• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.20-32
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• 2014

Objectives : There has been some controversy about the modulatory effects on brain function during acupuncture on each side of the same acupoint. This study was designed to investigate and compare the blood oxygen level-dependent(BOLD) responses of acupuncture on each side of ST36. Methods : Fourteen healthy subjects were recruited for imaging and received acupuncture or placebo stimulations either on the left or on the right acupoint of ST36 in each scan. For the voxel-wise statistical analysis, one sample T-test and the within-subject analysis of variance(ANOVA) test were performed using SPM8 software. Results : This study showed that acupuncture on each side of ST36 showed different BOLD signal patterns. Higher BOLD responses after acupuncture stimulations at the left ST36 compared to the right were observed mainly in the parahippocampal gyrus(BA 28), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC, BA 44), thalamus, culmen and claustrum. We investigated the different neural responses between rest and activation periods of placebo and acupuncture stimulations on each side of ST36. Acupuncture at the right ST36 elicited activation mainly in the insula, supplementary motor area(SMA) and anterior cingulate cortex(ACC), while acupuncture at the left ST36 elicited activation mainly in the insula, primary somatosensory cortex(SI, BA 2) and DLPFC(BA 44). Conclusions : To our knowledge, this is the first reported functional MRI study directly comparing when needling at the right and at the left side of ST36. This study's preliminary results proved to be evidence of acupuncture's different effects when performed on opposite sides of an acupoint.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.162-168
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• 2012

Purpose: Teeth are generally exposed when people smiling. Moreover, the exposed teeth and soft tissue when smiling becomes an important guideline for esthetically prosthetic restoration. This research is to compare and find out differences of Korean young men's smile living in presence and twenty years ago. Materials and methods: Subjects, 100 young men (50 male and 50 female), were required about several aspects; normally developed physical condition, no psychological or genetic disorders, a fine face with no loss of teeth, no experience in orthodontic or prosthetic treatment, relatively normal occlusion, aged between 20-29. The photos of the subject at rest position and front face when fully smiled were taken three times. 100 photos (50 male and 50 female) were chosen at random from the 240 university students' smile photos taken by Yoon and his colleagues in 1991. By Hulsey's method of measuring smile, several factors; the change of upper lip curvature, the change of the relation between the upper lip and teeth, parallelism between Mx. incisor and lower lip, contact relation between Mx. incisor and lower lip and teeth displayed in a smile, were measured and analyzed. Meanwhile, ten dentists assessed aesthetic evaluation about men and women's smile for twice and recorded and compared smile score. The -test (P<.05) was used to compare the measured value. The difference of smile score was analyzed by t-test (P<.05). Results: The smile score calculated in 2011 (60.22) was higher than that of 1991 (52.80). Among five measurement categories, the noticeable difference was distinguished from two factors; the change of upper lip curvature and contact relation between Mx. incisor and lower lip. Conclusion: The Korean young men's smile has been considerably improved for twenty years. And it is found that the change of upper lip curvature plays an important role, that is, the smile formed with an ascended labial commissure has been increased significantly.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.143-148
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to examine the usefulness of SPIO contrast agent in Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) by performing a quantitative comparative analysis in patients undergoing MRCP for gallbladder stones with and without oral injection of SPIO (Superparamagnetic iron oxide) contrast agent. The subjects were 36 patients undergoing MRCP for suspected gallbladder stones between January 2009 and February 2010 and they were divided into halves to compare the two groups of with and without SPIO agent. For each subject in both the injected and non-injected group, T2-weighted images on a 1.5T MR scanner were obtained, using both the breath-holding and respiratory-triggered methods, respectively. The following regions were measured; for breath-hold T2-weighted images, the measurement regions were located at the central part of the gallbladder, and the areas 15 mm away from its center, toward the front and back, respectively, which were chosen to include surrounding tissues, while for respiratory-triggered T2-weighted images, at the central part of the gallbladder, and segment 5 and 6 of liver. In a quantitative analysis, average signal to noise ratio (SNR) in each of regions of interest (ROI) for each group were calculated and then average contrast to noise ratio (CNR) in each of ROI were obtained by using the SNR in the gallbladder as the basis to compare and analyze the values between the two groups. The CNR were higher for the injected group in those regions.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.77-115
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to present empirical evidence for discussion of financing social welfare via estimating optimal tax burden in the main member countries of the OECD by using Hausman-Taylor method considering endogeneity of explanatory variables. Also, the author produced an international tax comparison index reflecting theoretical hypotheses on revenue-expenditure nexus within a model to compare real tax burden by countries and to examine feasibility of tax increase in Korea. As a result of the analysis, the higher the level of tax burden was, the higher the level of welfare expenditure was, indicating the connection between high burden and high welfare from the aspect of scale. The results also indicated that the subject countries recently entered into the state of low tax burden. Meanwhile, Korea had maintained low burden until the late 1990s but the tax burden soared up since the financial crisis related to the IMF. However, due to the impact of foreign economy and the tax reduction policy, it reentered into the low-burden state after 2009. On the other hand, the degree of social welfare expenditure's reducing tax burden has been gradually enhanced since the crisis. In this context, the current optimal tax burden ratio of Korea as of 2010 may be 25.8%~26.5% of GDP based on input of welfare expenditure variables, a percent that Korea was investigated to be a 'high tax burden-low ITC' country whose tax increase of 0.7~1.4%p may be feasible and that the success of tax system reform for tax increase might be higher probability when compare to others. However, measures of increasing social security contributions and consumption tax were analyzed to be improper from the aspect of managing finance when compared to increase in other tax items, considering the relatively higher ITC. Tax increase is not necessarily required though there may be room for tax increase; the optimal tax burden ratio can be understood as the level that may be achieved on average when compared to other nations, not as the "proper" level. Thus, discussion of tax increase should be accompanied with comprehensive understanding of models of economic developmental difference from nations and institutional & historical attributes included in specific tax mix.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.129-141
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• 2023

