• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.2293-2298
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• 2010

Focused electrospray (FES) deposition method is presented for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry. FES ion optics consists of two cylindrical focusing electrodes capped with a truncated conical electrode through which an electrospray emitter passes along the cylindrical axis. A spray of charged droplets is focused onto a sample well on a MALDI target plate under atmospheric pressure. The shape and size distributions of matrix crystals are visualized by scanning electron microscope and the mass spectra are obtained by time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Angiotensin II, bradykinin, and substance P are used as test samples, while $\alpha$-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamic acid and dihydroxybenzoic acid are employed as matrices. FES of a sample/matrix mixture produces fine crystal grains on a 1-3 mm spot and reproducibly yields the mass spectra with little shot-to-shot and spot-to-spot variations. Although FES greatly stabilizes the signals, the space charge due to matrix ions limits the detection sensitivity of peptides. To avoid the space charge problem, we adopted a dual FES/FES mode, which separately deposits matrix and sample by FES in sequence. The dual FES/FES mode reaches the detection sensitivity of 0.88 amol, enabling ultrasensitive of peptides by homogeneously depositing matrix and sample under atmospheric pressure.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.58 no.6
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• pp.607-613
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• 2005

Background : Early death is an important problem associated with the management of community-acquired pneumonia. However, there is little information on the risk factors associated with it. The aim of this study was to identify the factors associated with early death in community-acquired pneumonia patients. Methods : From January 1999 to July 2004, 1,487 adult patients with community-acquired pneumonia who were admitted to the pulmonary department via emergency center were examined. Early death was defined as those who died within 2 days of hospitalization. The clinical and laboratory aspects of the patients who died early (n = 30) were compared with those of an age and gender matched control population (n = 60). Results : In the early death group, respiratory rate, heart rate, and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) were significant higher (p < 0.05 for all), while the arterial pH, systolic pressure, and $PaO_2$ were significant lower (p < 0.05 for all) than the control. The independent factor significantly associated with early death was tachypnea (OR, 7.049). Conclusion : The importance of an early clinical assessment in emergency center with community-acquired pneumonia needs to be emphasized in order to recognize patients at risk of early death.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.4921-4927
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• 2016

Background: Cervical cancer is a major preventable cancers. The, current study aimed to assess relevant knowledge and attitude of female students and hospital staff in Iran. Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Medical and Nursing faculties and hospitals of East-Azerbaijan Province of Iran. Participants were medical and paramedical female students and female staff in hospitals selected by stratified random sampling techniques. Tools for data collection were questionnaires for which validity and reliability had been verified (${\alpha}=0.8$). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze data with SPSS.16. Result: Response rates were 71 % (426 from 600) and 63.5% (254 from 400) for students and staff, respectively. Some 29.1% admitted that they had no information about cervical cancer, only 70 (10.3%) thinking their knowledge as high, 360 (52.9%) as intermediate, and 237 (34.9%) as low. While 93% of participants considered cervical cancer as a severe health problem, the only statistically significant relationships with knowledge were for education (p<.001) and occupation (p<.001) variables. Conclusion: Given the importance of the roles of medical students and personnel as information sources and leaders in health and preventive behavior, increasing and improving their scientific understanding seems vital. Comprehensive and appropriate education of all people and especially students and personnel of medical sciences and improving attitudes towards cervical cancer and its monitoring are to be recommended.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.177-183
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• 1998

