• Title/Summary/Keyword: objective indicators

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Biodiversity Changes and Community Characteristics of Benthic Macroinvertebrates in Weir Section of the Nakdong River, South Korea (낙동강 보 구간 저서성 대형무척추동물의 생물다양성 변화와 군집 특성)

  • Jung, Sang Woo;Kim, Yoon-Ho;Lee, Jae-Ha;Kim, Dong-Gun;Kim, Min-Kyung;Kim, Hyun-Mac
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.36 no.2
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    • pp.150-164
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    • 2022
  • The objective of this study is to analyze the biodiversity changes and characteristics of the benthic macroinvertebrate community in the Nakdong River with eight weirs, which was constructed as one of the Four Major River Restoration Projects from May to October 2020. The study also includes the analysis of changes in the major groups of benthic macroinvertebrates for about ten years, from 2010 to 2020. The surveys collected 97 species of benthic macroinvertebrates belonging to 83 genera, 52 families, 18 orders, five classes, three phyla, and 128.1 individuals/m2. Chironomidae sp. and Tubificidae spp., which are pollutant indicators, dominated throughout the sections. The community analysis result shows the average dominant index and the diversity index of 0.62±0.20 and 1.87±0.63, respectively, and indicated the most stability of the freshwater ecosystem in the upper stream of the Nakdong River. The survey showed dominance by Chironomidae sp. at the center of the Nakdong River weir and the most unstable community in Chilgok and Gangjeong Goryeong weirs. The results of the community stability analysis showed a high distribution of the characteristic group I with high resilience and resistance and small distribution of characteristic group III with low resistance and resilience, indicating a very unstable condition of communities in the Nakdong River weir section. Predators were relatively abundant among the functional feeding groups (FFGs), whereas shredders, gathering-collectors, and filtering-collectors were relatively lower. Among the habitat orientation groups (HOGs), burrowers and climbers were dominant, indicating a wide distribution of groups in ecosystems with low dissolved oxygen. An endangered species level II of Macromia daimoji was found in Sangju and Nakdan weirs. The analysis results for 10 years from 2010 showed that the number of species and populations increased immediately after the dam construction but plummeted in 2016 and are now stabilizing. Chironomidae spp. has been dominant in all sections over the past 10 years, and they are currently maintained at a rate of about 50%. The EPT groups have decreased significantly since 2011, and the Plecoptera and Trichoptera of the group have not yet been restored. The population of Tubificidae spp. showed an increase after construction was completed in 2012 and drastically increased in 2015 and 2020. The species of Cristaria plicata, designated as endangered species level I, has not been observed since 2011 in Hapcheon Changnyeong weir. Moreover, Macromia daimoji was rarely observed in seven weirs until 2015, and it has been confirmed that the current distribution habitat has decreased rapidly.

Evaluation of estuary reservoir management based on robust decision making considering water use-flood control-water quality under Climate Change (이수-치수-수질을 고려한 기후변화 대응 로버스트 기반 담수호 관리 평가)

  • Kim, Seokhyeon;Hwang, Soonho;Kim, Sinae;Lee, Hyunji;Kwak, Jihye;Kim, Jihye;Kang, Moonseong
    • Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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    • v.56 no.6
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    • pp.419-429
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    • 2023
  • The objective of this study was to determine the management water level of an estuary reservoir considering three aspects: the water use, flood control and water quality, and to use a robust decision-making to consider uncertainty due to climate change. The watershed-reservoir linkage model was used to simulate changes in inflow due to climate change, and changes in reservoir water level and water quality. Five management level alternatives ranging from -1.7 El.m to 0.2 El.m were evaluated under the SSP1, 2, 3, and 5 scenariosof the ACCESS-CM2 Global Climate Model. Performance indicators based on period-reliability were calculated for robust decision-making considering the three aspects, and regret was used as a decision indicator to identify the alternatives with the minimum maximum regret. Flood control failure increased as the management level increased, while the probability of water use failure increased as the management level decreased. The highest number of failures occurred under the SSP5 scenario. In the water quality sector, the change in water quality was relatively small with an increase in the management level due to the increase in reservoir volume. Conversely, a decrease in the management level resulted in a more significant change in water quality. In the study area, the estuary reservoir was found to be problematic when the change in water quality was small, resulting in more failures.

