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Development and Testing of a Machine Learning Model Using 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT-Derived Metabolic Parameters to Classify Human Papillomavirus Status in Oropharyngeal Squamous Carcinoma

  • Changsoo Woo;Kwan Hyeong Jo;Beomseok Sohn;Kisung Park;Hojin Cho;Won Jun Kang;Jinna Kim;Seung-Koo Lee
    • Korean Journal of Radiology
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.51-61
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    • 2023
  • Objective: To develop and test a machine learning model for classifying human papillomavirus (HPV) status of patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET-derived parameters in derived parameters and an appropriate combination of machine learning methods in patients with OPSCC. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study enrolled 126 patients (118 male; mean age, 60 years) with newly diagnosed, pathologically confirmed OPSCC, that underwent 18F-FDG PET-computed tomography (CT) between January 2012 and February 2020. Patients were randomly assigned to training and internal validation sets in a 7:3 ratio. An external test set of 19 patients (16 male; mean age, 65.3 years) was recruited sequentially from two other tertiary hospitals. Model 1 used only PET parameters, Model 2 used only clinical features, and Model 3 used both PET and clinical parameters. Multiple feature transforms, feature selection, oversampling, and training models are all investigated. The external test set was used to test the three models that performed best in the internal validation set. The values for area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) were compared between models. Results: In the external test set, ExtraTrees-based Model 3, which uses two PET-derived parameters and three clinical features, with a combination of MinMaxScaler, mutual information selection, and adaptive synthetic sampling approach, showed the best performance (AUC = 0.78; 95% confidence interval, 0.46-1). Model 3 outperformed Model 1 using PET parameters alone (AUC = 0.48, p = 0.047) and Model 2 using clinical parameters alone (AUC = 0.52, p = 0.142) in predicting HPV status. Conclusion: Using oversampling and mutual information selection, an ExtraTree-based HPV status classifier was developed by combining metabolic parameters derived from 18F-FDG PET/CT and clinical parameters in OPSCC, which exhibited higher performance than the models using either PET or clinical parameters alone.

A Study of Factors Associated with Software Developers Job Turnover (데이터마이닝을 활용한 소프트웨어 개발인력의 업무 지속수행의도 결정요인 분석)

  • Jeon, In-Ho;Park, Sun W.;Park, Yoon-Joo
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.191-204
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    • 2015
  • According to the '2013 Performance Assessment Report on the Financial Program' from the National Assembly Budget Office, the unfilled recruitment ratio of Software(SW) Developers in South Korea was 25% in the 2012 fiscal year. Moreover, the unfilled recruitment ratio of highly-qualified SW developers reaches almost 80%. This phenomenon is intensified in small and medium enterprises consisting of less than 300 employees. Young job-seekers in South Korea are increasingly avoiding becoming a SW developer and even the current SW developers want to change careers, which hinders the national development of IT industries. The Korean government has recently realized the problem and implemented policies to foster young SW developers. Due to this effort, it has become easier to find young SW developers at the beginning-level. However, it is still hard to recruit highly-qualified SW developers for many IT companies. This is because in order to become a SW developing expert, having a long term experiences are important. Thus, improving job continuity intentions of current SW developers is more important than fostering new SW developers. Therefore, this study surveyed the job continuity intentions of SW developers and analyzed the factors associated with them. As a method, we carried out a survey from September 2014 to October 2014, which was targeted on 130 SW developers who were working in IT industries in South Korea. We gathered the demographic information and characteristics of the respondents, work environments of a SW industry, and social positions for SW developers. Afterward, a regression analysis and a decision tree method were performed to analyze the data. These two methods are widely used data mining techniques, which have explanation ability and are mutually complementary. We first performed a linear regression method to find the important factors assaociated with a job continuity intension of SW developers. The result showed that an 'expected age' to work as a SW developer were the most significant factor associated with the job continuity intention. We supposed that the major cause of this phenomenon is the structural problem of IT industries in South Korea, which requires SW developers to change the work field from developing area to management as they are promoted. Also, a 'motivation' to become a SW developer and a 'personality (introverted tendency)' of a SW developer are highly importantly factors associated with the job continuity intention. Next, the decision tree method was performed to extract the characteristics of highly motivated developers and the low motivated ones. We used well-known C4.5 algorithm for decision tree analysis. The results showed that 'motivation', 'personality', and 'expected age' were also important factors influencing the job continuity intentions, which was similar to the results of the regression analysis. In addition to that, the 'ability to learn' new technology was a crucial factor for the decision rules of job continuity. In other words, a person with high ability to learn new technology tends to work as a SW developer for a longer period of time. The decision rule also showed that a 'social position' of SW developers and a 'prospect' of SW industry were minor factors influencing job continuity intensions. On the other hand, 'type of an employment (regular position/ non-regular position)' and 'type of company (ordering company/ service providing company)' did not affect the job continuity intension in both methods. In this research, we demonstrated the job continuity intentions of SW developers, who were actually working at IT companies in South Korea, and we analyzed the factors associated with them. These results can be used for human resource management in many IT companies when recruiting or fostering highly-qualified SW experts. It can also help to build SW developer fostering policy and to solve the problem of unfilled recruitment of SW Developers in South Korea.

