• Journal of the Korean Society of Child Welfare
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• no.53
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• pp.105-133
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among child abuse, depression, and smartphone addiction by gender. Data were gathered though questionnaires surveying 1,601 adolescents living in the Seoul and Kyeonggi areas. The results of t-tests and multiple regression analyses using structural equation modeling are as follow. First, approximately 40 percent of adolescents reported having experienced child abuse in the past year. Second, 24.5 percent of adolescents were found to be at risk of smartphone addiction. Third, child abuse was associated with depression and smartphone addiction among adolescents, and depression was found to have a mediating effect on the relationship between child abuse and smartphone addiction. Lastly, gender differences were also found: for male students, child abuse was directly related to smartphone addiction; for female adolescents, depression was found to mediate the relationship between child abuse and smartphone addiction. The results suggest different intervention strategies according to gender and a necessity of intervention to prevent child depression and smartphone addiction. The implications for social work practice were also discussed.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.337-343
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• 2021

Background: Chromogranin A (CgA) levels have been reported to predict mortality in patients with heart failure. However, information on the prognostic value and clinical availability of CgA is limited. We compared the prognostic value of CgA to that of previously proven natriuretic peptide biomarkers in patients with acute heart failure. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 272 patients (mean age, 68.5±15.6 years; 62.9% male) who underwent CgA test in the acute stage of heart failure hospitalization between June 2017 and June 2018. The median follow-up period was 348 days. Prognosis was assessed using the composite events of 1-year death and heart failure hospitalization. Results: In-hospital mortality rate during index admission was 7.0% (n=19). During the 1-year follow-up, a composite event rate was observed in 12.1% (n=33) of the patients. The areas under the receiver-operating characteristic curves for predicting 1-year adverse events were 0.737 and 0.697 for N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and CgA, respectively. During follow-up, patients with high CgA levels (>158 pmol/L) had worse outcomes than those with low CgA levels (≤158 pmol/L) (85.2% vs. 58.6%, p<0.001). When stratifying the patients into four subgroups based on CgA and NT-proBNP levels, patients with high NT-proBNP and high CgA had the worst outcome. CgA had an incremental prognostic value when added to the combination of NT-proBNP and clinically relevant risk factors. Conclusion: The prognostic power of CgA was comparable to that of NT-proBNP in patients with acute heart failure. The combination of CgA and NT-proBNP can improve prognosis prediction in these patients.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.472-478
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• 2021

Background: The Legionella case detection and notification rate have increased in public artificial water environments where people visit, including large buildings, public baths, and hospitals. Objectives: In this study, the distribution of Legionella and its epidemiologic characteristics were analyzed in the water systems of public facilities in Chungcheongnam-do Province in South Korea. Methods: Culture and PCR analysis were performed on 2,991 environmental water system samples collected from 2017 to 2019, and associations with year, facilities, seasons, and temperature of water system were statistically analyzed by using R-Studio for Windows. Descriptive data was compared using chi-square tests and independent t-tests. Results: The detection rate of Legionella increased from 3.1% in 2017 to 10.3% in 2019, appearing most frequently in the order of public baths, large-scale buildings, hospitals, and apartments. It was detected mainly in summer from June to August, over 1.0×10³ CFU/L on average in 133 cases (66.5%). Lots of germs were detected in bathtub water, cooling tower water, and warm water (p<0.001), and it was detected at higher rates in the cities where multipurpose facilities were concentrated than in rural areas (p=0.018). Conclusions: This study suggests that continuous monitoring and control are required for Legionella in the water system environment of high risk facilities. Moreover, these results will be helpful to prepare efficient management plans to prevent the Legionellosis that occurs in Chungcheongnam-do Province.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.59 no.5
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• pp.507-512
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• 2021