Innovative approaches to the health problems of rural Korea (한국농촌보건(韓國農村保健)의 문제점(問題點)과 개선방안(改善方案))

  • Loh, In-Kyu
    • Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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    • v.1 no.1
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    • pp.5-9
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    • 1976
  • The categories of national health problems may be mainly divided into health promotion, problems of diseases, and population-economic problems which are indirectly related to health. Of them, the problems of diseases will be exclusively dealt with this speech. Rurality and Disease Problems There are many differences between rural and urban areas. In general, indicators of rurality are small size of towns, dispersion of the population, remoteness from urban centers, inadequacy of public transportation, poor communication, inadequate sanitation, poor housing, poverty, little education lack of health personnels and facilities, and in-accessibility to health services. The influence of such conditions creates, directly or indirectly, many problems of diseases in the rural areas. Those art the occurrence of preventable diseases, deterioration and prolongation of illness due to loss of chance to get early treatment, decreased or prolonged labour force loss, unnecessary death, doubling of medical cost, and economic loss. Some Considerations of Innovative Approach The followings art some considerations of innovative approaches to the problems of diseases in the rural Korea. 1. It would be essential goal of the innovative approaches that the damage and economic loss due to diseases will be maintained to minimum level by minimizing the absolute amount of the diseases, and by moderating the fee for medical cares. The goal of the minimization of the disease amount may be achieved by preventive services and early treatment, and the goal of moderating the medical fee may be achieved by lowering the prime cost and by adjusting the medical fees to reasonable level. 2. Community health service or community medicine will be adopted as a innovative means to disease problems. In this case, a community is defined as an unit area where supply and utilization of primary service activities can be accomplished within a day. The essential nature o the community health service should be such activities as health promotion, preventive measures, medical care, and rehabilitation performing efficiently through the organized efforts of the residents in a community. Each service activity should cover all members of the residents in a community in its plan and performance. The cooperation of the community peoples in one of the essential elements for success of the service program, The motivations of their cooperative mood may be activated through several ways: when the participation of the residents in service program of especially the direct participation of organized cooperation of the area leaders art achieved through a means of health education: when the residents get actual experience of having received the benefit of good quality services; and when the health personnels being armed with an idealism that they art working in the areas to help health problems of the residents, maintain good human relationships with them. For the success of a community health service program, a personnel who is in charge of leadership and has an able, a sincere and a steady characters seems to be required in a community. The government should lead and support the community health service programs of the nation under the basis of results appeared in the demonstrative programs so as to be carried out the programs efficiently. Moss of the health problems may be treated properly in the community levels through suitable community health service programs but there might be some problems which art beyond their abilities to be dealt with. To solve such problems each community health service program should be under the referral systems which are connected with health centers, hospitals, and so forth. 3. An approach should be intensively groped to have a physician in each community. The shortage of physicians in rural areas is world-wide problem and so is the Korean situation. In the past the government has initiated a system of area-limited physician, coercion, and a small scale of scholarship program with unsatisfactory results. But there might be ways of achieving the goal by intervice, broadened, and continuous approaches. There will be several ways of approach to motivate the physicians to be settled in a rural community. They are, for examples, to expos the students to the community health service programs during training, to be run community health service programs by every health or medical schools and other main medical facilities, communication activities and advertisement, desire of community peoples to invite a physician, scholarship program, payment of satisfactory level, fulfilment of military obligation in case of a future draft, economic growth and development of rural communities, sufficiency of health and medical facilities, provision of proper medical care system, coercion, and so forth. And, hopefully, more useful reference data on the motivations may be available when a survey be conducted to the physicians who are presently engaging in the rural community levels. 4. In communities where the availability of a physician is difficult, a trial to use physician extenders, under certain conditions, may be considered. The reason is that it would be beneficial for the health of the residents to give them the remedies of primary medical care through the extenders rather than to leave their medical problems out of management. The followings are the conditions to be considered when the physician extenders are used: their positions will be prescribed as a temporary one instead of permanent one so as to allow easy replacement of the position with a physician applicant; the extender will be under periodic direction and supervision of a physician, and also referral channel will be provided: legal constraints will be placed upon the extenders primary care practice, and the physician extenders will used only under the public medical care system. 5. For the balanced health care delivery, a greater investment to the rural areas is needed to compensate weak points of a rurality. The characteristics of a rurality has been already mentioned. The objective of balanced service for rural communities to level up that of urban areas will be hard to achieve without greater efforts and supports. For example, rural communities need mobile powers more than urban areas, communication network is extremely necessary at health delivery facilities in rural areas as well as the need of urban areas, health and medical facilities in rural areas should be provided more substantially than those of urban areas to minimize, in a sense, the amount of patient consultation and request of laboratory specimens through referral system of which procedures are more troublesome in rural areas, and more intensive control measures against communicable diseases are needed in rural areas where greater numbers of cases are occurred under the poor sanitary conditions.

