• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.460-470
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• 1999

Background : In 1993, American Thoracic Society (ATS) recommended a guideline for the initial management of adults with community-acquired pneumonia(CAP). However, etiologic organisms and medical system in Korea seem to be different from those in Western countries. Retrospective analysis was done to evaluate the efficacy of antibiotics chosen by ATS guideline in the treatment of Korean patients with CAP admitted to a tertiary university medical center. Methods : Hospitalized patients with CAP at Samsung Medical Center from April 1997 through March 1998 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients who fulfilled all of the following criteria were included in this study : (1) fever ${\geq}38^{\circ}C$ (2) purulent sputum (3) pulmonary infiltrates on chest X-ray. Patients were classified as : 1) ATS group ; patients whose initial antibiotics were chosen by ATS guideline 2) Non-ATS overuse group ; additional antibiotics administered more than those of ATS guideline, and 3) Non-ATS underuse group ; initial antibiotics were insufficient to ATS guideline. Response of empirical antibiotics and etiologic organisms of 3 groups were identified. Results : Sixty-four patients were enrolled. Thirty-six patients were classified into ATS group, 10 patients Non-ATS overuse group, and 18 patients Non-ATS underuse group. Thirty-three patients of 36 ATS group, 9 patients of 10 Non-ATS overuse group, and 14 patients of 18 Non-ATS underuse group showed improvement by initial empirical antibiotics. There was no statistical difference in antibiotic response between 3 groups (p>0.05). S. pneumoniae (12.5%), K. pneumoniae (9.4%), and P. aeruginosa (4.7%), Mycoplasma (3.1%) were the most commonly isolated organisms. In 18 patients with severe CAP, P. aeruginosa was isolated only in 1 patient and Legionella organism not isolated. Conclusion : Initial empirical antibiotics chosen by ATS guideline were effective in the management of Korean patients with CAP admitted to a tertiary hospital. However, well-designed large-scale prospective study is needed to identify etiologic organisms and choose an adequate initial empirical antibiotics in Korean adults patient with severe CAP.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.302-311
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• 2018

Using cylindrical paper pot nursery method, three kinds of commercial tomatoes 'Dafnis', 'DOTAERANG DIA' and 'Maescala' were grafted onto a commercial rootstock 'B blocking'. From 10 to 40 days after graft-take, growth traits of seedlings were investigated by 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0S treatments of standard nutrient solution(S) for seedling growth, and top to root ratio(TRR), compactness(CP) and Dickson Quality Index(DQI) were calculated. Two weeks after transplanting of the seedlings under three different night temperature targeting to 10, 15, and $25^{\circ}C$, which were not precisely controlled, the relative growth rate (RGR) was investigated. The quantitative growth traits of grafted seedlings increased with increasing fertilizer concentration, and various range of seedling size could be produced. Compactness and DQI were significantly regressed (Adj $R^2=0.9480$). Short-term RGR after transplanting was higher at 1.0S treatment of standard nutrient solution at the seedling age of 30 days and 40 days after graft-take(DAGT). DQI and RGR were significantly regressed linearly at respective fertigation strength. Specially the diminishing slope of RGR was lower at 1.0S fertigation strength with the increase of DQI than others. The results indicate that DQI could be applied as a quality index of grafted tomato seedlings and the relation analysis between DQI and short-term RGR also could be used to determine the good quality seedlings of grafted tomato grown in cylindrical paper pot.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.215-222
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• 2012

