• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.965-970
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• 2010

Purpose: The life expectancy of patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type I is generally considered to be less than 2 years. Recently, with the introduction of proactive treatments, a longer survival and an improved survival rate have been reported. In this study, we analyzed the natural courses and survival statistics of SMA type I patients and compared the clinical characteristics of the patients based on their survival periods. Methods: We reviewed the medical records of 14 pediatric patients diagnosed with SMA type I during a 9-year period. We examined the demographic and clinical characteristics of these patients, calculated their survival probabilities, and plotted survival curves as on the censoring date, January 1, 2010. We also compared the characteristics of the patients who died before the age of 24 months (early-death, ED group) and those who survived for 24 months or longer (long-survival, LS group). Results: The mean survival time was $22.8{\pm}2.0$ months. The survival probabilities at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, and 30 months were 92.9%, 92.9%, 76.0%, 76.0%, and 65.1%, respectively. Birth weight was the only factor that showed a statistically significant difference between the ED and LS groups ($P$=0.048). Conclusion: In this study, the survival probabilities at 2 years were far greater than expected. Because of the limited number of patients and information in this study, the contribution of improved supportive care on longer survival could not be clarified; this may be elucidated in larger cohort studies.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.17-22
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• 2008

Objectives : Period analysis estimates up-to-date survival rates of cancer patients. In this approach, analysis is restricted to recent time period by left-truncating all observations at the beginning of the period and right-censoring at its end. Here, we applied period analysis to examine changes in 5-year relative survival (RS) by age group for 1997 and for 2002. Methods : Using the National Cancer Incidence Database, 5-year RS was estimated for 1997 and 2002 in four age groups (15-54, 55-64, 65-74, and 75 years old and over) using period analysis. After excluding death certificate-only cases, patients with an unknown date of diagnosis or follow-up length, a total of 813,889 patients diagnosed with a first primary invasive cancer during 1992 2002 were included for analysis. Followup for vital status was included until 31 December 2002. Results : Five-year RS increased from 41.7% for 1997 to 46.7% for 2002. Increases in survival occurred in all age groups except in the 75 and over group. Conclusions : The age gradient in cancer prognosis seems to have widened between 1997 and 2002, a finding that requires further study of prognostic factors, including stage at diagnosis. Period analysis accurately estimates survival rates, especially for cancers with better prognosis.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1107-1110
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• 2013

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), one of the primary liver cancers, is frequent in the northeastern part of Thailand. Surgical resection remains the best method of treatment, but patients suffering from ICC usually present at a late stage of the disease. Studies of survival and prognostic factors after surgery remain rare. The aim here was to evaluate the survival rate and factors affecting the survival of patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma after surgery. The study used a retrospective cohort design. The subjects were 73 consecutive patients with ICC, who were admitted for surgery to Srinagarind Hospital, Khon Kaen University, during the period 2005-2009. The censoring date was 31 December, 2011, data being evaluated using uni- and multivariate analyses. Postoperative survival analysis was performed by the Kaplan-Meier method, and the Cox proportional hazard model was used to identify independent prognostic factors. The total follow-up time was 99 person-years. The total number of deaths was 59, giving a mortality rate of 59 per 100 person-years. The cumulative 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates were 52.1%, 21.7%, and 11.2%, respectively. The median duration of survival after resection was 12.4 months. Univariate analysis revealed stage of disease, lymph node metastasis, histological type, histological grade and macroscopic classification to be statistically significant (p-value<0.05) prognostic factors. In the multivariate analysis, only macroscopic classification was statistically significant (p-value<0.05). In conclusion, macroscopic classification was the only independent factor found to be significantly associated with survival following surgical treatment of ICC.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.449-458
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• 2007

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in person's mood, energy, and ability to function. Compared with manic episode, the depression episode causes more serious results such as restless, loss of interest or pleasure, or thoughts of death or suicide and the cure rate of depression episode is lower than that of manic episode. Furthermore, a long term use of antidepressants in bipolar patients may result in manic episode. Our interest is to investigate the effect of antidepressant on switch of moods of bipolar patients and to estimate the transition probabilities of switch between moods, depression and (hypo) manic. In this study, three approaches are applied in terms of multi state model. Parametric model is applied using left censoring data and nonparametric model is implemented under illness-death model with counting process. In order to estimate the effect of covariates, a multiplicative model is used. These all methods have similar results.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.503-515
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• 2019

