• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.41-76
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• 2013

Based on an analysis of the Japanese animation director Kamiyama Kenji's Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series, this paper discusses two important subjects in modern technoscience-cyborg and old age. In fact, age has been an important social and political category in the modern world, along with gender, race, and class. However, age has not been a significant research topic for STS scholars. Even though many of these investigators have extensively explored the complex relationship between gender and technoscience, especially after the publication of Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" (1991), few of them have been interested in how age is reconfigured by modern science and technology. If women, as Haraway has claimed, can have a different political and cultural outlook by becoming cyborgs, then, can we expect a similar socio-cultural transformation with regard to the interaction between cyborg and old age? Do the elderly experience lesser age discrimination through the growth of biomedicine and technoscience? Indeed, it is believed that seniors are increasingly becoming cyborgs with advancing age, since their declining bodily functions are consistently replaced and assisted by various biomedical technologies. Does this enable them to overcome ageism and age discrimination as well as their alleged physiological and mental limitations? As an answer to this question, Mike Featherstone has asserted that becoming a cyborg in old age could make the wrinkled skin a mere mask and create diverse new possibilities that were hitherto unavailable to an aging person. Based on my reading of Ghost in the Shell, however, I analyze a more complex set of problems when the senile cyborg is created through the encounter between the elderly and technoscience. I argue that while the senile cyborg could challenge traditional family ideology and nationalism it would leave ageism intact and define a new individualistic life form through a body controlled within the globalized internet and capitalist economy.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.2105-2110
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• 2008

Embedding the compact wearable units to monitor the health status of a person has been analysed as a convenient solution for the home health care. This paper presents a method to detect fall from the other activities of daily living and also to classify those activities. This kind of ambulatory monitoring of the elderly and people with limited mobility can not only provide their general health status but also alarms whenever an emergency such as fall or gait has been occurred and a help is needed. A timely assistance in such a situation can reduce the loss of life. This work shows a detailed analysis of the data received from a chest worn sensor unit embedding a 3-axis accelerometer and depicts which features are important for the classification of human activities. How to arrange and reduce the features to a new feature set so that it can be classified using a simple classifier and also improving the classification resolution. Principal component analysis (PCA) has been used for modifying the feature set and afterwards for reducing the size of the same. Finally a Neural network classifier has been used to analyse the classification accuracies. The accuracy for detection of fall events was found to be 86%. The overall accuracy for the classification of Activities or daily living (ADL) and fall was around 94%.

• KIPS Transactions on Computer and Communication Systems
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• v.10 no.9
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• pp.251-260
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• 2021

Gait analysis is one of the research fields for obtaining various information related to gait by analyzing human ambulation. It has been studied for a long time not only in the medical field but also in various academic areas such as mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, and computer engineering. Efforts have been made to determine whether there is a problem with gait through gait analysis. In this paper, as a pre-step to find out gait abnormalities, it is investigated whether it is possible to differentiate whether experiment participants wear elderly simulation suit or not by applying gait data to machine learning models for the same person. For a total of 45 participants, each gait data was collected before and after wearing the simulation suit, and a total of six machine learning models were used to learn the collected data. As a result of using an artificial neural network model to distinguish whether or not the participants wear the suit, it showed 99% accuracy. What this study suggests is that we explored the possibility of judging the presence or absence of abnormality in gait by using machine learning.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.354-360
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• 2021

People hope to live a healthy and happy life achieving satisfaction by striking a good work-life balance. Therefore, there is a growing interest in well-aging which means living happily to a healthy old age without worry. This study identified important factors related to well-aging by analyzing news articles published in Korea. Using Python-based web crawling, 1,199 articles were collected on the news service of portal site Daum till November 2020, and 374 articles were selected which matched the subject of the study. The frequency analysis results of text mining showed keywords such as 'elderly', 'health', 'skin', 'well-aging', 'product', 'person', 'aging', 'female', 'domestic' and 'retirement' as important keywords. Besides, a social network analysis with 45 important keywords revealed strong connections in the order of 'skin-wrinkle', 'skin-aging' and 'old-health'. The result of the CONCOR analysis showed that 45 main keywords were composed of eight clusters of 'life and happiness', 'disease and death', 'nutrition and exercise', 'healing', 'health', and 'elderly services'.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.1409-1427
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to understand volunteer work experiences of senior citizen volunteers serving in the welfare center in K district in the aspect of an insider and to apprehend the meaning. The objects of this study are fifteen senior citizen volunteers and two social workers who do volunteer works in the welfare center, and this study utilized the qualitative study method through observations and in-depth interviews from 2009.09.02 to 2009.10.21. The data analysis is processed by the qualitative analysis program, Nvivo 2.0, and the processed data are analyzed in accordance with the grounded theories of Strauss and Corbin. As a result of reviewing data, the meanings about volunteer work experiences of senior citizens are induced as eight factors; senior citizens' identity in an old aging society, desire fulfillment through volunteer works by senior citizens, various leisure activities to help their health in mind and body, acceptance attitude about aging, mental supports from their families, finding activities suitable for each person's personality and capability, changes of perception about the handicapped, and endeavors to spend meaningful old age. Through results and discussion obtained by this study, the conclusion is as below: First, participation induction factors are identities of elderly people in aging society, acceptance attitudes toward aging and emotional support from families in the matter of senior citizens' volunteer work. Second, programs suitable for individual aptitude and capability should be implemented for activating senior citizens' volunteer work. Third, participation in senior citizens' volunteer work indicates desire satisfaction through senior citizens' volunteer work, leisure activities helping health for body and mind, and life changes such as changes of perception about handicapped people etc.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.752-759
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• 2000

