• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.545-556
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• 1994

Medical insurance and health care delivery system enabled Korean people to get the necessary medical service, but it caused increased needs for medical service, and resulted in the occurence of some problems such as a lack of manpower and medical facilities. In order to solve these problems, many countries, which already had medical insurance system had developed home care system and it has been regarded effective both in reducing costs and in increasing the rates of turnover of bed. Recently, Korea has included home nursing care in its health care delivery system, and some models of the hospital based home nursing care had been tried and its effects had been evaluated. So, author tried to run a home nursing care for the Cesarean section mothers and evaluate Its effects both in the mother's health and costs. This study was designed as a Quasi-experimental study. Subjects were thirty mothers who got Cesarean section operation in hospital in Seoul. Experimental group consisted of 15 volunteers, and control group were selected by means of matching technique. Data were gathered from February 1st to March 26th by two assistants who were trained by author. Experimental group were discharged on the 4th day after their operation, and got nursing care and assessment about their home three times on the 5th, 6th, and 7th day. Control group stayed in the hospital until 7th day as usual and were checked on the same day as above mentioned To evaluate the state of physiological recovery, vital signs, H.O.F, presence of edema in the legs, bathing, appetite, sleep, presence of pain or discomfort in the breasts, amount of lochia, color of lochia, defecation urination. To compare incidence of complication in experimental group with that in control group, specific assessment was done such variables as smell of lochia, presence of inflammation of operation wound, dizziness, and presence of immobilization in the extremities. The activities of daily living were checked Satisfaction of nursing were checked To calculate costs, author asked subjects to specify expenditure including hospital charge, traffic enpenses, and food expenses. The results were as fellows. 1. On effectiveness of home nursing careThere were n significant differences between experimental and control group in incidence of abnormal symptoms and any complication. The number of taking a bath [POD #5 P=0.001, #6 P=0.0003, #7 P=0.001] and the degree of appetite [POD #5 P=0.03, #6 P=0.02, #7 P=0.013] were significantly higher in experimental group than in control group. Contrary to author's expectation, the degree of the activities of daily living in experimental group was not higher than that of control group. All of the experimental group said they were satisfied with the home nursing care. 2. Cost analysis 1) Hospital charge of experimental group was lower than that of control group. ［P=0.009］ By taking home nursing care, average period of hospitalization was shortened to 3.1 days, and family members could save 22.8 hours. Total amount of money saved by early discharge was 3,443,093 Won. It is estimated that total amount of money saved by early discharge in a year will be 40,398,956 Won. 2) Home nursing care charge of 15 mothers was 1,781,633 Won. It is estimated that total amount of money Saved by it in a year Will be 20,904,493 Won. It was lower altogether than hospital charge of the three days which is 5th, 6th, 7th day of operation. The average cost of single home visit was calculated 10,940 Won. It took 87 minutes per round and it costed 1,017.3 Won. The average hour of home care was 39.0 minutes. 3) It is expected that early discharge can bring forth the increase of hospital income. On the condition that the rate of running bed is 100%, the expected increase of hospital income will be 202,374, 026 Won in a year. Suggestions for further study and nursing practice are as follows : 1. For the welfare of patients and the increased rates of running bed, home nursing care system should be included in the hospital nursing care system. 2. Studies to test effect of home nursing care on the patients with other diseases are needed. 3. Establishment of law on the practice of home nursing care is strongly recommended.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.265-284
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• 2001

