• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.10-19
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• 2022

Background: According to the eighth TNM (tumor-node-metastasis) staging system, the presence of separate tumor nodules in the same lobe is designated as a T3 descriptor. However, it remains unclear whether adjuvant chemotherapy confers survival advantages in this setting. Methods: We retrospectively identified 142 pathologic T3N0M0 patients with additional pulmonary nodules in the same lobe from a single-institutional database from 2004 to 2019. The main outcomes were overall survival and recurrence-free survival. Multivariable Cox regression was used to identify the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy while adjusting for other variables. Results: Sixty-one patients received adjuvant chemotherapy (adjuvant group) and 81 patients did not receive adjuvant therapy after surgery (surgery-only group). There were no demonstrable differences between the 2 groups regarding hospital mortality and postoperative complications, indicating that treatment selection had not significantly occurred. However, the use of adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with improved 5-year overall survival (70% vs. 59%, p=0.006) and disease-free survival (60% vs. 46%, p=0.040). A multivariable Cox model demonstrated that adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with a survival advantage (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.54; p<0.001). In exploratory analyses of subgroups, the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy seemed to be insufficient in those with small main tumors (<4 cm). Conclusion: Adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with better survival in T3 cancers with an additional tumor nodule in the same lobe. However, the role of adjuvant chemotherapy in patient subgroups with small tumors or those without risk factors should be determined via large studies.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.44-51
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• 2023

Selecting appropriate bidding system in construction projects considering the characteristic of project can be a make-or-break element, so the understanding for bidding system of public construction projects is ever more important from the perspective of both the owner and the contractor. The design-build bidding is commonly referred to as turnkey in Korea, and is a bidding method that is often applied to large public construction projects because it allows new technologies to be applied to the design and facilitates risk management for the owner. In this bidding method, there are only two factors (design score and price score) that affect the selection of the winning bidder, so it is important to understand the influence of each factor, but there is little research on the subject. This study aims to provide a basis for establishing bidding strategies for understanding the influence between design score and price score by analyzing various design-build bidding data of public construction projects. The results of the study show that design score is the factor that has more influence on the ranking of bidders in all three weighted evaluation methods: design-emphasized, price-emphasized, and equalized evaluation. In addition, we found that the correlation between design and price scores was not significant due to the unique bid evaluation structure in Korea.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2023

The efficacy of spinetoram sprayed from an unmanned helicopter to control two insect vectors of pine wood nematodes, Monochamus alternatus and M. saltuarius was assessed. By using a ULV (Ultra Low Volume) sprayer, the mortality rates of phenthoate, bifenthrin, etofenprox, and diflubenzuron, which are registered for use against coleopteran insects, indoxacarb and spinetoram, which are registered for use against lepidopteran insects, were evaluated for efficacy as aerial spraying agents. The ULV test, using 33- and 55-fold dilutions of phenthoate, bifenthrin, indoxacarb, and spinetoram demonstrated a 100% insect mortality rate upon contact and feeding mortality on the third day after treatment, while etofenprox and diflubenzuron exhibited a slightly lower mortality rate than the remaining compounds. Consequently, spinetoram was selected as a candidate pesticide for aerial spraying and its efficacy to control the insect vectors was assessed. The x 33 dilution of spinetoram resulted in a 98.6-100% control efficacy against two insect vectors. However, risk assessment for bees following aerial spraying will be necessary before applying the pesticide to control insect vectors.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.251-261
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• 2010

This paper examines the dining tendencies of Koreans toward meat dishes and their related factors, with 301 people residing in Korea as subjects. We questioned this population on their restaurant choices, eating habits, preferences and a dislike with respect to method of cooking. All age groups, with the exception of 50~60 year-olds, were found to consume meat dishes in specialized restaurants. The selection factor for restaurants varied, depending on the age group: affordable cost was the most important factor for whom under 20 year-old. Whereas 20-40 year-old people considered taste and ambience the most for choosing restaurant. The 50-60 year-old people found to seek for convenient restaurant. In terms of the most preferred parts of beef, 20-30 year-old people preferred tenderloin (42.3%) while 40-60 year-old people preferred sirloin (45.6% and 41.2% each). All the other age groups preferred ribs the most (It was also found that) men preferred the rib parts and women preferred tenderloin. With respect to pork, all age groups preferred pork belly, with the highest response rate in the under 20 age group. When consuming meat dishes, 91.0% of respondents pointed to roasting as the most frequent preparation method, the reason being good taste was deemed the highest number of responses. In a survey on preference for stewed meats, 74.8% of the sample pool was found to prefer stew dishes but 24.9% of respondents provided negative answers, the reason for dislike was found to be poor taste for women, and both a long preparation time and poor taste for men. In fact, regardless of marital status, a high number of responses were given for poor taste as the reason for disliking stew dishes. Based on the examined factors for inconveniences in preparing meat dishes, the most common inconvenience factor was the odor of meat left on clothes after the dining experience, followed by the smoke generated in roasting meat, and the safety risk involved with changing the grill. In terms of stir fry preparation, the negative thoughts were due to the splashing of food and spices while cooking, followed by the meat odor left on clothes after dining experience, and the sanitation level of the cooking containers. For deep frying the sanitation level of cooking containers was the biggest reason for dislike, followed by splashing of food when preparing. Lastly, it was indicated that the problem of steaming method was a difficulty of judging the portion, on the top of this, people found that the sanitation level of cooking container and a long preparation time were also the problem of this cooking method.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.387-401
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• 2023

