• Korean Journal of Transplantation
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.154-159
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• 2014

Background: Lung transplantation (LTx) is a life-saving treatment for patients with end-stage lung disease; however, the shortage of donor lungs has been a major limiting factor to increasing the number of LTx. Growing experience following LTx using donor lungs after cardiac death (DCD) has been promising, although concerns remain. The purpose of this study was to develop a DCD lung harvest model using an ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) system and to assess the function of presumably damaged lungs harvested from the DCD donor in pigs. Methods: The 40 kg pigs were randomly divided into the control group with no ischemic lung injury (n=5) and the study group (n=5), which had 1 hour of warm ischemic lung injury after cardiac arrest. Harvested lungs were placed in the EVLP circuit and oxygen capacities (OC), pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR), and peak airway pressure (PAP) were evaluated every hour for 4 hours. At the end of EVLP, specimens were excised for pathologic review and wet/dry ratio. Results: No statistically significant difference in OC (P=0.353), PVR (P=0.951), and PAP (P=0.651) was observed in both groups. Lung injury severity score (control group vs. study group: 0.700±0.303 vs. 0.870±0.130; P=0.230) and wet/dry ratio (control group vs. study group: 5.89±0.97 vs. 6.20±0.57; P=0.560) also showed no statistically significant difference between the groups. Conclusions: The function of DCD lungs assessed using EVLP showed no difference from that of control lungs without ischemic injury; therefore, utilization of DCD lungs can be a new option to decrease the number of deaths on the waiting list.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.37-47
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• 2023

This review article explores the psychological characteristics, comorbid mental disorders, and psychosocial assessments throughout the solid organ transplant journey, spanning the pre-transplant, peri-transplant, and post-transplant phases for transplant recipients. The psychological burden and anxiety in the pre-transplant phase are high for organ failure patients with complex physical difficulties who are deciding to undergo transplantation and are on the waiting list. The pre-transplant psychosocial evaluation covers various aspects, including the patient's readiness, awareness of, and commitment to transplant treatment, medical compliance, psychopathological conditions such as cognitive function and personality disorders, lifestyle factors, including substance abuse, as well as various psychosocial factors like social support. During the peri-transplant phase, mental health problems such as postoperative delirium should be carefully recognized and addressed. After transplantation, it is essential to assist patients in coping with the various stressful experiences they encounter, manage psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and insomnia, and improve treatment adherence and quality of life during long-term care for the transplanted organ. Managing psychiatric problems in post-transplant patients requires a deep understanding of immunosuppressant medications and a keen awareness of associated risks, including adverse effects and potential drug interactions. This comprehensive review emphasizes the significance of proactive mental health care and psychosocial evaluation, highlighting the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach to enhance the quality of life and overall success of transplant patients throughout all phases of transplantation.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.176-181
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• 2012

Persistent accidents related to food safety and expanded international trades have urged the world to be aware of the gravity of the accidents. Accordingly many countries have tried to come up with various laws, regulations, measures, support networks and educational programs for the agenda, particularly focusing on harmonizing food safety technologies among nations and fostering professionals. Also, APEC newly organized Food Safety Cooperation Forum (FSCF) in 2007 to exert multi-dimensional efforts to improve food safety for Asia Pacific nations. Up to now, 35 activities have been promoted since 2007 and additional 20 activities are waiting for their turns for action on the list of APEC project agenda. FSCF has the objective that it helps the stakeholders in food supply chain develop their own competence in that area, thus increase international trade among nations and maintain the globe healthy by applying the highest standards and best practices for the management of food safety ranging from production to consumption. To achieve this strategic objective, APEC subsequently formed Partnership Training Institute Network (PTIN) to build up the multilateral networks of specialists from governmental agencies engaging in food safety management, industries, academia and international organizations in Asia-Pacific region. This attempt made it possible for the world to exchange their scientific and technological information concerning food safety and strengthen related education and training. Today, international cooperation is essential for food safety management. Therefore, we need to participate actively in the activities of APEC FSCF to contribute to improving food safety technologies for the member countries of APEC. We also need to connect the domestic support programs with theirs.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7229-7235
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• 2013