The case management has been applied to improve the quality of care and the cost-effectiveness in the most health care institutions. In a way of case management, the critical pathway(CP) has been executed in many acute care settings, focused on the diagnoses with high cost, high volume, and high risk. This study was conducted to develop a case management program using CP as an intervention of patients with lumbar spinal stenosis for the surgery of posterolateral fusion, and to find out the effects of the critical pathway on the quality of nursing care, patient satisfaction as an outcome of care, length of stay and medical charge, and nurses' job satisfaction. At the same time, patients' functional states were checked with the Oswestry Low Back Pain Index, to show that the CP would not decrease the patients' function compared to the control group. The subjects were 25 control patients with a usual operation of lumbar fusion and 25 experimental patients with CP. They were all female, aged $50s{\sim}70s$, admitted in the Orthopedic surgery ward of a university hospital. Also nurses on the floor using CP were asked to respond to measurement tool of job satisfaction before and after the application of CP, and compared with other nurses on the different wards. Data were analyzed with t-test for continuous variables and chi-square for non-parametric variables in addition to the reliability test of the measurement tools. The results of this study were as followings: 1. Patients' functional states The differences in Oswestry scores of the experimental and control groups assessed at preoperation and at discharge were not statistically significant. The change in scores of the experimental group measured at preoperation and at discharge was larger than that of the control group, however the difference was not statistically significant. The results indicate that the CP did not decrease the patients' functional status. 2. The quality of nursing care The total of quality of nursing care given to the experimental group was better than that of the control group(P=.000). In addition, the experimental group showed better scores of quality of every item of care than the control group(P=.000 -.004). 3. Patient satisfaction Patients of the experimental group were not more satisfied with general care than the control group. But they were more satisfied with discharge care of 'explanation about medication, body posture, and brace application' and 'explanation about the adjustment of daily living and exercise during recovery'(P= .047, P=.028). 4. Nurses' job satisfaction Nurses working with the CP showed more job satisfaction than before the CP introduction(P=.048). But the control group of nurses on a different floor showed no change in job satisfaction at the same period of time. 5. Length of stay and medical charge The mean length of stay of the experimental group was shorter than that of the control group without statistical significance. The charge of medication and treatment of the experimental group were smaller than that of the control group(P=.011, P=.000). The results of the study support that the case management using critical pathway enables to improve the quality of care and job satisfaction, to reduce the medical charge, and consequently to increase satisfaction with care. However, the case management should be instituted focusing on the quality improvement of nursing and the client satisfaction, not just for the purpose of cost-effectiveness of health care facilities.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.288-297
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• 2002

Purpose: Soft tissue attenuation and scattering are major methodological limitations of myocardial perfusion SPECT. To overcome these limitations, algorithms for attenuation, scatter correction and resolution recovery (ASCRR) is being developed, while quantitative myocardial SPECT has also become available. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of an ASCRR-corrected quantitative myocardial SPECT method for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD). Materials and Methods: Seventy-five patients (M:F=51:24, $61.0{\pm}8.9$ years old) suspected of CAD who underwent coronary angiography (CAG) within $7{\pm}12$ days of SPECT(Group-I) and 20 subjects (M:F=10:10, age $40.6{\pm}9.4$) with a low likelihood of coronary artery disease (Group-II) were enrolled. Tl-201 rest/ dipyridamole-stress Tc-99m-MIBI gated myocardial SPECT was performed. ASCRR correction was peformed using a Gd-153 line source and automatic software (Vantage-Pro; ADAC Labs, USA). Using a 20-segment model, segmental perfusion was automatically quantified on both the ASCRR-corrected and uncorrected images using an automatic quantifying software (AutoQUANT; ADAC Labs.). Using these quantified values, CAD was diagnosed in each of the 3 coronary arterial territories. The diagnostic performance of ASCRR-corrected SPECT was compared with that of non-corrected SPECT. Results: Among the 75 patients of Group-I, 9 patients had normal CAG while the remaining 66 patients had 155 arterial lesions; 61 left anterior descending (LAD), 48 left circumflex (LCX) and 46 right coronary (RCA) arterial lesions. For the LAD and LCX lesions, there was no significant difference in diagnostic performance. In Group-II patients, the overall normalcy rate improved but this improvement was not statistically significant (p=0.07). However, for RCA lesions, specificity improved significantly but sensitivity worsened significantly with ASCRR correction (both p<0.05). Overall accuracy was the same. Conclusion: The ASCRR correction did not improve diagnostic performance significantly although the diagnostic specificity for RCA lesions improved on quantitative myocardial SPECT. The clinical application of the ASC-RR correction requires more discretion regarding cost and efficacy.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.41-49
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• 1979

A literature review is made on the physical and chemical characteristics of clay minerals in acidic solutions from the mineralogical and hydrometallurgical viewpoints. Some of the important characteristics of clays are their ability to cation exchange, swelling, and incongruent dissolution in acidic solutions. Various clay minerals can take up metallic ions from solution via cation exchange mechanism. Generally, cation exchange capacity increases in the following order : kaolinite, halloysite, illite, vermiculite, and montmorillonite. In acidic solutions, the cation uptake such as copper by clay minerals is strongly inhibited by hydrogen and aluminum ions and thus is not economically significant factor for recovery of metals such as uranium and copper. In acidic solutions, the cation uptake is substial. Swelling is minimal at lower pH, possibly due to lattice collapse. Swelling may be controllable with montmorillonite type clays by exchanging interlayer sodium with lithium and/or hydroxylated aluminum species. The effect of add on clay minerals are : 1. Division of aggregates into smaller plates with increase in surface area and porosity. 2. Clay-acid reactions occur in the following order: (i) $H^+$ replacement of interlayer cations, (ii) removal of octahedral cations, such as Al, Fe, and Mg, and (iii) removal of tetrahedral Al ions. Acid attack initiates, around the edges of the clay particles and continued inward, leaving hydrated silica gel residue around the edges. 3. Reaction rates of (ii) and (iii) are pseudo-1st order and proportional to acid concentration. Rate doubles for every temperature increment of $10^{\circ}C$. Implications in in-situ leaching of copper or uranium with acid are : 1. Over the life span of the operation for a year or more, clays attacked by acid will leave silica gel. If such gel covers the surface of valuable mineral surfaces being leached, recovery could be substantially delayed. 2. For a copper deposit containing 0.5% each of clay minerals and recoverable copper, the added cost due to clay-acid reaction is about 1.5c/lb of copper (or 0.93 lbs of $H_2SO_4/1b$ of copper). This acid consumption by clay may be a factor for economic evaluation of in-situ leaching of an oxide copper deposit.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.104-108
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• 1989