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the preventive effect of herbal medicines on restenosis after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) by reviewing randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Methods: RCTs were searched for herbal medicine treatment after PCI using eight online databases (PubMed, CNKI, Wanfang, J-STAGE, OASIS, ScienceON, KTKP, and KISS). Studies that confirmed restenosis through coronary angiography at follow-up were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The primary outcome was the restenosis rate, and the secondary outcome was the angina recurrence rate. Data were extracted from the final selected studies according to the research methodology and then analyzed with Review Manager 5.4.1. Study quality was assessed using Cochrane's risk-of-bias (RoB) tool. Results: Of the 252 papers obtained through the primary search, nine studies that met the selection criteria were finally selected. In these nine studies, herbal medicine combined with western medicine was used for the experimental group, and western medicine treatment was used alone for the control group. The meta-analysis result revealed that the restenosis rate and angina recurrence rate were significantly lower in the experimental group than in the control group (RR=0.34, 95% CI: 0.22-0.53, p<0.00001, I²=0% and RR=0.47, 95% CI: 0.29-0.78, p=0.004, I²=0%, respectively). Furthermore, the quality of studies assessed by Cochrane's RoB was low. Conclusions: This study showed that the combined treatment of herbal medicine and western medicine was effective in preventing restenosis and angina after PCI. As the number of papers included in this study was small, a large number of high-quality clinical studies should be considered in the future.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.455-460
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• 2023

Text augmentation is a methodology that creates new augmented texts by transforming or generating original texts for the purpose of improving the performance of NLP models. However existing text augmentation techniques have limitations such as lack of expressive diversity semantic distortion and limited number of augmented texts. Recently text augmentation using large language models and few-shot learning can overcome these limitations but there is also a risk of noise generation due to incorrect generation. In this paper, we propose a text augmentation method called TAGS that generates multiple candidate texts and selects the appropriate text as the augmented text. TAGS generates various expressions using few-shot learning while effectively selecting suitable data even with a small amount of original text by using contrastive learning and similarity comparison. We applied this method to task-oriented chatbot data and achieved more than sixty times quantitative improvement. We also analyzed the generated texts to confirm that they produced semantically and expressively diverse texts compared to the original texts. Moreover, we trained and evaluated a classification model using the augmented texts and showed that it improved the performance by more than 0.1915, confirming that it helps to improve the actual model performance.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.9
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• pp.866-877
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• 2022

Objective: The optimal imaging approach for evaluating pathological nipple discharge remains unclear. We investigated the value of adding ductography to ultrasound (US) for evaluating pathologic nipple discharge in patients with negative mammography findings. Materials and Methods: From July 2003 to December 2018, 101 women (mean age, 46.3 ± 12.2 years; range, 23-75 years) with pathologic nipple discharge were evaluated using pre-ductography (initial) US, ductography, and post-ductography US. The imaging findings were reviewed retrospectively. The standard reference was surgery (70 patients) or > 2 years of follow-up with US (31 patients). The diagnostic performances of initial US, ductography, and post-ductography US for detecting malignancy were compared using the McNemar's test or a generalized estimating equation. Results: In total, 47 papillomas, 30 other benign lesions, seven high-risk lesions, and 17 malignant lesions were identified as underlying causes of pathologic nipple discharge. Only eight of the 17 malignancies were detected on the initial US, while the remaining nine malignancies were detected by ductography. Among the nine malignancies detected by ductography, eight were detected on post-ductography US and could be localized for US-guided intervention. The sensitivities of ductography (94.1% [16/17]) and post-ductography US (94.1% [16/17]) were significantly higher than those of initial US (47.1% [8/17]; p = 0.027 and 0.013, respectively). The negative predictive value of post-ductography US (96.9% [31/32]) was significantly higher than that of the initial US (83.3% [45/54]; p = 0.006). Specificity was significantly higher for initial US than for ductography and post-ductography US (p = 0.001 for all). Conclusion: The combined use of ductography and US has a high sensitivity for detecting malignancy in patients with pathologic nipple discharge and negative mammography. Ductography findings enable lesion localization on second-look post-ductography US, thus facilitating the selection of optimal treatment plans.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2024

