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Comparison of a whole blood Interferon-γ assay and A tuberculin skin test for detecting latent tuberculosis infection in children (소아 잠복 결핵 감염 진단에 있어서 투베르쿨린 피부반응 검사와 결핵 특이항원 자극 Interferon-γ 분비능 측정의 비교)

  • Chun, Jin-Kyong;Kim, Chang Ki;Kim, Hyun Sook;Jung, Ghee Young;Linton, John A.;Kim, Ki Hwan;Lee, Taek Jin;Jeon, Ji Hyun;Kim, Dong Soo
    • Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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    • v.51 no.9
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    • pp.971-976
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    • 2008
  • Purpose : Surveillance for detecting and managing latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) is a key component of tuberculosis control. The classic surveillance tool, the tuberculin skin test (TST), may have some limitations when used in the Bacillus Calmette-$Gu{\acute{e}}rin$ (BCG)-vaccinated population. The object was to perform a blood test $QuantiFERON^{(R)}$-TB Gold In Tube (QFT-G IT) based on the detection of interferon-$\gamma$ ($IFN-{\gamma}$) released by T cells in response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific antigens, and to compare the efficacy of this new diagnostic tool for LTBI with that of TST. Methods : For six months, between October 1, 2006 and April 30, 2007, data were collected from 111 patients under 15 years of age at Severance Children's Hospital. TST and QFT-G IT tests were performed with children with or without contact histories of tuberculosis. In addition to these tests, we examined comparative data from 29 adults who had tuberculosis, to detect false negative rates in the QFT-G IT method. Results : Thirty-three children had household contact histories. In this group, 15% and 42% of cases were found to be positive using the QFT-G IT assay and TST, respectively. Agreement was low between these two tests (${\kappa}=0.39$). In the adult active tuberculosis group, the QFT-G IT false negative rate defined as a positive culture and a negative QFT-G IT result was 12.5%. Conclusion : In diagnosing LTBI in children, the usefulness of a whole-blood $IFN-{\gamma}$ assay employing TB-specific antigens will be revealed only by examining additional longitudinal clinical data; this study serves as a starting point in that process.

Study of Patient Teaching in The Clinical Area (간호원의 환자교육 활동에 관한 연구)

