• IMMUNE NETWORK
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.1.1-1.16
• /
• 2021

The emergence of a new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has become a significant health concern worldwide. Undoubtedly, a better understanding of the innate and adaptive immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 and its relationship with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pathogenesis will be the sole basis for developing and applying therapeutics. This review will summarize the published results that relate to innate immune responses against infections with human coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 in both humans and animal models. The topics encompass the innate immune sensing of the virus to the dysregulation of various innate immune cells during infection and disease progression.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2015.10a
• /
• pp.381-383
• /
• 2015

We are entering a phase of an aged society. The societal expense on health care for the so called "silver generation", which refer to as those over the age of 65 is increasing. Although many companies provide various services based on information technology for the health of the silver generation, many have pointed out the limits of them, preventing the activation of services. This study tries to develop a new smart health band business model, which is the most common form of healthcare service that reflects the user's desire. To do this, the study will cover the smart health band and the technical functions related to it, as well as the elements of the business model and its content.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.43 no.3
• /
• pp.153-160
• /
• 2022

As new types of medical devices are emerging through convergence with advanced technology, innovative technologies are becoming hot issues in health policy because of their disruptiveness. This study analyzed the innovative medical device management systems in the US, China and Korea. Innovative medical devices have been defined differently depending on the country's management system, but in common, they are defined as products that do not exist or have dramatically improved performance compare to existing products by applying innovative technologies. Innovative medical devices have been supported by regulatory authorities during product development and approval processes. While the US and China have more than 300 products designated as innovative medical devices with diverse functions, application fields, and manufacturing countries considering the initial situation of the implementation for the system, Korea has only 16 products, mainly radiology and diagnostic devices and made in Korea only as innovative medical device. In addition, Korea shows the highest market approval rate of innovative medical devices compare to the US and China, and it is necessary to prepare the approval process in consideration of product diversity.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.71-96
• /
• 2011

Within the traditional medical delivery system, patients residing in medically vulnerable areas, those with body movement difficulties, and nursing facility residents have had limited access to good healthcare services. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides us with a convenient and useful means of overcoming distance and time constraints. ICT is integrated with biomedical science and technology in a way that offers a new high-quality medical service. As a result, rapid technological advancement is expected to play a pivotal role bringing about innovation in a wide range of medical service areas, such as medical management, testing, diagnosis, and treatment; offering new and improved healthcare services; and effecting dramatic changes in current medical services. The increase in aging population and chronic diseases has caused an increase in medical expenses. In response to the increasing demand for efficient healthcare services, a telehealth service based on ICT is being emphasized on a global level. Telehealth services have been implemented especially in pilot projects and system development and technological research. With the service about to be implemented in earnest, it is necessary to study its overall acceptance by consumers, which is expected to contribute to the development and activation of a variety of services. In this sense, the study aims at positively examining the structural relationship among the acceptance factors for telehealth services based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Data were collected by showing audiovisual material on telehealth services to online panels and requesting them to respond to a structured questionnaire sheet, which is known as the information acceleration method. Among the 1,165 adult respondents, 608 valid samples were finally chosen, while the remaining were excluded because of incomplete answers or allotted time overrun. In order to test the reliability and validity of the assessment scale items, we carried out reliability and factor analyses, and in order to explore the causal relation among potential variables, we conducted a structural equation modeling analysis using AMOS 7.0 and SPSS 17.0. The research outcomes are as follows. First, service quality, innovativeness of medical technology, and social influence were shown to affect perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the telehealth service, which was statistically significant, and the two factors had a positive impact on willingness to accept the telehealth service. In addition, social influence had a direct, significant effect on intention to use, which is paralleled by the TAM used in previous research on technology acceptance. This shows that the research model proposed in the study effectively explains the acceptance of the telehealth service. Second, the research model reveals that information privacy concerns had a insignificant impact on perceived ease of use of the telehealth service. From this, it can be gathered that the concerns over information protection and security are reduced further due to advancements in information technology compared to the initial period in the information technology industry, and thus the improvement in quality of medical services appeared to ensure that information privacy concerns did not act as a prohibiting factor in the acceptance of the telehealth service. Thus, if other factors have an enormous impact on ease of use and usefulness, concerns over these results in the initial period of technology acceptance may become irrelevant. However, it is clear that users' information privacy concerns, as other studies have revealed, is a major factor affecting technology acceptance. Thus, caution must be exercised while interpreting the result, and further study is required on the issue. Numerous information technologies with outstanding performance and innovativeness often attract few consumers. A revised bill for those urgently in need of telehealth services is about to be approved in the national assembly. As telemedicine is implemented between doctors and patients, a wide range of systems that will improve the quality of healthcare services will be designed. In this sense, the study on the consumer acceptance of telehealth services is meaningful and offers strong academic evidence. Based on the implications, it can be expected to contribute to the activation of telehealth services. Further study is needed to assess the acceptance factors for telehealth services, such as motivation to remain healthy, health care involvement, knowledge on health, and control of health-related behavior, in order to develop unique services according to the categorization of customers based on health factors. In addition, further study may focus on various theoretical cognitive behavior models other than the TAM, such as the health belief model.

