• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.65-71
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• 2021

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of the final irrigation timing (FIT) before packaging for long-term transportation on growth, flowering, and crop quality of Phalaenopsis after simulated dark shipping (SDS). Phalaenopsis Sogo Yukidian 'V3' plants grown in 11 cm-diameter plastic pots filled with potting media (sphagnum moss + bark or only sphagnum moss) were packaged in paper boxes for export at 3.5, 7, 10 days (FIT 3.5, 7,10; Experiment 1) and 4, 6, 8, 10 days (FIT 4, 6, 8, 10; Experiment 2) after the final irrigation and then stored in a growth chamber at 20 ± 1℃ and 70 ± 3% RH created for SDS. After 4 weeks, the plants were taken out and grown in a greenhouse at 23 ± 3℃ and 70 ± 5% RH, and crop characteristics were measured during cultivation. In Experiment 1, the survival rate of FIT 3.5 plants was lower than that of FIT 7 and FIT 10. There was no difference between treatments in days to first flower, the number of florets, and the elongation rate of flower stalks. In Experiment 2, the percentage of rotted leaves was lowest in FIT 6 when before forcing and at 12 weeks after forcing, and that of FIT 8 was similar to FIT 6 when before forcing, but slightly increased after 12 weeks. The percentage of rotted leaves of FIT 10 was highest and that of FIT 4 was also high. There was little difference in flowering characteristics among treatments. In conclusion, the FIT before packaging for long-term (4 weeks) transportation of potted Phalaenopsis 'V3' affected the leaf rot rather than the post-shipping growth and flowering. And it was considered appropriate to set the volumetric water content of the potting media just before packaging to about 30%.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.619-627
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• 2004

Background : Corticosteroids in combination with cytotoxic drugs are the mainstays of therapy for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). However, there has been no regimen showing any survival benefit. The aim of this study was to describe a short-term clinical experience on interferon gamma-1b (IFN-${\gamma}1b$) therapy for IPF, as an antifibrotic agent. Methods : Medical records of 27 patients who were treated with IFN-${\gamma}1b$ (2 million IU, 3 times a week, subcutaneous injection) were retrospectively reviewed. Treatment response was assessed using ATS/ERS criteria in 17 patients who received IFN-${\gamma}1b$ for more than 6 months. In addition, we compared the efficacy of IFN-${\gamma}1b$ therapy with that of cyclophosphamide${\pm}$prednisolone therapy (n=26). Results : The median age of IFN-${\gamma}$ treated group (M:F=19:8) was 59 years (44-74 years). Compared to the patients who showed a stable response at 6 months (n=12), the deteriorated group (n=5) had worse baseline lung function (FVC, $55.4{\pm}11.3%$ vs. $70.7{\pm}10.9%$, p=0.019; DLco, $50.3{\pm}7.3%$ vs. $76.9{\pm}19.6%$, p=0.014). Lower baseline $PaO_2$ on room air breathing was observed in the deteriorated group ($68.6{\pm}7.8mmHg$ vs. $91.4{\pm}6.6mmHg$ p=0.001). Subcutaneous IFN-${\gamma}1b$ did not show better efficacy than prednisolone. Five patients discontinued IFN-${\gamma}$ because of severe side effects. ARDS developed in one patient, who eventually died. Conclusion : The administration of IFN-${\gamma}1b$ is not desirable for patients diagnosed with IPF with poor lung function. Long-term and large-scaled clinical studies are needed for its efficacy in IPF.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.38 no.1 s.246
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• pp.23-28
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• 2005

Ross procedure is ideal aortic valve replacement method with several merits of hemodynamic superiority and durability without the need of anticoagulation. Based upon this presumption, we studied its procedure performed in our hospital and tried to get the mid-term results Material and Method: From Jan 1999 to Oct 2001, 22 patients underwent the Ross procedure. The mean age of experimented (including 17 men and 5 women) was $30.9{\pm}8.1(17\~44)$. The diagnosis before the surgery had shown 20 as accompanied with AR and the rest 2 as with ASR. The follow-up period ranged from 0.6 to 40.6 months, mean of $38.9{\pm}1.6\;months,\;and\;follow-up\;rate\;was\;100{\%}$. Result. There was no operative death and two late deaths, one of whom was cardiac originated and the other, non-cardiac relate The survival rate was $94.1{\pm}5.7{\%}$(40.6 months). Postoperatively there were 2 exploration for bleeding, 3 low cardiac output patients. The pulmonary autograft technique was root replacement in 14 and inclusion technique in 8. Pulmonary homografts were used at the pulmonary position in all cases. There was no patient with significant aortic regurgitation. Conclusion: These showed that the mortality and morbidity of the Ross procedure were acceptable and postoperative AR was not significant. However, further long-term follow-up will be necessary for the improvement of the function of pulmonary autograft and homograft.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.43-65
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• 2010