Objective: A prediabetes hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level of 5.7%-6.4% is considered a risk factor for diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the USA. In this study, we assessed the HbA1c and visceral fat levels as CVD risk factors in health check-up examinees who were not yet diagnosed with diabetes. Methods: Totally, 507 study subject were categorized as per criteria of the American Diabetes Association, depending on whether the HbA1c level was ${\geq}5.7%$ or <5.7%. Lipid levels, blood pressure, BMI (kg/$m^2$), total abdominal, and visceral fat levels were measured by computed tomography. Results: The mean of HbA1c in the male group was larger than the mean in the female group and their values were, respectively, $6.03{\pm}0.82%$ and $5.88{\pm}0.72%$(p<0.05). Only the mean values of age and visceral fat area were different between $HbA1c{\geq}5.7%$ and <5.7% in both male and female group(p<0.05). Visceral fat levels were significantly associated with HbA1c in the group of HbA1c ${\geq}5.7%$ (odds ratio=1.005, 95% CI 1.002~1.008). Conclusions: Visceral fat levels were significantly higher and correlated with the group which HbA1c level is ${\geq}5.7%$. This finding suggests that subjects who have high levels of HbA1c should be carefully monitored during prediabetes and should have chance to have health education programs.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.112-122
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• 2003

Objectives：Considerable data indicate that diminished serotonergic activity is related to aggressive behavior. In order to understand the biological etiology in conduct disorder, we studied the relationships of plasma serotonin and 5-HIAA levels in conduct disorders to measures of aggression, violation of rules and oppositional defiant behavior. Methods：Subjects were selected from inpatients and outpatients department of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Seoul National University Hospital. 41 conduct disorders(18 childhoodonset type, 23 adolescent-onset type) and 23 normal controls were included in this study. For the assessment of aggression, rule violation and oppositional behavior, parents completed the rating scale for conduct disorder and oppositional behavior based on the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. Plasma serotonin and 5-HIAA levels were determined by HPLC with electrochemical detection. Results：1) Plasma 5-HT and 5-HIAA levels were not significantly different among childhood-onset conduct disorder, adolescent-onset conduct disorder and normal control subjects. 2) No significant correlations were found between plasma 5-HT levels and aggression or rule violation. 3) Plasma 5-HT levels showed significant positive correlations with oppositional behavior both in childhood-onset conduct disorder and adolescent-onset conduct disorder. 4) Age-related changes were not found in plasma 5-HT and 5-HIAA levles. Conclusion：Our findings do not support the hypothesis that dysregulation of serotonergic function may be associated with aggresson. Instead, our data suggest that serotonergic function is more closely related with oppositional behavior than aggression.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.530-537
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• 2007

Purpose: The aim of this study is to assess the specific patterns of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in patients with the early stage of subcortical vascular dementia (SVaD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) using Tc-99m HMPAO SPECT, and to compare the differences between the two conditions. Materials and Methods: Sixteen SVaD, 46 AD and 12 control subjects participated in this study. We included the patients with SVaD and AD according to NINCDS-ADRDA and NINDS-AIREN criteria. They were all matched for age, education and clinical dementia rating scores. Three groups were evaluated by Tc-99m HMPAO SPECT using statistical parametric mapping (SPM) for measuring rCBF. The SPECT data of patients with SVaD and AD were compared with those of normal control subjects and then compared with each other. Results: SPM analysis of the SPECT image showed significant perfusion deficits on the right temporal region and thalamus, left insula and superior temporal gyrus, both cingulate gyri and frontal subgyri in patients with SVaD and on the left supramarginal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, postcentral gyrus and inferior parietal lobule, right fugiform gyrus and both cingulate gyri in AD compared with control subjects (uncorrected p<0.01). SVaD patients revealed significant hypoperfusion in the right parahippocampal gyrus with cingulated gyrus, left insula and both frontal subgyral regions compared with AD (uncorrected p<0.01). Conclusion: Our study shows characteristic and different pattern of perfusion deficits in patients with SVaD and AD, and these results may be helpful to discriminate the two conditions in the early stage of illness.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.74-81
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• 2017

