• Title/Summary/Keyword: cost index

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Chemoradiotherapy versus radiotherapy alone following induction chemotherapy for elderly patients with stage III lung cancer

  • Kim, Dong-Yun;Song, Changhoon;Kim, Se Hyun;Kim, Yu Jung;Lee, Jong Seok;Kim, Jae-Sung
    • Radiation Oncology Journal
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    • v.37 no.3
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    • pp.176-184
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    • 2019
  • Purpose: It is unclear whether adding concurrent chemotherapy (CT) to definitive radiotherapy (RT) following induction CT is a tolerable and cost effective treatment for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients aged 70 years or older with comorbidities. This study evaluated the actual clinical outcomes between concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) and RT alone following induction CT or not in patients (≥70 years) in a single institution's clinical practice. Materials and Methods: A total of 82 patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC between 2004 and 2016 were retrospectively analyzed. Their treatment tolerance and clinical outcomes such as overall survival (OS), locoregional recurrence (LRR), treatment toxicities and distant metastasis (DM) were evaluated. Early mortality rates were also evaluated as 4-month mortality after RT. Results: Fifty-four patients received CCRT and 28 patients received RT alone. Induction CT before RT was performed for 68.5% and 50.0% in CCRT and RT alone groups. Treatment tolerance was significantly worse in CCRT (p = 0.046). The median survival was 21.1 and 18.1 months for CCRT and RT alone, which was not statistically significant. LRR and DM were also not different. Most early deaths after CCRT were attributed to non-cancer-related mortality. Acute esophagitis of grade ≥2 occurred more following CCRT (p = 0.017). In multivariate analysis, a Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) of ≥5 and a weight loss of ≥5% after RT were associated with poor OS. The factors adversely affecting 4-month survival were a CCI of ≥5 and CCRT. Conclusion: There were no significant differences in OS, LRR, and DM between CCRT and RT alone treatment in elderly patients. However, there was a poorer tolerance and higher incidence of acute esophagitis in the CCRT group. Specifically, when the patients had a CCI of ≥5, RT alone seems to be reasonable with a low probability of early death.

Factors Associated with a Prolonged Length of Hospital Stay in Patients with Diabetic Foot: A Single-Center Retrospective Study

  • Choi, Sang Kyu;Kim, Cheol Keun;Jo, Dong In;Lee, Myung Chul;Kim, Jee Nam;Choi, Hyun Gon;Shin, Dong Hyeok;Kim, Soon Heum
    • Archives of Plastic Surgery
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    • v.44 no.6
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    • pp.539-544
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    • 2017
  • Background We conducted this study to identify factors that may prolong the length of the hospital stay (LHS) in patients with diabetic foot (DF) in a single-institution setting. Methods In this single-center retrospective study, we evaluated a total of 164 patients with DF, and conducted an intergroup comparison of their baseline demographic and clinical characteristics, including sex, age, duration of diabetes, smoking status, body mass index, underlying comorbidities (e.g., hypertension or diabetic nephropathy), wound characteristics, type of surgery, the total medical cost, white blood cell (WBC) count, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and albumin, protein, glycated hemoglobin, and 7-day mean blood glucose (BG) levels. Results Pearson correlation analysis showed that an LHS of >5 weeks had a significant positive correlation with the severity of the wound (r=0.647), WBC count (r=0.571), CRP levels (r=0.390), DN (r=0.020), and 7-day mean BG levels (r=0.120) (P<0.05). In multiple regression analysis, an LHS of >5 weeks had a significant positive correlation with the severity of the wound (odds ratio [OR]=3.297; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.324-10.483; P=0.020), WBC count (OR=1.423; 95% CI, 0.046.0-356; P=0.000), CRP levels (OR=1.079; 95% CI, 1.015-1.147; P=0.014), albumin levels (OR=0.263; 95% CI, 0.113.3-673; P=0.007), and 7-day mean BG levels (OR=1.018; 95% CI, 1.001-1.035; P=0.020). Conclusions Surgeons should consider the factors associated with a prolonged LHS in the early management of patients with DF. Moreover, this should also be accompanied by a multidisciplinary approach to reducing the LHS.