Low toxicity, reverse thermal gelation and high drug loading capabilities suggest that poloxamer 407 gels have great potential as a topical drug delivery system. Kojic acid (KA) is an antimelanogenic agent which has been widely used in cosmetics to whiten the skin color. However, it has the drawbacks of skin irritancy due to its acidic pH. Poloxamer gels of different polymer contents were formulated to overcome the problem and compared to the cream type formulations of either w/o/w multiple emulsion cream or o/w type emulsion cream. Using Franz diffusion cells mounted with a synthetic cellulose membrane (MWCO 12,000), drug release characteristics of the formulations were evaluated by the HPLC assay of KA concentration in the receptor compartment of pH 7.4 phosphate buffered saline solutions. Drug release from w/o/w multiple emulsion cream was controlled by oil membrane, showing the apparent zero order release kinetics. The KA release from the poloxamer gels was also controlled by the gel matrix, showing that drug release increased linearly as KA contents increase, but decreased exponentially as the polymer contents increase. In the skin irritancy test, the primary irritancy index(PII) of poloxamer gel base was lower than those of multiple emulsion cream base and o/w cream. Depending on KA contents or polymer contents in the gel. PH values in poloxamer gels were ranged from 1.3 to 2.0, which are interpreted as low or negligible irritation on skin. There was a good correlation between the log value of flux in drug release and PII value in skin irritation. It was possible to conclude that the poloxamer gels containing KA might be a good candidate for an antimelanogenic topical delivery system by virtue of the controlled release of the drug and the reduced skin irritancy.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.722-733
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• 2006

Statement of problem. The use of small diameter implants having less than 3 mm in diameter were restricted because of lack of bonding strength to bone. Purpose. The purpose of this study was to observe how much resorbable blast media pin implants increase the binding force to the bone compared to machined transitional pin implants by measuring removal torque, and whether they can be used as final implants for replacement of small diameter teeth. Material and method. Fifteen rabbits were used in this study. Two kinds of implants (resorbable blast media pin implants and machined transitional pin implants) were inserted in each tibia bicortically. After healing time of 2, 4 and 8 weeks, the removal torque values were recorded and the rabbits were sacrificed for histological analysis. Linear finite element method analyses were conducted to compare bicortical fixation with monocortical fixation. Result and conclusion. Within the limitation of this in vivo study, the following conclusions were drawn: 1) The removal torque value of RBM pin implants showed statistically significant increase compared to machined pin implants at 2, 4, and 8 weeks respectively (p<0.05). 2) The removal torque value of RBM pin implants at 2, 4, and 8 weeks was increased statistically significantly with time (p<0.05). 3) Bicortical fixation showed better stress distribution compared with monocortical fixation in a linear finite element method analysis. 4) RBM pin implants are not recommended as transitional implants because they showed a lot of bone fracture in histologic specimens.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.115-126
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• 2005

This Quantitative study was investigated to examine the relationship between self-esteem on body image and disordered eating patterns in some university students. This study used a cross-sectional study design. Total 347 students participated in this study (88 male and 259 female) among three universities. The assessment of eating disorder was conducted by Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), a score of >or=20 identified individuals likely have an eating disorder, including anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Ideal body weight and current body weight were completed with self-evaluation. A distorted body image was independently related to the eating problem in the Logistic regression analysis. There were stronger relationships between their EAT-26 scores and their expected weight changes and weight control behaviors. Compared with the men, women showed highly wishful to loss for current body weight. In the relationship between score of EAT-26 and BMI distance by sex, levels of eating disorder showed linearly elevated toward increased BMI distance (Ideal BMI-Current BMI) (F-value=18.794, p<0.0001) in women, but there were not significant in men (F-value=2.028, p>0.05). In estimate on state-trait anxiety inventory according to quartile of BMI distance by sex, levels of state-trait anxiety were not significant difference by degree of body dissatisfaction in all sex. In addition, higher distorted body image was significantly increased numbers of weight control method and experience of side effects in female, but there were not showed significant relation between two variables in male.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.30.1-30.9
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• 2022