In this study we estimate the survival function of duration of the legislative processes in the 17th, 18th, and 19th National Assembly of Korea, and further analyze effects of the political situation variables on the legislative process. We define the termination of legislative process from a novel perspective to alleviate issues of dependency between censoring and failure in the data. We also show that the proportional hazards assumption does not hold for the data, and analyze data employing a log-normal accelerated failure time model. The policy areas of law agendas are shown to affect the speed of legislative process in different ways and legislative process tends to be prompt in times of divided governments.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.467-478
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• 2020

Background: The purpose of this study is to explain the factors influencing the incurrence of catastrophic health expenditure of national health insurance households using panel data observed over a long period. Methods: The study targeted 3,652 households who had no censoring during the 11-year survey period (2007-2017) and householders whose insurance type was consistently maintained as national health insurance. Generalized estimating equations were adopted to identify factors affecting the occurrence of catastrophic health expenditure at 20%, 30%, and 40% threshold levels. A subgroup analysis was conducted by categorizing groups depending on the existence of the elderly in the household. Results: For the last 11 years, the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure in the households without the elderly decreased slightly at all threshold levels, but the households with the elderly seemed to be increased. At baseline, household type showed a statistically significant relationship with all other variables. The results of generalized estimating equations analyses show that household income was not significant at all threshold levels in the households without elderly. On the other hand, in the households with the elderly, the 2nd (odds ratio [OR], 1.33-2.05) and 3rd quintile groups (OR, 1.25-2.55) were more likely to have catastrophic health expenditure compared to the 1st quintile of household income group. Conclusion: As the amount of health expenditures relative to the ability to pay is increasing in households with the elderly, the application of an intervention followed by consistent monitoring is needed. This study found that there were differences in influencing factors according to the presence of the elderly in the households. In particular, in households with the elderly, interesting results have been drawn regarding the occurrence of catastrophic health expenditure in the near-poor, so additional research is required.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.656-662
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• 2016

We have provided a variety of domestic construction technology related full-text services through the Construction Technology Digital Library system since 2001. CODIL is a system that services the database related to construction technology data. On the other hand, there is growing demand for DB every year, but the required budget is shrinking. Therefore, this study investigated the satisfaction to effectively service the construction technique-related full-text with a limited budget. The monetary value of full-text to express satisfaction with the quantified value was estimated using the Tobit model. The Tobit model is used as a contingent valuation method to estimate the value of non-market goods. This model is the limited dependent variable regression model to observations by censoring the limit of the left side or right side so that a biased outlier is not reflected in the willingness to pay. A survey was conducted by sampling 312 respondents. The mean, median, truncating the willingness of payment were calculated for the six types of the full-text services using the Tobit model. The statistically significant variables affecting the willingness to pay for the full-text services were identified. The mean value of per the full-text service was estimated to be 46,530 won. The significance of this study was to use the Tobit model to estimate the value of the construction technology-related full-text services for the first time in Korea.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.470-475
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• 2013