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Review of Sexual Dysfunction in Male Schizophrenics (남자 정신분열병 환자에서 성기능장애에 대한 검토)

  • Choi, Yeong Tae;Cheon, Jin Sook;Oh, Byoung Hoon
    • Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.85-98
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    • 2000
  • Objective : There are four possible explanations for the sexual dysfunction of schizophrenics. The first is the possibility of a real structural aspect. The second possibility is that sexual function changes secondary to the illness. The third possibility is that there are medical and sociocultural barriers to sexual expression for chronic schizophrenics. The fourth possibility is that sexual dysfunction due to antipsychotic medication. However, we didn't know the precise cause of sexual dysfunction in schizophrenics. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the mechanism of illness itself and antipsychotics on sexual dysfunction in male schizophrenics. Methods : The serum prolactin(PRL), testosterone(TST), and the plasma serotonin(5-HT) concentrations were measured by radioimmunoassay and high performance liquid chromatography method for 100 healthy male schizophrenics according to the DSM-IV. Concomitantly, the severity of psychotic symptoms using Clinical Global Impression(CGI), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale(BPRS), Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale(PANSS), and the severity of side effects for antipsychotics using Extrapyramidal Side Effects Scale(EPSE), Anticholinergic Side Effects Scale(ACSE), the cognitive function using PANSS-Cognitive Function(PANSS-CF), Mini Mental State Exam-Korean(MMSE-K), and the sexual dysfunction using Sexual Functioning Questionnaire(SFQ), Questionnaire for Sexual Dysfunction in Men were assessed. The PRL, TST, and 5-HT levels of 50 healthy male controls who had no medical, neurological, and psychiatric illnesses were evaluated. The sexual function using SFQ(items FGa, FNa) were also assessed. Furthermore, the correlation with age, education, religion, economic status, age at onset, duration of illnesses, duration of admission, levels of PRL, TST, 5-HT, antipsychotic dosages, potency, benztropine, total duration of medication, EPSE, ACSE, CGI, BPRS, PANSS, PANSS-CF, MMSE-K and sexual dysfunctions were identified in male schizophrenics. Results : 1) The frequencies of sexual dysfunctions for schizophrenics(80%) were significantly(p<0.001) higher than those for controls(42%). The sexual dysfunctions according to sexual response cycle were 'low sexual desire' 76%, 'impairment of achieving erection' 75%, 'impairment of maintaining erection' 75%, 'impairment of obtaining orgasm' 32%, 'impairment in the quality of orgasm' 61%, 'impairment in quantity of ejaculate' 44%, 'premature ejaculation' 15%, and 'delayed ejaculation' 50%. 2) The PRL, 5-HT levels of schizophrenics($28.5{\pm}20.6ng/ml$, $298.5{\pm}89.1ng/ml$) were significantly(p<0.001) higher than those of controls($10{\pm}5.6ng/ml$, $169.2{\pm}37.8ng/ml$), while the TST levels of schizophrenics($4.3{\pm}1.5ng/ml$) and controls($4.5{\pm}1.2ng/ml$) were not significantly different. The sexual dysfunctions of schizophrenics who had abnormal 5-HT levels($4.7{\pm}1.3$ scores) were significantly(p<0.05) higher than those of who had normal 5-HT levels($3.8{\pm}1.6$ scores) on item D7. 3) The sexual dysfunctions of unmarried schizophrenics were significantly(p<0.01 : p<0.05) higher than those of married schizophrenics($6.1{\pm}2.8$ scores, $4.7{\pm}1.3$ scores on item FGa : ${\beta}$=-0.211 on item FNa). The sexual dysfunctions were positively correlated with the rise of 5-HT levels(r=0.209, p<0.05 on item D4 and r=0.241, p<0.05 on item D7), the higher age at onset(r=0.275, p<0.01 on item FNa : r=-0.202, p<0.05 on item FDa), the longer duration of illnesses(r=0.237, p<0.05 on item D6), the longer duration of admission(r=0.234, p<0.05 on item D4 : r=0.328, p<0.05 on item D6), the longer total duration of medication(r=0.237, p<0.05 on item D6). However, age, education, religion, economic status, PRL, TST levels, antipsychotics dosage, potency, benztropine, ACSE, CGI, BPRS, PANSS, PANSS-CF, MMSE-K scores were not correlated with increased sexual dysfunctions. Conclusions : Male schizophrenics have significantly more sexual dysfunction to compare with controls. The higher frequencies of sexual dysfunctions were low sexual desire and erectile disorder. The unmarried, higher age at onset, and longer duration of diseases were positively correlated with increased sexual dysfunctions. Also high 5-HT levels were positively correlated with increased sexual dysfunctions. This means that studies of plasma 5-HT levels, albeit questionable indicators of central 5-HT function, offer some additional support for the association of sexual dysfunction with excess 5-HT activity as primary pathology of schizophrenia. Our findings suggest that excess 5-HT activity seems to affect the patient's sexual function.