Facing a complex environment driven by a decade, many companies are adopting new strategic frameworks such as Customer Relationship Management system to achieve sustainable profitability as well as overcome serious competition for survival. In many business areas, CRM system advanced a great deal in a matter of continuous compensating the defect and overall integration. However, pharmaceutical companies in Korea were slow to accept them for usesince they still have a tendency of holding fast to traditional way of sales and marketing based on individual networks of sales representatives. In the circumstance, this article tried to empirically address current status of CRM system as well as the effects of the system on the performance of pharmaceutical companies by applying BSC method's four perspectives, from financial, customer, learning and growth and internal process. Survey by e-mail and post to employers and employees who were working in pharma firms were undergone for the purpose. Total 113 cases among collected 140 ones were used for the statistical analysis by SPSS ver. 15 package. Reliability, Factor analysis, regression were done. This study revealed that CRM system had a significant effect on improving financial and non-financial performance of pharmaceutical companies as expected. Proposed regression model fits well and among them, CRM marketing information system shed the light on substantial impact on companies' outcome given profitability, growth and investment. Useful analytical information by CRM marketing information system appears to enable pharmaceutical firms to set up effective marketing and sales strategies, these result in favorable financial performance by enhancing values for stakeholderseventually, not to mention short-term profit and/or mid-term potential to growth. CRM system depicted its influence on not only financial performance, but also non-financial fruit of pharmaceutical companies. Further analysis for each component showed that CRM marketing information system were able to demonstrate statistically significant effect on the performance like the result of financial outcome. CRM system is believed to provide the companies with efficient way of customers managing by valuable standardized business process prompt coping with specific customers' needs. It consequently induces customer satisfaction and retentionto improve performance for long period. That is, there is a virtuous circle for creating value as the cornerstone for sustainable growth. However, the research failed to put forward to evidence to support hypothesis regarding favorable influence of CRM sales representative's records assessment system and CRM customer analysis system on the management performance. The analysis is regarded to reflect the lack of understanding of sales people and respondents between actual work duties and far-sighted goal in strategic analysis framework. Ordinary salesmen seem to dedicate short-term goal for the purpose of meeting sales target, receiving incentive bonus in a manner-of-fact style, as such, they tend to avail themselves of personal network and sales and promotional expense rather than CRM system. The study finding proposed a link between CRM information system and performance. It empirically indicated that pharmaceutical companies had been implementing CRM system as an effective strategic business framework in order for more balanced achievements based on the grounded understanding of both CRM system and integrated performance. It suggests a positive impact of supportive CRM system on firm performance, especially for pharmaceutical industry through the initial empirical evidence. Also, it brings out unmet needs for more practical system design, improvement of employees' awareness, increase of system utilization in the field. On the basis of the insight from this exploratory study, confirmatory research by more appropriate measurement tool and increased sample size should be further examined.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.964-970
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• 1996

One hundred eight patients (Feb.'86, through Jan.'96) underwent 53 mitral(MVR), 20 aortic(AVR), )5 double(DVR) valve replacement with SJM prosthesis. There were 55 males and 53 females whose mean age was 36.3 $\pm$ 10.4 years. We used 143 valves in mitral(88), aortic(54), and tricuspid(1) sites. The size and number of valves were 31 mm(32). 33inm(23), 29mm(20), 27mm(10), 25mm(2), and 35mm(1) in mitral site; 2)mm(21), 21mm(1 S), 19mm(7), 25mm(5), 27mm(2), and 33mm(1) in aortic site; and Blmm(1) in tricuspid site. Preoperative NYHA functional classes were II(14), III(73) and IV(21), and which were improved into I(89) and II(16) postoperatively. Early postoperative complications occurred in 15 cases(13.9%) in which LOS was the most common one(5 cases; 4.6%). fatly hospital death occurred in 3 cases(2.8%) due to LOS(1) and sudden cardiac arrest(2) he cummulative total follow-up period was 437.6 pl-yr with a mean of 4.1$\pm$2.9 years. There were 5 events of valve related'complications (2 TE, 1 paravalvular leak, 1 TE+paravalvular leak, 1 PVE) with the occurrence rate as 1.14%/pt-yr. Reoperation was performed in 2 cases and there were 2 cases of valve related death due to one PVE and one paravalvlllar leak. The complication free rate was 91.4$\pm$ ).4% at 10 years. Actuarial survival rate was 93.6 $\pm$ 3.1 % at 10 years.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.971-976
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• 1996

