• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.396-406
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• 2016

Continuous supplementation of mineral nutrients and salicylic acid (SA) as foliar application could improve efficacy in controlling basal stem rot (BSR) disease in oil palm seedling. It is revealed from the results that the highest disease severity index (58.3%) was recorded in T8 treatments at 9 months after inoculation. The best disease control was achieved by T7 treatments (calcium/copper/SA [Ca/Cu/SA]) (5.0%) followed by T1 (5.5%), T5 (5.8%), T3 (8.3%), T6 (8.3%), T4 (13.3%), and T2 (15.8%) treatments. Continuous supplementation of Ca/Cu/SA was found to be the most effective in controlling the disease and the high performance liquid chromatography results showed the detection of ergosterol at very low concentration in the treated samples. Moreover, the transmission electron microscopy analysis results clearly indicated that T7 treatment was also enhancing lignification, which was responsible for the thickness of the secondary cell walls and middle lamella compared to untreated samples. It was therefore, concluded that continuous supplementation of minerals nutrients and SA could effectively suppress disease severity by reducing ergosterol activity and also improve the process of lignification in the treated plants. Furthermore, this treatment also managed to delay the onset of BSR symptoms and promote the growth of the seedlings and eventually suppress the BSR disease.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.621-626
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• 2011

Purpose: Implant-based breast reconstruction has multiple advantages such as decreased morbidity, shorter operative time and faster recovery. However, postoperative infection with tissue expander increases medical cost and causes a delay in concurrent antineoplastic treatment. To reduce tissue expander infection, it is important to identify related risk factors and minimize them when possible. Methods: A retrospective review of patient records in a single breast cancer center was performed. Eighty-six tissue expanders were placed in 80 women for postmastectomy breast reconstruction. Variables including patients'age, body mass index (BMI), preoperative breast volume, operation time, drain indwelling time, postoperative seroma/hematoma formation, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy were evaluated. Infection was defined as the status that shows any symptom of local inflammation and identification of pathogens. Representative values were compared through Student's t-test and univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: We examined 86 postmastectomy tissueexpanders which were placed between June 2004 and April 2010. Seven cases of tissue expander infection (8.1%) were identified. The infected tissue expander was removed in three of the cases. The relationship between BMI, and preoperative breast volume and that between infection and non-infection groups were significant ($p$ <0.05). Univariate analysis showed significant association between BMI ($p$=0.023) and preoperative breast volume ($p$=0.037). Multivariate analysis revealed that BMI and preoperative breast volume were independent variables regarding tissue expander infection. Conclusion: Certain characteristics of implant-based breast reconstruction patients increase infection rate of tissue expander. These risk factors should be monitored and evaluated before surgeries for more successful outcome.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.110-116
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• 2002

Tuberculous otitis media is a very rare disease in extrapulmonary tuberculosis and in chronic otitis media nowadays. The characteristic signs seem to have altered from the past ones. And the suspicion index is very low that there is often a considerable delay prior to diagnosis. This might result in irreversible complications such as hearing loss, facial nerve paralysis and labyrinthitis. It is difficult to be defined by culture, so many patients with tuberculous otitis media are subjected to have surgery without a correct etiologic diagnosis. Therefore bacteriologic study of secretion and pathologic examinations of biopsied tissue are mandatory. We report one year and 11 months old boy with tuberculous otitis media having painful otorrhea and perforated tympanic membrane diagnosed by histologic finding and polymerase chain reaction(PCR). And we would like to emphasize the fact that tuberculous otitis media must be considered in the differential diagnosis of persistent suppurative otitis media despite appropriate antibiotic therapy considering the increasing tendency in incidence of Tuberculosis in Korea these days.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2019

Objective: For knee osteoarthritis (OA), there is a demand for alternative modalities in order to delay surgery and to avoid the side effects of medications. This study compared the effects of applying seaweed pack and mudpack for the treatment of knee OA. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Methods: Twenty-five patients with knee OA who satisfied the criteria were included. The patients were divided into two groups according to the treatment method: mudpack (n=12) and seaweed pack (n=13). The two groups were treated for 20 minutes, twice a day for five continuous days at the Ocean Healing Center at Wando Island, South Korea. Participants were assessed by clinical scores (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index, Hospital for Special Surgery Knee Score, Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score and 36-Item Short Form Health Survey) and lab results (erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, insulin-like growth factor-1 [IGF-1], tumor necrosis $factor-{\alpha}$ [$TNF-{\alpha}$]) during the follow-up period. Results: For the most part, clinical scores improved after therapy and maintained improvements for four weeks in both groups (p<0.05). In the seaweed group, $TNF-{\alpha}$ was significantly decreased at two weeks post-therapy (p<0.05). In both groups, IGF-1 was significantly increased immediately post-therapy (p<0.05). There were no statistically significant differences after therapy between the groups in clinical scores and labs. Conclusions: Seaweed packs and mudpacks had similar positive effects for knee OA. Additionally, the seaweed pack group showed decreased levels of $TNF-{\alpha}$ at two weeks post-treatment, which may explain the reduced inflammatory reaction. For rehabilitation therapy, use of seaweed packs may serve as an alternative modality for the treatment of knee OA.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.194-202
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• 2021