An off-site consequence analysis is used to calculate the risks when hazardous chemicals that is being used on-site has been exposed off-site; the biggest factor that impacts the risk is the risks of accident scenarios. This study seeks to calculate risks according to accident scenarios by applying OGP/LOPA risk calculating methods for similar facilities, calculate risk reduction ratio by inspecting applicable IPL for incidents, and propose an appropriate risk standard for different risk calculating methods. Considering all applicable IPL when estimating the safety improvement of accident scenarios, the risk of OGP is 8.05E-04 and the risk of LOPA is 1.00E-04, According to the case of IPL, the risk is 1.34E-02. The optimal risk level for accident scenarios using LOPA was $10^{-2}$, but the appropriate risk criteria for accident scenarios in foreign similar studies were $10^{-3}{\sim}10^{-4}$, the risk of a scenario can be determined at an unacceptable level. When OGP is applied, it is analyzed as acceptable level, but in case of applying LOPA, all applicable IPL should be applied in order to satisfy the acceptable risk level. Compared to OGP, the risk is high when LOPA is applied. Therefore, the acceptable risk level should be set differently for each risk method.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.177-192
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• 2012

This is a study of match-making systems that considers the mutual satisfaction of matching partners. Recently, recommendation systems have been applied to people recommendation, such as recommending new friends, employees, or dating partners. One of the prominent domain areas is match-making systems that recommend suitable dating partners to customers. A match-making system, however, is different from a product recommender system. First, a match-making system needs to satisfy the recommended partners as well as the customer, whereas a product recommender system only needs to satisfy the customer. Second, match-making systems need to include as many participants in a matching pool as possible for their recommendation results, even with unpopular customers. In other words, recommendations should not be focused only on a limited number of popular people; unpopular people should also be listed on someone else's matching results. In product recommender systems, it is acceptable to recommend the same popular items to many customers, since these items can easily be additionally supplied. However, in match-making systems, there are only a few popular people, and they may become overburdened with too many recommendations. Also, a successful match could cause a customer to drop out of the matching pool. Thus, match-making systems should provide recommendation services equally to all customers without favoring popular customers. The suggested match-making system, called Mutually Beneficial Matching (MBM), considers the reciprocal satisfaction of both the customer and the matched partner and also considers the number of customers who are excluded in the matching. A brief outline of the MBM method is as follows: First, it collects a customer's profile information, his/her preferable dating partner's profile information and the weights that he/she considers important when selecting dating partners. Then, it calculates the preference score of a customer to certain potential dating partners on the basis of the difference between them. The preference score of a certain partner to a customer is also calculated in this way. After that, the mutual preference score is produced by the two preference values calculated in the previous step using the proposed formula in this study. The proposed formula reflects the symmetry of preferences as well as their quantities. Finally, the MBM method recommends the top N partners having high mutual preference scores to a customer. The prototype of the suggested MBM system is implemented by JAVA and applied to an artificial dataset that is based on real survey results from major match-making companies in Korea. The results of the MBM method are compared with those of the other two conventional methods: Preference-Based Matching (PBM), which only considers a customer's preferences, and Arithmetic Mean-Based Matching (AMM), which considers the preferences of both the customer and the partner (although it does not reflect their symmetry in the matching results). We perform the comparisons in terms of criteria such as average preference of the matching partners, average symmetry, and the number of people who are excluded from the matching results by changing the number of recommendations to 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25. The results show that in many cases, the suggested MBM method produces average preferences and symmetries that are significantly higher than those of the PBM and AMM methods. Moreover, in every case, MBM produces a smaller pool of excluded people than those of the PBM method.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.272-280
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• 2015