  • 강규숙
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.3-33
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    • 1971
  • Nursing of today has as one of its objectives the solving of problems related to human needs arising from the demands of a rapidly changing society. This nursing objective, I believe, can he attained by the appropriate application of scientific principles in the giving of comprehensive nursing care. Comprehensive nursing care may be defined as nursing care which meets all of the patient's needs. the needs of patients are said to fall into five broad categories: physical needs, psychological needs, environmental needs, socio-economic needs, and teaching needs. Most people who become ill have adjustment problems related to their new situation. Because patient teaching is one of the most important functions of professional nursing, the success of this teaching may be used as a gauge for evaluating comprehensive nursing care. This represents a challenge foe the future. A questionnaire consisting of 67 items was distributed to 200 professional nurses working ill direct patient care at Yonsei University Medical Center in Seoul, Korea. 160 (80,0%) nurses of the total sample returned completed questionnaires 81 (50.6%) nurses were graduates of 3 fear diploma courser 79 (49.4%) nurses were graduates of 4 year collegiate nursing schools in Korea 141 (88,1%) nurses had under 5 years of clinical experience in a medical center, while 19 (11.9%) nurses had more than 5years of clinical experience. Three hypotheses were tested: 1. “Nurses had high levels of concept and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by the use of a statistical method, the mean average. 2. “Nurses graduating from collegiate programs and diploma school programs of nursing show differences in concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by a statistical method, the mean average, although the results showed little difference between the two groups. 3. “Nurses having different amounts of clinical experience showed differences in concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by the use of a statistical method, the mean average. 2. “Nurses graduating from collegiate programs and diploma school programs of nursing show differences in concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by a statistical method, the mean average, although the results showed little difference between the two groups. 3. “Nurses having different amounts of clinical experience showed differences in concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by the use of the T-test. Conclusions of this study are as follow: Before attempting the explanation, of the results, the questionnaire will he explained. The questionnaire contained 67 questions divided into 9 sections. These sections were: concept, content, time, prior preparation, method, purpose, condition, evaluation, and recommendations for patient teaching. 1. The nurse's concept of patient teaching: Most of the nurses had high levels of concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching. Though nursing service was task-centered at the turn of the century, the emphasis today is put on patient-centered nursing. But we find some of the nurses (39.4%) still are task-centered. After, patient teaching, only a few of the nurses (14.4%) checked this as “normal teaching.”It seems therefore that patient teaching is often done unconsciously. Accordingly it would he desirable to have correct concepts and knowledge of teaching taught in schools of nursing. 2. Contents of patient teaching: Most nurses (97.5%) had good information about content of patient teaching. They teach their patients during admission about their diseases, tests, treatments, and before discharge give nurses instruction about simple nursing care, personal hygiene, special diets, rest and sleep, elimination etc. 3. Time of patient teaching: Teaching can be accomplished even if there is no time set aside specifically for it. -a large part of the nurse's teaching can be done while she is giving nursing care. If she believes she has to wait for time free from other activities, she may miss many teaching opportunities. But generally proper time for patient teaching is in the midmorning or midafternoon since one and a half or two hours required. Nurses meet their patients in all stages of health: often tile patient is in a condition in which learning is impossible-pain, mental confusion, debilitation, loss of sensory perception, fear and anxiety-any of these conditions may preclude the possibility of successful teaching. 4. Prior preparation for patient teaching: The teaching aids, nurses use are charts (53.1%), periodicals (23.8%), and books (7.0%) Some of the respondents (28.1%) reported that they had had good preparation for the teaching which they were doing, others (27.5%) reported adequate preparation, and others (43.8%) reported that their preparation for teaching was inadequate. If nurses have advance preparation for normal teaching and are aware of their objectives in teaching patients, they can do effective teaching. 5. Method of patient teaching: The methods of individual patient teaching, the nurses in this study used, were conversation (55.6%) and individual discussion (19.2%) . And the methods of group patient teaching they used were demonstration (42.3%) and lecture (26.2%) They should also he prepared to use pamphlet and simple audio-visual aids for their teaching. 6. Purposes of patient teaching: The purposes of patient teaching is to help the patient recover completely, but the majority of the respondents (40.6%) don't know this. So it is necessary for them to understand correctly the purpose of patient teaching and nursing care. 7. Condition of patient teaching: The majority of respondents (75.0%) reported there were some troubles in teaching uncooperative patients. It would seem that the nurse's leaching would be improved if, in her preparation, she was given a better understanding of the patient and communication skills. The majority of respondents in the total group, felt teaching is their responsibility and they should teach their patient's family as well as the patient. The place for teaching is most often at the patient's bedside (95.6%) but the conference room (3.1%) is also used. It is important that privacy be provided in learning situations with involve personal matters. 8. Evaluation of patient teaching: The majority of respondents (76.3%,) felt leaching is a highly systematic and organized function requiring special preparation in a college or university, they have the idea that teaching is a continuous and ever-present activity of all people throughout their lives. The suggestion mentioned the most frequently for improving preparation was a course in patient teaching included in the basic nursing program. 9. Recommendations: 1) It is recommended, that in clinical nursing, patient teaching be emphasized. 2) It is recommended, that insertive education the concepts and purposes of patient teaching he renewed for all nurses. In addition to this new knowledge, methods and materials which can be applied to patient teaching should be given also. 3) It is recommended, in group patient teaching, we try to embark on team teaching.