Ionosphere, one of the largest error sources, can pose potentially harmful threat to single-frequency GNSS (global navigation satellite system) user even after applying ionospheric corrections to their GNSS measurements. To quantitatively assess ionospheric impacts on the satellite navigation-based applications using simulation, the standard deviation of residual ionospheric errors is needed. Thus, in this paper, we determine conservative statistical quantity that covers typical residual ionospheric errors for nominal days. Extensive data-processing computes TEC (total electron content) estimates from GNSS measurements collected from the Korean reference station networks. We use Klobuchar model as a correction to calculate residual ionospheric errors from TEC (total electron content) estimate. Finally, an exponential delay model for residual ionospheric errors is presented as a function of local time and satellite elevation angle.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.494-500
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• 2022

Background Seroma formation is the most common donor site complication following autologous breast reconstruction, along with hematoma. Seroma may lead to patient discomfort and may prolong hospital stay or delay adjuvant treatment. The aim of this study was to compare seroma rates between the deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP), transverse musculocutaneous gracilis (TMG), and superior gluteal artery perforator (SGAP) donor sites. Methods The authors conducted a retrospective single-center cohort study consisting of chart review of all patients who underwent microsurgical breast reconstruction from April 2018 to June 2020. The primary outcome studied was frequency of seroma formation at the different donor sites. The secondary outcome evaluated potential prognostic properties associated with seroma formation. Third, the number of donor site seroma evacuations was compared between the three donor sites. Results Overall, 242 breast reconstructions were performed in 189 patients. Demographic data were found statistically comparable between the three flap cohorts, except for body mass index (BMI). Frequency of seroma formation was highest at the SGAP donor site (75.0%), followed by the TMG (65.0%), and DIEP (28.6%) donor sites. No association was found between seroma formation and BMI, age at surgery, smoking status, diabetes mellitus, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, or DIEP laterality. The mean number of seroma evacuations was significantly higher in the SGAP and the TMG group compared with the DIEP group. Conclusion This study provides a single center's experience regarding seroma formation at the donor site after microsurgical breast reconstruction. The observed rate of donor site seroma formation was comparably high, especially in the TMG and SGAP group, necessitating an adaption of the surgical protocol.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.145-145
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• 2022

Availability of abundant water resources data in developing countries is a great concern that has hindered the adoption of deep learning techniques (DL) for disaster prevention and mitigation. On the contrary, over the last two decades, a sizeable amount of DL publication in disaster management emanated from developed countries with efficient data management systems. To understand the current state of DL adoption for solving water-related disaster management in developing countries, an extensive bibliometric review coupled with a theory-based analysis of related research documents is conducted from 2003 - 2022 using Web of Science, Scopus, VOSviewer software and PRISMA model. Results show that four major disasters - pluvial / fluvial flooding, land subsidence, drought and snow avalanche are the most prevalent. Also, recurrent flash floods and landslides caused by irregular rainfall pattern, abundant freshwater and mountainous terrains made India the only developing country with an impressive DL adoption rate of 50% publication count, thereby setting the pace for other developing countries. Further analysis indicates that economically-disadvantaged countries will experience a delay in DL implementation based on their Human Development Index (HDI) because DL implementation is capital-intensive. COVID-19 among other factors is identified as a driver of DL. Although, the Long Short Term Model (LSTM) model is the most frequently used, but optimal model performance is not limited to a certain model. Each DL model performs based on defined modelling objectives. Furthermore, effect of input data size shows no clear relationship with model performance while final model deployment in solving disaster problems in real-life scenarios is lacking. Therefore, data augmentation and transfer learning are recommended to solve data management problems. Intensive research, training, innovation, deployment using cheap web-based servers, APIs and nature-based solutions are encouraged to enhance disaster preparedness.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.75-88
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• 2009