A 2.5 ton scale of solar energy concentration blast-grain circulation dryer (SECD) was developed in order to shorten the drying time without damaged paddy. Comparative experiments were carried out on performance, drying efficiency, consistency in moisture content, milling recovery, grade of milled rice, and energy requirement and cost against all that of in-bin drying and storage (IBDS) method. The experiments were performed using mixture of several rice varieties of Tongil type(Japonica-Indica breeding type) under the autumn weather in Korea. The circulating air temperature inside SECD was $4{\sim}5^{\circ}C$ higher than that of IBDS. The moisture content of the paddy during the drying period in SECD was uniform while substantially varied in upper, middle or bottom layer in IBDS. By SECD, 24% initial moisture content of paddy was reduced to 15% after only 3 days of drying as compared to 14 days at IBDS. The percentage of cracked kernels in upper, middle and bottom layers in IBDS was 6, 6 and 12%, respectively, whereas 7% in all layers in SECD. Both types of dryers did not significantly affect the milling recovery of dried paddy and grade of milled rice. Energy requirement of SECD(28.8Kw/2.5ton) for paddy drying was much less than that of IBDS(108Kw/2.5ton).

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.37 no.12
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• pp.1003-1009
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• 2004

Mechanical circulatory support (MCS) has been used for myocardium failure, but moreover, it may be essential for the life support in cardiac arrest or cardiogenic shock. Many commercial devices can be used effectively for the long-term support. However, there are some limitations in the aspects of the cost and technical support by production company. Short-term support with centrifugal type has been reported numerously with the purpose of bridging to heart transplantation or recovery. We successfully treated 5 patitents who were in the status of cardiogenic shock (n=3) or arrest (n=2) with the technique of extracorporeal life support system (ECLS) or left ventricular assist device (LVAD) using the centrifugal type pump. The MCS were performed emergently (n=2) under cardiac arrest caused by ischemic heart disease, and urgently (n=3) under cardiogenic shock with ischemic heart disease (n=1) or acute fulminant viral myocarditis (n=2). All patients were weaned from MCS. Complications related to the use of MCS were bleeding and acute renal failure, but there were no major complications related to femoral cannulations. Mechanical circulatory support may be essential for the life support and rescue in cardiac arrest or cardiogenic shock.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.13-20
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• 2011

The high fuel flexibility of Micro Gas Turbine(MGT) has boosted their use in a wide variety of applications. Recently, the demand for biogas generated from the digestion of organic wastes and landfill as a fuel for gas turbines has increased. We researched the influence of firing landfill gas(LFG) on the performance and operating characteristics of a micro gas turbine combined heat and power system. $CH_4$ and $CO_2$ simultaneous recovery process has been developed for field plant scale to provide an isothermal, low operating cost method for carrying out the contaminants removal in Land Fill Gas(LFG) by liquid phase catalyst for introduce into the green house for the purpose of $CO_2$ rich cultivation of the plants. Methane purification and carbon dioxide stripping by muti panel autocirculation bubble lift column reactor utilizing Fe-EDTA was conducted for evaluate optimum conditions for land fill gas. Based on inflow rate of LFG as 0.207 $m^3$/min, 5.5 kg/$cm^2$, we designed reactor system for 70% $CH_4$ and 27% $CO_2$ gas introduce into MGT system with $H_2S$ 99% removal efficiency. A green house designed for four different carbon dioxide concentration from ambient air to 1500 ppm by utilizing the exhaust gas and hot water from MGT system.