Crop models have been used to predict yield under diverse environmental and cultivation conditions, which can be used to support decisions on the management of forage crop. Cultivar parameters are one of required inputs to crop models in order to represent genetic properties for a given forage cultivar. The objectives of this study were to compare calibration and ensemble approaches in order to minimize the uncertainty of crop yield estimates using the SIMPLE crop model. Cultivar parameters were calibrated using Log-likelihood (LL) and Generic Composite Similarity Measure (GCSM) as an objective function for Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm. In total, 20 sets of cultivar parameters were generated for each method. Two types of ensemble approach. First type of ensemble approach was the average of model outputs (E_em), using individual parameters. The second ensemble approach was model output (E_pm) of cultivar parameter obtained by averaging given 20 sets of parameters. Comparison was done for each cultivar and for each error calculation methods. 'Jowoo' and 'Yeongwoo', which are forage rice cultivars used in Korea, were subject to the parameter calibration. Yield data were obtained from experiment fields at Suwon, Jeonju, Naju and I ksan. Data for 2013, 2014 and 2016 were used for parameter calibration. For validation, yield data reported from 2016 to 2018 at Suwon was used. Initial calibration indicated that genetic coefficients obtained by LL were distributed in a narrower range than coefficients obtained by GCSM. A two-sample t-test was performed to compare between different methods of ensemble approaches and no significant difference was found between them. Uncertainty of GCSM can be neutralized by adjusting the acceptance probability. The other ensemble method (E_pm) indicates that the uncertainty can be reduced with less computation using ensemble approach.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.151-164
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• 2008

Objectives : This study was designed to compare the effects on Korean Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index(KWOMAC), 36-ltems Short-Form Health Survey(SF-36), Visual Analog Scale(VAS) and Nine Point Scale between 'Intramuscular Bee Venom Herbal Acupuncture' and 'Intracutaneous Bee Venom Herbal Acupuncture' in knee osteoarthritis patients for 4weeks. Methods : All the voluntary subject were diagnosed as knee osteoarthritis. Patients were randomly assigned either to two groups : Intramuscular bee venom herbal acupuncture treatment group(IM-BV group) or Intracutaneous bee venom herbal acupuncture treatment group(IC-BV group). The IM-BV group received bee venom herbal acupuncture intramuscularly on muscles closest to the pathologic site on ultrasonography. The IC-BV group received bee venom herbal acupuncture intracutaneously on $LE_{110}$, $LE_{201}$, $ST_{35}$, $ST_{36}$ and $LR_8$. Bee venom herbal acupuncture was applied twice a week for 4 weeks by an oriental medical doctor at Kyung-hee Oriental Medical Hospital. Both groups were checked of pathologic site by ultrasonography before treatment and follow up after four-week treatment. The patients were assessed by KWOMAC and SF-36 before and after four-week treatment. The changes in patients' pain was measured by VAS before treatment and after one-, two-, three- and four-week treatment. The patients' overall treatment outcome assesment was measured by Nine Point Scale after four-week treatment. Results : The results were as follows ; 1. The IM-BV group showed significant improvement on total, pain, stiffness and physical function in KWOMAC, and the IC-BV group showed significant improvement on total and physical function in KWOMAC after 4weeks compared to the pre-treatment. In KWOMAC, the IM-BV group showed more improvement on average compared to the IC-BV group, but there were no significant difference between two groups. 2. The IM-BV group showed significant improvement on VAS after one-week treatment. The IC-BV group showed significant improvement on VAS after two-week treatment. But there were no significant difference between two groups. 3. The IM-BV group showed significant improvement on physical functioning(PF) and bodily pain(BP) in SF-36, and the IC-BV group showed significant improvement on vitality(VT) and bodily pain(BP) in SF-36 after 4weeks compared to the pre-treatment. But there were no significant difference between two groups. 4. 88.2% of IM-BV group and 93.3% of IC-BV group graded their improvement as 'Fair' or better on Nine Point Scale. But there were no significant difference between two groups. Conclusions : This study suggests that in the treatment of knee osteoarthtitis patients, effects of 'Intramuscular Bee Venom Herbal Acupuncture' were not different from 'Intracutaneous Bee Venom Herbal Acupuncture' statistically. But both treatment showed effects on pain and physical function in knee osteoarthtitis patients.