Background : Many studies have shown that pulmonary function differs widely among race, age and geographical residency. By virtue of the improvement of nutrition and environment, the elderly population in Korea is markedly increasing and so are the ages of patients complaining respiratory symptoms. However, we do not have our own data on the pulmonary functional reserve of elderly persons in Korea. We evaluate the deterioration of pulmonary functional reserve and standardize the predictive values of pulmonary function in the elderly population. Method : Pulmonary function tests were conducted in 100 men and 100 women over the age of 65. We analyzed changes of FVC and $FEV_1$ according to age and height by linear regression. We compared our new multiple linear regression equation with other equations currently used in Korea. Results : In men, the mean age was $71.5{\pm}5.2$(mean${\pm}$SD) years and the mean height was $163.6{\pm}6.2$cm. The mean FVC was $3.42{\pm}0.49{\ell}$ and the mean $FEV_1, $2.72{\pm}v$. In women, the mean age was $72.0{\pm}5.1$ years and the mean height was $149.1{\pm}5.9$cm. The mean FVC was $2.22{\pm}0.42{\ell}$ and the mean $FEV_1$ $1.83{\pm}0.34{\ell}$. Multiple linear regression equation using age and height as an independent factors was as follows : FVC(${\ell}$)=1.857-0.0356$\times$age(year)+0.02517$\times$height(cm) (p<0.01, $R^2$=0.279), $FEV_1(${\ell}$)=1.340-0.02698$\times$age(year)+0.02021$\times$height(cm) (p<0.01, $R^2$=0.255) in men, FVC(${\ell}$) =-0.09765-0.03332$\times$age(year)+0.03164$\times$height(cm) (p<0.01, $R^2$=0.435), $FEV_1(${\ell}$)=-0.l69-0.02469$\times$age(year)+0.02539$\times$height(cm) (p<0.01, $R^2$=0.41) in women. Conclusion : We established prediction regressions for pulmonary functional tests in the elderly Korean population. We also confirmed that currently adopted equations do not exactly anticipate the expected pulmonary functional reserve in the aged person over 65 years old. We suggest that our new equations from this study should be applied to interpret the pulmonary function tests in the elderly population in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Historical Folklife
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• no.52
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• pp.7-46
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• 2017

The elderly in the Joseon Dynasty consistently attracted attention from the national herb as objects of social respect. Based on the Confucian ideology, the old man was considered to be a receiving body, since he was a person with complete character as a man. The elderly, who have the character of being a slave, transcended their status, and both the souls and the people were transcended beyond their identities and attributes and became objects of respect. The perception of the elderly is divided by age. The persons who are 50 years old and start to be in physical decline were regarded as senior citizens. However, this was just mentioned as an inflection point between the prime of manhood and senior citizens and was not defined as the elderly. As a public duty called a national work ends when they are 60 years old, the age is truly the lowest limit of senior citizens who are applicable to all the social beings. However, because their public duties end when they are 60 years old and they were regarded as general members of society, special benefits were not granted to them. In the caste system and bureaucratic society, senior citizens' treatment were differently done by age. For the senior citizens who are 70 years old, various benefits were just granted to high government officials. Bokho(復戶) and Seojeong were first given to them. And the retirement age of government officials was not specially set. It was done in the way to treat Jonno with exceptional respect by Chisa(致仕: regular retirement). It is the most respectful treatment given to high government officials and ministers. For the senior citizens who are 80 years old, Yangnoyeon(養老宴) was held for both of Yangmin and Cheonmin as an measure to treat them considerately. In addition, official ranks(官品) with social value were allowed by giving them Noinjik (老人職). Official ranks given to Seoin and Cheonin were the best Jonno(尊老) policy. However, the Jonno policy related to senior citizens was different according to position and official ranks as follows: Kings were subjected to social treatment when they were 60 years old. High government officials and royal relatives of the senior grade of the second court rank were subjected to social treatment when they were 70 years old. And general Seoin and slaves were subjected to social treatment when they were respectively 80 and 90 years old. Senior citizens were individually supported. However, social value was granted because the nation supervised it. As Bokho and Sijeong were assigned according to position and official ranks and kinds of things were different, the social limit was clearly shown. Social order was put above the ideology called Jonno thought. However, Jonno acts by age and position did not stay at the individual level and the nation took care of the senior citizens who are the members of society in various ways based on Jonno thought. Society tried to take care of the senior citizens who had difficulties in their activities because of being in physical decline. The nation increased the existence value of the senior citizens by giving things(賜物) including chairs, rice, meat, and ice economically, exoneration(免罪), the reduction system, and wergild legally, and Noinjik called Gaja(加資) socially to them and changing them to the members of society. Yangnoyeon and Gaja held targeting people of every class by transcending position and official ranks make the point that the senior citizens who are more than 80 years old are subject to social jonno clear. That is, the senior citizens were subject to respect for the elderly as the persons who were socially respected transcending their position when they got to be 80 years old.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.181-192
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• 2008