Hereditary spastic paraplegia is a not common inherited neurological disorder with heterogeneous clinical expressions. ALDH18A1 (located on 10q24.1) gene-related spastic paraplegias (SPG9A and SPG9B) are rare metabolic disorders caused by dominant and recessive mutations that have been found recently. Autosomal recessive hereditary spastic paraplegia is a common and clinical type of familial spastic paraplegia linked to the SPG11 locus (locates on 15q21.1). There are different symptoms of spastic paraplegia, such as muscle atrophy, moderate mental retardation, short stature, balance problem, and lower limb weakness. Our first proband involves a 45 years old man and our second proband involves a 20 years old woman both are affected by spastic paraplegia disease. Genomic DNA was extracted from the peripheral blood of the patients, their parents, and their siblings using a filter-based methodology and quantified and used for molecular analysis and sequencing. Sequencing libraries were generated using Agilent SureSelect Human All ExonV7 kit, and the qualified libraries are fed into NovaSeq 6000 Illumina sequencers. Sanger sequencing was performed by an ABI prism 3730 sequencer. Here, for the first time, we report two cases, the first one which contains likely pathogenic NM_002860: c.475C>T: p.R159X mutation of the ALDH18A1 and the second one has likely pathogenic NM_001160227.2: c.5454dupA: p.Glu1819Argfs Ter11 mutation of the SPG11 gene and also was identified by the whole-exome sequencing and confirmed by Sanger sequencing. Our aim with this study was to confirm that these two novel variants are direct causes of spastic paraplegia.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.37-46
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• 2024

This study was designed to identify factors affecting polyclinic (clinical practice) during COVID-19. Fourth-year medical students at K Medical University in Daejeon, South Korea were recruited, and 64 medical students ultimately agreed to participate in a survey about polyclinics in a regional emergency center over 4 weeks. Satisfy answers for 5^th grade and 6^th grade was 15 (53.6%) and 13 (46.4%) respectively. Dissatisfy answers of observation of the ICU for 5^th grade and 6^th grade was 10 (27.8%) and 26 (72.2%) respectively. Thus, there were more satisfy answers in 5^th grade and less satisfy answers in 6^th grade(p<0.05). Based on the results of confirming significance for regression coefficient, several factors influencing the polyclinic were identified, and the following categories showed statistical significance (p<0.05): for 6^th grade, satisfy answers of the clinic hours showed 3.656 times more than dissatisfy answers, exempt from the operation room showed 21.596 times more than dissatisfy answers, observation of the intensive unit care (ICU) showed 0.054 times less than dissatisfy answers, and cares of the COVID-19 patients showed 6.962 times more than dissatisfy answers. We suggest that hybrid or virtual medical education such as the polyclinic utilizing standardized patients (SP) or augmented reality (AR) technologies at the virtual hospital or the real hospital. More medical students would be encouraged to participate the problem-based learning (PBL) or team-based learning (TBL) in so-called 'hybrid or virtual' polyclinic.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.314-322
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• 2014

Purpose: Diastolic dysfunction is a common problem in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The purpose of this study was to assess the role of MRI in the assessment of diastolic function using mitral valve and pulmonary vein flow velocities in HCM patients. Methods and Results: Phase-contrast MRI (mitral valve and pulmonary vein) and transthoracic echocardiography was successfully performed for 59 HCM patients (44 men and 15 women; mean age, 51 years). Forty-nine patients had a diastolic dysfunction; grade 1 (n = 20), grade 2 (n = 27), and grade 3 (n = 2) using echocardiography, and ten patients had normal diastolic function. The transmitral inflow parameters (E, A, and E/A ratios) obtained by MRI showed positive correlation with the same parameters measured by echocardiography (Pearson's r values were 0.47, 0.60, and 0.75 for E, A, E/A, respectively, all P < 0.001). With the flow information of the pulmonary vein from cardiac MRI, pseudo-normalized pattern (n = 8) could be distinguished from true normal filling pattern (n = 17), and the diastolic function grades by cardiac MRI showed moderate agreement with those of echocardiography (kappa value = 0.45, P < 0.001). Conclusions: Assessment of left ventricle diastolic function is feasible using phase-contrast MRI in HCM patients. Analysis of pulmonary vein flow velocity on MRI is useful for differentiating pseudo-normal from normal diastolic function in HCM patients.

