• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• 제36권1호
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• pp.40-48
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• 2003

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between alcohol consumption, physical activity and breast cancer risk in Korean women. Newly histologically identified cases (N = 108) were selected at Hanyang and Soonchunhyang University Hospitals in Seoul, from January 1998 to August 1999. Hospital-based controls (n = 121) were the patients who visited at the same hospital in the department of plastic surgery, general surgery and opthalmology. Subjects were asked informations on demographic, reproductive, and history of breast feeding as well as physical activity, exercise habit, alcohol consumption by individual interview. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) were calculated by using unconditional logistic regression after adjusted for confounding factors. Among postmenopausal women, the risk of breast cancer increased with increasing alcohol drinking: relative risk for the highest group ( $\geq$ 150 g per week) compared with the lowest group (never drinking) was 2.05 (CI=1.74-3.79). Association of exercise and high physical activity for breast cancer appeared to be limited to women with high physical index among postmenopausal women. We observed decreasing risk of breast cancer with increasing physical activity index among postmenopausal women (OR=0.49,95% CI=0.56-0.92). Results of this study support a protective effects of physical activity during adulthood for breast cancer. (Korean J Nutrition 36(1): 40-48, 2003)

• Nutritional Sciences
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• 제6권2호
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• pp.106-112
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• 2003

To investigate the association between breast cancer risk and nutrient intake in Korean women, a case-control study was carried out. Incident cases (n=224) were identified through cancer biopsy between february 1999 and December 2000 at two university hospitals in Seoul. Hospital-based controls (n=250) were selected from patients in the same hospitals, during the same periods. food intake was investigated with semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (98 items) by a trained dietitian. Subjects were asked to indicate the average intake, for a 12-month period of three years prior to the baseline phase. In this study, no apparent association was found between fat intake level and breast cancer risk. High fiber intake showed a significant inverse association only among premenopausal women. In terms of antioxidant vitamins, $\beta$-carotene and vitamin C among premenopausal women and vitamin C intake among postmenopausal women was significantly associated with a decreasing risk of breast cancer. A protective effect of high calcium consumption was observed among postmenopausal women. In conclusion, our findings support epidemiological evidence that antioxidant vitamin intake could lower the breast cancer risk in Korea.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제22권1호
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• pp.81-94
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• 2003

The British railway safety research group has developed a risk assessment model for the railway infrastructure and major railway accidents. The major hazardous factors of the railway infrastructure were identified and classified in the model. The frequency rates of critical top events were predicted by the fault tree analysis method using failure data of the railway system components and ratings of railway maintenance experts, The consequences of critical top events were predicted by the event tree analysis method. They classified the Joss of accident due to railway system into personal. commercial and environmental damages. They also classified 110 hazardous event due to railway system into three categories. train accident. movement accident and non-movement accident. The risk assessment model of the British railway system has been designed to take full account of both the high frequency low consequence type events (events occurring routinely for which there is significant quantity of recorded data) and the low frequency high consequence events (events occurring rarely for which there is little recorded data). The results for each hazardous event were presented in terms of the frequency of occurrence (number of events/year) and the risk (number of equivalent fatalities per year).

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• 제28권1호
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• pp.59-79
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• 2021

Value at Risk (VaR) is one of the most common risk management tools in finance. Since a portfolio of several assets, rather than one asset portfolio, is advantageous in the risk diversification for investment, VaR for a portfolio of two or more assets is often used. In such cases, multivariate distributions of asset returns are considered to calculate VaR of the corresponding portfolio. Copulas are one way of generating a multivariate distribution by identifying the dependence structure of asset returns while allowing many different marginal distributions. However, they are used mainly for bivariate distributions and are not widely used in modeling joint distributions for many variables in finance. In this study, we would like to examine the performance of various copulas for high dimensional data and several different dependence structures. This paper compares copulas such as elliptical, vine, and hierarchical copulas in computing the VaR of portfolios to find appropriate copula functions in various dependence structures among asset return distributions. In the simulation studies under various dependence structures and real data analysis, the hierarchical Clayton copula shows the best performance in the VaR calculation using four assets. For marginal distributions of single asset returns, normal inverse Gaussian distribution was used to model asset return distributions, which are generally high-peaked and heavy-tailed.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.386-389
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• 1990