Development of Sentiment Analysis Model for the hot topic detection of online stock forums (온라인 주식 포럼의 핫토픽 탐지를 위한 감성분석 모형의 개발)

  • Hong, Taeho;Lee, Taewon;Li, Jingjing
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.187-204
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    • 2016
  • Document classification based on emotional polarity has become a welcomed emerging task owing to the great explosion of data on the Web. In the big data age, there are too many information sources to refer to when making decisions. For example, when considering travel to a city, a person may search reviews from a search engine such as Google or social networking services (SNSs) such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. The emotional polarity of positive and negative reviews helps a user decide on whether or not to make a trip. Sentiment analysis of customer reviews has become an important research topic as datamining technology is widely accepted for text mining of the Web. Sentiment analysis has been used to classify documents through machine learning techniques, such as the decision tree, neural networks, and support vector machines (SVMs). is used to determine the attitude, position, and sensibility of people who write articles about various topics that are published on the Web. Regardless of the polarity of customer reviews, emotional reviews are very helpful materials for analyzing the opinions of customers through their reviews. Sentiment analysis helps with understanding what customers really want instantly through the help of automated text mining techniques. Sensitivity analysis utilizes text mining techniques on text on the Web to extract subjective information in the text for text analysis. Sensitivity analysis is utilized to determine the attitudes or positions of the person who wrote the article and presented their opinion about a particular topic. In this study, we developed a model that selects a hot topic from user posts at China's online stock forum by using the k-means algorithm and self-organizing map (SOM). In addition, we developed a detecting model to predict a hot topic by using machine learning techniques such as logit, the decision tree, and SVM. We employed sensitivity analysis to develop our model for the selection and detection of hot topics from China's online stock forum. The sensitivity analysis calculates a sentimental value from a document based on contrast and classification according to the polarity sentimental dictionary (positive or negative). The online stock forum was an attractive site because of its information about stock investment. Users post numerous texts about stock movement by analyzing the market according to government policy announcements, market reports, reports from research institutes on the economy, and even rumors. We divided the online forum's topics into 21 categories to utilize sentiment analysis. One hundred forty-four topics were selected among 21 categories at online forums about stock. The posts were crawled to build a positive and negative text database. We ultimately obtained 21,141 posts on 88 topics by preprocessing the text from March 2013 to February 2015. The interest index was defined to select the hot topics, and the k-means algorithm and SOM presented equivalent results with this data. We developed a decision tree model to detect hot topics with three algorithms: CHAID, CART, and C4.5. The results of CHAID were subpar compared to the others. We also employed SVM to detect the hot topics from negative data. The SVM models were trained with the radial basis function (RBF) kernel function by a grid search to detect the hot topics. The detection of hot topics by using sentiment analysis provides the latest trends and hot topics in the stock forum for investors so that they no longer need to search the vast amounts of information on the Web. Our proposed model is also helpful to rapidly determine customers' signals or attitudes towards government policy and firms' products and services.