Comparison of Lung Ventilation Scan Using Technegas and $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ Aerosol (Technegas 환기스캔과 $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ Aerosol 스캔의 비교)

  • Choi, Yoon-Ho;Kim, Sang-Eun;Lee, Dong-Soo;Chung, June-Key;Lee, Myung-Chul;Kim, Keun-Youl;Koh, Chang-Soon;Koong, Sung-Soo
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.237-243
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    • 1990
  • Pulmonary embolism demands rapid and accurate diagnosis. And ventilation imaging has greatly improved the diagnostic accuracy of pulmonary embolism in addition to perfusion imaging. Agents currently used include xenon-133, krypton-81m and technetium-99m radioaerosols. However radioactive gases are compromised by availability and cost for krypton-81m, radiation dose, gamma energy and non?physiologic behaviour for xenon-133. Radioaerosols of technetium-99m componds are rapidly cleared from the lung after inhalation, and their relative low effeciency (specific radioactivity) and wide distribution of particle sizes make them also suboptimum. A new ventilation agent, Technegas is a suspension of structured graphite ellipsoids with diameter below 20nm, labelled with $^{99m}Tc$ in a carrier gas of Argon. This report describes the authors' clinical experience with Technegas. This is the first reported clinical study of this agent in Korea. A comparison of Technegas and $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol was performed in 12 patients with various pulmonary diseases such as COPD, pulmonary tuberculosis and pleural effusion. All patients were studied with $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol inhalation and Technegas ventilation. In both studies image quality was assessed (1) semiquantitatively by scoring bronchial and gastric activity, (2) subjectively by direct visual comparison of peripheral lung images and (3) quantitatively by computing the peripheral penetration index(PI) for each lungs. The bronchial activites were seen in 7 out of 12 cases with $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol and in 5/12 with Technegas. The gastric activities were seen in 5/12 and 1/12 cases respectively. The average values of PI were 61.26% with $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol and 69.20% with Technegas (p>0.05). Using $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol, COPD patients showed deposition in the central airways with poor visualization of the peripheral areas of the lungs. In Technegas studies these phenomena were less prominent, and the examination is well tolerated by pateients and requires only a minimum of patient cooperation. With superiority of easy availability and handling, better physical characteristics and favorable Image quality, Technegas is a Promising agent for lung ventilation scanning.

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U-City Service Classification Standard & Cost Sharing Plan through the Case Studies of U-City Construction

  • Yun, Jeong-Ran;Lee, Sang-Hun;Yang, Dong-Suk
    • Land and Housing Review
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    • v.2 no.2
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    • pp.101-109
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    • 2011
  • Recently, the construction of U-City or of U-City service (U-service) in many kinds of urban development projects becomes the general trend. However, as the construction of U-city comes into the spotlight like the trend of the times, various service constructions are being indiscreetly implemented since it's processed focusing on local specialized projects or local landmark project by a local autonomous entity or an institute in charge being off the original purpose of the improvement of living quality of residents and the efficiency of urban management, which causes a number of problems on the process, maintenance, operation and management of those projects. Therefore, this study is to derive the standard pattern of U-service construction through the analysis of patterns and numbers of U-service and problems during the process of construction in domestic U-City construction case district, and is aimed to suggest the reasonable direction of service construction based on this. 11 projects areas in which data related to U-service are available among U-City construction project areas were selected for the subjects of this study, and it's standardized with 228 detailed unit services that were suggested by U-Eco City R&D and with 11 service domains that are regulated in "the Act of ubiquitous city construction etc.", and it is limited to services that were suggested in U-City case area of which design was completed by July, 2010 based on this. The actual state of various U-service construction is analyzed through case studies as well as reviews on the legal and theoretical concept and the method of pattern classification of U-service, the plan for the standardization (pattern classification) of U-service and the plan for the construction body of service and to share the costs are suggested as the plan to construct reasonable U-service based on this for the method and the procedure of this study For the method to construct U-service, the plan to classify the pattern of U-service into the basic service and additional service is suggested, and whether it has the publicity, whether urban infrastructure is included, whether utilities are included, the body of realization, the recipients, the urgency, the importance and the spreading, etc. are suggested for the index to determine the pattern of service. The method to get the executor of a project to construct the basic service, the method to get the executor of a project to construct the most basic service among the group classification of service and to get a private entity and a local autonomous entity to perform additional service in the future, and the method to construct the whole service and to distribute the construction costs were suggested, and the first one that determines the body of construction after dividing U-service into the basic service and the additional service was evaluated to be the most reasonable one. And the plan to solve the problem that the excessive construction costs of U-service are shifted onto the executor of a project through benefit principle, balanced distribution principle and consultation and mediation between the interested parties was suggested for the criteria to share the costs.