Spontaneous Pneumothorax as a complication of lung cancer is rare, as seen from the literature, comprising only 1.13 per cent of all pneumothoraces. All histologic types of lung cancer have been reported principally squamous cell carcinoma probably because of its relatively higher incidence. Beside the fact that it occurs in the same high risk population [Smokers, chronic bronchitis and those with emphysema], pneumothorax may reveal a cancer. Recently, we observed three cases of lung cancer with spontaneous pneumothorax, the one was squamous cell carcinoma and the others were adenocarcinoma. Three cases of spontaneous pneumothoraces occurred as a complication of neoplastic disease.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권6호
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• pp.2923-2933
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• 2016

Recently, we reported an inverse association between high 'mate' intake (infusion of Ilex paraguariensis herb, a staple beverage in temperate South America) and breast cancer (BC) risk. Stronger inverse associations were found in high strata of tea, vegetable, fruit and energy intakes, and in overweight/obese women, suggesting possible roles for 'mate' mainly from its antioxidant contribution. The present study attempted to thoroughly explore possible associations among 'mate' and tea intake, dietary antioxidants and BC risk. Combining two databases of previous studies, 572 BC incident cases and 889 controls were interviewed with a specific questionnaire featuring socio-demographic, reproductive and lifestyle variables, and a food frequency questionnaire (64 items), focusing on 'mate' intake (consumer status, daily intake, age at start, age at quit, duration of habit). Food-derived nutrients were calculated from available databases. Odds ratios (OR) and their 95% confidence intervals were calculated through unconditional logistic regression, adjusting for relevant potential confounders. The highest 'mate' intake was significantly inversely associated with BC risk for both low and high carotenoids (OR=0.40 vs. 0.41), vitamin C (OR=0.33 vs. 0.50), vitamin E (OR=0.37 vs. 0.45), flavonols (OR=0.38 vs. 0.48) and reduced glutathione (OR=0.48 vs. 0.46) strata. High tea intake showed significant inverse risk associations only with high carotenoids (OR=0.41), vitamin E (OR=0.48) and reduced glutathione (OR=0.43) strata. In conclusion, a strong and inverse association for 'mate' intake and BC was found, independent of dietary antioxidant levels. Also strong inverse associations with tea intake were more evident only at high levels of certain dietary antioxidants.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제13권7호
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• pp.3179-3185
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• 2012

Background: Most of the epidemiology studies on the effects of sun exposure and prostate cancer were conducted among the temperate countries of North America and Europe. Little is known about the influence on Asian populations. The purpose of current study was to evaluate any association of sun exposure with risk of prostate cancer in Chinese, Malays and Indians who reside in the tropics. Methods: The Singapore Prostate Cancer Study is a hospital-based case-control study of 240 prostate cancer incident cases and 268 controls conducted in Singapore between April 2007 and May 2009. Detailed information on outdoor activities in the sun, skin colour, sun sensitivity and other possible risk factors were collected in personal interviews. Cases were further classified by Gleason scores and TNM staging. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using unconditional logistic regression analysis, adjusted for age, ethnicity, education, family history of any cancers, BMI and skin colour. Results: We found that prostate cancer risk was increased in subjects with black/dark-brown eyes (OR 5.88, 95%CI 3.17-10.9), darker skin colour e.g. tan/dark brown/black (OR 7.62, 95%CI 3.41-17.0), frequent sunburn in lifetime (OR 4.30, 95%CI 1.7-11.2) and increased general sun exposure in adulthood per week (OR 2.03, 95%CI 1.09-3.81). The increased risk was consistent for high grade tumours and advanced stage prostate cancers. Conclusion: The findings from this study suggest that excessive sun exposure is a risk factor for prostate cancer in Asians.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• 제82권4호
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• pp.298-305
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• 2019