Realized Genetic Gains and Heritabilities for Growth Traits in Open-Pollinated Progenies of Abies holophylla Max. (전나무 수형목 풍매차대의 생장특성에 대한 유전력 및 개량효과)

  • Han, Sang-Urk;Oh, Chang-Young;Kim, Chang-Soo;Yi, Jae-Seon
    • Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.41-46
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    • 2008
  • Progeny tests of Abies holophylla were established with 32 open-pollinated families at Hwaseong and Gangneung in 1994. Growth characteristics (height, DBH and volume index) were measured at the age of 15, showing that Gangneung site showed in general better performance than Hwaseong site. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the growth characteristics showed that there was a significant difference among families in Gangneung but not in Hwaseong, and Hwaseong site showed that DBH and volume index were statistically different among replications. At Gangneung site, family ${\times}$ replication interaction was significant in DBH and volume index. Based on the combined analysis of both sites, all characteristics except height showed highly significant differences between sites and among families. On the other hand, family ${\times}$ replication interaction was not significant, implying that growth pattern of families could be similar at Gangneung and Hwaseong. Individual heritabilities ($hi^2$) at Gangneung were 0.485 in height, 0.611 in DBH and 0.538 in volume index, and the values of $hi^2$ at Hwaseong were 0.121 in height, 0.054 in DBH and 0.080 in volume index, respectively. Based on both sites, $hi^2$ was estimated as 0.204 in height, 0.326 in DBH and 0.238 in volume index. Individual heritabilities (0.054~0.611) were lower than family heritabilities (0.089~0.723) for all growth characteristics. Realized gain was estimated to be 2.5% in height, 9.2% in DBH and 23.6% in volume. When inferior families (about 50% of all families) are genetically thinned from a seed orchard, genetic gain would be 9.55% in height, 17.0% in DBH and 46.8% in volume.

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Study of the Tone Variation on Juniperus chinensis L. and Populus glandulosa Uyeki by Photographs (사진상(寫眞上)에 나타난 향나무(Juniperus chinensis L.)와 수원사시나무(Populus glandulosa Uyeki)의 색조변화(色調變化)에 관(關)한 연구(硏究))

  • Kim, Kap Duk
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.1-24
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    • 1971
  • In order to elucidate the feasibility to identify the plant species through the photographic tone this study was made. In this study the author made photographs of Juniperus chinensis L., and Populus glandulosa Uyeki, with the panchromatic film using either yellow filter or red filter in different seasons respectively. The author analyzed the value of tone variation at the level of stereoscopic view of the same photographs by using tone scale and Automatic Micro-Photo-Densitometer. The results obtained are summarized as follows: A. Tone scale reading 1. The tone of Populus glandulosa Uyeki was darker than that of Juniperus chinensis L. in a photograph. 2. Regardless of the tree species, tone of photographs obtained with yellow filter was darker than that with red filter. 3. Along the progresses of seasons, the photographic tone was changed. That is, from the spring to the summer it showed darker and than, from the summer to winter it changed lighter. 4. During winter and spring the discrimination between the both species of trees can be easily made by stereoscopic view whether there are leaves on the tree or not rather than by tone observation. 5. Regardless of tree species, variation of tone due to the age was noticed. The older trees have darker tone than the younger one. 6. It is recognized that the yearly difference depends on insolation quantities. 7. The highest reflex light-waves were in between $600m{\mu}$ and $660m{\mu}$ for both species of trees. B. Density reading 1. For the density reading, there was the same tendency as in tone scale reading. 2. The changes of peaks of the scanning curves with Populus glandulosa Uyeki is smoother and takes place in lower position than with Juniperus chinensis L. 3. The scanning curves on the 20th May was smoothest, and change of peaks increased gradually according to the season progresses. 4. In relation to the types of filter the photographs with yellow filter showed less changes of peaks then that with red filter.