From March 1988 to October 1992, 201 CarboMedics cardiac valve prostheses (150 mitral, 50 aortic and 1 tricuspid) were implanted in 166 consecutive patients (mean age 38 years, male/female 66/100) by one surgical team operating on adult cardiac patients at Kyungpook University Hospital. Total follow up represen:toed 6646 patient-months (mean 40mon1hs) and follow up rate was 96%. One hundred and twenty-four patients (74.7 %) were in NYHA functional class 111 or tV preoperatively and 164 patients (98.7 %) were in class I or ll postoperatively. Hospital mortality was 4.2 % and late death was 4.2%. The actuarial survival at 78 months was 89.4%. The linearized incidence of valve related death, prosthetic valve thrombosis, anticoagulant related hemorrhage, non-structural dysfunction and reoperation was 0.72%/pt-yr, 0.18%/pt-yr, 0.18%trapt-yr, 0.18 %/pt-yr and 0. 36%/pt-yr respective y. The 78 month rates of freedom from valve related death, prosthetic valve thrombosis, anticoagulant related hemorrhage, non-structural dysfunction and reoperation were 94.9%, 99.4%, 99.4%, 98.6 % and 97.9 % respectivly. The 78 month rate of freedom from all valve related complications and deaths including hospital mortality was 90.9%. These fact suggest that the CarboMedics cardiac valve has execellent result, low incidence of valve-ie-lated complications and no structural deterioration, and long term follow up study is necessary.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.33 no.2 s.95
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• pp.123-131
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• 2007

Many environmental contaminants including several metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and pharmaceuticals, have been identified to be phototoxic in the water environment. Concerns regarding photo-enhancement of toxicity of several environmental contaminants have been increasing because of the increased level of ultraviolet irradiation on the earth surface. However, there exist arguments that there might be certain defense mechanisms taking place in the aquatic ecosystem, which may include behavioral characteristics or genetic acclimation. This study was conducted to understand the potential responses of aquatic receptors to several phototoxic metals in the real environment, where long-term acclimation of such organisms to low dose UV-B may take place. For this purpose, water flea Daphnia magna was acclimated to environmentally relevant dose of UV-B (12 to $18uW/cm^2$) for >11 generations. The differences in developmental and life history characteristics, and toxicity responses were evaluated. Acclimation did not affect the daphnids' growth, longevity, and reproduction characteristics such as time to first brood, and brood size: After 21 d, survival of D. magna was not influenced by UV-B acclimation. When the number of young per female was compared. the daphnids acclimated for 11 generations tend to produce less number of neonates than the un-acclimated individuals but with no statistical significance (p>0.05). Four metals that were reported to be phototoxic elsewhere were employed in this evaluation, that include As, Cd. Cu, and Ni. UV-B level being applied in acclimation did increase the toxicity of Cd and Cu, significantly (p<0.05). However, the toxicities of As and Ni were not affected by irradiation of UV-B. Phototoxic responses were evaluated between the acclimated and the un-acclimated daphnids. For Cu, UV-B acclimation led to reduction of the photo-induced toxicity $(p\approx0.1)$ in daphnids. Non-acclimated Daphnia were affected by 50% at 4.18 ug/l Cu. but UV-B acclimated individuals exhibited $EC_{50}$ of 5.89 ug/l. With Cd, UV-B acclimation appeared to increase phototoxicity (p>0.05). With As and Ni, UV-B acclimation did not influence photo-induced toxicity. This observation may be in part explained by the type of reactive oxygen species that were generated by each metal. Similar to UV-B light, Cu is known to generate superoxide anion by acting as redox cycling toxicant. This is one of the first studies that employed_laboratory based UV-B acclimated test species for photoenhanced toxicity evaluation.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.113-119
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• 2012