• Convergence Security Journal
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.35-41
• /
• 2014

With ubiquitous computing and network, the concern of government, business and academy for IT or ICT convergence has been increased. In this paper, through the analysis of keyword trend for ICT convergence services from 2000's mid, the efficient policy is proposed by estimating the understanding and concern of common people. In addition to, the concept and development step of convergence are analyzed, and the keyword analysis for the ICT convergence services defined in TTA is performed. The services are classified into smart home work transportation, Health ICT, RFID USN, M2M IoT, e-Navigation, intelligent robot, and the keywords for each service are analyzed. The analytic results indicate that the keyword trend varies in the time, and highly indexing keywords and new trend are defined. To provide the efficient ICT services, the new ICT convergence services needed for customer will be proposed with new IT technology development, IT standard, law management, and policy provisioining.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2011

Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is an essential cytokine for T cells. However, IL-7 is not produced by T cells themselves such that T cells are dependent on extrinsic IL-7. In fact, in the absence of IL-7, T cell development in the thymus as well as survival of naive T cells in the periphery is severely impaired. Furthermore, modulating IL-7 availability in vivo either by genetic means or other experimental approaches determines the size, composition and function of the T cell pool. Consequently, understanding IL-7 expression is critical for understanding T cell immunity. Until most recently, however, the spatiotemporal expression of in vivo IL-7 has remained obscured. Shortage of such information was partly due to scarce expression of IL-7 itself but mainly due to the lack of adequate reagents to monitor IL-7 expression in vivo. This situation dramatically changed with a recent rush of four independent studies that describe the generation and characterization of IL-7 reporter mice, all utilizing bacterial artificial chromosome transgene technology. The emerging consensus of these studies confirmed thymic stromal cells as the major producers of IL-7 but also identified IL-7 reporter activities in various peripheral tissues including skin, intestine and lymph nodes. Strikingly, developmental and environmental cues actively modulated IL-7 reporter activities in vivo suggesting that IL-7 regulation might be a new mechanism of shaping T cell development and homeostasis. Collectively, the availability of these new tools opens up new venues to assess unanswered questions in IL-7 biology in T cells and beyond.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
• /
• v.51 no.4
• /
• pp.715-734
• /
• 2023

Purpose: Authors suggest a new alternative of preparedness capabilities for health care institutes to react to the new types of communicable diseases and the pandemic situations through the quality improvement and advancement of Negative Pressure Isolation Stretcher (NPIS). Methods: We employed FOCUS-PDCA, a representative quality improvement model. First, we identified and materialized necessary components of existing NPIS to be improved. Second, we fabricated an advanced NPIS prototype. Third, we carried out a performance test by the accreditation institute and an empirical evaluation at the communicable diseases trauma center, to locate the improvement pain points of the prototype. Finally, we draw a conclusion on quality improvement points to be considered during the production stage. Results: The suggested, NPIS outperforms the existing one in terms of communicable disease controls, patient treatments and the safety during the patient transfer, and the ease of use. Additionally, the suggested NPIS turns out to be a proper alternative to satisfy the requirements of long range transfer of patients with communicable disease. Conclusion: Authors developed a quality improved, NPIS prototype. There are several points that still remain to be improved. Additionally, we expect that the concurrent use of the suggested NPIS with the existing one will fortify the preparedness capabilities on reacting to the communicable diseases.

• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
• /
• v.43 no.4
• /
• pp.181-185
• /
• 2021

Purpose: This study aims to make suggestions for the implementation of the job-based dental technician practical exam. Methods: The duties of dental technicians and the recent trends in the dental technician field were defined and identified, respectively, to achieve the purpose of the current study. The practical test system of domestic and foreign national tests was comparatively analyzed to seek improvements. Additionally, the direction of the practical test to be taken in the future was investigated through a public hearing of domestic experts. Results: As a result of this study, the job site of dental technicians was recently found to be undergoing many changes, and it can be observed that related laws and the work site have already changed. Comparison of overseas test systems showed that Korea was limited to a rather small evaluation range; in general, the scope of the evaluation of the practical tests in foreign countries was widely conducted. In the results of the public hearing, opinions exist that the evaluation range of the practical test was expanded and that new subjects were needed, but the opinion on the existence of practical difficulties was mainly mentioned. Conclusion: The evaluation range of the current practical examination subjects should be expanded and the evaluation of digital dental engineering subjects should be added to proceed with the job-based practical examination. However, it seems that efforts should be made gradually through various efforts in the future due to practical difficulties.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.419-425
• /
• 2022

In the medical field, lead aprons are used to protect the human body from radiation. However, lead is a heavy metal that is harmful to the human body and the environment, so various shield are being developed. In this study, bismuth, which has a similar atomic number to lead, was set as a new material and the absorption rate according to thickness in the same energy region was compared and evaluated through Monte Carlo simulation. The same tendency was confirmed when the thickness of the lead shield was 0.25 mm, the thickness of the bismuth was 0.3 mm, when the lead was 0.50 mm, the bismuth was 0.60 mm, and when the lead was 0.75 mm, the bismuth was 0.90 mm. Therefore, it is reasonable to replace lead with bismuth in the shield material.

• Toxicological Research
• /
• v.17
• /
• pp.241-249
• /
• 2001

Toxicology is under challenge from several new trends in science and technology, namely computer, the Internet, genome projects, genomic technologies, and combinatorial chemistry. These new trends will drastically change research style of toxicology. In addition to conventional uni cellular tests and animal tests using rodents, computer simulation, DNA chips (microarrays), in vivo tests using simple model organisms such as nematodesor flies become important routine screening tests. How to arrange these tests in tiers will become a new problem. Endocrine disruptors hypothesis is a good example for this kind of futuristic approach. Computer, particularly the Internet, is also enabling toxicologists and regulatory experts to collaborate more closely. The IPCS (International Program for Chemical Safety) which is ajoint project of WHO, ILO and UNEP, is a well-known international collaborative research for chemical risk assessments. The GINC project of IPCS is an effort to utilize the Internet for such collaborations. Some efforts were also made to establish regional collaboration network in East Asia under this project.