• Asian Oncology Nursing
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.145-154
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• 2003

Purpose: The study was to furnish basic raw materials that evaluate the efficacy of meatal care according to the form and the relative importance of symptom distress which most of cancer sufferers have been experienced. For that, an investigation of five diverse major cancer symptom distress made a comparison between symptom distress and degree of suffering. Method: Study subjects were 138 inpatients with stomach cancer, lung cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC), large intestine cancer and breast cancer, except those in the terminal-stage, in 'H' university hospital in Seoul and 'K' center in Ilsan gathered from November 20, 2002 to February 20, 2003. To measure the correlation between feeling of discomfort and agony caused by cancer, 5 point scale (from zero to four), stood on the basis of Symptom Distress Scale (SDS, Rodes & Watson, 1987), was used for this study and the Cronbach's coefficient alpha was 0.95. Accumulated data was analyzed with SPSS 10.0 for window, also used by ANOVA and Duncan's Multiple Range Test. Pearson's Correlation Analysis. Results: 1. Symptom distress of cancer patients was noted and defined in their severity-fatigue, anorexia, pain, depression, dyspepsia, changing appearance and nausea. The degree of symptom distress was fatigue, dyspepsia, depression, anorexia, pain, changing appearance and the degree of suffering was nausea, pain, anorexia, dyspepsia, vomiting, breathing difficulty, changing appearance and fatigue. 2. Examining the difference of degree of symptom distress in each cancer cases, it takes the precedence of them. First, in case of stomach cancer, depression, pain, vomiting and nausea were shown in sequence. In case of lung cancer depression, pain, sleeping problem, anxiety, changing appearance, inattentiveness and vomiting were showed in sequence, depression, changing appearance, sleeping problem, pain in case of HCC, depression, pain in case of large intestine cancer and lastly in case of breast cancer changing appearance, depression, pain and anxiety were shown in sequence. The category of the degree of symptom distress that has a signifiant difference was anorexia, activity discomfort, fatigue, constipation or diarrhea, breathing difficulty, dyspepsia, caughing, fever or chillness, scotoma and urinary disorder. Verifying the highest degree of symptom distress in each cancer cases, anorexia was 1.94(F=4.00, p<.01) in stomach cancer, activity discomfort was 0.97(F=3.08, p<.01) in lung cancer and HCC, fatigue was 2.32(F=4.64, p<.01) in HCC, constipation or diarrhea was 1.83(F=22.31, p<.001) in large intestine cancer, breathing difficulty was 1.83(F=4.00, p<.01) in lung cancer, dyspepsia was 2.69(F=9.98, p<.001) in stomach cancer, coughing was 1.53(F=20.49, p<.001) in lung cancer, fever or chillness was 1.23(F=6.88, p<.001) in lung cancer, scotoma was 1.20(F=3.02, p<.05) in lung cancer and urinary disorder was 1.54(F=11.56, p<.001) in HCC. 3. Examining the difference degree of suffering on cancer cases, the result was as follows; depression of lung cancer was 1.17(F=3.76, p<.01), anorexia of stomach cancer was 1.61(F=3.89, p<.01), constipation or diarrhea of large intestine cancer was 1.42(F=10.43, p<.001), changing appearance of breast cancer was 1.65(F=5.43, p<.001), breathing difficulty of lung cancer was 2.27(F=18.57, p<.001), dyspepsia of stomach cancer was 1.97(F=13.56, p<.001), coughing of lung cancer was 1.70(F=22.07, p<.001), fever or chillness of lung cancer was 1.13(F=4.41, p<.01), scotoma of lung cancer was 0.87(F=3.34, p<.05), anxiety of lung cancer was 0.87(F=4.50, p<.001) and urinary disorder of HCC was 1.43(F=16.71, p<.001). 4. In consequence, comparing between symptom distress and degree of suffering on cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, lung cancer patients showed the highest feeling of discomfort following stomach cancer, HCC, breast cancer and large intestine cancer(F=2.88, p<.05). On those undergoing radiotherapy, lung cancer, HCC, breast cancer, large intestine cancer was in sequence(F=3.78, p<.05) and those resisting radiotherapy, lung cancer, HCC, stomach cancer, large intestine cancer and breast cancer was in sequence(F=2.72, p<.05). 5. Correlation between symptom distress and degree of suffering on cancer patients was generally significant. Conclusion: this study not only defines a significant correlation between symptom distress and degree of suffering but also proffers basic data to evaluate the efficient meatal care depending upon diverse spectrums of symptom distress and degree of suffering.