• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.14
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• pp.5921-5926
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• 2014

A large proportion of patients with thyroid nodules in China undergo thyroidectomy in order to get confirmatory histology diagnosis. The financial impact of this modality remains to be investigated. To evaluate rationality of performing thyroidectomy without a routine FNA preoperatively from the economic perspective, we conducted a retrospective, observational study of all archival thyroidectomies with records of cost per stay (CPS), cost per day (CPD) and length of stay (LOS) from 2008 to 2013 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. We compared all the parameters between cancer and non-cancer thyroidectomies. We recruited 6, 140 thyroidectomies with valid records of CPS, CPD and LOS in this period. The CPS of cancer thyroidectomy was significantly higher than non-cancer thyroidectomy. The percentage of cancer thyroidectomy increased from 26.5% to 41.6%. The percentage of annual cost of cancer thyroidectomies rose from 30.2% to 45.2%. The LOS for cancer and non-cancer thyroidectomy decreased while the CPD increased in the past six years. The estimated national cost in 2012 for all thyroidectomies would be USD 1.86 billion with USD 1.09 billion for non-cancer thyroidectomies. We have witnessed great improvement in the healthcare for patients with thyroid nodules in China. However, given limited healthcare resources, currently thyroid FNA for more precise preoperative diagnosis may help to curb the rapidly increasing demand in healthcare costs in the future for nodular thyroid disease in China.

• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was designed for identification of the main clinicopathological features of cysts in the oral and maxillofacial regions. Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted on 164 patients who had been diagnosed with cyst of the jaw, from the database of 168 histopathological diagnoses at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of Busan Paik Hospital at Inje University, from January 2009 to December 2011. The subjects were treated and the following variables were recorded: gender, age, clinical signs and symptoms, histopathological distribution, treatment methods, and complications. A descriptive analysis of the study variables was performed using a chi-square test. Results: Among the 164 patients, there were more male than female patients (male-female ratio: 1.7:1). The most predominant ages were the 20s and 40s. Among the classes of pathological cysts, radicular cysts and dentigerous cysts were the most common, with incidences of 56.0% and 35.1%. Thirty-six percent of the patients had no symptoms; and of those who had symptoms, the main signs and symptoms were swelling (24.4%) and pain (17.1%). The most frequent management method was the combination operation, such as enucleation with or without extraction and apicoectomy of the causative teeth. Of the 164 patients, 13 had complications; and one patient who had been treated with enucleation with apicoectomy had a recurrent cyst. Conclusion: Using a chi-square test, no significant differences in prevalence were observed in relation to gender according to age. Comparative analysis of radicular and dentigerous cysts showed a significant difference in their prevalence according to their anatomical location, however, no significant differences in were observed in their incidence rates according to age.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.355-364
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• 2011

Introduction: This study evaluated nerve recovery through retrospective study of patients with lingual nerve damage. Patients and Methods: The patients who visited Seoul National University Dental Hospital for an injury to the lingual nerve from April 1988 to August 2009 were enrolled in this study (n=41). The relevance of various factors including the causes of damage, age, etc. was analyzed by the subjective improvement based upon questionnaires and the clinical records. The evaluation variants were a subjective assessment and neurosensory examination composed of the direction, contact threshold, two-point discrimination, pin prick, thermal discrimination and current perception threshold. Results: The causes of lingual nerve damage were an extraction of the lower third molar (75.6%), local anesthesia (9.7%), incision and drainage (4.88%), trauma (2.44%). The evaluation of subjective prognosis exhibited no difference in sensory improvement depending on the cause, age and gender. Based upon the subjective evaluation, 44.7% of patients showed sensory improvement. The first hospital visit from injury was shorter in the group showing subjective improvement (3.41 months) than those showing no improvement (5.24 months) (P=0.301). Thirty six out of 41 patients were treated with only conservative therapy and 5 patients were treated by surgical intervention. Neurosensory examinations revealed improvement, although not statistically significant, and the degree was higher in the subjectively improved group. The contact threshold discrimination showed the highest correlation with subjective improvement (P=0.069). Most of the sensory recovery was gained within 12 months and the degree of improvement at the tip of the tongue was higher than that of the dorsum (P<0.001). Conclusion: The damaged lingual nerve improved at a rate of 44.7% and mostly within 12 months after the incident. There was no difference between the subjective prognosis and neurosensory examination depending on the cause of damage, age and gender, whereas the contact threshold discrimination was the best variant that reflected the subjective prognosis statistically.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.491-495
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of IT gifted middle school students. The researcher analyzed the observational assessments of 16 gifted noddle school students through 19 education programs conducted from During the latest 3 years at the Science Gifted Children Education Center. The researcher hypothesized that IT gifted children would be outstanding in computer skills and information processing abilities. But they were not much different from gifted children in the other areas. Therefore there are two suggestions resulted from the study. First, it might not be meaningful to sub-categorize the subjects because of their developmental stages. The tenth grade students observed in this study were in their formal operational period by Piaget. Therefore, it would be desirable to teach them integrated areas rather than separated areas. Second, gifted children could be excellent in most areas. Due to their curiosity, task tenacity, and intellectual abilities, they could show excellence in any areas. Therefore, it is important to elaborate the educational programs so that the gifted children can develop their abilities in each areas.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.191-204
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• 2013