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Microbe Hunting: A Curious Case of Cryptococcus

  • Bartlett, Karen H.;Kidd, Sarah;Duncan, Colleen;Chow, Yat;Bach, Paxton;Mak, Sunny;MacDougall, Laura;Fyfe, Murray
    • Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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    • 2005.06a
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    • pp.45-72
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    • 2005
  • C. neoformans-associated cryptococcosis is primarily a disease of immunocompromised persons, has a world-wide distribution, and is often spread by pigeons in the urban environment. In contrast, C. gattii causes infection in normal hosts, has only been described in tropical and semi-tropical areas of the world, and has a unique niche in river gum Eucalyptus trees. Cryptococcosis is acquired through inhalation of the yeast propagules from the environment. C. gattii has been identified as the cause of an emerging infectious disease centered on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. No cases of C. gattii-disease were diagnosed prior to 1999; the current incidence rate is 36 cases per million population. A search was initiated in 2001 to find the ecological niche of this basidiomycetous yeast. C. gaftii was found in the environment in treed areas of Vancouver Island. The highest percentage of colonized-tree clusters were found around central Vancouver Island, with decreasing rates of colonization to the north and south. Climate, soil and vegetation cover of this area, called the Coastal Douglas fir biogeoclimatic zone, is unique to British Columbia and Canada. The concentration of airborne C. gattii was highest in the dry summer months, and lowest during late fall, winter, and early spring, months which have heavy rainfall. The study of the emerging colonization of this organism and subsequent cases of environmentally acquired disease will be informative in planning public health management of new routes of exposure to exotic agents in areas impacted by changing climate and land use patterns. Cryptococcosis is an infection associated with an encapsulated, basidiomycetous yeast Cryptococcus neoformans. The route of entry for this organism is through the lungs, with possible systemic spread via the circulatory system to the brain and meninges. There are four cryptococcal serogroups associated with disease in humans and animals, distinguished by capsular polysaccharide antigens. Cryptococcus neoformans: variety grubii (serotype A), variety neoformans (serotype D), and variety gattii (serotypes B and C) (Franzot et at. 1999). C. neoformans variety gattii has recently been elevated to species status, C. gattii. C. neoformans val. grubii and var. neoformans have a world-wide distribution, and are particularly associated with soil and weathered bird droppings. In contrast, C. gattii (CG) is not associated with bird excrement, is primarily found in tropical and subtropical climates, and has a restricted environmental niche associated with specific tree species. (Ellis & Pfiffer 1990) Ellis and Pfeiffer theorize that, as a basidiomycete, CG requires an association with a tree in order to become pathogenic to mammals. In Australia, CG has been found to be associated with five species of Eucalypts, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, E. tereticornis, E. blakelyi, E. gomphocephala, and E. rudis. Eucalypts, although originally native to Australia, now have a world-wide distribution. CG has been found associated with imported eucalypts in India, California, Brazil, and Egypt. In addition, in Brazil and Columbia, where eucalypts have been naturalized, native trees have been shown to harbour CG (Callejas et al. 1998; Montenegro et al. 2000). In British Columbia, Canada, since the beginning of 1999, there have been 120 confirmed cases of cryptococcal mycoses associated with CG in humans, including 4 fatalities (data from British Columbia Centre for Disease Control), and over 200 cases in animal pets in BC (data from Central Laboratory for Veterinarians). What is remarkable about the BC outbreak of C. gattii-cryptococcosis is that all of the cases have been residents of, or visitors to, a narrow area along the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, BC, from the tip of the island in the south (Victoria) to Courtenay on the north-central island as illustrated in Figure 1. Of the first 38 human cases, 58% were male with a mean age of 59.7 years (range 20 - 82): 36 cases (95%) were Caucasian. Ten cases (26%) presented with meningitis, the remainder presented with respiratory symptoms. Cultures recovered from cases of cryptococcosis associated with the outbreak were typed as serogroup B, which is specific to CG (Bartlett et al. 2003). This was the first reported outbreak of CVG in Canada, or indeed, the world. Where infection with CG is endemic, for example, Australia, the incidence of cryptococcosis ranges from 1.8 - 4.7 per million between the southern and northern states (Sorrell 2001). However, the overall incidence of cryptococcosis in immunocompenent individuals has been estimated at 0.2 per million population per year (Kwon-Chung et al. 1984). The population of Vancouver Island is approximately 720,000,consequently, even if the organism were endemic, one would expect a maximum of 0.15 cases of cryptococcal disease annually.