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An Intervention Study on Integration of Family Planning and Maternal/Infant Care Services in Rural Korea (가족계획과 모자보건 통합을 위한 조산원의 투입효과 분석 -서산지역의 개입연구 평가보고-)

  • Bang, Sook;Han, Seung-Hyun;Lee, Chung-Ja;Ahn, Moon-Young;Lee, In-Sook;Kim, Eun-Shil;Kim, Chong-Ho
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.20 no.1 s.21
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    • pp.165-203
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    • 1987
  • This project was a service-cum-research effort with a quasi-experimental study design to examine the health benefits of an integrated Family Planning (FP)/Maternal & Child health (MCH) Service approach that provides crucial factors missing in the present on-going programs. The specific objectives were: 1) To test the effectiveness of trained nurse/midwives (MW) assigned as change agents in the Health Sub-Center (HSC) to bring about the changes in the eight FP/MCH indicators, namely; (i)FP/MCH contacts between field workers and their clients (ii) the use of effective FP methods, (iii) the inter-birth interval and/or open interval, (iv) prenatal care by medically qualified personnel, (v) medically supervised deliveries, (vi) the rate of induced abortion, (vii) maternal and infant morbidity, and (viii) preinatal & infant mortality. 2) To measure the integrative linkage (contacts) between MW & HSC workers and between HSC and clients. 3) To examine the organizational or administrative factors influencing integrative linkage between health workers. Study design; The above objectives called for quasi-experimental design setting up a study and control area with and without a midwife. An active intervention program (FP/MCH minimum 'package' program) was conducted for a 2 year period from June 1982-July 1984 in Seosan County and 'before and after' surveys were conducted to measure the change. Service input; This study was undertaken by the Soonchunhyang University in collaboration with WHO. After a baseline survery in 1981, trained nurses/midwives were introduced into two health sub-centers in a rural setting (Seosan county) for a 2 year period from 1982 to 1984. A major service input was the establishment of midwifery services in the existing health delivery system with emphasis on nurse/midwife's role as the link between health workers (nurse aids) and village health workers, and the referral of risk patients to the private physician (OBGY specialist). An evaluation survey was made in August 1984 to assess the effectiveness of this alternative integrated approach in the study areas in comparison with the control area which had normal government services. Method of evaluation; a. In this study, the primary objective was first to examine to what extent the FP/MCH package program brought about changes in the pre-determined eight indicators (outcome and impact measures) and the following relationship was first analyzed; b. Nevertheless, this project did not automatically accept the assumption that if two or more activities were integrated, the results would automatically be better than a non-integrated or categorical program. There is a need to assess the 'integration process' itself within the package program. The process of integration was measured in terms of interactive linkages, or the quantity & quality of contacts between workers & clients and among workers. Intergrative linkages were hypothesized to be influenced by organizational factors at the HSC clinic level including HSC goals, sltrurture, authority, leadership style, resources, and personal characteristics of HSC staff. The extent or degree of integration, as measured by the intensity of integrative linkages, was in turn presumed to influence programme performance. Thus as indicated diagrammatically below, organizational factors constituted the independent variables, integration as the intervening variable and programme performance with respect to family planning and health services as the dependent variable: Concerning organizational factors, however, due to the limited number of HSCs (2 in the study area and 3 in the control area), they were