In this paper, we investigated the correlation outputs of Daejeon correlator at the viewpoints of the buffer memory setting related to the fine delay tracking and the under/overflow issue in FFT modules, in order to eliminate DC-like component and phase concentration to 0 degree. As the ring buffer memory is being used for the fine delay tracking, the DC-like component in correlation outputs is generated by improper setting of data read/write address, and then that address setting method is modified to exclude a polluted FFT segment in correlation processing when crossing the port/stream boundary. The phase concentration to 0 degree at beginning of bandpass is caused by inadequate scaling factors, which may be the origins of under/overflow occurred at internal computation of FFT stage. With the revised method of the ring buffer memory setting and the scaling factors in FFT, we could obtain higher signal-to-noise ratio and flux density, compared to the previous method, through the correlation processing of true observational data.

• The Journal of Churna Manual Medicine for Spine and Nerves
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 2016

Objectives : This study was designed to assess the general distribution, clinical effectiveness of Korean medical treatment on knee pain and the correlation between Korean medical therapy on knee pain and BMI. Methods : This is an observational study. 65 patients admitted to Daejeon Jaseng Hospital of Korean Medicine with musculoskeletal disorders were observed from July, 2014 to July, 2015. They were analyzed according to sex, age, pain lesion, body mass index(BMI) and treatment efficacy. All patients received a combination of treatments during hospitalization, including acupuncture, pharmacopuncture, herbal medicines and physical therapy. A zero to ten numerating rating scale (NRS) assessing pain, Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index(WOMAC) index and Range of Motion(ROM) was used before and after treatments. Statistical correlations among assessment measurements were evaluated by examining the paired t-test and the Pearson's correlation coefficients. Results : The average BMI of all patients was $24.03{\pm}2.95kg/m^2$. According to clinical definition of obesity by Korean Society for the Study of Obesity, 33.8% of all patients was within normal weight, 1.5% was underweight, 33.8% was overweight, 24.6% was obesity and 6.2% was morbid obesity. For knee pain patients, NRS (Numeric Rating Scale) decreased from $6.28{\pm}1.63$ to $3.94{\pm}2.03$(p<0.001). WOMAC index decreased from $48.14{\pm}17.63$ to $40.37{\pm}18.28$(p<0.001). But, there were no significant correlations in statistics among BMI, knee pain index and knee pain index improvement. Conclusions : Korean medical combination treatment might be effective in reducing pain and improving functional disorders for patients with knee pain. This study further confirmed the efficacy of Korean medical treatment on knee pain. But, more studies on correlation between knee pain and obesity and development of assessment measurement are needed.