Background: To determine whether the Health Partner Program is effective in training long-term cancer survivors to be health coaches. Materials and Methods: We randomly assigned cancer survivors who were selected through a rigorous screening process to either the Health Partner Program or the waiting-list control group. The program consisted of 8 weeks of training in health management, leadership, and coaching. At baseline, 8, and 16 weeks, we measured primary outcomes using the Seven Habit Profile (SHP), the Korean Leadership Coaching Competency Inventory (KCCI), Ed Diner's Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and the Posttraumatic Growth inventory (PTGI) and secondary outcomes using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) short form 36-item questionnaire (SF-36). Results: We recruited 70 subjects and randomly assigned 34 to the intervention group. The Sharpen the Saw habit of the SHP increased significantly more in intervention group than in the control group (p=0.049), as did most PTGI factors. The intervention group also showed a significantly greater enhancement of vitality (p=0.015) and mental health (p=0.049) SF-36 scores but no improvement in KCCI, SWLS, HADS, or IES-R scores. The intervention group also showed a greater clinically meaningful improvement in the "Think Win-Win" of SHP (p=0.043) and in the personal strength score (p=0.025) and total score (p=0.015) of the PTGI. Conclusions: Long-term cancer survivors can benefit from the Health Partner Program to become health coaches.

• The Journal of Korean Medical History
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.25-55
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• 2011

The currently existing "Bonchojeonghwa (本草精華)" is a manuscript without the preface and the epilogue, composed of 2 books in 2 volumes. This book is a quintessence of knowledge on science of medicinal ingredients (medicinal phytology I herbal science) as well as an trial of new development in Chosun medical science. I.e. this book includes surprising change representing medical science in Chosun dynasty as a single publication on science of medicinal ingredients. It holds a value essential to clinician as a specialized book in medicinal ingredients, and Includes richer content on medicinal ingredients than any other books published before. In addition, it is away from boring list-up of superfluous knowledge as seen in "Bonchokangmok(本草綱目)" published in China, and well summarizes essential knowledge which can be used within a range of medicines available in Korea. This book has an outstanding structure that can be even used in today's textbook on science of medicinal ingredients, as it has clear theory, system and classification. Because it handles essential learning points prior to prescription to disease, it is possible to configure new prescription and adjustment of medicinal materials. Moreover, this book can play a good role for linguistic study at the time of publication, because it describes many drugs in Hangul in many parts of the book. "Bonchojeonghwa" includes a variety of animals, plants and mineral resources in Korea, like "Bonchokangmok" which was recently listed in UNESCO. As such, it has a significance in natural history as well as pharmacy in Korean Medicine. It has various academic relationships all in biologic & abiologic aspects. It has importance in sharing future biological resources, building up international potential, setting up the standard for biologic species under IMF system, and becoming a base for resource diplomacy. We should not only see it as a book on medicinal ingredients in terms of Oriental Medicine, but also make an prudent approach to it in terms of study strengthening Korea's national competitiveness. After bibliographical reviewing on the features & characteristics of the only existing copy of "Bonchojeonghwa" housed in Kyujanggak(奎章閣) of Seoul National University, the followings are noted. First, "Bonchojeonghwa" is a specialized book on medicinal ingredients voluntarily made by private hands to distribute knowledge on drugs in the desolate situation after Imjinoeran (Japanese Invasion in 1592), without waiting for governmental help. Second, it raised accessibility and practicality by new editing. Third, it classified 990 different kinds of drugs into plant, animal, and mineral at large, and dassified more in detail into 15 'Bu' and 48 'Ryu' at 258 pages. Fourth, the publication of this book is estimated to be around 1625~1633, at the time of Injo's reign in 17th century. Fifth, it contains the existing & up-to-date knowledge at the time of publication, and it is possible to see the supply-demand situation by Hangul descriptions in 149 places in the book. By the fact that there are many linguistic evidences of 17th century, explains well when the book was published.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.116-126
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• 2015

