• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.28-37
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• 2015

Objectives: Among the Korean elderly (those 65 years of age and older), the suicide rate is 80.3/100 000 people, which is ten times higher than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average. Because South Korea is rapidly becoming an aging population, this high elderly suicidal rate will only get worse. Although the size of the elderly suicide problem is quite large, previous research in South Korea has surveyed restricted areas and not the entire country. Even though the factors that affect elderly suicide are complicated, there has been little research into these influencing factors. Thus, this research uses the national survey data (Community Health Survey) that was obtained in 2009. Additionally, we analyze factors affecting elderly suicidal ideation and attempts as well as the paths of these effects. Methods: Community Health Survey data obtained by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2009 was used for this study. We additionally examined the factors that affect suicide with chi-squared tests, t-tests, Pearson's correlation test, and path analysis. Results: Depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation are the only factors that directly affect suicidal attempts. Demographic, behavioral, and physical activity factors have indirect effects on suicidal attempts. Conclusions: Depression has the strongest influence on suicidal ideation and attempts. Demographic, behavioral, and physical activity factors affect suicidal attempts mostly through depressive symptoms. In addition, there is a path that suggests that demographic, behavioral, and physical activity factors affect suicidal attempts not through depression symptoms but only through suicidal ideation. This means that the elderly who do not have depression symptoms attempt suicide according to their own situations and characteristics.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Inherited Metabolic disease
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.155-159
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• 2015

Citrin deficiency (OMIN #605814) is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by the SLC25A13 gene mutation with abnormal biochemical findings, including increased serum ammonia, citrulline, arginine, galactose, serum threonine-to-serine ratio, serum pancreatic secretory trypsin inhibitor, and alpha-fetoprotein. Citrin deficiency can manifest in three ways: in newborns as neonatal intrahepatic cholestasis caused by citrin deficiency (NICCD), in older children as failure to thrive and dyslipidemia caused by citrin deficiency (FTTDCD), and in adults as citrullinemia type 2 (CTLN2) with recurrent hyperammonemia and neuropsychiatric symptoms. We report a 35-day-old asymptomatic patient with citrin deficiency who had abnormal biochemical findings.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.511-518
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• 2014

This study was conducted to investigate the degree of practice of dietary behavior and dining out in accordance with intake of sodium among male and female adults aged 20 years or older residing in the Seoul Metropolitan area or Chungcheong Province. A total of 530 copies of the questionnaire were distributed from May to July, 2014. The SH group who responded that they eat a lot of sodium constituted 30.6% (158 people), followed by the SM group who responded that their sodium intake is about average at 55.7% (288 people) and the SL group who answered that they do not eat much sodium at 13.7% (71 people). Those in the SL group showed positive results for dietary behavior patterns. The SL group showed the lowest rate in terms of how often they eat harmful foods, including processed foods, sweet foods, salty foods, or food with high animal fat content such as pork belly. Positive results among the SL group were prominent in terms of avoiding over-drinking, regular exercise, and nutritional knowledge, indicating greater health management. The distribution of each group in terms of self-perceived sodium intake showed significant differences across age, gender, and household income in terms of frequency of fast food intake, regularity of meals, purchase of foods with consideration of sodium amount, frequency of missed meals, balance of food intake, and health management habits.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.329-338
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• 2013

This study is conducted to compare the problems affecting dietary habits and health status between a long-term exercise group and non-exercise group of males older than 50 years. Most subjects of the two groups consider regular exercise to be the most important factor for maintaining health, and recognize hypertension as the number one concern. The most common nutritional supplement among subjects is multiple vitamins, and sleeping time range from 6~8 hours. Breakfast fasting rate was 15.9% among non-exercise group (NEG), where overeating and eating out rates were higher among exercise group (EG) when comparing to NEG. Fasting rates of breakfast, and consumption rates of milk and dairy products, vegetables such as kimchi, and fruits and fruit juices are higher among the EG. Overeating and eating out rates are lower among NEG, whereas eating rates of proteins like meat, fish, eggs, beans, fried foods, high-fat meats carbonated drinks, ice cream, and salt intakes are higher. Rates of health, dietary habits, and nutrient intakes are higher among EG. Energy intakes among the two groups were below the standard level, Vitamin $B_2$ intake is low in EG, and folic acid and calcium intakes were higher in NEG. The exercising group care more about health, eating habits and nutrient intakes, and low smoking rates are being observed. Thus, specific dietary improvement programs for adult men, are required, and it is necessary to consider the practice of nutrition education.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.304-317
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to research on attitudes toward legalization of death with dignity. The respondents are 561 adults aged 20 years old and over, living in Seoul and Kyunggi Province. Research questionnaire consist of 28 questions concerning general background, personal experiences of death, attitudes toward death, pros and cons on death with dignity and legalization. Statistical analyses employ frequency, mean, cross tab, and t-test. 87.3% of respondents agree the legalization of death with dignity. The persons who are older, self-employed, and production employees, get married, live with spouse, believe buddhism, experience care for the death, believe life after death, recognize the necessity of testament agree more on death with dignity. The first requisite for legalization of death with dignity is the standard of judgement concerning self decision on death with dignity. The decision makers are prioritized by self, family member in order. The necessary services for decisions on death with dignity are the mediation role between medical team and family, medical information about illness prognosis and prolongation, psychological counselling on depression.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.9 no.10
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• pp.309-316
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• 2020