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Consideration of Shoulder Joint's Image with the Changed Tube Angle of the Shoulder Oblique Projection in Supine Position (Supine 자세에서 Shoulder oblique촬영시 Tube angle 변화에 따른 Shoulder joint에 대한 고찰)

  • Seo, Jae-Hyun;Choi, Nam-Gil
    • Journal of radiological science and technology
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.109-114
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    • 2008
  • There is a standard shoulder oblique method (Grashey method) available to view the shoulder joint. This method projects AP view of the shoulder joint so that the Humerus head's subuxation or joint degeneration can be easily visualized. However, in this view, the patients, with supine or sitting or erect position, have to keep their body obliquely. Whereas, the patients who are not well or operated, usually feel very uncomfortable to keep their body in this position and hence, we need other persons' help and much efforts will be needed to get the good quality shoulder joint view. Therefore, we thought of examining a method which shows the joint well by angling the tube to Medio-Lateral direction and without keeping the patients' one side upward in supine position. For this study, total 15 subjects with no history of neurological or psychiatric illness, were recruited for examinations. They consisted of 9 males and 6 females. Statistic group analysis was performed with ANOVA test. Scores of the evaluation of the experts were $1.10{\pm}0.54$ at $25^{\circ}$, $2.50{\pm}0.50$ at 30^{\circ}$, $2.85{\pm}0.36$ at $35^{\circ}$ and $2.33{\pm}0.47$ at $40^{\circ}$, respectively, and they were significant(p<0.05, Table 1). Joint space of the Humerus head and Scapula were well distinguished at $35^{\circ}$, $30^{\circ}$ and $40^{\circ}$ with the almost same score. However, the degree of distortion at $40^{\circ}$ was more severe than that at $30^{\circ}$. Ultimately, $30-35^{\circ}$ views were shown to yield good quality shoulder oblique images. In conclusion, this method may be very useful for the patients who are uncomfortable and for the emergency patients. In order to get similar or comparable view, the same X-tube angle is recommended to be used before and after the operation. Therefore, we hope that this new angled method seems to be efficient.

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Measurement of Two-Dimensional Velocity Distribution of Spatio-Temporal Image Velocimeter using Cross-Correlation Analysis (상호상관법을 이용한 시공간 영상유속계의 2차원 유속분포 측정)

  • Yu, Kwonkyu;Kim, Seojun;Kim, Dongsu
    • Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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    • v.47 no.6
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    • pp.537-546
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    • 2014
  • Surface image velocimetry was introduced as an efficient and sage alternative to conventional river flow measurement methods during floods. The conventional surface image velocimetry uses a pair of images to estimate velocity fields using cross-correlation analysis. This method is appropriate to analyzing images taken with a short time interval. It, however, has some drawbacks; it takes a while to analyze images for the verage velocity of long time intervals and is prone to include errors or uncertainties due to flow characteristics and/or image taking conditions. Methods using spatio-temporal images, called STIV, were developed to overcome the drawbacks of conventional surface image velocimetry. The grayscale-gradient tensor method, one of various STIVs, has shown to be effectively reducing the analysis time and is fairly insusceptible to any measurement noise. It, unfortunately, can only be applied to the main flow direction. This means that it can not measure any two-dimensional flow field, e.g. flow in the vicinity of river structures and flow around river bends. The present study aimed to develop a new method of analyzing spatio-temporal images in two-dimension using cross-correlation analysis. Unlike the conventional STIV, the developed method can be used to measure two-dimensional flow substantially. The method also has very high spatial resolution and reduces the analysis time. A verification test using artificial images with lid-driven cavity flow showed that the maximum error of the method is less than 10 % and the average error is less than 5 %. This means that the developed scheme seems to be fairly accurate, even for two-dimensional flow.

An Examination of Knowledge Sourcing Strategies Effects on Corporate Performance in Small Enterprises (소규모 기업에 있어서 지식소싱 전략이 기업성과에 미치는 영향 고찰)