• The Journal of Korean society of community based occupational therapy
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2020

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of object size and reaching distance on kinematic factors of the upper limb while performing arm reaching for normal subjects. Methods : The subjects of this study were 30 university students who were in D university in Busan, and the measuring tool was CMS-70P(Zebris Medizintechnik Gmbh, Germany), a three-dimensional motion analyzer. The task had six conditions. The average velocity of motion, average acceleration, maximum velocity, and the velocity definite number of movements were measured according to changes in object size(2cm, 10cm) and reaching distance(15%, 37.5%, 60%) when they performed arm reaching. The general characteristics of the subject were technical statistics. One-way ANOVA measurement was used to compare variables when the arm reaching task was performed from two object sizes to three reaching distance, and the post-test was conducted with Tukey test. In addition, an independent t-test was used to analyze the kinematic differences according to the two object sizes at three reaching distances. A two-way ANOVA measurement (3×2 Two-way ANOVA measurement) was performed to identify the interaction of the reaching distance(15%, 37.5%, 60%) and the object size(2cm, 10cm). The statistical significance level α was set to .05. Results : When the size of the object increased, the velocity and maximum velocity also increased, but the definite number of velocity decreased. When the reaching distance increased, the velocity and maximum velocity increased, whereas the definite number of velocity decreased. Conclusion : The clinical significance of this study could be utilized as the baseline data for grading object size and reaching distances when the reaching training is implemented for patients whose central nervous system was damaged.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.191-210
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• 2014

As mobile devices that can be connected to the Internet have spread and networking has become possible whenever/wherever, the Internet has become central in the dissemination and consumption of news. Accordingly, the ways news is gathered, disseminated, and consumed have changed greatly. In the traditional news media such as magazines and newspapers, expert editors determined what events were worthy of deploying their staffs or freelancers to cover and what stories from newswires or other sources would be printed. Furthermore, they determined how these stories would be displayed in their publications in terms of page placement, space allocation, type sizes, photographs, and other graphic elements. In turn, readers-news consumers-judged the importance of news not only by its subject and content, but also through subsidiary information such as its location and how it was displayed. Their judgments reflected their acceptance of an assumption that these expert editors had the knowledge and ability not only to serve as gatekeepers in determining what news was valuable and important but also how to rank its value and importance. As such, news assembled, dispensed, and consumed in this manner can be said to be expert-based recommended news. However, in the era of Internet news, the role of expert editors as gatekeepers has been greatly diminished. Many Internet news sites offer a huge volume of news on diverse topics from many media companies, thereby eliminating in many cases the gatekeeper role of expert editors. One result has been to turn news users from passive receptacles into activists who search for news that reflects their interests or tastes. To solve the problem of an overload of information and enhance the efficiency of news users' searches, Internet news sites have introduced numerous recommendation techniques. Recommendations based on popularity constitute one of the most frequently used of these techniques. This popularity-based approach shows a list of those news items that have been read and shared by many people, based on users' behavior such as clicks, evaluations, and sharing. "most-viewed list," "most-replied list," and "real-time issue" found on news sites belong to this system. Given that collective intelligence serves as the premise of these popularity-based recommendations, popularity-based news recommendations would be considered highly important because stories that have been read and shared by many people are presumably more likely to be better than those preferred by only a few people. However, these recommendations may reflect a popularity bias because stories judged likely to be more popular have been placed where they will be most noticeable. As a result, such stories are more likely to be continuously exposed and included in popularity-based recommended news lists. Popular news stories cannot be said to be necessarily those that are most important to readers. Given that many people use popularity-based recommended news and that the popularity-based recommendation approach greatly affects patterns of news use, a review of whether popularity-based news recommendations actually reflect important news can be said to be an indispensable procedure. Therefore, in this study, popularity-based news recommendations of an Internet news portal was compared with top placements of news in printed newspapers, and news users' judgments of which stories were personally and socially important were analyzed. The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, content analyses were used to compare the content of the popularity-based news recommendations of an Internet news site with those of the expert-based news recommendations of printed newspapers. Five days of news stories were collected. "most-viewed list" of the Naver portal site were used as the popularity-based recommendations; the expert-based recommendations were represented by the top pieces of news from five major daily newspapers-the Chosun Ilbo, the JoongAng Ilbo, the Dong-A Daily News, the Hankyoreh Shinmun, and the Kyunghyang Shinmun. In the second stage, along with the news stories collected in the first stage, some Internet news stories and some news stories from printed newspapers that the Internet and the newspapers did not have in common were randomly extracted and used in online questionnaire surveys that asked the importance of these selected news stories. According to our analysis, only 10.81% of the popularity-based news recommendations were similar in content with the expert-based news judgments. Therefore, the content of popularity-based news recommendations appears to be quite different from the content of expert-based recommendations. The differences in importance between these two groups of news stories were analyzed, and the results indicated that whereas the two groups did not differ significantly in their recommendations of stories of personal importance, the expert-based recommendations ranked higher in social importance. This study has importance for theory in its examination of popularity-based news recommendations from the two theoretical viewpoints of collective intelligence and popularity bias and by its use of both qualitative (content analysis) and quantitative methods (questionnaires). It also sheds light on the differences in the role of media channels that fulfill an agenda-setting function and Internet news sites that treat news from the viewpoint of markets.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.100-103
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• 2010

