• Physical Therapy Korea
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.17-24
• /
• 2010

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of action observational physical training (AOPT) on manual dexterity and corticomotor facilitation in stroke patients. Ten hemiparetic patients participated in this study. Each subject was asked to participate the three conditions; base condition (Base), physical training (PT), AOPT. Participants were asked to observe the action in the video that a therapist moved the blocks during the AOPT conditions. Corticomotor facilitation was determined in three conditions by monitoring changes in the amplitude of motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) elicited in hand muscles by transcranial magnetic stimulation. MEP responses were measured from the first dorsal interosseous after participants attended to three conditions. For the manual dexterity, Box and Block test (BBT) was used. The results of present study were summarized as follows: MEPs amplitude significantly tended to be larger than PT and Base condition. The scores of BBT in the AOPT condition were also significantly larger than other conditions. In conclusion, this finding of present study indicates that physical training for observation of an action is beneficial for enhancing a dexterity of paretic arm in stroke patients.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.359-367
• /
• 1997

The Characteristics of atmospheric flow and dispersion of air pollutants in the mountainous coastal area were studied using three-dimensional model by the combination of land/sea breezes and transport. It was then applied to Pusan city. As the urban area considered In this study is located in a mountainous coastal area, the atmospheric flow is strongly affected by the land/sea breezes and mountain/valley winds. The typical effects of land/sea breezes on the dispersion and the characteristics of pollutants movement in the region were analysed. The model has been proved to be an useful tool to prodict real time air pollutants transport as shown by the results of application studies In Pusan, Korea which Is an urbanized coastal area with mountainous topography. It was found that the pollutants are differently transported and concentrated as going Inland by the Influence of the sea breeze with topographic changes. By comparing the pollutants concentrations of the stimulated results with those of the observational results, It is shown that stimulated results in this study are in qualitative agreement with observational ones.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.299-324
• /
• 2013

The current research focuses on the seismic vulnerability assessment of typical Southern Europe buildings, based on processing of a large set of observational damage data. The presented study constitutes a sequel of a previous research. The damage statistics have been enriched and a wider damage database (178578 buildings) is created compared to the one of the first presented paper (73468 buildings) with Damage Probability Matrices (DPMs) after the elaboration of the results from post-earthquake surveys carried out in the area struck by the 7-9-1999 near field Athens earthquake. The dataset comprises buildings which developed damage in several degree, type and extent. Two different parameters are estimated for the description of the seismic demand. After the classification of damaged buildings into structural types they are further categorized according to the level of damage and macroseismic intensity. The relative and the cumulative frequencies of the different damage states, for each structural type and each intensity level, are computed and presented, in terms of damage ratio. Damage Probability Matrices (DPMs) are obtained for typical structural types and they are compared to existing matrices derived from regions with similar building stock and soil conditions. A procedure is presented for the classification of those buildings which initially could not be discriminated into structural types due to restricted information and hence they had been disregarded. New proportional DPMs are developed and a correlation analysis is fulfilled with the existing vulnerability relations.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.14 no.8
• /
• pp.4733-4737
• /
• 2013

Purpose: Numerous observational epidemiological studies have evaluated associations between breastfeeding and the risk of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma; however, the existing results are inconsistent. We therefore conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods: Medical literature was searched in the Pubmed and Embase databases to identify all English-language relevant studies up to April 10, 2013. Reference lists were thereafter hand-searched for additional articles. Studies that reported relative risk ratios (RRs) or odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were included. This meta-analysis was conducted in accordance with the guidelines for the meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology. Results: We finally included 10 case-control studies in our meta-analysis, involving 1,618 childhood Hodgkin lymphoma cases and 8,181 controls. Overall, we did found a borderline significant association between breastfeeding and reduced risk of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma comparing ever breastfed children to never breastfed children (pooled OR =0.79; 95%CI, 0.58-1.08; P=0.13), with limited evidence for between-study heterogeneity (P =0.12, $I^2$ = 35.70%). Conclusion: There is limited evidence for an inverse association between breastfeeding and risk of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.13 no.10
• /
• pp.4927-4930
• /
• 2012

Background: Many observational studies have assessed the possible association between occupational cooking and uveal melanoma risk, but reported results are controversial. Our goal was to evaluate the association between occupational cooking and uveal melanoma risk by conducting a meta-analysis of observational studies. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science were searched through June 2012 to identify all eligible studies. The pooled odds ratio (OR) with its 95% confidence interval (95%CI) was used to evaluate this association. Either a fixed- or a random-effects model were used to calculate pooled ORs. Results: Five case-control studies involving a total of 1,199 cases and 6,927 controls were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, occupational cooking was associated with an increased risk of uveal melanoma (OR: 1.81, 95%CI 1.33-2.46, P < 0.001). Subgroup analysis by gender suggested occupational cooking was associated with increased risk of uveal melanoma in both men (OR: 2.16, 95%CI 1.06-4.40, P = 0.034) and women (OR: 1.92, 95%CI 1.19-3.10, P = 0.008). Conclusion: This meta-analysis suggests that occupational cooking is associated with an increased risk of uveal melanoma in both men and women.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.585-595
• /
• 2007

