 kdr and G119 ace alleles in 5 species/species group of mosquitoes (Aedes vexans, Ae. albopictus, Anopheles spp., Culex pipiens complex, and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus) obtained from 6 collection sites. For Anopheles spp., the proportion of mosquitoes with mutated alleles in L1014 was 88.4%, homozygous resistant genotypes were observed in 46.7%, and heterozygous resistant genotypes were observed in 41.8%. For the Cx. pipiens complex and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus species, homozygous resistant genotypes were found in 25.9% and 9.8%, respectively. However, target site mutation of L1014 in the Ae. vexans nipponii and Ae. albopictus species was not observed. Anopheles spp., Cx. pipiens complex, and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus mosquitoes were resistant to deltamethrin and chlorpyriphos, whereas Ae. vexans nipponii and Ae. albopictus were clearly susceptible. We also found a correlation between the resistance phenotype and the presence of the L1014 kdr and G119 ace mutations only in the Anopheles spp. population. In this study, we suggest that insecticide resistance poses a growing threat and resistance management must be integrated into all mosquito control programs.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.1-12
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• 2021

Technologies for an MVDC(medium voltage direct current) distribution system are being considered as an effective alternative to overcome the interconnection delay issues of PV systems. However, the implementation of a DC distribution system might lead to economic problems because of the development of DC devices. Therefore, this paper deals with the scale of a PV plant based on its capacity and proposes hosting-capacity models for PV systems to establish a network to evaluate the feasibility of an MVDC distribution system. The proposed models can be classified as AC and DC distribution systems by the power-supply method. PV systems with hundreds of MW, dozens of MW, and a few MW can be categorized as large-scale, medium-scale, and small-scale models, respectively. This paper also performed modeling for an economic evaluation of MVDC distribution system by considering both the cost of AC and DC network construction, converter replacement, operation, etc. The profit was composed of the SMP and REC rate of a PV plant. A simulation for economic evaluation was done for the MVDC distribution system using the present worth and equal-principal costs repayment method. The results confirmed that the proposed model is a useful tool to evaluate economic issues of a DC distribution system.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.49-60
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• 2021

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) practitioners play a very pivotal role in establishing EIA policies, and when implementing EIA environmental conflicts can be prevented and resolved by sharing information with stakeholders and coordinating opinions. For this reason, grasping the perceptions of stakeholders including practitioners about the overall system, such as EIA policies and implementation, can be helpful in setting improvement directions and policy directions for EIA. However, there is an insufficient information on the perception and understanding of stakeholders about the EIA system and operation currently in effect in Korea. Therefore, this study diagnoses operational and procedural problems for the EIA system, which is a decision-making tool and a precautionary technique that can minimize adverse effects through the environmental information analysis method, and improvement points and systems of the EIA system in the future. We tried to find a complement of an online survey of 37 questions,responses from 95 responses from stakeholders of EIA were summarized. Stakeholders were aware of the problems of the operation of the current system and the preparation of the evaluation form, and this was reflected. Period and cost of preparation of EIS (49%), the introduction of a new method (26%) and the items of collecting opinions and conflict management (41%), which showed high negative response rates (dissatisfied and very dissatisfied), are considered to be areas that we need to supplement further in the future. As society develops rapidly, the system needs to be supplemented accordingly, and policy improvement efforts are needed for items with high negative responses as a result of the survey.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.6_1
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• pp.1277-1290
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• 2020

Water resources which is formed of surface and groundwater, are considered as one of the pivotal natural resources worldwide. Since last century, the rapid population growth as well as accelerated industrialization and explosive urbanization lead to boost demand for groundwater for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. In fact, better management of groundwater can play crucial role in sustainable development; therefore, determining accurate location of groundwater based groundwater potential mapping is indispensable. In recent years, integration of machine learning techniques, Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) are popular and effective methods employed for groundwater potential mapping. For determining the status of the integrated approach, a systematic review of 94 directly relevant papers were carried out over the six previous years (2015-2020). According to the literature review, the number of studies published annually increased rapidly over time. The total study area spanned 15 countries, and 85.1% of studies focused on Iran, India, China, South Korea, and Iraq. 20 variables were found to be frequently involved in groundwater potential investigations, of which 9 factors are almost always present namely slope, lithology (geology), land use/land cover (LU/LC), drainage/river density, altitude (elevation), topographic wetness index (TWI), distance from river, rainfall, and aspect. The data integration was carried random forest, support vector machine and boost regression tree among the machine learning techniques. Our study shows that for optimal results, groundwater mapping must be used as a tool to complement field work, rather than a low-cost substitute. Consequently, more study should be conducted to enhance the generalization and precision of groundwater potential map.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.spc1
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• pp.1053-1060
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• 2021