studied by participatory observation of an anthropologist who was independent of the project. In this observation, we examined whether the assumed integration process actually occurred or not. If not, what were the constraints in producing an effective integration process. Summary of Findings; A) Program effects and impact 1. Effects on FP use: During this 2 year action period, FP acceptance increased from 58% in 1981 to 78% in 1984 in both the study and control areas. This increase in both areas was mainly due to the new family planning campaign driven by the Government for the same study period. Therefore, there was no increment of FP acceptance rate due to additional input of MW to the on-going FP program. But in the study area, quality aspects of FP were somewhat improved, having a better continuation rate of IUDs & pills and more use of effective Contraceptive methods in comparison with the control area. 2. Effects of use of MCH services: Between the study and control areas, however, there was a significant difference in maternal and child health care. For example, the coverage of prenatal care was increased from 53% for 1981 birth cohort to 75% for 1984 birth cohort in the study area. In the control area, the same increased from 41% (1981) to 65% (1984). It is noteworthy that almost two thirds of the recent birth cohort received prenatal care even in the control area, indicating that there is a growing demand of MCH care as the size of family norm becomes smaller 3. There has been a substantive increase in delivery care by medical professions in the study area, with an annual increase rate of 10% due to midwives input in the study areas. The project had about two times greater effect on postnatal care (68% vs. 33%) at delivery care(45.2% vs. 26.1%). 4. The study area had better reproductive efficiency (wanted pregancies with FP practice & healthy live births survived by one year old) than the control area, especially among women under 30 (14.1% vs. 9.6%). The proportion of women who preferred the 1st trimester for their first prenatal care rose significantly in the study area as compared to the control area (24% vs 13%). B) Effects on Interactive Linkage 1. This project made a contribution in making several useful steps in the direction of service integration, namely; i) The health workers have become familiar with procedures on how to work together with each other (especially with a midwife) in carrying out their work in FP/MCH and, ii) The health workers have gotten a feeling of the usefulness of family health records (statistical integration) in identifying targets in their own work and their usefulness in caring for family health. 2. On the other hand, because of a lack of required organizational factors, complete linkage was not obtained as the project intended. i) In regards to the government health worker's activities in terms of home visiting there was not much difference between the study & control areas though the MW did more home visiting than Government health workers. ii) In assessing the service performance of MW & health workers, the midwives balanced their workload between 40% FP, 40% MCH & 20% other activities (mainly immunization). However, $85{\sim}90%$ of the services provided by the health workers were other than FP/MCH, mainly for immunizations such as the encephalitis campaign. In the control area, a similar pattern was observed. Over 75% of their service was other than FP/MCH. Therefore, the pattern shows the health workers are a long way from becoming multipurpose workers even though the government is pushing in this direction. 