In a distributed heterogeneous computing system, the performance of a parallel application greatly depends on its task scheduling algorithm. Therefore, in order to improve the performance, it is essential to consider some factors that can have effect on the performance of the parallel application in a given environment. One of the most important factors that affects the total execution time is a critical path. In this paper, we propose the CLTS algorithm for a task scheduling. The CLTS sets the priorities of all nodes to improve overall performance by applying leveling method to improve parallelism of task execution and by reducing the delay caused by waiting for execution of critical nodes in priority phase. After that, it conditionally uses insertion based policy or duplication based policy in processor allocation phase to reduce total schedule time. To evaluate the performance of the CLTS, we compared the CLTS with the DCPD and the HCPFD in our simulation. The results of the simulations show that the CLTS is better than the HCPFD by 7.29% and the DCPD by 8.93%. with respect to the average SLR, and also better than the HCPFD by 9.21% and the DCPD by 7.66% with respect to the average speedup.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.105-111
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• 2019

On December 31, 2018, an incident occurred where a doctor was attacked and killed by a patient carrying a lethal weapon in the outpatients' clinic of the psychiatric department of a tertiary general hospital. The suspect was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder (manic depressive disorder) and has been hospitalized and cared for in the psychiatric ward of this hospital. This incident illustrates the necessity of more active cures and therapeutic intervention for mental patients with intellectual developmental disorders who require treatment considering the fact that a radical outcome has been caused by such a patient. However, on the other hand, there is also a need for an approach and analysis from the perspective of crime prevention for all medical departments. The reason for this is that even a tertiary general hospital equipped with the largest human resources, medical devices, facilities, and so forth, is susceptible to violence. As for illegal actions perpetrated against health and medical service personnel in medical institutions, such as verbal abuse, assault, injury, etc. there have neither been understanding shown for the current extent of damage in detail, nor discussions of active institutional improvement related to the seriousness of the act. It can be said that violence in the field of medical treatment is a realm requiring serious discussion and appropriate remedial actions. This is because when such incidents take place, if a patient who is supposed to get treatment from the damaged health care provider is in an urgent situation or on the waiting list of serious cases, he or she could suffer serious damage caused by deprivation of treatment opportunity, or secondary damage might be caused to the patient and/or a guardian who can hardly have an opportunity to take action. Accordingly, in this review, we would like to help create the necessary conditions for both health and medical service personnel and patients/guardians, respectively, to provide and receive medical treatment in a more secure environment. Therefore, objective assessment of the institution and issues relating to this aforementioned incident and general cases of violence occurring in medical institutions, and by suggesting legal and institutional improvements and solutions.

• Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.30-43
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• 2024

Background and Purpose: The SoUth Korea study to PrEvent cognitive impaiRment and protect BRAIN health through lifestyle intervention (SUPERBRAIN) proved the feasibility of multidomain intervention for elderly people. One-quarter of the Korean population over 65 years of age has mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Digital health interventions may be cost-effective and have fewer spatial constraints. We aim to examine the efficacy of a multidomain intervention through both face-to-face interactions and video communication platforms using a tablet personal computer (PC) application in MCI. Methods: Three hundred participants aged 60-85 years, with MCI and at least one modifiable dementia risk factor, will be recruited from 17 centers and randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to the multidomain intervention and the waiting-list control groups. Participants will receive the 24-week intervention through the tablet PC SUPERBRAIN application, which encompasses the following five elements: managing metabolic and vascular risk factors, cognitive training, physical exercise, nutritional guidance, and boosting motivation. Participants will attend the interventions at a facility every 1-2 weeks. They will also engage in one or two self-administered cognitive training sessions utilizing the tablet PC application at home each week. They will participate in twice or thrice weekly online exercise sessions at home via the ZOOM platform. The primary outcome will be the change in the total scale index score of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status from baseline to study end. Conclusions: This study will inform the effectiveness of a comprehensive multidomain intervention utilizing digital technologies in MCI.