Current water quality monitoring systems in Korea carried based on in-situ grab sample analysis. It is difficult to improve the current water quality monitoring system, i.e. shorter sampling period or increasing sampling points, because the current systems are both cost- and labor-intensive. One possible way to improve the current water quality monitoring system is to adopt a modeling approach. In this study, a modeling technique was introduced to support the current water quality monitoring system, and an artificial neural network model, the computational tool which mimics the biological processes of human brain, was applied to predict water quality of the river. The approach tried to predict concentrations of Total coliform at the outlet of the river and this showed, somewhat, poor estimations since concentrations of Total coliform were rapidly fluctuated. The approach, however, could forecast whether concentrations of Total coliform would exceed the water quality standard or not. As results, modeling approaches is expected to assist the current water quality monitoring system if the approach is applied to judge whether water quality factors could exceed the water quality standards or not and this would help proper water resource managements.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.34-46
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• 2021

In the domestic data exchanging market, unreasonable pricing of purchase data is consistently mentioned as a major obstacle in data trading. This is a problem caused by the inability to properly evaluate the value of data products due to lack of product information and experience in using them. In order to activate trading, the data exchanges need to provide information that allows consumers to comprehensively judge the value of data products in addition to prices. The cost-based, income-based, and market-based methods, which are mainly applied to data valuation, are insufficient as data valuation methods to stimulate trading and distribution because only price information, a result of valuation from a supplier's point of view, can be shared with consumers. This study aims to develop a measurable valuation method that allows data trading stakeholders (exchanges, suppliers, and consumers) to judge and share the value of data products from a common perspective. To this end, we identified the value drivers of data products, which are considered important in overseas data exchanges and related research, and derived an evaluation method that can quantitatively measure each value driver. In addition, evaluation criteria in the form of a rating table were developed using data products for transactions, and a value evaluation index was developed through stratification analysis (AHP) to enable relative value comparison. As a result of applying the evaluation criteria to actual data products, it was found that the evaluation values were differentiated according to the characteristics of individual data products, so it could be used as a relative value comparison tool.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.1-8
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• 2021

Objectives: A critical pathway defines the optimal care process, sequencing and timing of intervention by multi-disciplinary health care teams for a particular diagnosis and procedure. It plays an important role as a cost-effective health care delivery system and a tool for quality control of medical and dental services by means of standardizing medical practices. The aim of this study is to investigate the satisfaction of patients and medical staff after implementation of a critical pathway for Korean medical treatment of lumbar disc herniation in integrative medical. Methods and Results: The pre-critical pathway group included 3 patients who underwent the implementation procedure from October 2020. All three patients have successfully been applied critical pathways during inpatient and outpatient treatment. Additionally, medical staff members were satisfied with the usefulness of the critical pathway. Conclusions: The implementation of critical pathway for the Korean medical treatment with lumbar disc herniation in integrative medical hospital can appraise possible applicability in actual clinical field.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.1-13
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• 2022

Although the number of venture start-ups has increased significantly, it is difficult to judge the success or failure based on short-term performance alone. The survival of a company cannot be guaranteed if it does not show sustainable growth prospects. As a growth factor for venture companies, the level of technology commercialization capability and competitive strategies are considered important. Recently, the emergence of innovative business models is creating new opportunities and driving the growth of numerous venture start-ups. This study tried to investigate the mediating effect of business model innovation in the relationship between technology commercialization capability, competitive strategy and the growth prospects of venture companies. For this, empirical analysis was conducted using the original data of the Research on the Precision Status of Venture Firms 2021. As a result, production, manufacturing, marketing capability, cost leadership and product differentiation had a positive(+) effect on growth prospects. The mediating effect of business model innovation between all factors except for manufacturing capacity and growth prospects was verified. This study expanded the scope of research by shedding new light on the factors influencing the long-term growth prospects of venture companies and revealing business model innovation as a new mediating variable. In future research, it is necessary to develop an objective measurement tool and to identify differences according to industrial characteristics.