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The Study on the Height Characteristics of Abies Nephrolepis Community in South Korea - In the Case of Seorak·Odae·Taebaek National Park - (우리나라 분비나무의 수고 특성 연구 - 설악·오대·태백산국립공원을 대상으로 -)

  • Jin-Won Kim;Ho-Young Lee;Young-Moon Chun;Choong-Hyeon Oh
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.38 no.2
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    • pp.169-177
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    • 2024
  • This study investigated whether population dynamic analysis based on the height characteristics of Abies nephrolepis was feasible. It was necessary because existing population dynamic analyses based on age and diameter at breast height (DBH) made it difficult to reflect the slow growth characteristics of Abies nephrolepis in harsh environments of high altitudes. The limitations of population dynamics analysis based on the age and DBH distribution of Abies nephrolepis in Seoraksan, Odaesan, and Taebaeksan National Parks, where Abies nephrolepis populations are representative, were verified, and the characteristics of height growth were investigated to comprehensively analyze whether a vertical structure based on height could reveal the population dynamics. The result of this study showed some limitations in understanding the population dynamics of Abies nephrolepis based on age distribution due to practical difficulties in sampling all trees and variations in age distribution within the same community depending on factors such as light conditions. Moreover, it was challenging to differentiate the distribution of DBH classes at fine levels, making it difficult to reflect the rapid growth characteristics of Abies nephrolepis when light conditions become suitable after prolonged stays in smaller DBH classes under shade conditions. However, a comprehensive analysis of the height characteristics of Abies nephrolepis revealed that the density corresponding to the population dynamic characteristics of Abies was high and adequately reflected the predominant tree death at similar height stages, as well as the U-shaped population dynamics at the lower stratum. Moreover, it was possible to identify a transition point in height values under shaded conditions, where the annual growth of Abies nephrolepis individuals in the lower stratum increases significantly, indicating that Abies nephrolepis individuals can escape from competition with other shrubs and undergo vigorous growth only at this height level. Therefore, this study confirmed that a vertical structure based on height can be utilized to understand the population dynamics of Abies nephrolepis in high altitudes, and it is expected that future studies on height characteristics can intuitively reveal the maintenance status of Abies nephrolepis populations in the field.

Actual Vegetation and Structure of Plant Community in Daegwallyeong Ranch, Gangwon-do (Province) (강원도 대관령 목장 현존식생 및 식물군집구조)