A simultaneous official method was developed for the determination of phorate and its metabolites (phorate sulfoxide, phorate sulfone, phorate oxon, phorate oxon sulfoxide, phorate oxon sulfone) in livestock samples. The analytes were quantified and confirmed via liquid chromatograph-tandem mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS) in positive ion mode using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). Phorate and its metabolites were extracted from beef and milk samples with acidified acetonitrile (containing 1% acetic acid) and partitioned with anhydrous magnesium sulfate. Then, the extract was purified through primary secondary amine (PSA) and C18 dispersive sorbent. Matrix matched calibration curves were linear over the calibration ranges (0.005-0.5 mg/L) for all the analytes into blank extract with $r^2$ > 0.996. For validation purposes, recovery studies were carried out at three different concentration levels (beef 0.004, 0.04 and 0.2 mg/kg; milk 0.008, 0.04 and 0.2 mg/kg, n = 5). The recoveries were within 79.2-113.9% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) less than 19.2% for all analytes. All values were consistent with the criteria ranges requested in the Codex guidelines. The limit of quantification was quite lower than the maximum residue limit (MRL) set by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (0.05 mg/kg). The proposed analytical method was accurate, effective and sensitive for phorate and its metabolites determination and it will be used to as an official analytical method in Korea.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.268-277
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• 2014

This study assessed microbiological hazards at postharvest stage of dropwort farms (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I) located in 4 different areas in Korea. The samples were assessed for sanitary indication bacteria (total aerobic bacteria, coliform, and Escherichia coli) and pathogenic bacteria (Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus). Total aerobic bacteria and coliform in 9 dropwort farms were detected at the levels of 0~7.00 and 0~4.25 log CFU/g, mL, of $100cm^2$. In particular, microbial contamination in worker's hand showed higher than cultivation environment factors. Escherichia coli was detected in several farms of soil, irrigation water, washing water and worker's hand and also, dropwort in these farms was contaminated with E. coli (positive reaction). In case of pathogenic bacteria, B. cereus was detected at the highest levels in soil. S. aureus was detected qualitatively from only one sample of dropwort washed by water. E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes were not detected. Although dropwort pass through 2 process (trimming and washing), the microbial contamination was not differ significantly before and after which indicates that current washing system was not effect on reduction of microorganism. From these results, the postharvest environment and workers have been considered as cross-contamination factors. Thus, processing equipments and personal hygiene should be managed to reduce the microbial contamination of dropwort. Accordingly management system such as good agricultural practices (GAP) criteria is needed for the safety of dropwort

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.383-397
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• 1999

For sites to be investigated, the results of such an investigation can be used in determining foals for cleanup, quantifying risks, determining acceptable and unacceptable risk, and developing cleanup plans t hat do not cause unnecessary delays in the redevelopment and reuse of the property. To do this, it is essential that an appropriately detailed study of the site be performed to identify the cause, nature, and extent of contamination and the possible threats to the environment or to any people living or working nearby through the analysis of samples of soil and soil gas, groundwater, surface water, and sediment. The migration pathways of contaminants also are examined during this phase. Key aspects of cost-effective site assessment to help standardize and accelerate the evaluation of contaminated soils at sites are to provide a simple step-by-step methodology for environmental science/engineering professionals to calculate risk-based, site-specific soil levels for contaminants in soil. Its use may significantly reduce the time it takes to complete soil investigations and cleanup actions at some sites, as well as improve the consistency of these actions across the nation. To achieve the effective site assessment, it requires the criteria for choosing the type of standard and setting the magnitude of the standard come from different sources, depending on many factors including the nature of the contamination. A general scheme for site-specific assessment consists of sequential Phase I, II, and III, which is defined by workplan and soil screening levels. Phase I are conducted to identify and confirm a site's recognized environmental conditions resulting from past actions. If a Phase 1 identifies potential hazardous substances, a Phase II is usually conducted to confirm the absence, or presence and extent, of contamination. Phase II involve the collection and analysis of samples. And Phase III is to remediate the contaminated soils determined by Phase I and Phase II. However, important factors in determining whether a assessment standard is site-specific and suitable are (1) the spatial extent of the sampling and the size of the sample area; (2) the number of samples taken: (3) the strategy of taking samples: and (4) the way the data are analyzed. Although selected methods are recommended, application of quantitative methods is directed by users having prior training or experience for the dynamic site investigation process.