• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.1264-1270
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• 2012

The ecotoxicological effects of nanomaterials on animal, plant, and soil microorganisms have been widely investigated; however, the nanotoxic effects of plant-soil interactive systems are still largely unknown. In the present study, the effects of ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) on the soil-plant interactive system were estimated. The growth of plant seedlings in the presence of different concentrations of ZnO NPs within microcosm soil (M) and natural soil (NS) was compared. Changes in dehydrogenase activity (DHA) and soil bacterial community diversity were estimated based on the microcosm with plants (M+P) and microcosm without plants (M-P) in different concentrations of ZnO NPs treatment. The shoot growth of M+P and NS+P was significantly inhibited by 24% and 31.5% relative to the control at a ZnO NPs concentration of 1,000 mg/kg. The DHA levels decreased following increased ZnO NPs concentration. Specifically, these levels were significantly reduced from 100 mg/kg in M-P and only 1,000 mg/kg in M+P. Different clustering groups of M+P and M-P were observed in the principal component analysis (PCA). Therefore, the M-P's soil bacterial population may have more toxic effects at a high dose of ZnO NPs than M+P's. The plant and activation of soil bacteria in the M+P may have a less toxic interactive effect on each of the soil bacterial populations and plant growth by the ZnO NPs attachment or absorption of plant roots surface. The soil-plant interactive system might help decrease the toxic effects of ZnO NPs on the rhizobacteria population.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.81-92
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• 2009

Objectives: This study set out to investigate the relationship among the factors of metabolic syndrome diagnosis criteria, their risk factors including general characteristics, and the distribution of the diagnosis criteria and risk among the adult residents of a rural community. Methods: Among 1,968 residents, those who had three or more of the risk factors of metabolic syndrome, which include blood pressure, blood glucose, triglyceride, abdominal obesity, and HDL-C, were categorized as the metabolic syndrome group. And their correlations were analyzed. Results: As for the risk ratio with five factors of the metabolic syndrome diagnosis criteria, it was high according to age and smoking. In addition, the results show that body fat percentage, hs-CRP, insulin, BMI, PP2, total cholesterol, and W/Ht also had much impact on increasing the risk ratio of the metabolic syndrome diagnosis criteria. It turned out that metabolic syndrome was affected by the body mass index(BMI), insulin, waist to height ratio(W/Ht), and hs-CRP. It was 2.51 times crude odds ratio that BMI over the 25kg/m2 in the ratio of the fact of metabolic syndrome and adjusted for sex odds ratio 2.50times and W/Ht was 3.31times, adjusted for sex odds ratio 3.25 times. Conclusion: BMI, W/Ht and smoking of the general characteristics seem to have close relationships with high correlations between the metabolic syndrome diagnosis criteria and the risk factors. Thus there is an urgent need to evaluate them and take interventions and monitoring measures for the clustering of risk factors.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.244-256
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• 2018

Purpose: This study tried to understand discourses of life-sustaining treatments in general daily and healthcare newspapers. Methods: A text-network analysis was conducted using the NetMiner program. Firstly, 572 articles from 11 daily newspapers and 258 articles from 8 healthcare newspapers were collected, which were published from August 2013 to October 2016. Secondly, keywords (semantic morphemes) were extracted from the articles and rearranged by removing stop-words, refining similar words, excluding non-relevant words, and defining meaningful phrases. Finally, co-occurrence matrices of the keywords with a frequency of 30 times or higher were developed and statistical measures-indices of degree and betweenness centrality, ego-networks, and clustering-were obtained. Results: In the general daily and healthcare newspapers, the top eight core keywords were common: "patients," "death," "LST (life-sustaining treatments)," "hospice palliative care," "hospitals," "family," "opinion," and "withdrawal." There were also common subtopics shared by the general daily and healthcare newspapers: withdrawal of LST, hospice palliative care, National Bioethics Review Committee, and self-determination and proxy decision of patients and family. Additionally, the general daily newspapers included diverse social interest or events like well-dying, euthanasia, and the death of farmer Baek Nam-ki, whereas the healthcare newspapers discussed problems of the relevant laws, and insufficient infrastructure and low reimbursement for hospice-palliative care. Conclusion: The discourse that withdrawal of futile LST should be allowed according to the patient's will was consistent in the newspapers. Given that newspaper articles influence knowledge and attitudes of the public, RNs are recommended to participate actively in public communication on LST.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.205-215
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• 2022