We predict the mortality of the elderly patients visiting the emergency department who are over 65 years old using Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN) and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) respectively. Medical data consist of 99 features including basic information such as sex, age, temperature, and heart rate as well as past history, various blood tests and culture tests, and etc. Among these, we used random forest to select features by measuring the importance of features in the prediction of mortality. As a result, using the top 80 features with high importance is best in the mortality prediction. The performance of the FFNN and CNN is compared by using the selected features for training each neural network. To train CNN with images, we convert medical data to fixed size images. We acquire better results with CNN than with FFNN. With CNN for mortality prediction, F1 score and the AUC for test data are 56.9 and 92.1 respectively.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.197-222
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• 2006

This study distinguishes the aging population as young-old and old-old women. It examines the difference of each variable between young-old and old-old women. Also, it examines the effect of physical, psychological, social, economic and environmental factors on the quality of life for older adults in both groups and compares the effects on the quality of life between both groups. The sample of this study is collected from Daegu and Kyungbuk province and the sample size of this study is 310. As statistical method, t-test, $X^2$ and hierarchical multiple regressions are used. As demographic factors, age, marital status, income and education are controlled. The research results show that marriage, perceived health, self-esteem and social support are important factors of affecting on the quality of life for both groups. However, for young-old group, the perceived economic hardship and the receipt of social welfare affect negatively and social participation affects positively on the quality of life. On the other hand, for old-old group, informative social role affects positively and social participation affects on the quality of life negatively.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.193-196
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• 2007

From April 9th to May 4th 2007, making a random selection of three private dental clinics in Busan, this study investigated the fear for dental treatment for 178 adults over twenty. Using four items of General Characteristics and DFS of twenty items, the degree of fear for dental treatment was evaluated by self administrated questionnaire. The obtained results were as follows. 1. Reliability analysis of each factor in details was 0.662~0.921 in Cronbach' alpha Coefficients. For Cronbach' alpha Coefficients was over 0.6. Dental Fear Survey Scale was reliable. 2. Dental stimulus response scale of three factors appeared more fear than two factors of the rest. The fear for dental treatment was higher in wemen, older ages, high education level and high income. 3. Factor of dental stimulus response scale, avoidance of dentistry and physiologic response scale accounted for 66.1%($R^2=66.1$)of the variation in dental fear factor as a result from stepwise regression analysis.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.275-280
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• 2018

As the global population becomes aging, the demand for health services for the elderly is expected to increase. In particular, The elderly visiting the emergency department sometimes have complex medical, social, and physical problems, such as having a variety of illnesses or complaints of unusual symptoms. The proposed system is designed to predict the mortality of the elderly patients who are over 65 years old and have admitted the emergency department. For mortality prediction, we compare the support vector machines and Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN) trained with medical data such as age, sex, blood pressure, body temperature, etc. The results of the FFNN with a hidden layer are best in the mortality prediction, and F1 score and the AUC is 52.0%, 88.6% respectively. If we improve the performance of the proposed system by extracting better medical features, we will be able to provide better medical services through an effective and quick allocation of medical resources for the elderly patients visiting the emergency department.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.178-185
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• 2014

Purpose: Blood culture is the most important tool for detecting bacteremia in children with fever. However, blood culture contamination rates range from 0.6% to 6.0% in adults; rates for young children have been considered higher than these, although data are limited, especially in Korea. This study determined the contamination rate and risk factors in pediatric patients visiting the emergency room (ER) or being admitted to the ward. Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of blood cultures obtained from children who visited Yonsei Severance Hospital, Korea between 2006 and 2010. Positive blood cultures were labeled as true bacteremia or contamination according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Healthcare Safety Network definitions for laboratory-confirmed bloodstream infection, after exclusion of cultures drawn from preexisting central lines only. Results: Among 40,542 blood cultures, 610 were positive, of which 479 were contaminations and 131 were true bacteremia (overall contamination rate, 1.18%). The contamination rate in the ER was significantly higher than in the ward (1.32% vs. 0.66%, P<0.001). The rate was higher in younger children (2.07%, 0.94%, and 0.61% in children aged <1 year, 1-6 years, and >6 years, respectively). Conclusion: Overall, contamination rates were higher in younger children than in older children, given the difficulty of performing blood sampling in younger children. The contamination rates from the ER were higher than those from the ward, not accounted for only by overcrowding and lack of experience among personnel collecting samples. Further study to investigate other factors affecting contamination should be required.