Background: Cervical esophageal cancer is a rare malignancy that requires specialized care. While definitive chemoradiation is the standard treatment approach, surgery remains a valuable option for certain patients. This study examined the surgical outcomes of patients with cervical esophageal cancer. Methods: The study involved a retrospective review and analysis of 24 patients with cervical esophageal cancer. These patients underwent surgical resection between September 1994 and December 2018. Results: The mean age of the patients was 61.0±10.2 years, and 22 (91.7%) of them were male. Furthermore, 21 patients (87.5%) had T3 or T4 tumors, and 11 (45.8%) exhibited lymph node metastasis. Gastric pull-up with esophagectomy was performed for 19 patients (79.2%), while 5 (20.8%) underwent free jejunal graft with cervical esophagectomy. The 30-day operative mortality rate was 8.3%. During the follow-up period, complications included leakage at the anastomotic site in 9 cases (37.5%) and graft necrosis of the gastric conduit in 1 case. Progression to oral feeding was achieved in 20 patients (83.3%). Fifteen patients (62.5%) displayed tumor recurrence. The median time from surgery to recurrence was 10.5 months, and the 1-year recurrence rate was 73.3%. The 1-year and 3-year survival rates were 75% and 33.3%, respectively, with a median survival period of 17 months. Conclusion: Patients with cervical esophageal cancer who underwent surgical resection faced unfavorable outcomes and relatively poor survival. The selection of cases and decision to proceed with surgery should be made cautiously, considering the risk of severe complications.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.63-73
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• 2024

Autonomous vehicles at Levels 3 to 5, currently under global research and development, seek to replace the driver's perception, judgment, and control processes with various sensors integrated into the vehicle. This integration enables artificial intelligence to autonomously perform the majority of driving tasks. However, autonomous vehicles currently obtain temporary driving permits, allowing them to operate on roads if they meet minimum criteria for autonomous judgment abilities set by individual countries. When autonomous vehicles become more widespread in the future, it is anticipated that buyers may not have high confidence in the ability of these vehicles to avoid hazardous situations due to the limitations of temporary driving permits. In this study, we propose a method for grading the judgment abilities of autonomous vehicles based on a driving simulator experiment comparing and evaluating drivers' abilities to avoid hazardous situations. The goal is to derive evaluation criteria that allow for grading based on specific scenarios and to propose a framework for grading autonomous vehicles. Thirty adults (25 males and 5 females) participated in the driving simulator experiment. The analysis of the experimental results involved K-means cluster analysis and independent sample t-tests, confirming the possibility of classifying the judgment abilities of autonomous vehicles and the statistical significance of such classifications. Enhancing confidence in the risk-avoidance capabilities of autonomous vehicles in future hazardous situations could be a significant contribution of this research.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.22
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• pp.15-35
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• 2010

A larceny means stealing others' properties, as one of crime types most closely connected with common people. Along with fraud, it is the mostly common property crime; in particular, the largest number of people are exposed to a burglary. This study aims to find the schemes to utilize private guards according to the characteristics of burglary. To do so, a questionnaire survey was conducted into an actual condition of official statistics of burglary and into the criminals of burglary, with a view to understanding the behavioral characteristics of burglary and suggesting defense mechanisms to prevent the crime. Burglary is not just a major crime to be dealt with by public guards like the police but also one to be handled increasingly more by private guards. It is why this study intends to identify how to utilize private guards in preventing the crime. Investigations were made into 208 burglars, who were inmates of 10 correctional institutions (prisons or detention houses) across the country. It is found that only about 24% of burglars committed the crime through rational choice, about 60.7% were feared of their arrest at the time of their crime, and a very high percentage (69.9%) of them were assured of their successful crime. Burglaries usually happened at night, mostly in a summer day when everybody goes away from home for vacation. Primarily, the crimes took place in a private house of urban residential quarters. What burglars considered mostly for target selection includes 'profitability,' followed by 'surveillance' and 'risk.' Most (42%) of them committed the crime for the first time ever. Generally, they were not inclined to commit the crime while under the influence of alcohol or drug, which might prevent them from making reasonable decisions. 73.9% of the criminals said that they committed the crime singly without any accomplices.