  • Choi, Byoung-Gu
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.57-81
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    • 2008
  • Knowledge is an essential strategic weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and is the key determinant for organizational growth. When knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout the organization, it increases an organization's value by providing the ability to respond to new and unusual situations. The growing importance of knowledge as a critical resource has forced executives to pay attention to their organizational knowledge. Organizations are increasingly undertaking knowledge management initiatives and making significant investments. Knowledge sourcing is considered as the first important step in effective knowledge management. Most firms continue to make an effort to realize the benefits of knowledge management by using various knowledge sources effectively. Appropriate knowledge sourcing strategies enable organizations to create, acquire, and access knowledge in a timely manner by reducing search and transfer costs, which result in better firm performance. In response, the knowledge management literature has devoted substantial attention to the analysis of knowledge sourcing strategies. Many studies have categorized knowledge sourcing strategies into intemal- and external-oriented. Internal-oriented sourcing strategy attempts to increase firm performance by integrating knowledge within the boundary of the firm. On the contrary, external-oriented strategy attempts to bring knowledge in from outside sources via either acquisition or imitation, and then to transfer that knowledge across to the organization. However, the extant literature on knowledge sourcing strategies focuses primarily on large organizations. Although many studies have clearly highlighted major differences between large and small firms and the need to adopt different strategies for different firm sizes, scant attention has been given to analyzing how knowledge sourcing strategies affect firm performance in small firms and what are the differences between small and large firms in the patterns of knowledge sourcing strategies adoption. This study attempts to advance the current literature by examining the impact of knowledge sourcing strategies on small firm performance from a holistic perspective. By drawing on knowledge based theory from organization science and complementarity theory from the economics literature, this paper is motivated by the following questions: (1) what are the adoption patterns of different knowledge sourcing strategies in small firms (i,e., what sourcing strategies should be adopted and which sourcing strategies work well together in small firms)?; and (2) what are the performance implications of these adoption patterns? In order to answer the questions, this study developed three hypotheses. First hypothesis based on knowledge based theory is that internal-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. Second hypothesis developed on the basis of knowledge based theory is that external-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. The third one based on complementarity theory is that pursuing both internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing simultaneously is negatively or less positively associated with small firm performance. As a sampling frame, 700 firms were identified from the Annual Corporation Report in Korea. Survey questionnaires were mailed to owners or executives who were most erudite about the firm s knowledge sourcing strategies and performance. A total of 188 companies replied, yielding a response rate of 26.8%. Due to incomplete data, 12 responses were eliminated, leaving 176 responses for the final analysis. Since all independent variables were measured using continuous variables, supermodularity function was used to test the hypotheses based on the cross partial derivative of payoff function. The results indicated no significant impact of internal-oriented sourcing strategies while positive impact of external-oriented sourcing strategy on small firm performance. This intriguing result could be explained on the basis of various resource and capital constraints of small firms. Small firms typically have restricted financial and human resources. They do not have enough assets to always develop knowledge internally. Another possible explanation is competency traps or core rigidities. Building up a knowledge base based on internal knowledge creates core competences, but at the same time, excessive internal focused knowledge exploration leads to behaviors blind to other knowledge. Interestingly, this study found that Internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing strategies had a substitutive relationship, which was inconsistent with previous studies that suggested complementary relationship between them. This result might be explained using organizational identification theory. Internal organizational members may perceive external knowledge as a threat, and tend to ignore knowledge from external sources because they prefer to maintain their own knowledge, legitimacy, and homogeneous attitudes. Therefore, integrating knowledge from internal and external sources might not be effective, resulting in failure of improvements of firm performance. Another possible explanation is small firms resource and capital constraints and lack of management expertise and absorptive capacity. Although the integration of different knowledge sources is critical, high levels of knowledge sourcing in many areas are quite expensive and so are often unrealistic for small enterprises. This study provides several implications for research as well as practice. First this study extends the existing knowledge by examining the substitutability (and complementarity) of knowledge sourcing strategies. Most prior studies have tended to investigate the independent effects of these strategies on performance without considering their combined impacts. Furthermore, this study tests complementarity based on the productivity approach that has been considered as a definitive test method for complementarity. Second, this study sheds new light on knowledge management research by identifying the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and small firm performance. Most current literature has insisted complementary relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies on the basis of data from large firms. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study identifies substitutive relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies using data from small firms. Third, implications for practice highlight that managers of small firms should focus on knowledge sourcing from external-oriented strategies. Moreover, adoption of both sourcing strategies simultaneousiy impedes small firm performance.

