• KIEAE Journal
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.21-28
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• 2009

In apartment buildings, casualties, especially fatalities have occurred in balcony areas in fires if residents fail to escape to the main entrance. Potential consequences of a particular infrequent event should be considered. In attempting to design apartment buildings for fire safety, alternative escape methods such as vertical penetration could be considered. The purpose of this study is to investigate present building regulations regarding apartment buildings and examine pros and cons of the current escape method and alternative escape methods. Focus group interview was conducted to discuss problems of fire escape methods. In addition, questionnaires were distributed to field professionals working in architecture, construction and related industries. Among 500 questionnaires distributed, 192 questionnaires were collected. Usable 162 questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 15. Regarding alternative fire escape methods, several concerns were mentioned. Safety, privacy, security, effectiveness of escape, water proof problems were raised. Based on the opinions, vertical penetration between apartment unit appeared more safe, secure, effective than horizontal penetration. However, both methods have its own pros and cons under specific contexts. Alternative escape methods need be considered for a selective options for residents in case of fire.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.259-267
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• 2016

Animal testing was used traditionally in the cosmetics industry to confirm product safety, but has begun to be banned; alternative methods to replace animal experiments are either in development, or are being validated, worldwide. Research data related to test substances are critical for developing novel alternative tests. Moreover, safety information on cosmetic materials has neither been collected in a database nor shared among researchers. Therefore, it is imperative to build and share a database of safety information on toxicological mechanisms and pathways collected through in vivo, in vitro, and in silico methods. We developed the CAMSEC database (named after the research team; the Consortium of Alternative Methods for Safety Evaluation of Cosmetics) to fulfill this purpose. On the same website, our aim is to provide updates on current alternative research methods in Korea. The database will not be used directly to conduct safety evaluations, but researchers or regulatory individuals can use it to facilitate their work in formulating safety evaluations for cosmetic materials. We hope this database will help establish new alternative research methods to conduct efficient safety evaluations of cosmetic materials.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2016

The National Toxicology Program Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM) provides validation support for US Federal agencies and the US Tox21 interagency consortium, an interagency collaboration that is using high throughput screening (HTS) and other advanced approaches to better understand and predict chemical hazards to humans and the environment. The use of HTS data from assays relevant to the estrogen receptor signaling data pathway is used as an example of how HTS data can be combined with computational modeling to meet the needs of US agencies. As brief summary of US efforts in the areas of biologics testing, acute toxicity, and skin sensitization will also be provided.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.237-248
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• 2009

The reasons to attend Alternative Schools are : to compensate for the discontent over what is locally taught in state schools and to improve the students' satisfaction and social emotional development. In 2006, it was estimated that about a thousand Home Schools were set up. With the studies of Alternative Education and Home Schooling, the issues are : 1) the depth study of curriculum of Alternative Education with a wide range of subjects, 2) the institutionalization of Home Schooling, 3) educational methods for Home Schooling, 4) a research on Home Schooling's effectiveness. Their practical and political issues are : 1) to give the licence to the rest of schools and to formulate Education Law on Home Schooling, 2) to obtain government's financial support to the both sections, 3) to support a system of instructional contents and methods of Home Schooling, and 4) to select, share and popularize the best practices of Home Schooling.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.159-168
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• 2014

Pesticides have provided significant benefits including plant disease control and increased crop yields since people developed and utilized them. However, pesticide use is associated with many adverse effects, which necessitate precise toxicological tests and risk assessment. Most of these methods are based on animal studies, but considerations of animal welfare and ethics require the development of alternative methods for the evaluation of pesticide toxicity. Although the usage of laboratory animals is inevitable in scientific evaluation and alternative approaches have limitations in the whole coverage, continuous effort is necessary to minimize animal use and to develop reliable alternative tests for pesticide evaluation. This review discusses alternative approaches for pesticide toxicity tests and hazard evaluation that have been used in peer-reviewed reports and could be applied in future studies based on the critical animal research principles of reduction, replacement, and refinement.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.137-149
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• 2009

