• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.489-500
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• 2011

Compared to the past decades, in recent decades, environmental and hygienic conditions in the Republic of Korea have improved along with socioeconomic developments, and the incidence of most infectious diseases, especially vaccine-preventable diseases, has greatly decreased due to active immunization with the developed level of health care. However, the incidence of some diseases has been increasing, and new diseases have been emerging. To cope with such changes actively, the government put the "Law for Control and Prevention of Infectious Diseases" into effect; this law was entirely revised on December 30, 2010. In this report, I review the past and recent status of infectious diseases in the Republic of Korea, following the introduction of this law, on the basis of data in the "National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System", which had been accumulated between the years 1960 and 2010.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.41-45
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• 2020

Purpose: This article aims to explore the new town development paradigm against infectious diseases. The distribution of COVID-19 constricts economic activity. The high frequency of outbreaks of COVID-19 nationwide is due to neither malnutrition nor unhygienic environment. Research design, data and methodology: The research question starts with the idea that understanding the features of the outbreak of pandemic diseases could help public health authorities to better cope with upcoming risks in the future. We have employed a big data-based methodology to explore the outbreak of pandemic diseases. Also, an idiographic approach is used to describe the distribution of new towns against COVID-19. Results: The results demonstrate that the rapid spread of COVID-19 has had a strong impact on regional economies and urban development. It was found that there is a close relationship between infectious diseases outbreaks and new town development. Conclusions: The findings could be used to deal with new town development against infectious diseases better in other cities or countries as well. The distribution of COVID-19 may become an unexpected opportunity for a paradigm shift in the distribution of new town development to prevent not only an excessive concentration in Seoul, but also an imbalance between national and local development.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.356-367
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• 2022

Background: The emergence of new infectious diseases threatens public health, increasing socioeconomic damage, and national risks. This study aimed to develop an evidence-based risk assessment tool to quickly respond to new infectious diseases. Methods: The risk elements were extracted by reviewing the risk assessment methods of the World Health Organization, United States, Europe, United Kingdom, and Germany, and the validity and priority of elements were determined through expert meetings and Delphi surveys. Then, the scale and level for each risk element were defined and a final score calculation method according to the risk evaluation result was derived. The developed risk assessment tool was verified using data at the time of domestic transmission of an emerging infectious disease. Results: In case of spread of actual infectious diseases, priority is determined based on the criticality of the elements in each area of transmissibility and severity, from which the weighted score of the risk assessment is derived. Then, the risk score for each element was calculated by multiplying the average value of the risk evaluation by its weight and the evaluation risk assessment score for the two areas was calculated. At last, the final score is plotted in a matrix where the x-axis indicates the transmissibility and the y-axis the severity and plotted on the coordinate plane for time series use. Conclusion: With respect to transmissibility and severity, this risk assessment method to respond to new and re-emerging infectious diseases enables rapid and evidence-based evaluation by quantitatively and qualitatively assessing various risk elements.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.18-29
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to examine the spatial characteristics and factors in the occurrence of COVID-19 from January 20 to August 30 of 2020. The exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial econometrics model are used. The spatial unit of analysis is 255 si-gun-gu in Korea. As a result of the analysis, COVID-19 infection did not appear to be a significant factors(host and environment) influencing the emergence of existing new infectious diseases, but there was a relationship between spatially adjacent areas and their occurrence. It also showed a close relationship with the outbreak pattern of group 4 infectious diseases, another type of new infectious disease in Korea. The result of this study shows that COVID-19 is not a new pattern of emerging infectious diseases. It means that the properties of the space where new infectious diseases appear must be continuously managed in order to effectively control new infectious diseases.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.630-636
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• 2013

Recently, there has been a growing body of evidence showing that cellular microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in virus-host interactions. Numerous studies have focused on analyses of the expression profiles of cellular miRNAs, but the expression patterns of Dicer, which is responsible for the generation of miRNAs, have only rarely been explored in Gallus gallus. We developed a duplex real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for the relative quantification of the mRNAs of Dicer and ${\beta}$-actin in G. gallus. To apply this method, the expression of Dicer in avian cells after infection with avian leukosis virus subgroup J (ALV-J) was detected using our established duplex real-time RT-PCR. The duplex real-time RT-PCR assay is sufficiently sensitive, specific, accurate, reproducible, and cost-effective for the detection of Dicer in G. gallus. Furthermore, this study, for the first time, demonstrated that ALV-J can induce differential expression of Dicer mRNA in the ALV-J-infected cells.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.214-218
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• 2008