Background: The purpose of this study is to identify the factors infecting the medical care utilization from a new perspective by newly classifying the categories of administrative districts using the urban decline index and medical vulnerability index as indicators. Methods: This study targeted 150,940 people who used medical services using the 2015 cohort database (DB), 2010-2015 urban regeneration analysis index DB, and 2014-2015 public health and medical statistics DB. The decline of the region was classified using the urban decline index typed using k-means clustering and the medical vulnerability index typed using the quantile score calculation. Regression analysis was performed 3 times with medical expenditure, length of stay, and the number of outpatient visits as dependent variables. Results: There were 37 stable region (47.4%), 29 health vulnerable region (37.2%), and 12 decline region (15.4%). The health vulnerable region had lower medical expenditure, fewer outpatient visits, and a higher length of stay than the stable region. The decline region was all higher than the stable region but had no significant effect. Conclusion: The factors that cause the health disparity between regions are not only factors related to individual health behavior but also environmental factors of the local community. Therefore, there is a need for a systematic alternative that properly considers the resources within the community and reflects the characteristics of the population.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.568-577
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• 2022

Objectives: Many studies have shown that social distancing, as a non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) that is one of the various measures against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is an effective preventive measure to suppress the spread of infectious diseases. This study explored the relationships between traditional health-related behaviors in Korea and social distancing practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Data were obtained from the 2020 Community Health Survey conducted by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (n=98 149). The dependent variable was the degree of social distancing practice to cope with the COVID-19 epidemic. Independent variables included health-risk behaviors and health-promoting behaviors. The moderators were vaccination and unmet medical needs. Predictors affecting the practice of social distancing were identified through hierarchical multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: Smokers (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.924) and frequent drinkers (aOR, 0.933) were more likely not to practice social distancing. A greater degree of physical activity was associated with a higher likelihood of practicing social distancing (aOR, 1.029). People who were vaccinated against influenza were more likely to practice social distancing than those who were not (aOR, 1.150). However, people with unmet medical needs were less likely to practice social distancing than those who did not experience unmet medical needs (aOR, 0.757). Conclusions: Social distancing practices were related to traditional health behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and physical activity. Their patterns showed a clustering effect of health inequality. Therefore, when establishing a strategy to strengthen social distancing, a strategy to protect the vulnerable should be considered concomitantly.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.29-39
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• 2017

To compare the features of ground-dwelling invertebrates according agroecosystems, we selected paddy fields, dry fields, orchards in the Eastern region of Korea. The surveys were performed by using pit-fall traps twice per year from 2013 to 2015. Total 6,420 individuals of 172 species belonging to 13 orders, 58 families were investigated in the Eastern region, the species of Hymenoptera (38.26%), Orthoptera (16.28%) accounted large portion of the communities. In the geographical observation, invertebrates were caught was 2,983 individuals in Gyeongsangnam-do, the diversity index of Gyeongsangbuk-do community was higher than of the others and abundance and species richness of paddy field were higher than from dry field or orchard. To understand the relation between taxonomic groups and environmental factors, we carried out the canonical correspondence analysis and hierarchical clustering. As a result, Homoptera, Blattaria, Isoptera, and Coleoptera were positively related to soil pH, soil temperature, and moisture contents, and negatively related to the others. Invertebrate community also were patterned dependently by type of ecosystems. This results were shown that distribution of invertebrates is a few influenced the relationship of the space habituated invertebrates and environmental factors.

• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.81-85
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• 2019

This study was carried out to observe the changes of seaweed community in artificial reefs installed in September, 2016 in Namae-ri, Yangyang-gun, and Seokbyeong-ri, Pohangsi, Korea. Field surveys were conducted by SCUBA diving once a season in February, May, August, and November of 2017, and quantitative survey and qualitative survey were carried out in parallel. In this study, a total of 94 species, including 11 green algae, 15 brown algae and 68 red algae were appeared. 66 species (8 green algae, 9 brown algae, 49 red algae) and 65 species (7 green algae, 9 brown algae, 49 red algae) were collected and identified in Yangyang and Pohang. In dominant species, Yangyang was dominant species of Saccharina japonica and subdominant species of Ulva australis. Pohang dominated in order of Colpomenia sinuosa and Gelidium elegans. In both coastal areas, Ulva spp., Colpomenia sinuosa were grown at the early stage of reforestation, and perennial seaweeds such as Saccharina japonica, Ecklonia cava and Gelidium elegans were grown. In order to clarify the clustering relation through flora change, it is necessary to monitor the transition process until the seaweed community is stabilized by observing the long-term change through continuous monitoring.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.85-103
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• 2006

An investigation of fauna and community of insects in Gotjawal Terrain, Jeju-do, had been conducted with a way of black light trap from July to September, 2005. The investigated insects were classified into 217 species, 75 families, and 11 orders respectively. Coleoptera that occupied 55.3 percent among them and was consisted of 120 species was the richest group and Hemiptera followed it. The density of Physopelta gutta was highest but Physopelta cincticollis was overall the dominant species in all sampling areas. The species diversity index was highest at Jocheon-Hamdeog Gotjawal in Jeju-do, while it was lowest in Gujwa-Sungsan Gotjawal. Clustering analysis revealed that the insect communities of four localities were grouped in only one cluster. Included in the species unreported in Jeju Island were Menida musiva and Pentatoma japonica in Hemiptera, Philonthus wuesthoffi in Coleoptera, and Phanerotoma flava in Hymenoptera.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1511-1519
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• 2016

Jeju Island relies on subterranean water for over 98% of its water resources, and it is therefore necessary to continue to perform studies on drought due to climate changes. In this study, the representative standardized precipitation index (SPI) is classified by various criteria, and the spatial characteristics and applicability of drought in Jeju Island are evaluated from the results. As the result of calculating SPI of 4 weather stations (SPI 3, 6, 9, 12), SPI 12 was found to be relatively simple compared to SPI 6. Also, it was verified that the fluctuation of SPI was greater fot short-term data, and that long-term data was relatively more useful for judging extreme drought. Cluster analysis was performed using the K-means technique, with two variables extracted as the result of factor analysis, and the clustering was terminated with seven-time repeated calculations, and eventually two clusters were formed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.17-20
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• 2000

Structural genomics aims to provide a good experimental structure or computational model of every tractable protein in a complete genome. Underlying this goal is the immense value of protein structure, especially in permitting recognition of distant evolutionary relationships for proteins whose sequence analysis has failed to find any significant homolog. A considerable fraction of the genes in all sequenced genomes have no known function, and structure determination provides a direct means of revealing homology that may be used to infer their putative molecular function. The solved structures will be similarly useful for elucidating the biochemical or biophysical role of proteins that have been previously ascribed only phenotypic functions. More generally, knowledge of an increasingly complete repertoire of protein structures will aid structure prediction methods, improve understanding of protein structure, and ultimately lend insight into molecular interactions and pathways. We use computational methods to select families whose structures cannot be predicted and which are likely to be amenable to experimental characterization. Methods to be employed included modern sequence analysis and clustering algorithms. A critical component is consultation of the presage database for structural genomics, which records the community's experimental work underway and computational predictions. The protein families are ranked according to several criteria including taxonomic diversity and known functional information. Individual proteins, often homologs from hyperthermophiles, are selected from these families as targets for structure determination. The solved structures are examined for structural similarity to other proteins of known structure. Homologous proteins in sequence databases are computationally modeled, to provide a resource of protein structure models complementing the experimentally solved protein structures.