• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.21-28
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• 2021

This study examines factors affecting correction officer's preference toward institute for forensic psychiatric. The data were collected from the correction officers who worked at the six correctional facilities in 2019. Binary logistic regression was used to find the factors on the officer's preference. The result showed that the correction officers had their own preference toward prison for forensic psychiatric, and the preference was positively related to the age of the officer, work experience at the mental health center, mentally-ill prisoner's fighting as the rule-violation in prison, refusal of medical treatment, and lack of laws and regulations for the mentally-ill prisoners. In contrast, there was a negative relationship between the officer's rank and the preference for forensic psychiatric. More work needs to be done in the future research to collect more samples and include a broader ranger of variables than now.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.173-185
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• 2019

Causal questions are prevalent in scientific research, for example, how effective a treatment was for preventing an infectious disease, how much a policy increased utility, or which advertisement would give the highest click rate for a given customer. Causal inference theory in statistics interprets those questions as inferring the effect of a given intervention (treatment or policy) in the data generating process. Causal inference has been used in medicine, public health, and economics; in addition, it has received recent attention as a tool for data-driven decision making processes. Many recent datasets are observational, rather than experimental, which makes the causal inference theory more complex. This review introduces key concepts and recent trends of statistical causal inference in observational studies. We first introduce the Neyman-Rubin's potential outcome framework to formularize from causal questions to average treatment effects as well as discuss popular methods to estimate treatment effects such as propensity score approaches and regression approaches. For recent trends, we briefly discuss (1) conditional (heterogeneous) treatment effects and machine learning-based approaches, (2) curse of dimensionality on the estimation of treatment effect and its remedies, and (3) Pearl's structural causal model to deal with more complex causal relationships and its connection to the Neyman-Rubin's potential outcome model.

• Yonsei Medical Journal
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• v.59 no.9
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• pp.1072-1078
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• 2018

Purpose: The Korean society has moved rapidly toward becoming a multicultural society. This study aimed to estimate the seroprevalence of hepatitis viruses and investigate hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotypic diversity in female marriage immigrants. Materials and Methods: Screening program was conducted at support centers for multicultural families in 21 administrative districts in Korea between July 2011 and January 2017. A total of 963 female marriage immigrants were included in this study. Blood samples were tested for hepatitis viral markers and HBV genotype. Results: Subjects' median age was 33 years (20-40 years), and they originated from nine countries including Vietnam (n=422, 43.8%), China (n=311, 32.3%), the Philippines (n=85, 8.8%), Cambodia (n=58, 6.0%), and Japan (n=39, 4.0%). About 30% (n=288) of subjects required hepatitis A vaccination. HBsAg positive rate was 5.4% (n=52). Positive HBsAg results were the highest in subjects from Southeast Asia (6.6%, n=38). Anti-HBs positive rate was 60.4% (n=582). About 34% (n=329) of subjects who were negative for anti-HBs and HBsAg required HBV vaccinations. Genotypes B and C were found in 54.6% (n=12) and 45.4% (n=10) of the 22 subjects with HBV, in whom genotypes were tested. Eight (0.8%) subjects were positive for anti-HCV. Positive anti-HCV results were the highest in subjects from Central Asia (7.9%, n=3). Conclusion: Testing for hepatitis viral marker (hepatitis A virus IgG and HBsAg/anti-HBs) is needed for female marriage immigrants. Especially, HBV genotype B is different from genotype C of Koreans. Therefore, interest and attention to vaccination programs for female marriage immigrants are necessary for both clinicians and public health institutes.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.95-104
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• 2020

In this paper, we propose the real time indoor air quality monitoring and controlling platform on cloud using IoT sensor data such as PM10, PM2.5, CO2, VOCs, temperature, and humidity which has direct or indirect impact to indoor air quality. The system is connected to air ventilator to manage and optimize the indoor air quality. The proposed system has three main parts; First, IoT data collection service to measure, and collect indoor air quality in real time from IoT sensor network, Second, Big data processing pipeline to process and store the collected data on cloud platform and Finally, Big data analysis and visualization service to give real time insight of indoor air quality on mobile and web application. For the implication of the proposed system, IoT sensor kits are installed on three different public day care center where the indoor pollution can cause serious impact to the health and education of growing kids. Analyzed results are visualized on mobile and web application. The impact of ventilation system to indoor air quality is tested statistically and the result shows the proper optimization of indoor air quality.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.547-557
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• 2020