• KIPS Transactions on Computer and Communication Systems
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• v.9 no.11
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• pp.256-264
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• 2020

Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) is exploited to achieve various objectives such as improving productivity and reducing cost in the diversity of industrial application, and it has requirements such as low-delay and high reliability packet transmission. To accomplish the requirement, the network manager performs graph construction and resource allocation about network topology, and determines the transmission cycle and path of each node in advance. However, this network management scheme cannot treat mobile devices that cause continuous topology changes because graph reconstruction and resource reallocation should be performed as network topology changes. That is, despite the growing need of mobile devices in many industries, existing scheme cannot adequately respond to path failure caused by movement of mobile device and packet loss in the process of path recovery. To solve this problem, a network management scheme is required to prevent packet loss caused by mobile devices. Thus, we analyse the location and movement cycle of mobile devices over time using machine learning for predicting the mobility pattern. In the proposed scheme, the network manager could prevent the problems caused by mobile devices through performing graph construction and resource allocation for the predicted network topology based on the movement pattern. Performance evaluation results show a prediction rate of about 86% compared with actual movement pattern, and a higher packet delivery ratio and a lower resource share compared to existing scheme.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.496-523
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• 2018

The objective of this study is to evaluate the economic feasibility of two fast pyrolysis and biooil upgrading (FPBU) plants including feed drying, fast pyrolysis by fluidized-bed, biooil recovery, hydro-processing for biooil upgrading, electricity generation, and wastewater treatment. The two FPBU plants are Case 1 of an FPBU plant with steam methane reforming (SMR) for $H_2$ generation (FPBU-HG, 20% yield), and Case 2 of an FPBU with external $H_2$ supply (FPBUEH, 25% yield). The process flow diagrams (PFDs) for the two plants were constructed, and the mass and energy balances were calculated, using a commercial process simulator (ASPEN Plus). A four-level economic potential approach (4-level EP) was used for techno-economic analysis (TEA) under the assumption of sawdust 100 t//d containing 40% water, 30% equity, capital expenditure equal to the equity, $H_2$ price of $1050/ton, and hydrocarbon yield from dried sawdust equal to 20 and 25 % for Case 1 and 2, respectively. TCI (total capital investment), TPC (total production cost), ASR (annual sales revenue), and MFSP (minimum fuel selling price) of Case 1 were $22.2 million, $3.98 million/yr, $4.64 million/yr, and $1.56/l, respectively. Those of Case 2 were $16.1 million, $5.20 million/yr, $5.55 million/yr, and $1.18/l, respectively. Both ROI (return on investment) and PBP (payback period) of Case 1(FPBU-HG) and Case 2(FPBU-EH) were the almost same. If the plant capacity increases into 1,500 t/d for Case 1 and Case 2, ROI would be improved into 15%/yr.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.346-355
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was conducted to ascertain the difference between impinger and passive sampling methods in the process of sampling and analyzing on airborne formaldehyde. Formaldehyde generating workplaces included in this study comprised four types of manufacturing industry such as two workplaces of products of wood, cork, straw and plaiting materials manufacturing industries, one casting metal manufacturing industry, and one parts and accessories for motor vehicles and it′s engines manufacturing industry. Workplaces contained in this study were located in some manufacturing area of Busan industrial complex and this study was carried out during a period from January 2003 to December 2004. Analytical accuracy, precision and detection limit of two methods was compared. Exposure level of its airborne concentration was evaluated in formaldehyde generating workplaces those were classified by types of industry, working process, and time. The results were as follows ; 1. A rate of recovery was 107.1% in impinger method and 101.8% in passive method, and precision was 7.79% in impinger method and 4.40% in passive method. There was no statistical significance in analytical accuracy and precision between two methods. A limitation of detection was 0.011 ppm in passive method which was lower than that of impinger method (0.020 ppm) by 1.8 times. 2. Airborne formaldehyde concentration of impinger method was different from passive method. It′s concentration by passive method was higher by 5.1 times than that by impinger method in the parts and accessories for motor vehicles and it′s engines manufacturing industry (P<0.05). Only in molding process among several types of processes, formaldehyde concentration in passive method was higher by 5.1 times than that in impinger method (P<0.05). Furthermore, formaldehyde concentration in passive method was higher by 1.7 times than that in impinger method (P<0.05) in the first half of year 2003. 3. The geometric mean of formaldehyde concentration in impinger method was lower than that in passive method, but there was no statistical significance of formaldehyde concentration by the difference of sampling method. In conclusion, it is difficult to conclude which is better between the two sampling methods because of no statistical significance for the difference of concentration. Because of lacks of certified passive sampling and analytical method, at present situation, studies on verification of accuracy and precision, obstructive reaction against validity on its exposure assessment, and research to develop domestically manufactured passive sampler in terms of cost-effectiveness should be continuously carried out.