Representative impacts and effectiveness of surface meteorological observation data assimilation were examined in order to use wind resources estimation around southern coastal area of the Korean Peninsula. The data used in study are observational wind and temperature data at 5 and 41 sites of Regional Meteorological Offices and Automatical Weather Systems, respectively. Observation wind speed data tends to show small effective radius with limited area. Especially assimilation impacts of data observed at peninsula type sites like Yeosu play only around the inside of the peninsula. This limited effective radius for wind speed is caused by the strong correlation between topography and wind speed. And the efficient radius for surface air temperature is larger than that of wind. Data assimilation for observational air temperature is useful to increase the accuracy of wind energy estimation. However assimilation of wind data requires special care in its application due to high sensitivity of topographical complexity.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.27 no.3E
• /
• pp.69-76
• /
• 2008

Measurements of bubble size and distribution in the surface layer of the sea, wind speed, and variation of ocean environments were made continually over a four-day period in an experiment conducted in the South Sea of Korea during 17-20 September 2007. Theoretical background of bubble population model indicates that bubble population is a function of the depth, range and wind speed and bubble effects on sound speed shows that sound speed varies with frequency. Observational evidence exhibited that the middle size bubble population fit the model very well, however, smaller ones can not follow the model probably due to their short lifetime. Meanwhile, there is also a hysteresis effect of void fraction. Observational evidence also indicates that strong changes in sound speed are produced by the presence of swarms of micro bubbles especially from 7 kHz to 50 kHz, and calculation results are consistent with the measured data in the high frequency band, but inconsistent in the low frequency band. Based on the measurements of the sound speed and high frequency transmission configuration in the bubble layer, we present an estimation of underwater acoustic channel capacity in the bubble layer.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.187-201
• /
• 2006

During summer (JJA) of 2004, a record-high temperature in Korea appeared at Miryang ($38.5^{\circ}C$ on July 30). Moreover, Miryang showed the most frequent occurrence (25 days in JJA) of the daily highest temperature among observational sites in Korea. Based on meteorological analysis, it is found that this phenomenon is caused by neither the global warming effect nor the urban climate effect. It is caused by the mesoscale and synoptic and/or global scale atmospheric circulations, as evidenced by several factors described below. Firstly, the hottest areas have normally occurred not at a point but over an area, particularly along an axis connecting Sancheong and Daegu. But in 2004, this axis has moved southward and locates over Namhae-Miryang due to northerlies that were induced by the heating effect related to the low snow-cover on the Tibet Plateau. Secondly, although the maximum temperature was the highest among observational sites in Korea, the daily mean temperature and the number of nights with air temperature over $25^{\circ}C$ were not the highest at Miryang. Thirdly, the downdraft induced by the second circulation of typhoon and abnormal development of the North-Pacific High were found to have exerted an important role.

• Survey Research
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.169-186
• /
• 2009

The propensity score method is used to minimize the bias level in social survey, which comes from nonresponse. The theoretical concept and the background of the propensity score method is discussed first. The propensity score method was first applied in the epidemiology observational study. I have summarized the process of the three propensity score methods that were used to reduce estimation bias in this study. Matching by propensity score is applied to the relatively large control group. Subclassification has the advantage of using whole control group data and regression adjustment is applied to multiple covariates as well as propensity score of each unit is computable and usable. Lastly, the application procedures of propensity score method to reduce the nonresponse bias is suggested and its applicability to real situation is reviewed with the existing data.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.181-186
• /
• 2002

We study a role of the proto-accretion disk during the formation of the planetary system, which is motivated with recent X-ray observations. There is an observational correlation of the mass of extrasolar planets with their orbital period, which also shows the minimum orbital period. This is insufficiently accounted for by the selection effect alone. Besides, most of planetary formation theories predict the lower limit of semimajor axes of the planetary orbits around 0.01 AU. While the migration theory involving the accretion disk is the most favorable theory, it causes too fast migration and requires the braking mechanism to halt the planet~0.01 AU. The induced gap in the accretion disk due to the planet and/or the truncated disk are desperately required to stop the planet. We explore the planetary evaporation in the accretion disk as another possible scenario to explain the observational lack of massive close-in planets. We calculate the location where the planet is evaporated when the mass and the radius of the planet are given, and find that the evaporation location is approximately proportional to the mass of the planet as ${m_p}^{-1.3}$ and the radius of the planet as ${r_p}^{1.3}$. Therefore, we conclude that even the standard cool accretion disk becomes marginally hot to make the small planet evaporate at~0.01 AU. We discuss other auxiliary mechanisms which may provide the accretion disk with extra heats other than the viscous friction, which may consequently make a larger planet evaporate.