Purpose: $^{18}F$-FDG wholebody PET is to evaluate the tumor using glucose metabolism. The blood glucose level is important factor that affects on a result of examination. High glucose levels may interfere with tumor targeting due to competitive inhibition of FDG uptake by D-glucose. The blood glucose level measurement test strips used in the blood glucose measurement are classified into the capillary blood measurement test strips and general purpose measurement test strips that can measure the venous blood and capillary blood altogether depends on cases. The purpose of the study was to compare the blood glucose measurements between simultaneously obtained capillary and venous blood samples using the capillary blood measurement test strips, general purpose measurement test strips. Materials and Methods: A total of 46 subjects (32 males, 14 females) with a mean age of $57.3{\pm}12.3$ years were enrolled. The blood glucose estimation was performed with a Optium Xceed Glucometer (Abbott). Simultaneous capillary and venous blood samples were obtained from each subject. The blood glucose levels were measured using the capillary blood measurement test strips and general purpose measurement test strips. The capillary and venous measurements were compared using a pared t-test. Results: The mean capillary and venous glucose values using the general purpose measurement test strips were $95.2{\pm}12.4$ mg/dL and $104.1{\pm}14.4$ mg/dL, giving a statistically significant difference (p<0.001) between the mean values for the capillary and venous glucose samples (9.0 mg/dL; 95% confidence interval (CI) -11.2 to -6.7). The mean capillary and venous glucose values using the capillary blood measurement test strips were $91.5{\pm}13.6$ mg/dL and $108.6{\pm}16.2$ mg/dL, giving a statistically significant difference (p<0.001) between the mean values for the capillary and venous glucose samples (16.6 mg/dL; 95% CI -20.2 to -13.0). Conclusion: When measuring the blood glucose level before $^{18}F$-FDG PET examination, since the incorrect blood glucose level can be measured, it should note to measure the blood glucose level of the venous blood by the capillary blood measurement test strips. Therefore the measurement variation can be reduced to fulfill the standardized measurement procedure with the suitable measurement test strips, the preparation of the PET examination will be able to be clearly confirmed. In addition, the standardized procedure of the following measurement on the area which is same at all times the blood area in the blood glucose measurement among a capillary or a vein will be needed.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.265-275
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• 2006

Objectives : Electrical acupoint stimulation(EAS) has been used to treat motor dysfunction of stroke patients with reportedly effective results. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of the EAS with different frequencies in treating motor dysfunction of ischemic stroke patients. Methods : The subject of this study were forty-two ischemic stroke patients with motor dysfunction in Kyunghee oriental medicine hospital who were hospitalized for one week to one month from onset. They were treated with 2Hz or 120Hz EAS for two weeks, and motor evoked potentials(MEP) were measured before and after EAS treatment. To compare the effect of 2Hz EAS with 120Hz, the number of patients who showed MEP responses after two weeks among those who had no previous response was checked. Also measured were latency, central motor conduction time(CMCT), amplitude of MEP before and after EAS treatment. Results : After two weeks of treatment, 4 out of 15 patients(27%) in the 2Hz EAS group and lout of 19 patients(5%) in the 120Hz group showed potential responses. Yet there was no significant difference between the two groups. When MEP data of the affected side between the 2Hz group and the 120Hz group was compared, the former showed more significant improvement than the latter in latency, CMCT and amplitude(P=0.040, 0.019,0.021). When the proportion of the affected side and unaffected side in MEP data was examined, the 2Hz group showed improvement on only latency and CMCT with significant differences(P=0.040, 0.014). Conclusions : These results show that EAS with low frequency is more helpful for motor recovery after ischemic stroke than that with high frequency. This suggests that low frequency EAS activates the central motor conduction system better than high frequency EAS.