Cardioprotective Effect by Preconditioning with Calcium-free Solution (칼슘결핍용액 투여 전처치에 의한 심근보호 효과)

  • 조대윤;이종화;김호덕
    • Journal of Chest Surgery
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    • v.32 no.9
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    • pp.773-780
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    • 1999
  • Background: It has been demonstrated that brief periods of calcium depletion and repletion (calcium-free preconditioning, CP) have cardioprotective effects as seen in ischemic preconditioning(IP) which enhances the recovery of post-ischemic contractile dysfunction and reduces the incidence of reperfusion-induced arrhythmia or infarct size after a prolonged ischemia. In the present study, we tested this paradoxical phenomenon in isolated rabbit hearts. Material and Method: Hearts isolated from New Zealand white rabbits(1.5∼2.0 Kg body weight) were perfused with Tyrode solution using the Langendorff technique. After stabilizing the baseline hemodynamics, the hearts were subjected to 45 minutes of global ischemia followed by 120 minutes of reperfusion with IP(IP group, n=7) or without IP (ischemic control group, n=7). IP was induced by a single episode of 5 minutes global ischemia and 10 minutes reperfusion. In the CP group(n=7), the hearts were subjected to perfusion with Tyrode solution with calcium depletion for 5 minutes and repletion for 10 minutes, and 45 minutes of ischemia and 120 minutes of reperfusion. Left ventricular function including developed pressure, dP/dt, heart rate, left ventricular end-diastolic pressure and coronary flow was measured. Infarct size was determined by staining with 1% triphenyltetrazolium chloride and planimetry. Data were analyzed by a one-way analysis of variance and Tukey's post-hoc test. Result: In comparison with the ischemic control group, IP significantly enhanced the recovery of the left ventricular function including the left ventricular developed pressure, contractility, and coronary flow; in contrast, these functional parameters of the CP group tended to be lower than those of the ischemic control group. However, the infarct size was significantly reduced by IP or CP(p<0.05). Conclusion: These results suggest that in isolated Langendorff-perfused rabbit heart model, CP(induced by single episode of 5 minutes calcium depletion and 10 minutes repletion) could not improve the post-ischemic contractile dysfunction(after a 45-minute global ischemia) but it has an infarct size-limiting effect.

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A New High Qualilty Rice Variety with High Head Rice Ratio and Milling Recovery, "Chilbo" (완전미율, 도정수율 높은 중만생 고품질 벼 신품종 "칠보(七寶)")

  • Kim, Jeong-Il;Chang, Jae-Ki;Park, No-Bong;Yeo, Un-Sang;Oh, Byeong-Geun;Kang, Jung-Hun;Kwon, Oh-Deog;Shin, Mun-Sik;Park, Dong-Soo;Kwak, Do-Yeon;Lee, Jong-Hee;Song, You-Cheon;Kim, Chun-Song;Cho, Jun-Hyun;Yi, Gihwan;Lee, Ji-Yoon;Nam, Min-Hee;Kim, Sang-Yeol;Ahn, Jong-Woong;Ku, Yeon-chung;Kim, Jae-Kyu
    • Korean Journal of Breeding Science
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    • v.41 no.4
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    • pp.547-551
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    • 2009
  • A new commercial rice variety "Chilbo" is a japonica rice (Oryza sativa L.) with resistance to rice stripe virus and high grain quality. It was developed by the rice breeding team of Yeongdeog Substation, NICS, RDA in 2007. This variety was derived from a cross between "Yeongdeog 26" with wind tolerance and lodging resistance and "Koshihikari" with good grain quality. A promising line, YR21324-119-3-2 was selected by a pedigree breeding method and designated as "Yeongdeog 44" in 2004. Regional adaptation yield trials were carried out at eleven locations from 2005 to 2007. As a result, "Yeongdeog 44" was released as a high yielding rice variety with high grain qualilty and virus resistance with the name of "Chilbo". It is short 76cm in culm length and has medium-late growth duration. This variety is resistant to stripe virus and middle resistant to leaf blast disease. It is also tolerant to cold, dried wind. Milled rice kernel of "Chilbo" is translucent, clear in chalkiness. Panel test proved that and it has good eating quality. Head rice ratio of Chilbo is high compared to the check variety, Hwaseongbyeo. Yield potential of "Chilbo" in milled rice is about 5.57MT/ha at ordinary fertilizer level of local adaptability test. This variety would be adaptable to Yeongnam plain, south & east-south coastal, south mid-mountainous, middle plain area of Korean peninsula.