This study examined the level of depression according to the characteristics of school and family life of female high school students. In particular, this study attempted to identify the relationship between academic stress and the depression levels. The survey conducted a self-administered questionnaire from 438 students at D city in August, 2019. As a result, the distribution of the depression levels among the study subjects was 78.8 % for 「normal」 and 21.2 % for 「depression」, and the distribution of depression was significantly higher in groups with higher academic stress. The academic stress and depression levels showed significant positive correlations. In logistic regression analysis, the risk ratio of 「depression」was significantly higher in groups with higher academic stress than in groups with lower academic stress. According to multiple regression analysis, the factors affecting the level of depression were chosen as significant variables, such as academic achievement, relationship with school fellow, satisfaction with school life, test stress, study stress, and career stress. The above findings suggest that the level of depression in female high school students was related to academic stress and many other variables of school and family life characteristics.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.81-93
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• 2021

Objectives The objective of the study was to investigate effects of ChondroT by improvement of blood metabolites in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced hyperlipidemia rat model. Methods Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to intact, control, simvastatin, and CT100, CT200 and CT400 (each n=6). For observing cholesterol change, animals were first fed high fat diet for 5 weeks and then high fat diet and drugs for 3 weeks. At the end of the experiment, total cholesterol, triglyceride, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) were analyzed by obtained blood collection. Further, amplified leptin, peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) and adiponectin DNA were observed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis. Results Observing the effect of ChondroT on the change of lipid metabolism in hyperlipidemia-induced rats, triglyceride and total cholesterol were significantly decreased in SV100 group, HDL-C was significantly increased in SV100, CT100 and CT200 groups, and LDL-C was significantly decreased in SV100, CT100, CT200 and CT400 groups, compared to the control group. Leptin level in hyperlipidemia-induced rats was significantly decreased in CT100 and CT200 groups, compared to the control group. The effect of ChondroT on adiponectin level in hyperlipidemia-induced rats was significantly increased in SV100, CT100 and CT200 groups. PPAR level in hyperlipidemia-induced rats was significantly decreased in SV100, CT200 and CT400 groups. Platelete activating factor level in hyperlipidemia-induced rats was significantly decreased in CT100 and CT200 groups. Conclusions Based on these results, it could be suggested that ChondroT has certain effects of improving blood metabolites in HFD-induced hyperlipidemia.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.210-216
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• 2021

Background: Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is the most common complication of acute herpes zoster. The treatment of PHN remains a challenge for clinical pain management. Despite the effectiveness of anticonvulsants, antidepressants, and lidocaine patches in reducing PHN, many patients still face intractable pain disorders. In this randomized controlled study, we evaluated whether hydromorphone through intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (IV PCA) was effective in relieving PHN. Methods: Patients with PHN were randomly divided into two groups, one group received oral pregabalin with IV normal saline, another group received oral pregabalin with additional IV PCA hydromorphone for two weeks. Efficacy was evaluated at 1, 4, and 12 weeks after the end of the treatments. Results: Two hundred and one patients were followed up for 12 weeks. After treatment, numerical rating scale (NRS) score of patients in the hydromorphone group was significantly lower than that of the control group, and the difference of NRS scores between the two groups was statistically significant at 4 and 12 weeks after treatment. The frequency of breakthrough pain in the hydromorphone group was significantly lower than that in the control group 1 and 4 weeks after treatment. After treatment, the quality of sleep in the hydromorphone group was significantly improved compared with the control group. The most common adverse reactions in the hydromorphone group were dizziness and nausea, with no significant respiratory depression. Conclusions: IV PCA hydromorphone combined with oral pregabalin provides superior pain relief in patients with PHN, which is worthy of clinical application and promotion.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.443-452
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• 2021