Corridor and Network Analyses of Forest Bird Habitats in a Metropolitan Area of South Korea (수도권 지역 산림성 조류 서식지의 통로와 연결망 분석)

  • Kang, Wanmo;Park, Chan-Ryul
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.191-201
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    • 2015
  • Measuring and mapping connectivity among habitats is a key component of sustainable urban planning and design process. In this study, we examined how functional corridors connect forest bird habitats in a metropolitan area of Korea using graph theory-based techniques. High-quality forest habitat was defined as a function of forest cover, presence of residential areas, and road networks. We then constructed a network of high-quality forest habitats using the FunConn (functional connectivity) tools, and computed metrics ($T_i$) of patch importance based on the minimum ($Q_1$) and the 25th percentile ($Q_{25}$) rank least-cost distance values. We investigated the relative influence of two values of patch importance on forest bird species richness. As a result, the patch importance index based on the $Q_{25}$ effective distance threshold was most positively correlated with species richness (P < 0.001) after controlling for the area effect. Thus, using the $Q_{25}$ effective distance threshold, we mapped not only the locations of important habitat patches and functional corridors, but also the network backbone of forest bird habitats. The network developed in this study can help guide urban planning for biodiversity conservation.

Study on the Carcass Yield Grade Traits and Prediction of Retail Product Weight in Hanwoo Beef (한우도체의 육량등급 요인 특성과 판매 정육량 추정)

  • Lee, Jong-Moon;Hah, Kyoung-Hee;Kim, Jin-Hyong;Cho, Soo-Hyun;Seong, Pil-Nam;Jung, Meyung-Ok;Cho, Yong-Min;Park, Beom-Young;Kim, Dong-Hun;Ahn, Chong-Nam
    • Food Science of Animal Resources
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    • v.28 no.5
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    • pp.604-609
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    • 2008
  • Analyses were conducted to estimate carcass component of yield grade factors by sex and live weight class and to develop the prediction equation of retail product weight by sex in Korean native cattle (Hanwoo). Data from 42,113 Hanwoo carcasses were used to estimate the traits of yield grade factor and an additional 1,066 carcasses were used to develop the prediction equation of retail meat weight. The average of fasting weight of cow, bull and steer were 529 kg, 596 kg, and 634 kg respectively. Carcass weight (CW), backfat thickness (BFT), loineye area (REA), Index score of wholesale meat and yield grade were significantly (p<0.01) affected by sex and live weight. The lean meat percentage, fat percentage and bone percentage based on the weight of cold carcasses were significantly different (p<0.05) between sex groups. The equation of predicting the retail meat product from this study could be expressed as a multiple regression $Y=-4.18+0.63{\times}CW\;(kg)-0.17{\times}BFT\;(cm)+0.16{\times}REA\;(cm^2)$, $R^2=0.93$. Among the independent factors, the BFT was the highest contributor to the prediction equation. Using the equation from this study should allow for rapid, precise and cost-effective assessment of the retail product in Hanwoo beef carcasses.

An Analysis of a Request for the Development of Computer Application Technology in an Architectural Construction Management System (건축공정 관리시스템의 전산적용 최적화를 위한 시스템 개발 요구 분석)

  • Kwon, Choon-An;Ji, Suk-Won
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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    • v.11 no.6
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    • pp.567-575
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    • 2011
  • With the development of construction information, a computerization tool for architectural process control is a necessary tool. However, the reality is that the conditions and understanding of users are not sufficient to fully utilize such a tool. In particular, it was analyzed that the reason for the negative feedback from hands-on workers regarding the current process control information system is that there is a difficulty in accessing the system for users that are not process and planning experts, due to a lack of information and technical contents at the phase of control and planning prior to the process plan. Therefore, the demands of users and a direction for the improvement of a system in terms of optimizing process control computerization were investigated, with the aim of addressing the disadvantages of the existing system and developing a professional system that is specialized in the construction industry. Therefore, it is necessary to construct an integrated WBS (IWBS) that combines WBS with CBS, and subsequently, it is judged that the most important aspect is the integrated technology of compatibility and operation of data that is linked with OBS. The process information must then deal with the changing information; in other words, the amount of construction, construction cost, and the required construction period etc., by coding data into a 4-unit index, such as a project unit (WBS Level 1), a project facility unit (WBS Level 2), a management department unit (OBS Level 1), and a control manager unit (OBS Level 2). After that, it was found that it is necessary to develop a computer system to consistently integrate process information into a management department.