Objective: The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is common especially among patients with osteoarthritis The aim of this study was to investigate the utilization rate and expenditures of patients who use CAM. Method: Two hundred seventy four patients with osteoarthritis were interviewed by a telephone survey. A structured questionnaire about sociodemographic features and type, cost, satisfaction and reason of CAM utilization was used Results: Among 274 patients with osteoarthritis, 251 patients(91.6%) had used at least one type of CAM during six months. There was a significant difference in sex (female), age (70 years), medical security (insurance), educational level between the user and non-user of CAM. Hyperthermia was the most use. The average cost for CAM utilization was 120 thousands won/person during six months and there was no difference in sociodemographic features among the out-of-pocket cost of users. The scores of satisfaction for CAM use were ranged between 60-70. Conclusions: CAM became a popular source of health care because of elderly and lay referral system. And Korean spent a substantial amount of out-of-pocket money on CAM without benefit. Health care system and professionals should pay more attention to CAM, make a evidence for CAM.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.626-634
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• 2015

This study analyzes the wearing and purchasing conditions of outdoor jackets by senior men who are over 50s, and examines product sizes of outdoor jackets in the market. A total of 134 questionnaires and sizing systems (or product size) of 10 outdoor brands were used as analytical data. The results were: a high number of senior men enjoyed hiking as an outdoor activity, with most of them following this activity1-3 times per month and as a preferred personal activity for over 5 years. Most needed outdoor wear suitable for these daily life activities. Outdoor wear satisfaction tends to decrease as people age. The major reason for the dissatisfaction with outdoor wear was price. Senior men aged 50s and 60s emphasize design and color when purchasing outdoor wear; however, men in their 70s considered price a priority. Senior men preferred outdoor brands based on a comfortable fit. An investigation on 10 outdoor brands indicated that they had not designated a specific target customer. A comparison of the product size of outdoor jackets with a similar silhouette indicated some deviations among sizes; however, the age of customers was not considered. The human body tends to shrink in stature and increase in girth as a person ages; consequently, we need to reflect body shape changes and senior's size in outdoor wear.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.77-87
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to review functioning components of studies for measuring functional information using International Classification of Functioning, disability and health (ICF) in Korea. Methods: A literature review was conducted and eligible studies were identified via search of RISS, KISS, DBpia, KoreaMed, PubMed, and ISI databases published from 2001 to 2015. For inclusion in this review, a study should be published in a peer-review journal, must have participation of Korean researchers and/or developed in Korea, and should provide functioning data related ICF. Descriptive studies containing only ICF concepts and review studies were also excluded. Collected functioning data in each study were analyzed using frequency based on ICF domain. Data assessment was performed by two independent reviewers. Results: Eighty publications were included in the analysis. The majority of studies collected data from clinical patients (n=38) and from the disabled (n=28). Fourteen studies assessed functioning data from the elderly and students under special education. The studies reported functioning data using various tools, including ICF itself, ICF checklist, coresets, and conventional measurement tools. Body function domain was most commonly used and the least used domain was the body structure across areas. Interestingly, increasing data related to environmental factors was observed in all studied populations. Conclusion: Functioning data was collected from four domains of ICF across professional areas. The most common collected data was body function and activity and participation for which conventional measurement tools are already available. To understand clients, components of environmental factors that might influence a person's functioning should be considered.