College students face serious difficulties while seeking jobs, leading to a high degree of stress, which is thought to affect their attitude towards smoking. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between hardiness, job-seeking stress, and the attitude towards smoking among students, and to further identify the factors influencing smoking attitude. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire administered to 145 students. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS program, t-test, ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis test, Pearson's Correlation Coefficients, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Smokers constituted 22.1% of the sample. The study showed that smoking attitudes varied according to the smoking status (H=28.26, p<.001). The smoking attitude was seen to be desirable in the high group (t=-3.27, p=.001) and low job-seeking stress group (t=4.40, p<.001). There was a positive correlation between hardiness and smoking attitude (r=.18, p=.028). There was a negative correlation between job-seeking stress and smoking attitude (r=-.28, p=.001). Also, the factors affecting the smoking attitude were non-smoker respondent (β=.50, p<.001), job-seeking stress (β=-.23, p=.015), former smoker respondent (β=.22, p=.016) and the explanatory power was 24.3%. Therefore, school and health public center counseling and employment support programs need to help students manage and cope with stressful situations to change their attitude towards smoking in a desirable direction.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.97-107
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• 2023

Aristolochic acid (AA), extracted from Aristolochiaceae plants, plays an essential role in traditional herbal medicines and is used for different diseases. However, AA has been found to be nephrotoxic and is known to cause aristolochic acid nephropathy (AAN). AA-induced acute kidney injury (AKI) is a syndrome in AAN with a high morbidity that manifests mitochondrial damage as a key part of its pathological progression. Melatonin primarily serves as a mitochondria-targeted antioxidant. However, its mitochondrial protective role in AA-induced AKI is barely reported. In this study, mice were administrated 2.5 mg/kg AA to induce AKI. Melatonin reduced the increase in Upro and Scr and attenuated the necrosis and atrophy of renal proximal tubules in mice exposed to AA. Melatonin suppressed ROS generation, MDA levels and iNOS expression and increased SOD activities in vivo and in vitro. Intriguingly, the in vivo study revealed that melatonin decreased mitochondrial fragmentation in renal proximal tubular cells and increased ATP levels in kidney tissues in response to AA. In vitro, melatonin restored the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) in NRK-52E and HK-2 cells and led to an elevation in ATP levels. Confocal immunofluorescence data showed that puncta containing Mito-tracker and GFP-LC3A/B were reduced, thereby impeding the mitophagy of tubular epithelial cells. Furthermore, melatonin decreased LC3A/B-II expression and increased p62 expression. The apoptosis of tubular epithelial cells induced by AA was decreased. Therefore, our findings revealed that melatonin could prevent AA-induced AKI by attenuating mitochondrial damage, which may provide a potential therapeutic method for renal AA toxicity.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.44.1-44.17
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• 2023

Background: Antibiotic resistance is a significant public health concern around the globe. Antimicrobial peptides exhibit broad-spectrum and efficient antibacterial activity with an added advantage of low drug resistance. The higher water content and 3D network structure of the hydrogels are beneficial for maintaining antimicrobial peptide activity and help to prevent degradation. The antimicrobial peptide released from hydrogels also hasten the local wound healing by promoting epithelial tissue regeneration and granulation tissue formation. Objective: This study aimed at developing sodium alginate based hydrogel loaded with a novel antimicrobial peptide Chol-37(F34-R) and to investigate the characteristics in vitro and in vivo as an alternative antibacterial wound dressing to treat infectious wounds. Methods: Hydrogels were developed and optimized by varying the concentrations of crosslinkers and subjected to various characterization tests like cross-sectional morphology, swelling index, percent water contents, water retention ratio, drug release and antibacterial activity in vitro, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa infected wound mice model in vivo. Results: The results indicated that the hydrogel C proved superior in terms of cross-sectional morphology having uniformly sized interconnected pores, a good swelling index, with the capacity to retain a higher quantity of water. Furthermore, the optimized hydrogel has been found to exert a significant antimicrobial activity against bacteria and was also found to prevent bacterial infiltration into the wound site due to forming an impermeable barrier between the wound bed and external environment. The optimized hydrogel was found to significantly hasten skin regeneration in animal models when compared to other treatments in addition to strong inhibitory effect on the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines (interleukin-1β and tumor necrosis factor-α). Conclusions: Our results suggest that sodium alginate -based hydrogels loaded with Chol-37(F34-R) hold the potential to be used as an alternative to conventional antibiotics in treating infectious skin wounds.