A New High Qualilty Rice Variety with Lodging Resistance and Multiple Resistance to Diseases, "Donghaejinmi" (중만생 고품질 내도복 복합내병성 벼 신품종 "동해진미(東海珍味)")

  • Yeo, Un-Sang;Kim, Jeong-Il;Lee, Jeom-Sig;Park, No-Bong;Chang, Jae-Ki;Oh, Byeong-Geun;Kang, Jung-Hun;Kwak, Do-Yeon;Cho, Jun-Hyun;Lee, Jong-Hee;Kwon, Oh-Deog;Lee, Ji-Yoon;Nam, Min-Hee;Kim, Sang-Yeol;Ku, Yeon-Chung;Kim, Jae-Kyu
    • Korean Journal of Breeding Science
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    • v.41 no.3
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    • pp.288-291
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    • 2009
  • A new commercial rice variety "Donghaejinmi" is a japonica rice (Oryza sativa L.) with lodging resistance and high grain quality. It has been developed by the rice breeding team of Yeongdeog Substation, National Institute of Crop Science (NICS), RDA. This variety was derived from a cross between "Milyang 64" as a resistance source of brown planthopper (Bph) and "Milyang 165" as grain quality source. The donor parent, "Milyang64" has been backcrossed three times with recurrent parent, "Milyang165" and selected by the pedigree breeding method. The pedigree of "Donghaejinmi", designated as "Yeongdeog 41" in 2003, was YR21259-B-B-68-1. It has a short culm length with 69 cm and medium-late growth time. This variety is resistant to stripe virus and moderately resistant to leaf blast disease with durable resistance. It also has tolerance to unfavorable environment such as cold, dried wind and storm. Milled rice kernel of "Donghaejinmi" is translucent, clear in chalkness and good at eating quality in panel test. The merit of this variety is high head rice ratio, which is essential element to produce an article of superior quality rice brand. The yield potential of "Donhaejinmi" in milled rice is about 6.05 MT/ha at ordinary fertilizer level of local adaptability test. This cultivar would be adaptable to Yeongnam inland plains and eastern costal area of Yeongnam province.

A New Early Maturing Blackish Purple Pigmented Glutinous Rice Variety, 'Josaengheugchal' (조생 흑자색 찰벼 품종 '조생흑찰')

  • Song, You-Chun;Lee, Jeom-Sig;Ha, Woon-Goo;Hwang, Hung-Goo;Lim, Sang-Jong;Yeo, Un-Sang;Park, No-Bong;Kwak, Do-Yeon;Jang, Jae-Ki;Lee, Jong-Hee;Park, Dong-Soo;Jung, Kuk-Hyun;Jeong, Eung-Ki;Nam, Min-Hee;Kim, Young-Doo;Kim, Myeong-Ki;Kwon, Oh-Kyung;Oh, Byeong-Geun
    • Korean Journal of Breeding Science
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    • v.42 no.3
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    • pp.262-266
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    • 2010
  • 'Josaengheugchal', a new blackish purple pigmented glutinous japonica rice cultivar, was developed by the rice breeding team of Department of Functional Crop, NICS, RDA in 2004. This cultivar was derived from a cross between 'Tohoku 149' as black glutinous source and 'Sx 864' as purple colored rice in 1992 and 1993 winter season, and selected by pedigree breeding method until $F_6$ generation. As a result, a promising line, YR15907-6-8-1-5, was advanced and designated as the name of 'Milyang 194' in 2001. The local adaptability test of 'Milyang 194' was carried out at seven locations from 2002 to 2004 and it was named as 'Josaengheugchal'. 'Josaengheugchal' is an early maturing cultivar and has 71 cm culm height. It has higher anthocyanian content compared with 'Heugnambyeo'. It is moderately resistant to leaf blast but susceptible to other disease and insect pests. The yield potential of 'Josaengheugchal' in brown rice was about 4.21 MT/ha at ordinary fertilizer level in local adaptability test. This cultivar would be adaptable to the plain paddy field of middle, Honam, and Yeomgnam in Korea under ordinary and double cropping system.