  • Noh, Tai-Hwan;Han, Bong-Ho;Kim, Jong-Yup;Lee, Min-Young;Yoo, Ki-Joon
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.27 no.5
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    • pp.579-591
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    • 2013
  • This study was carried out to investigate the actual vegetation, the structure of plant community, and ecological succession sere of forest ecosystem in temperate northern climate zone, Daegwallyeong Ranch, Gangwon-do (Province) and to offer the basic data for planning of the forest managemant. As a result of analysis of actual vegetation, vegetation types divided into 56types and the area of survey site was $19,397,361m^2$. The ratio of vegetation type dominated by Quercus mongolica forest was 39.1%, primary grassland was 24.7%, Quercus mongolica-Deciduous broad-leaved forest was 11.3%. Twenty eight plots (size is $20m{\times}20m$) were set up and the results analyzed by DCA which in one of the ordination technique showed that the plant communities were divided into six groups which area community I (Pinus densiflora-Quercus mongolica community), community II (Quercus mongolica-Pinus densiflora community), community III (Quercus mongolica community), community IV (Quercus mongolica-Deciduous broad-leaved community), community V (Deciduous broad-leaved community), community VI (Sorbus alnifolia community). The age of community Iwas ranged from 57 to 62 years old, that of community IIwas ranged from 41 to 77 years old, community III was ranged from 47 to 108 years old, community IV was ranged from 47 to 82 years old, community V was 47 years old, community VI was 55 years old, thus we supposed that the age of the study site is about from 41 to 108 years old. The Ecological succession is predicted from Pinus densiflora community to Quercus mongolica community and Deciduous broad-leaved were distributed in the center of the valley in Daegwallyeong Ranch. According to the index of Shannon's diversity (unit: $400m^2$), community IV was ranged from 0.8203 to 1.1439, community III was ranged from 0.8019 to 1.1375, community V was 1.0993, community I was ranged from 0.9475 to 1.0797, community II was ranged from 0.6896 to 1.0324, community VI was 0.9909.

The Variation of Natural Population of Pinus densiflora S. et Z. in Korea (V) -Characteristics of Needle and Wood of Injye, Jeongsun, Samchuk Populations- (소나무 천연집단(天然集團)의 변이(變異)에 관(關)한 연구(硏究)(V) -인제(麟蹄), 정선(旌善), 삼척집단(三陟集團)의 침엽(針葉) 및 재질형질(材質形質)-)

  • Yim, Kyong Bin;Kwon, Ki Won;Lee, Kyong Jae
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.36 no.1
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    • pp.9-25
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    • 1977
  • As a successive work of the variation studies of natural Pinus densiflora stands, some characteristics of individual trees of the three natural populations selected from the Kwang-won Province, the middle-east part of Korean peninsula, as shown in the location map, were investigated. And the statiscal differences between individuals within population, and between populations were analysed. Twenty trees from each population were selected for this study purpose. Doing this, those trees lagged in growth, usually showing poorer form, were eliminated. The results obtained are summarized as follows: 1. Though the average population ages had the ranage between 50 and 63, the growth of height or diameter was similar. Population No.9 is, however, considered to have better tree forms at glance. Population No.8 showed the heighest value not only in the clear-stem-length ratio. 0.53 but also in the crown-index 0.91. The higher value can be result from those trees having long lateral branches and relatively short crown height, meaning undesirable crown shape. In regard to the fine branchedness and the acuteness of branching angle, the population No.9. is considered to be a better one, whereas there was almost no difference in crown height among populations. 2. Checking the frequency distributions of the ratio of the clear-stem-height to the total height and the crown-indices, some difference between populations are considered. These might be attributed to the previous way of stand mangement which alters the density. 3. In the serration density, the average number of 54 per 1cm needle length, the significant differences exist between individual trees within population but not between populations. A few trees which extremly high serration density were observed. As in serration, so tendencies were in the number of stomata row and resin duct. 4. The population 8 had the resin duct index value of 0.074 as the highest which was twice or triple of the other ones. 5. The patterns of increasing process of the average 10-year-ring-segment were not similar till the 30 years of age, but beyond this, the tendency lines were aggregated. 6. Regading the average summer wood ratio, no diffrence between populations, but in the ranges, i.e. 23 to 30 in population No.8. and 16 to 36 in population No.9., with regad to the specific gravity of wood, there were hardly observed any difference between populations even in the ranges values. As the increase of tree ages, the increase of specific gravity was followed but the increasing patterns were not similar between populations. 7. No significant differences between populations in the average tracheid length and the range were detected. However, the length was increased according to the age increase. The increasing pattern was same between populations.