• The Korean Journal of Elementary Counseling
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.111-133
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was closely to explore the guidance experiences of senior elementary teachers who have had over 30 years of teaching experiences in elementary school based on interpretive(or hermeneutic) inquiry. The entry research question was 'What are the guidance experiences of senior elementary teachers like?' Seven senior elementary teachers working for O elementary School in G city participated in this study voluntarily. Each participant was interviewed twice in a consecutive manner. 14 periods of interview were completed all together and each period took about 40-60 minutes. In conclusion, this study conceptualized the guidance experiences of the senior elementary teachers(participants) as follows: First, the concepts of guidance held by the participants were conceptualized as 1) supporting and caring activity helping students to lead joyful school life, 2) assisting activity helping students to grow on good basic life habits, 3) character building activity helping students to lead integrative growth. Second, the fields and contents of guidance held by the participants were conceptualized as basic life habits, manners, and health & safety. Interestingly, these concepts were evolved in connection with their personal, practical teaching experiences rather than in-service teacher education. Third, the guidance methods frequently used by the participants were co-work with parents, exemplary storytelling, counselling, and praise. The participants applied these methods differently according to the grade, individual difference, and school curriculum policy to some degree. Fourth, the participants have experienced a lot of struggles with students, teachers, and parents in doing their guidance practices throughout the whole teaching career. Their guidance experiences commonly shifted from more teacher-centered or authoritative to more student-centered or relational way as their teaching years accumulated. Interestingly, all the participants more or less lived as lifelong learners to create their own right space as senior teachers in today's competitive and challenging landscape. This study strongly suggests that responsible teacher education can playa great role of enabling senior teachers to cope with guidance issues successfully. Compared with the speedy social change, the teacher education in Korea had been so authoritative, provider-based, subject-based until recently and it have not met the needs and wants of the elementary teachers in field. This trend has significantly hindered them from catching up with the needs of the speedy social change in terms of contemporary guidance issues. This study is limited in that the data is solely collected based on interview. So, an observational research is strongly suggested in order to uncover the situated understanding of the guidance experiences of elementary senior teachers.

• Archives of design research
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• v.19 no.4 s.66
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• pp.71-80
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• 2006

Collaboration has become essential in the product design process due to internationalized and specialized business environments. This study presents a real-time collaborative 3D design workspace for distributed designers, focusing on the development and the evaluation of new interaction techniques supporting nonverbal communication such as awareness of participants, shared manipulation and tele-presence. Requirements were identified in terms of shared objects, shared workspaces and awareness through literature reviews and an observational study. An Augmented Reality based collaborative design workspace was developed, in which two main interaction techniques, Turn-table and Virtual Shadow, were incorporated to support shared manipulation and tele-presence. Turn-table provides intuitive shared manipulation of 3D models and physical cues for awareness of remote participants. Virtual shadow supports natural and continuous awareness of location, gestures and pointing of partners. A lab-based evaluation was conducted and the results showed that interaction techniques effectively supported awareness of general pointing and facilitated discussion in 3D model reviews. The workspace and the interaction techniques can facilitate more natural communication and increase the efficiency of collaboration on virtual 3D models between distributed participants (designer-designer, engineer, or modeler) in collaborative design environments.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2003

In case that we independently obtain orbital informations about the low earth satellites of foreign countries using radar systems, we develop the orbit determination algorithm for this purpose using a SGP4 model with an analytical orbit model and the extended Kalman filter with a real-time processing method. When the state vector is Keplerian orbital elements, singularity problems happen to compute partial derivative with respect to inclination and eccentricity orbit elements. To cope with this problem, we set state vector osculating to mean equinox and true equator cartesian elements with coordinate transformation. The state transition matrix and the covariance matrix are numerically computed using a SGP4 model. Observational measurements are the type of azimuth, elevation and range, filter process to each measurement in a lump. After analyzing performance of the developed orbit determination algorithm using TOPEX/POSEIDON POE(precision 0.bit Ephemeris), its position error has about 1 km. To be similar to performance of NORAD system that has up to 3km position accuracy during 7 days need to radar system performance that have accuracy within 0.1 degree for azimuth and elevation and 50m for range.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.117-129
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• 2012

Road safety audit is the preventive enhancement strategy for safety. : it gets rid of beforehand the potential factor of a traffic accident in the stage of road planning and design and it evaluates the appropriation for road geometric structure or safety facility to prevent traffic accident in the stage of operation after the construction. Since this strategy is introduced to our country in the early 2000s, various projects have been processed and it was legislated recently. And now, the evaluation of past project for its continuation is needed. Therefore, in this study the evaluation of road safety audit on existing freeway is performed. The spatial extent of this study is Yong-dong line on which the safety treatment was executed in 2005 and 2006. And, the temporal range of this study is each 2-year of before and after from 2005 and 2006. The empirical bayes method of observational evaluation studies is applied to analyze. As a result, there is an effect of improvement on most of treated sections. But there is ineffective or negligible on some sections. Compared with the detail of treatment on each section, the effect of multiple or various treatments is good for that section. On the other hand, the section on which effect doesn't appear is the result of single or unimportant treatments. Throughout these results, the concrete analysis can be performed and the countermeasures designed for the section on which effect doesn't appear. Also it is used as reference to the future plan and direction of road safety audit on existing freeway.