Bioterrorism events have worldwide impacts, not only in terms of security and public health policy, but also in other related sectors. Many countries, including Korea, have set up new administrative and operational structures and adapted their preparedness and response plans in order to deal with new kinds of threats. Korea has dual surveillance systems for the early detection of bioterrorism. The first is syndromic surveillance that typically monitors non-specific clinical information that may indicate possible bioterrorism-associated diseases before specific diagnoses are made. The other is infectious disease specialist network that diagnoses and responds to specific illnesses caused by intentional release of biologic agents. Infectious disease physicians, clinical microbiologists, and infection control professionals play critical and complementary roles in these networks. Infectious disease specialists should develop practical and realistic response plans for their institutions in partnership with local and state health departments, in preparation for a real or suspected bioterrorism attack.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.97-105
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• 2007

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) playa crucial role in initiating and regulating innate and adaptive immune responses by detecting invading microbial pathogens. TLRs can also respond to non-microbial molecules derived from damaged tissue. Accumulating evidence suggests that deregulation of TLRs results in the dysfunction of immune system and ultimately increases the risk of many immune and inflammatory diseases including infectious diseases, allergy, and autoimmune diseases. Therefore, understanding how the immune system is controlled by TLRs will provide new insight to find the way to prevent or treat infectious diseases and immune disorders.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.51-57
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• 2015

Vaccines are the most effective and cost-efficient method for preventing diseases caused by infectious pathogens. Despite the great success of vaccines, development of safe and strong vaccines is still required for emerging new pathogens, re-emerging old pathogens, and in order to improve the inadequate protection conferred by existing vaccines. One of the most important strategies for the development of effective new vaccines is the selection and usage of a suitable adjuvant. Immunologic adjuvants are essential for enhancing vaccine potency by improvement of the humoral and/or cell-mediated immune response to vaccine antigens. Thus, formulation of vaccines with appropriate adjuvants is an attractive approach towards eliciting protective and long-lasting immunity in humans. However, only a limited number of adjuvants is licensed for human vaccines due to concerns about safety and toxicity. We summarize current knowledge about the potential benefits of adjuvants, the characteristics of adjuvants and the mechanisms of adjuvants in human vaccines. Adjuvants have diverse modes of action and should be selected for use on the basis of the type of immune response that is desired for a particular vaccine. Better understanding of current adjuvants will help exploring new adjuvant formulations and facilitate rational design of vaccines against infectious diseases.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.365-374
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• 2005

To find potential targets of novel antimicrobial agents, we identified essential genes of Streptococcus pneumoniae using comparative genomics and allelic replacement mutagenesis. We compared the genome of S. pneumoniae R6 with those of Bacillus subtilis, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus, and selected 693 candidate target genes with > 40% amino acid sequence identity to the corresponding genes in at least two of the other species. The 693 genes were disrupted and 133 were found to be essential for growth. Of these, 32 encoded proteins of unknown function, and we were able to identify orthologues of 22 of these genes by genomic comparisons. The experimental method used in this study is easy to perform, rapid and efficient for identifying essential genes of bacterial pathogens.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.35-40
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• 2021

This study attempted to derive important factors of emerging infectious diseases by collecting and analyzing text data onto emerging infectious diseases. For this purpose, articles in the Naver News database were directly crawled, pre-processed, and used for data analysis. In addition, additional analysis was performed using Big Kinds. As a result of the priority analysis, the importance was shown in the order of corona, infectious disease, quarantine, vaccine, outbreak, virus, infection, and development. As a result of the proximity centrality analysis, the importance was shown in the order of government, death, and plan, and the analysis result of Big Kinds showed that Covid-19 and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were important. Based on the results of this study, it can be said that the government's policy support is needed to raise public awareness of new infectious diseases, prevent disease, and develop vaccines and treatments.