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Clinical Study of Corrosive Esophagitis (부식성 식도염에 관한 임상적 고찰)

  • 이원상;정승규;최홍식;김상기;김광문;홍원표
    • Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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    • 1981.05a
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    • pp.6-7
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    • 1981
  • With the improvement of living standard and educational level of the people, there is an increasing awareness about the dangers of toxic substances and lethal drugs. In addition to the above, the governmental control of these substances has led to a progressive decrease in the accidents with corrosive substances. However there are still sporadic incidences of suicidal attempts with the substances due to the unbalance between the cultural development in society and individual emotion. The problem is explained by the fact that there is a variety of corrosive agents easily available to the people due to the considerable industrial development and industrialization. Salzen(1920), Bokey(1924) were pioneers on the subject of the corrosive esophagitis and esophageal stenosis by dilatation method. Since then there had been a continuing improvement on the subject with researches on various acid(Pitkin, 1935, Carmody, 1936) and alkali (Tree, 1942, Tucker, 1951) corrosive agents, and the use of steroid (Spain, 1950) and antibiotics. Recently, early esophagoscopic examination is emphasized on the purpose of determining the way of the treatment in corrosive esophagitis patients. In order to find the effective treatment of such patients in future, the authors selected 96 corrosive esophagitis patients who were admitted and treated at the ENT department of Severance hospital from 1971 to March, 1981 to attempt a clinical study. 1. Sex incidence……male: female=1 : 1.7, Age incidence……21-30 years age group; 38 cases (39.6%). 2. Suicidal attempt……80 cases(83.3%), Accidental ingestion……16 cases (16.7%). Among those who ingested the substance accidentally, children below ten years were most numerous with nine patients. 3. Incidence acetic acid……41 cases(41.8%), lye…20 cases (20.4%), HCI……17 cases (17.3%). There was a trend of rapid rise in the incidence of acidic corrosive agents especially acetic acid. 4. Lavage……57 cases (81.1%). 5. Nasogastric tube insertion……80 cases (83.3%), No insertion……16 cases(16.7%), late admittance……10 cases, failure…4 cases, other……2 cases. 6. Tracheostomy……17 cases(17.7%), respiratory problems(75.0%), mental problems (25.0%). 7. Early endoscopy……11 cases(11.5%), within 48 hours……6 cases (54.4%). Endoscopic results; moderate mucosal ulceration…8 cases (72.7%), mild mucosal erythema……2 cases (18.2%), severe mucosal ulceration……1 cases (9.1%) and among those who took early endoscopic examination; 6 patients were confirmed mild lesion and so they were discharged after endoscopy. Average period of admittance in the cases of nasogastric tube insertion was 4 weeks. 8. Nasogastric tube indwelling period……average 11.6 days, recently our treatment trend in the corrosive esophagitis patients with nasogastric tube indwelling is determined according to the finding of early endoscopy. 9. The No. of patients who didn't given and delayed administration of steroid……7 cases(48.9%): causes; kind of drug(acid, unknown)……12 cases, late admittance……11 cases, mild case…9 cases, contraindication……7 cases, other …8 cases. 10. Management of stricture; bougienage……7 cases, feeding gastrostomy……6 cases, other surgical management……4 cases. 11. Complication……27 cases(28.1%); cardio-pulmonary……10 cases, visceral rupture……8 cases, massive bleeding……6 cases, renal failure……4 cases, other…2 cases, expire and moribund discharge…8 cases. 12. No. of follow-up case……23 cases; esophageal stricture……13 cases and site of stricture; hypopharynx……1 case, mid third of esophagus…5 cases, upper third of esophagus…3 cases, lower third of esophagus……3 cases pylorus……1 case, diffuse esophageal stenosis……1 case.

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