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) causes substantial health burden to the Korean military. This study aims to assess the impact of infectious TB cases on close and casual contacts in the Korean Army settings based on contact investigation data. Methods: Six Army units with infectious TB cases from September 2012 to May 2013 were enrolled in the study. We analyzed the clinical data from close and casual contacts screened using the tuberculin skin test (TST) and QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube to identify latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) cases. For the control group, 286 military conscripts with no reported TB exposure were tested by TST only. Results: Of the 667 contacts of index cases, LTBI cases identified were as follows: 21.8% of close contacts of smearpositive cases (71/326), 8.5% of casual contacts of smear-positive cases (26/305), and 2.8% of close contacts of smearnegative cases (1/36). In the control group, 16.8% showed positivity in TST. In a multivariate analysis, having stayed in the same room or next room with TB patients was identified as a risk factor of LTBI. Conclusion: Using the data from TB contact investigations in the Korean Army units, we found an overall LTBI rate of 14.7% among the contacts screened. This study demonstrates that contacts living in the same building, especially the same room or next room, with TB patients are at a high risk of acquiring LTBI, serving as additional evidence for defining close and casual contacts of a TB patient with regard to Army barrack settings.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.139-146
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• 2012

Obese postmenopausal women increase their risk of developing breast cancer (BC), in particular if they display an android-type pattern of adiposity, which is also associated to increased risks of diabetes mellitus, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. In order to explore the associations among anthropometry (body mass index, body composition, somatotype), some specific items of medical history (diabetes, hypertension, dislypidemias, hyperuricemia) and the risk of BC in Uruguayan women, a case-control study was carried out between 2004-2009 at our Oncology Unit. 912 women of ages between 23-69 years (367 new BC cases and 545 non hospitalized, age-matched controls with a normal mammography) were interviewed. Twenty body measurements were taken in order to calculate body composition and somatotype. Patients were queried on socio-demographics, reproductive history, family history of cancer, a brief food frequency questionnaire and on personal history of diabetes, dislypidemias, hyperuricemia, hypertension and gallbladder stones. Uni- and multivariate analyses were done, generating odds ratios (ORs) as an expression of relative risks. A personal history of diabetes was positively associated to BC risk (OR=1.64, 95% CI 1.00-2.69), being higher among postmenopausal women (OR=1.92, 95% CI 1.04-3.52). The risks of BC for diabetes in postmenopausal women with overweight combined with dislypidemia (OR=9.33, 95% CI 2.10-41.5) and high fat/muscle ratio (OR=7.81, 95% CI 2.01-30.3) were significantly high. As a conclusion, a personal history of diabetes and overweight was strongly associated to BC. The studied sample had a subset of high-risk of BC featured by postmenopausal overweight and diabetic women, who also had a personal history of hypertension and/or dyslipidemia. The present results could contribute to define new high risk groups and individuals for primary as well as for secondary prevention, since this pattern linked to the metabolic syndrome is usually not considered for BC prevention.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.723-726
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• 2013

Background: Breast cancer is worldwide the most common cancer in women and is a major public health problem. Genes with high or low penetrance are now clearly implicated in the onset of breast cancer, mostly the BRCA genes. All women in families at high risk of breast cancer do not develop tumours, even when they carry the familial mutation, suggesting the existence of genetic and environmental protective factors. Several studies have shown that consanguinity is linked to a decreased or an increased risk of breast cancer, but to the best of our knowledge, there is no study concerning the association between consanguinity and the occurrence of tumours in women with high risk of breast cancer. The objective of this study was to examine whether parental consanguinity in families with genetic predisposition to breast cancer affect the risk of siblings for having this cancer. Materials and Methods: Over a six-year period, 72 different patients with a histological diagnosis of breast or ovarian cancer from 42 families were recruited for genetic counselling to the Department of Medical Genetics, Rabat. Consanguinity rate was determined in cases and compared to the consanguinity rate in the Moroccan general population. Results: Consanguinity rates were 9.72% in patients and 15.3% in controls, but the difference was statistically not significant (p>0.001) and the mean coefficient of consanguinity was lower in breast cancer patients (0.0034) than in controls (0.0065). Conclusions: Despite the relatively small sample size of the current study, our results suggest that parental consanguinity in Moroccan women might not be associated with an altered risk of breast cancer. Large scale studies should be carried out to confirm our results and to develop public health programs.