Objectives: Pregnant women could have various diseases, but the treatment of medication has the limitation that could cause fetal injury. So pregnant women have used complementary and alternative medicine in the world, but korean medicine had not been actively studied on obstetrics. This study is to investigate efficacy and safety of complementary and alternative medicine on obstetrics. Methods: We searched for papers which had pregnancy, obstetrics, complementary medicine, acupuncture and herb in the pubmed since 2000. Results: 41 papers were found. Acupuncture have the efficacy and safety on nausea, pelvic pain in pregnancy and breech presentation. Complementary alternative medicine had been studied as randomized controlled trial at various diseases in obstetric. But the method were without coordination, results were different from methods. So more clinical trials about complementary and alternative medicine would be needed. Massage and acupressure would be helpful for pregnant mood complaint. Conclusion: Complementary and alternative medicine has been proved as efficacy and safety in obstetrics, so complementary and alternative medicine would be helpful method in pregnant women. For making guidelines on complementary and alternative medicine treatment during pregnancy, more research will be needed.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.18.1-18.5
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• 2020

Finding publications that propose alternative methods to animal experiments is an important but time-consuming task since researchers need to perform various queries to literature databases and screen many articles to assess two important aspects: the relevance of the article to the research question, and whether the article's proposed approach qualifies to being an alternative method. We are currently developing a Web application to support finding alternative methods to animal experiments. The current (under development) version of the application utilizes external tools and resources for document processing, and relies on the PubAnnotation ecosystem for annotation querying, annotation storage, dictionary-based tagging of cell lines, and annotation visualization. Currently, our two PubAnnotation repositories for discourse elements contain annotations for more than 110k PubMed documents. Further, we created an annotator for cell lines that contain more than 196k terms from Cellosaurus. Finally, we are experimenting with TextAE for annotation visualization and for user feedback.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.302-310
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• 2020

Botulinum toxins are neurotoxic modular proteins composed of a heavy chain and a light chain connected by a disulfide bond and are produced by Clostridium botulinum. Although lethally toxic, botulinum toxin in low doses is clinically effective in numerous medical conditions, including muscle spasticity, strabismus, hyperactive urinary bladder, excessive sweating, and migraine. Globally, several companies are now producing products containing botulinum toxin for medical and cosmetic purposes, including the reduction of facial wrinkles. To test the efficacy and toxicity of botulinum toxin, animal tests have been solely and widely used, resulting in the inevitable sacrifice of hundreds of animals. Hence, alternative methods are urgently required to replace animals in botulinum toxin testing. Here, the various alternative methods developed to test the toxicity and efficacy of botulinum toxins have been briefly reviewed and future perspectives have been detailed.

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.77-89
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• 2015

Objectives The purpose of this study is to analyze Korean clinical studies in Korean medicine and complementary and alternative medicine for allergic rhinitis and to propose for better methods of clinical studies and effective treatments on allergic rhinitis. Methods Electronic researches were performed with NDSL, RISS, KISTI, KISS, OASIS by keyword 'Allergic rhinitis'. Results The treatments used in 36 studies were herbal medicines, acupuncture, pharmacopuncture, moxibustion, cupping, inject medicine to nasal cavity, aroma therapy, ointment, nasal cleansing solution, laser treatment, infra-red therapy, oxygen nebulizer, diet treatment, moxa-pellet treatment, mindfulness meditation and space-spine manipulation techniques. The most common acupoints were LI4 and LI20 (Large Intestine Meridian). The most common methods of assessment is subjective nasal symptoms. All studies using subjective nasal symptoms and quality of life as assessment methods to show valid results on the improvement of allergic rhinitis. Conclusions This study shows that Korean medicine and complementary and alternative medicine on allergic rhinitis are effective. It will be expected to use that various methods for allergic rhinitis and more clinical studies for allergic rhinitis and pediatric patients needed in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.167-177
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• 2013

Recently, desires for diversification of medical treatment throughout our society have been enhanced. It is thought that such a trend may be directly related to the introduction of 'alternative medicine'. This study is to establish the foundation of legalization of alternative medicine, starting with the movement for legalization of alternative medicine from constitutionality decision of medical law by the legal Information Constitutional Court. It also suggested the direction of discussion with issue of how to introduce alternative medicine beyond the stage of basic discussion, 'why' we must introduce alternative medicine, through profound investigation of preceding studies. In addition, the present study analyzed legal controversies from the appearance of alternative medicine based on the decisions of the Constitutional Court and the precedents of the Supreme Court and drew the prerequisites for the institutionalization of alternative medical treatments. It also reestablished terms of alternative medicine which have been indiscreetly used, presented methods for officialization of alternative medicine and compared and analyzed advantages and disadvantages of the methods.