Since 1993, vivax malaria has been recognized as a public health burden in Korea. Despite of pan-governmental malaria-control efforts and the dramatic reduction in the burden of this disease over the last 10 years, vivax malaria has not been well controlled and has remained continuously endemic. We focused interviewed and examined the charts of 28 confirmed vivax malaria patients given malarial therapy for whom daily records were kept from Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do of Korea. Various epidemiological characteristics of vivax malaria, including the incubation period, medication used, and recurrence, and an evaluation of the parasitic characteristics from the focused interviews of patients from this region are described here. Most of the participants indicated the 3 most common symptoms of malaria (headache, chills and fever). Of the 28 cases, 2 experienced a second attack and there were 17 and 11 cases with short- and long-term incubation periods, respectively, yielding a short-term to long-term ratio of 1.5. Based on the parasitemia stages, most of the participants were tested at 5 to 7 days (11 cases) and 7 to 15 days (11 cases) after initial wave of asexual parasites. In conclusion, public health authorities should consider developing management measures to decrease the time lag for diagnosis and drafting unified and robust guidelines for drug use for malaria and drawing up unified and robust guidelines on the use of medication for malaria. It also suggests that routine monitoring, surveillance, and precise medical surveys in high-risk vivax malaria endemic areas are pivotal to controlling this persistent public disease and finally eliminating it from Korea.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.409-418
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• 2021

Conformal coating is a technology that protects PCB(Printed Circuit Board) and minimizes PCB failures. Since the defects in the coating are linked to failure of the PCB, the coating surface is examined for air bubbles to satisfy the successful conditions of the conformal coating. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for detecting problematic bubbles in high-risk groups by applying image signal processing. The algorithm consists of finding candidates for problematic bubbles and verifying candidates. Bubbles do not appear in visible light images, but can be visually distinguished from UV(Ultra Violet) light sources. In particular the center of the problematic bubble is dark in brightness and the border is high in brightness. In the paper, these brightness characteristics are called valley and mountain features, and the areas where both characteristics appear at the same time are candidates for problematic bubbles. However, it is necessary to verify candidates because there may be candidates who are not bubbles. In the candidate verification phase, we used convolutional neural network models, and ResNet performed best compared to other models. The algorithms presented in this paper showed the performance of precision 0.805, recall 0.763, and f1-score 0.767, and these results show sufficient potential for bubble test automation.

• Mood & Emotion
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.158-162
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• 2018

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to examine psychosocial factors related to burnout of social welfare officers working in Jeonnam Province. Methods : A total of 395 social welfare officers (male 99, female 296) working in 22 areas of Jeollanam-do province, were subjects of this study. We examined socio-demographic factors, using a self-reporting questionnaire. Subjects were asked to complete the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS), Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSS), to assess psychosocial factors affecting to burnout of social welfare officers. Results : Among 395 subjects, 221 (55.9%) reported recent experiences of burnout. There was no significant difference in age between two groups, divided by burnout. Sex (p<0.001), rank (p=0.003), working period (p=0.034), depression (p<0.001) revealed differences between the burnout group and control group. Scores of PSS (p<0.001) were higher, while the scores of GSS (p<0.001) were lower in the burnout group, than control group. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that female (OR 2.840, 95%CI 1.466-5.504, p=0.002), depressive high-risk group (OR 6.824, 95%CI 2.893-16.096, p<0.001) PSS (OR 1.247, 95%CI 1.153-1.349, p<0.001) and GSS (OR 0.950, 95%CI 0.930-0.971, p<0.001), were significantly associated with burnout. Conclusion : We found that some factors, were associated with experienced burnout in social welfare officers. Depressive symptoms were the strongest associative factor, for burnout in public servants in charge of social welfare. Sex, stress and self-efficacy also correlated with burnout, and especially self-efficacy was a protecting factor.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.277-282
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• 2018