Read Range Reduction in Passive UHF RFID Tag by Smart Device Signal Interference (스마트 기기 신호 간섭에 의한 수동형 UHF 대역 RFID 태그의 인식 거리 감소에 관한 연구)

  • Kwon, Jongwon;Song, Taeseung;Cho, Wonseo
    • The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.83-91
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    • 2014
  • The passive UHF RFID tags for item-level tagging are now explosively used in the supply chain and retail applications as they have several advantages, the two most relevant are cost and a longer read range. However, the signal interference problem between RFID tags and smart devices in real world is expected according to the smart-phone and tablet market growth together. The performance of RFID tags can be significantly less. The popular examples are the read-success rates and read range reduction. Especially, KT Corp. recently emphasized the serious signal interference at 900 MHz of LTE and old RFID frequencies through their public demonstration. By popular demands, this paper suggests the interference tolerance measurement method between the passive UHF RFID tag and the transmitted signal from a smart device. In addition, we selected three passive UHF RFID tags(Inlay) available on the market and quantitatively evaluated read range reduction results by interference signals using the PCR(Performance Change Rates) index. As a result, the LTE system is about three times as effective as the WCDMA system in terms of interference effects, and the read range performance of two RFID tags about 60 % drop.

CORE-Dedup: IO Extent Chunking based Deduplication using Content-Preserving Access Locality (CORE-Dedup: 내용보존 접근 지역성 활용한 IO 크기 분할 기반 중복제거)

  • Kim, Myung-Sik;Won, You-Jip
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.20 no.6
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    • pp.59-76
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    • 2015
  • Recent wide spread of embedded devices and technology growth of broadband communication has led to rapid increase in the volume of created and managed data. As a result, data centers have to increase the storage capacity cost-effectively to store the created data. Data deduplication is one way to save the storage space by removing redundant data. This work propose IO extent based deduplication schemes called CORE-Dedup that exploits content-preserving access locality. We acquire IO traces from block device layer in virtual machine host, and compare the deduplication performance of chunking method between the fixed size and IO extent based. At multiple workload of 10 user's compile in virtual machine environment, the result shows that 4 KB fixed size chunking and IO extent based chunking use chunk index 14500 and 1700, respectively. The deduplication rate account for 60.4% and 57.6% on fixed size and IO extent chunking, respectively.

Development of Predictive Model for Length of Stay(LOS) in Acute Stroke Patients using Artificial Intelligence (인공지능을 이용한 급성 뇌졸중 환자의 재원일수 예측모형 개발)

  • Choi, Byung Kwan;Ham, Seung Woo;Kim, Chok Hwan;Seo, Jung Sook;Park, Myung Hwa;Kang, Sung-Hong
    • Journal of Digital Convergence
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    • v.16 no.1
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    • pp.231-242
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    • 2018
  • The efficient management of the Length of Stay(LOS) is important in hospital. It is import to reduce medical cost for patients and increase profitability for hospitals. In order to efficiently manage LOS, it is necessary to develop an artificial intelligence-based prediction model that supports hospitals in benchmarking and reduction ways of LOS. In order to develop a predictive model of LOS for acute stroke patients, acute stroke patients were extracted from 2013 and 2014 discharge injury patient data. The data for analysis was classified as 60% for training and 40% for evaluation. In the model development, we used traditional regression technique such as multiple regression analysis method, artificial intelligence technique such as interactive decision tree, neural network technique, and ensemble technique which integrate all. Model evaluation used Root ASE (Absolute error) index. They were 23.7 by multiple regression, 23.7 by interactive decision tree, 22.7 by neural network and 22.7 by esemble technique. As a result of model evaluation, neural network technique which is artificial intelligence technique was found to be superior. Through this, the utility of artificial intelligence has been proved in the development of the prediction LOS model. In the future, it is necessary to continue research on how to utilize artificial intelligence techniques more effectively in the development of LOS prediction model.