3. Villagers were much more likely to visit the health sub-center clinic in the study area than in the control area (58% vs.31%) and for more combined care (45% vs.23%). C) Organization factors (admistrative integrative issues) 1. When MW (new workers with higher qualification) were introduced to HSC, it was noted that there were conflicts between the existing HSC workers (Nurse aids with less qualification than MW) and the MW for the beginning period of the project. The cause of the conflict was studied by an anthropologist and it was pointed out that these functional integration problems stemmed from the structural inadequacies of the health subcenter organization as indicated below; i) There is still no general consensus about the objectives and goals of the project between the project staff and the existing health workers. ii) There is no formal linkage between the responsibility of each member's job in the health sub-center. iii) There is still little chance for midwives to play a catalytic role or to establish communicative networks between workers in order to link various knowledge and skills to provide better FP/MCH services in the health sub-center. 2. Based on the above findings the project recommended to the County Chief (who has power to control the administrative staff and the technical staff in his county) the following ; i) In order to solve the conflicts between the individual roles and functions in performing health care activities, there must be goals agreed upon by both. ii) The health sub·center must function as an autonomous organization to undertake the integration health project. In order to do that, it is necessary to support administrative considerations, and to establish a communication system for supervision and to control of the health sub-centers. iii) The administrative organization, tentatively, must be organized to bind the health worker's midwive's and director's jobs by an organic relationship in order to achieve the integrative system under the leadership of health sub-center director. After submitting this observation report, there has been better understanding from frequent meetings & communication between HW/MW in FP/MCH work as the program developed. Lessons learned from the Seosan Project (on issues of FP/MCH integration in Korea); 1) A majority or about 80% of the couples are now practicing FP. As indicated by the study, there is a growing demand from clients for the health system to provide more MCH services than FP in order to maintain the achieved small size of family through FP practice. It is fortunate to see that the government is now formulating a MCH policy for the year 2,000 and revising MCH laws and regulations to emphasize more MCH care for achieving a small size family through family planning practice. 2) Goal consensus in FP/MCH shouBd be made among the health workers It administrators, especially to emphasize the need of care of 'wanted' child. But there is a long way to go to realize the 'real' integration of FP into MCH in Korea, unless there is a structural integration FP/MCH because a categorical FP is still first priority to reduce the rate of population growth for economic reasons but not yet for health/welfare reasons in practice. 3) There should be more financial allocation: (i) a midwife should be made available to help to promote the MCH program and coordinate services, (in) there should be a health sub·center director who can provide leadership training for managing the integrated program. There is a need for 'organizational support', if the decision of integration is made to obtain benefit from both FP & MCH. In other words, costs should be paid equally to both FP/MCH. The integration slogan itself, without the commitment of paying such costs, is powerless to advocate it. 4) Need of management training for middle level health personnel is more acute as the Government has already constructed 90 MCH centers attached to the County Health Center but without adequate manpower, facilities, and guidelines for integrating the work of both FP and MCH. 5) The local government still considers these MCH centers only as delivery centers to take care only of those visiting maternity cases. The MCH center should be a center for the managment of all pregnancies occurring in the community and the promotion of FP with a systematic and effective linkage of resources available in the county such as i.e. Village Health Worker, Community Health Practitioner, Health Sub-center Physicians & Health workers, Doctors and Midwives in MCH center, OBGY Specialists in clinics & hospitals as practiced by the Seosan project at primary health care level.

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