Resolving the 'Gray sheep' Problem Using Social Network Analysis (SNA) in Collaborative Filtering (CF) Recommender Systems (소셜 네트워크 분석 기법을 활용한 협업필터링의 특이취향 사용자(Gray Sheep) 문제 해결)

  • Kim, Minsung;Im, Il
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.137-148
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    • 2014
  • Recommender system has become one of the most important technologies in e-commerce in these days. The ultimate reason to shop online, for many consumers, is to reduce the efforts for information search and purchase. Recommender system is a key technology to serve these needs. Many of the past studies about recommender systems have been devoted to developing and improving recommendation algorithms and collaborative filtering (CF) is known to be the most successful one. Despite its success, however, CF has several shortcomings such as cold-start, sparsity, gray sheep problems. In order to be able to generate recommendations, ordinary CF algorithms require evaluations or preference information directly from users. For new users who do not have any evaluations or preference information, therefore, CF cannot come up with recommendations (Cold-star problem). As the numbers of products and customers increase, the scale of the data increases exponentially and most of the data cells are empty. This sparse dataset makes computation for recommendation extremely hard (Sparsity problem). Since CF is based on the assumption that there are groups of users sharing common preferences or tastes, CF becomes inaccurate if there are many users with rare and unique tastes (Gray sheep problem). This study proposes a new algorithm that utilizes Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques to resolve the gray sheep problem. We utilize 'degree centrality' in SNA to identify users with unique preferences (gray sheep). Degree centrality in SNA refers to the number of direct links to and from a node. In a network of users who are connected through common preferences or tastes, those with unique tastes have fewer links to other users (nodes) and they are isolated from other users. Therefore, gray sheep can be identified by calculating degree centrality of each node. We divide the dataset into two, gray sheep and others, based on the degree centrality of the users. Then, different similarity measures and recommendation methods are applied to these two datasets. More detail algorithm is as follows: Step 1: Convert the initial data which is a two-mode network (user to item) into an one-mode network (user to user). Step 2: Calculate degree centrality of each node and separate those nodes having degree centrality values lower than the pre-set threshold. The threshold value is determined by simulations such that the accuracy of CF for the remaining dataset is maximized. Step 3: Ordinary CF algorithm is applied to the remaining dataset. Step 4: Since the separated dataset consist of users with unique tastes, an ordinary CF algorithm cannot generate recommendations for them. A 'popular item' method is used to generate recommendations for these users. The F measures of the two datasets are weighted by the numbers of nodes and summed to be used as the final performance metric. In order to test performance improvement by this new algorithm, an empirical study was conducted using a publically available dataset - the MovieLens data by GroupLens research team. We used 100,000 evaluations by 943 users on 1,682 movies. The proposed algorithm was compared with an ordinary CF algorithm utilizing 'Best-N-neighbors' and 'Cosine' similarity method. The empirical results show that F measure was improved about 11% on average when the proposed algorithm was used

    . Past studies to improve CF performance typically used additional information other than users' evaluations such as demographic data. Some studies applied SNA techniques as a new similarity metric. This study is novel in that it used SNA to separate dataset. This study shows that performance of CF can be improved, without any additional information, when SNA techniques are used as proposed. This study has several theoretical and practical implications. This study empirically shows that the characteristics of dataset can affect the performance of CF recommender systems. This helps researchers understand factors affecting performance of CF. This study also opens a door for future studies in the area of applying SNA to CF to analyze characteristics of dataset. In practice, this study provides guidelines to improve performance of CF recommender systems with a simple modification.


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