BACKGROUND: At these days, the human health and environmental concerns of pesticide used for turf grass management at golf courses in Korea have increased. The objectives of the study were to determine the pesticide residues for golf course and neighboring area and evaluate the impact moved into neighboring area of pesticides treated at golf courses. METHODS AND RESULTS: Three golf courses and neighboring areas in Korea were monitored from July to October, 2017. The soil sample collection was divided the golf course into its logical parts (such as a greens, fairways, and rough) and neighboring area soil samples were collected at three different points. The water samples of the golf course and neighboring area were collected at three different points, respectively. The pesticide residues for soil and water sample were monitored by the multi-residue screening method of 98 pesticide with HPLC-MS-MS. The concentrations of detected pesticide in soil and water samples of the golf course were in the range of 0.01~1.26 mg/kg and 0.0001~0.0089 mg/kg, respectively. The residue levels for detected pesticides in neighboring area were at 0.01~0.04 mg/kg and 0.0001~0.0029 mg/kg, respectively, well below those level in golf course. CONCLUSION: This study indicate that the pesticide residue levels of golf course and neighboring area in Korea may not a possible risk of exposure on soil and aquatic environment. For future work, more monitoring should be performed so that the evaluation data becomes more valid.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.114-125
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• 2019

The frequency of official injury of fire-fighting officers exposed to an extreme situation in disaster areas has been continuously increased. In spite of increase of injury, procedures of injury approval are complex, so the working environment of fire-fighting officers is very poor in terms of safety management. This study was, therefore, conducted to provide basic data for improvement of the injury management system for fire-fighting officers, by empirically analyzing the system for those in Busan city. The findings of the empirical analysis are as follows: first, the frequency of injury experienced by them is higher than that of other occupations; second, application for injury is not actively made; third, fire-fighting officers should bear the expense if injury is approved. On the basis of such an analysis on actual conditions, an analysis on policy factors for improving the injury management system shows; first, various high-risk matters should be considered in the review of application for injury, for improvement factors of the application for injury, while it is necessary to extend the benefit and support project for injured officers, for operation improvement factors of the injury management system, and the compensation act should be improved, for the improvement factors of the injury system. Second, it is urgent to develop damage prevention and coping education program for improving the injury management system. In addition, the simplification of administrative procedures of application for injury and the extension of benefit and support project for injured officers should be realized as soon as possible, moreover, the enhancement of directors' interest and support is also required.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.179-188
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• 2010

To cope with various issues in the aspect of climate change adaptation of UNFCCC, Korea began preparing a Five-year National Climate Change Adaptation Plan in 2010 to be implemented from 2011~2015, for the purposes of securing a concrete system to adapt to climate change. Compared with the policies and measurement tools of developed countries, Korea's climate change adaptation capabilities suffers from a number of limitations including insufficiencies of basic information, human resources for research on climate change, and technology in risk and vulnerability assessment. At the same time, Korea maintains superior information technology systems, and comparatively strong climate change adaptation technologies. Recently, with the establishment of the Korea Adaptation Center for Climate Change as a specialized research organization in climate change adaptation, Korea has upgraded its ability to adapt to climate change and to provide support to other Asian countries which are vulnerable to climate change. In consideration of the close relation between climate change adaptation policy and technology development with the environmental industry, Korea's pursuit of cooperation and technical support for developing countries in the Asia region can be seen as the commencement of a long term investment for the nation's future. International cooperation on climate change adaptation between countries in the region can build a mutually complementary and integrated partnership in business, research, education, and other areas. Furthermore, Korea can also participate in the exploration of common issues as landmark projects that can attract global interest with developing countries.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.145-157
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• 2018

Mountainous areas are 64% in Korea and are allowed to be used by the permission standards of the "Mountainous Districts Management Act". In the act, slope and elevation criteria are defined to regulate the use of vulnerable land parcels to disaster. However, the standards cannot represent topographical variation in a land parcel such as terrain relief. Therefore, the applicability of slope type standard as a permission standard was tested using Catena in this study. Based on the theoretical grounds, two slope types were analyzed as 'risky slope' with disaster risk. The slope types of landslides in Namwon City were analyzed that 'risky slope' types were distributed about 57%. This study analyzed the forestland parcels that could be used when applying the current permission standards and the parcels that were already used in Namwon City. The ratio of the 'risky slope' in the parcels was more than 50%. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the mountain development in 'risky slope' by establishing permission standard related to slope types. In addition, this study suggested the ratio of 'risky slope' in the parcel for the permission standard for forestland use conversion.