Epigenetic modification including genome-wide DNA demethylation is essential for normal embryonic development. Insufficient demethylation of somatic cell genome may cause various anomalies and prenatal loss in the development of nuclear transfer embryos. Hence, the source of nuclear donor often affects later development of nuclear transfer (NT) embryos. In this study, appropriateness of porcine embryonic germ (EG) cells as karyoplasts for NT with respect to epigenetic modification was investigated. These cells follow methylation status of primordial germ cells from which they originated, so that they may contain less methylated genome than somatic cells. This may be advantageous to the development of NT embryos commonly known to be highly methylated. The rates of blastocyst development were similar among embryos from EG cell nuclear transfer (EGCNT), somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) (16/62, 25.8% vs. 56/274, 20.4% vs. 16/74, 21.6%). Genomic DNA samples from EG cells (n=3), fetal fibroblasts (n=4) and blastocysts from EGCNT (n=8), SCNT (n=14) and ICSI (n=6) were isolated and treated with sodium bisulfite. The satellite region (GenBank Z75640) that involves nine selected CpG sites was amplified by PCR, and the rates of DNA methylation in each site were measured by pyrosequencing technique. The average methylation degrees of CpG sites in EG cells, fetal fibroblasts and blastocysts from EGCNT, SCNT and ICSI were 17.9, 37.7, 4.1, 9.8 and 8.9%, respectively. The genome of porcine EG cells were less methylated than that of somatic cells (p<0.05), and DNA demethylation occurred in embryos from both EGCNT (p<0.05) and SCNT (p<0.01). Interestingly, the degree of DNA methylation in EGCNT embryos was approximately one half of SCNT (p<0.01) and ICSI (p<0.05) embryos, while SCNT and ICSI embryos contained demethylated genome with similar degrees. The present study demonstrates that porcine EG cell nuclear transfer resulted in hypomethylation of DNA in cloned embryos yet leading normal preimplantation development. Further studies are needed to investigate whether such modification affects long-term survival of cloned embryos.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.559-562
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• 2012

Serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is a significant marker for clinical diagnosis and prognosis evaluation in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. However, some proportion of liver cancer patients are AFP-negative (AFP ${\leq}$20ng/ml). In order to study the differences between clinicopathological factors and prognosis of alpha-fetoprotein negative and positive patients, a total of 114 cases (41 AFP-negative and 73 AFP-positive) were selected for our research. By systematically statistical analysis, the results demonstrated that compared with AFP-negative patients, AFP-positive examples were more likely to feature cirrhosis nodules, non-complete neoplasm capsules, and a poor Edmondson-steiner grade. Furthermore, AFP-negative patients demonstrated a favorable long-term prognosis. By univariate analysis and multivariate analysis with Cox's proportional hazards model, multiple tumors were found to be independent risk factors for worse survival of AFP negative patients; however, less tumor-free margins, multiple tumors and Edmondson-steiner grades III/IV, proved to be independent risk factors leading to a poor prognosis of AFP positive cases. Finally, we can infer that high levels of AFP signify a highly malignant tumor and unfavorable prognosis.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.13-26
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• 2007

Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the association between health risk factors and mortality in Juam cohort. Methods: The subjects were 1,447 males and 1,889 females who had been followed up for 68.5 months to 1 January 2001. Whether they were alive or not was confirmed by the mortality data of the National Statistical Office. A total of 289 persons among them died during the follow-up period. The Cox's proportional hazard regression model was used for survival analysis. Results: Age, type of medical insurance, self cognitive health level, habit of alcohol drinking, smoking, exercise and BMI level were included in Cox's proportional hazard model by gender. The hazard ratio of age was 1.07(95% CI: 1.05-1.10) in men, 1.09(95% CI: 1.06-1.12) in women. The hazard ratio of medical aid(lower socioeconomic state) was 1.43(95% CI 1.02-2.19) in women. The hazard ratios of current alcohol drinking and current smoking were respectively 1.69(95% CI: 1.01-2.98), 1.52(95% CI: 1.02-2.28) in women. The hazard ratio of underweight was 1.56(95% CI 1.08-2.47) in men. The hazard ratios of underweight, normoweight, overweight, and obesity were respectively 1.63(95% CI: 1.02-2.67), 1.0(referent), 0.62(95% CI: 0.32-1.63), 1.27(95% CI: 0.65-3.06), which supported the U-shaped relationship between body mass index and mortality among the men over 65. Conclusions: The health risk factors increasing mortality were age, underweight in male, age, lower socioeconomic state, current alcohol drinking, current smoking in female. To evaluate long-term association between health risk factors and mortality, further studies need to be carried out.