The objective of this study was to estimate genetic parameters that are to be used for across-herd genetic evaluations of seed stock pigs at GGP level. Performance data with pedigree information collected from swine breeder farms in Korea were provided by Korea Animal Improvement Association (AIAK). Performance data were composed of final body weights at test days and ultrasound measures of back fat thickness (BF), rib eye area (EMA) and retail cut percentage (RCP). Breeds of swine tested were Landrace, Yorkshire and Duroc. Days to 90 kg body weight (DAYS90) were estimated with linear function of age and ADG calculated from body weights at test days. Ultrasound measures were taken with A-mode ultrasound scanners by trained technicians. Number of performance records after censoring outliers and keeping records pigs only born from year 2000 were of 78,068 Duroc pigs, 101,821 Landrace pigs and 281,421 Yorkshire pigs. Models included contemporary groups defined by the same herd and the same seasons of births of the same year, which was regarded as fixed along with the effect of sex for all traits and body weight at test day as a linear covariate for ultrasound measures. REML estimation was processed with REMLF90 program. Heritability estimates were 0.40, 0.32, 0.21 0.39 for DAYS90, ADG, BF, EMA, RCP, respectively for Duroc population. Respective heritability estimates for Landrace population were 0.43, 0.41, 0.22, and 0.43 and for Yorkshire population were 0.36, 0.38, 0.22, and 0.42. Genetic correlation coefficients of DAYS90 with BF, EMA, or RCP were estimated to be 0.00 to 0.09, -0.15 to -0.25, 0.22 to 0.28, respectively for three breeds populations. Genetic correlation coefficients estimated between BF and EMA was -0.33 to -0.39. Genetic correlation coefficient estimated between BF and RCP was high and negative (-0.78 to -0.85) but the environmental correlation coefficients between these two traits was medium and negative (near -0.35), which describes a highly correlated genetic response to selection on one or the other of these traits. Genetic Trends of all three breeds tend to be towards bigger EMA or greater RCP and shorter DAYS90 especially from generations born after year 2000.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.1349-1354
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• 2019

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the best approach for handling missing records of first to successful insemination (FS) in Japanese Black heifers. Methods: Of a total of 2,367 records of heifers born between 2003 and 2015 used, 206 (8.7%) of open heifers were missing. Four penalty methods based on the number of inseminations were set as follows: C1, FS average according to the number of inseminations; C2, constant number of days, 359; C3, maximum number of FS days to each insemination; and C4, average of FS at the last insemination and FS of C2. C5 was generated by adding a constant number (21 d) to the highest number of FS days in each contemporary group. The bootstrap method was used to compare among the 5 methods in terms of bias, mean squared error (MSE) and coefficient of correlation between estimated breeding value (EBV) of non-censored data and censored data. Three percentages (5%, 10%, and 15%) were investigated using the random censoring scheme. The univariate animal model was used to conduct genetic analysis. Results: Heritability of FS in non-censored data was $0.012{\pm}0.016$, slightly lower than the average estimate from the five penalty methods. C1, C2, and C3 showed lower standard errors of estimated heritability but demonstrated inconsistent results for different percentages of missing records. C4 showed moderate standard errors but more stable ones for all percentages of the missing records, whereas C5 showed the highest standard errors compared with noncensored data. The MSE in C4 heritability was $0.633{\times}10^{-4}$, $0.879{\times}10^{-4}$, $0.876{\times}10^{-4}$ and $0.866{\times}10^{-4}$ for 5%, 8.7%, 10%, and 15%, respectively, of the missing records. Thus, C4 showed the lowest and the most stable MSE of heritability; the coefficient of correlation for EBV was 0.88; 0.93 and 0.90 for heifer, sire and dam, respectively. Conclusion: C4 demonstrated the highest positive correlation with the non-censored data set and was consistent within different percentages of the missing records. We concluded that C4 was the best penalty method for missing records due to the stable value of estimated parameters and the highest coefficient of correlation.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.349-378
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• 2010

The Life-Course perspective is a theoretical orientation that views the life-course as the age structure embedded in social institutions and history and understands the life-course of individual and group in the contextual perspective. The life-course perspective studies were developed in Germany and North America. They study social and historical effects and the effect of institutions and the state on the life-course, the pathway of the work career and differences of labour outcomes, and the inequality that is developed in the life-course. In Korea, the life-course perspective studies were tried in various fields and cumulated. However, it didn't established as a theoretical orientation. For applying the life-course perspective to connect the individual life-course with social and historical event, I describe the historical location of individuals born between 1930 and 1979 and analyse the change of their transitions to adulthood exploratorily. On results, the extension of education made the structural change of their life-course, and in young cohort the timing of leaving school, entering workforce, marriage and childbirth was delayed and transitions were made in narrower spread. It means the standardization of the life-course as appears in modern society. The 1970s birth cohort has the differenciated life-course pattern, however I cannot verify that change because of the right censoring.