This paper presents a video quality assessment method based on quality degradation factors of real-time multimedia streaming services. The video quality degradation is caused by video source compression and network states. In this paper, we propose a blocky metric on an image domain to measure quality degradation by video compression. In this paper, the proposed boundary strength index for the blocky metric is defined by ratio of the variation of two pixel values adjacent to $8{\times}8$ block boundary and the average variation at several pixels adjacent to the two boundary pixels. On the other hand, unnatural image movement caused by network performance deterioration such as jitter and delay factors can be observed. In this paper, a temporal-Jerkiness measurement method is proposed by computing statistics of luminance differences between consecutive frames and play-time intervals between frames. The proposed final Perceptual Video Quality Metric (PVQM) is proposed by consolidating both blocking strength and temporal-jerkiness. To evaluate performance of the proposed algorithm, the accuracy of the proposed algorithm is compared with Difference of Mean Opinion Score (DMOS) based on human visual system.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.94-106
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• 2012

In recent years, the risks and uncertainties associated with mixed used development in urban regeneration projects which have actively been implemented at home and abroad have been on the rise due to the uncertainties of the initial business plan, difficulty of financing, increase in total cost and schedule delay. To cope with rapid social and economic changes and optimize benefits, a risk-based configuration management process that considers life cycle is required, along with accurate planning in the early stage of the business. In addition, it is necessary to prepare measures that can respond to the evaluation and measurement of the configuration factors in relation to the business process. However, the focus of previous studies on configuration management in the field of construction was mainly on humanities and the sociological aspects such as organization, leadership, ideology and similar concepts. There has been limited research on the process and measurement and evaluation methods for configuration factors required in decision-making on the risks and changes that can occur in the actual project implementation phase. Accordingly, in this study, we defined risk-based configuration factors and developed a process and MECA/3DAM/CII methodology to measure and evaluate these factors so as to carry out systematic configuration management of mixed used development in urban regeneration projects.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.158-166
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• 2013

Background: Colorectal cancer shows a significant increase in South Korea due to westernization of diet, lack of dietary fiber, drinking and smoking, irregular defecation. There are surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy in treatment of colorectal cancer. There may be a medication errors in the process of chemotherapy because of its high toxicity, narrow therapeutic index and the health status of cancer patients. Consequently medication errors can cause increasing the risk of death, prolonging hospital stay and increasing the cost. Among medication errors on medication use process, prescribing errors are of particular concern due to higher risk of serious consequences. It is important for pharmacist to prevent the prescribing errors before reaching patient. Therefore we analyzed the prescriptions of colorectal cancer, classified prescribing errors, suggested guideline to reduce prescribing errors and verified the importance of pharmacist's role in prevention of medication errors activity. Methods: We collected the numbers of prescriptions of colorectal cancer(n=2,373) through anti cancer management program and EMR and analyzed the errors of prescriptions by categories from Oct 1st 2011 to Sep 30th 2012 at Chungbuk National University Hospital. We reviewed the prescriptions as follows - patients' characteristics, the result of test, previous prescriptions, characteristics of antineoplastic agents and patients' allergy, drug sensitivity, adverse events. Prescriptions are classified into inpatient and outpatient and analyzed the errors of prescriptions by categories (dosage form, dose, input, diluents, regimen, product). Results: Total prescription number of inpatient and outpatient of colorectal cancer was 1,193 and 1,180 and that of errors was 107(9%) and 22(1.9%), respectively. In case of errors of categories, the number of errors of dosage form is 69 and 8, errors of dose is 15 and 5, errors of input is 9 and 9 in inpatient and outpatient prescriptions, respectively. Errors of diluents is 8, errors of regimen is 3, errors of product is 3 in only inpatient prescriptions. In case of errors of categories by inpatient department, the number of errors of dosage form is 34 and 35, errors of dose is 7 and 8, errors of input is 6 and 3, errors of diluents is 4 and 4, errors of regimen is 2 and 1, errors of product is 2 and 1 in SG and HO, respectively. In case of outpatient department, the number of errors of dosage form is 8 in HO, errors of dose is 5 in HO, errors of input is 5 and 4 in SG and HO, respectively. Conclusions: The rate of errors of inpatient is higher than that of outpatient. Junior doctors are engaged in prescriptions of inpatient and pharmacist need to pay attention to review all prescriptions. If prescribing errors are discovered, pharmacist should contact the prescriber and correct the errors without delay. The guideline to reduce prescribing errors might be upgrading software of anti cancer management program, education for physicians as well as pharmacists and calling prescriber's attention to preventing recurrence of errors.