• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.341-347
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• 2011

Acanthamoeba infection is difficult to treat because of the resistance property of Acanthamoeba cyst against the host immune system, diverse antibiotics, and therapeutic agents. To identify encystation mediating factors of Acanthamoeba, we compared the transcription profile between cysts and trophozoites using microarray analysis. The DNA chip was composed of 12,544 genes based on expressed sequence tag (EST) from an Acanthamoeba ESTs database (DB) constructed in our laboratory, genetic information of Acanthamoeba from TBest DB, and all of Acanthamoeba related genes registered in the NCBI. Microarray analysis indicated that 701 genes showed higher expression than 2 folds in cysts than in trophozoites, and 859 genes were less expressed in cysts than in trophozoites. The results of real-time PCR analysis of randomly selected 9 genes of which expression was increased during cyst formation were coincided well with the microarray results. Eukaryotic orthologous groups (KOG) analysis showed an increment in T article (signal transduction mechanisms) and O article (posttranslational modification, protein turnover, and chaperones) whereas significant decrement of C article (energy production and conversion) during cyst formation. Especially, cystein proteinases showed high expression changes (282 folds) with significant increases in real-time PCR, suggesting a pivotal role of this proteinase in the cyst formation of Acanthamoeba. The present study provides important clues for the identification and characterization of encystation mediating factors of Acanthamoeba.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.236-246
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the relationships among job characteristics, knowledge sharing, organizational culture, and organizational commitment in occupational health nurses (OHN) and clinical nurses (CN) to identify factors that might influence organizational commitment. It aimed to contribute to the improvement of knowledge management in health care organizations, including industrial workplaces and hospitals. Methods: A convenience sample of 188 nurses, specifically 100 OHN and 88 CN, was selected. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-tests, correlation coefficients, and multiple regression analysis. Results: OHNs had a significantly higher education level and current work experience; higher proportion of participants with contract employment status, day work shift, less turnover experience, good lifestyle; and higher scores on organizational culture ($3.3{\pm}0.61$) and organizational commitment ($3.1{\pm}0.60$). Additionally, the correlations among organizational commitment, job characteristics, knowledge sharing, and organizational culture ware higher (r=.38~.57) among OHNs as compared to those among CNs. Further, the organizational commitment of OHNs was significantly influenced by knowledge sharing, organizational culture, working hours, and salary ($R^2=.32$), while that of CNs was influenced by organizational culture and life event stress ($R^2=.11$). Conclusion: There is a need to develop measures to enable nurses to contribute to the improvement of knowledge management in health care organizations as major human resources, by including interventions for the major factors leading to between-group differences in organizational performance.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.91-109
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• 2015

The M&A of firms has been emerged as the effective means of fast diversification and growth in dynamic environment. However, the empirical research about M&A in Korea has not been implemented rich due to the difficulty of obtaining M&A data. In this research, we empirically investigate the relationships among M&A, environment and firms' performance focused on Korean manufacturing firms, understanding the current practice of M&A in Korea. We use the Manufacturing Productivity Panel Survey Data, which are collected by Korea Productivity Center in 2013. The sample size is 575 and the sample is divided into M&A group and non-M&A group. We conduct logit analysis with the independent variables of environment factors (munificence, dynamic, uncertainty), and firms' performance (sales growth, ROS, labor productivity and Inventory turnover), and dependent variable of M&A group or non M&A group. The results show that M&A is closely related to environment feature and firm performance: M&A firms are likely to be the higher munificence and dynamic and the lower sales growth and higher profitability than non-M&A group. In addition, we also examine the characteristics of firms by M&A types (competitors, customer/supplier and firms from unrelated industry). These results imply that if firms confront the pressure of uncertainty (dynamic) and the lower growth, they tend to choose M&A. Futhermore, to profoundly understand the behavior of firms about M&A, it is required to classify the M&A firms by merge types.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1-17
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• 2002

This study was attempted to identify the liquidity trends and determinants of private hospitals in Korea different. Data used in this study were collected from 98 hospitals with complete general data of present conditions as well as financial statements(balance sheets, income statements). They were chosen from hospitals that passed the standardization audit undertaken by the Korean Hospital Association from 1996 to 2000 for the purpose of accrediting training hospitals. The dependent variables in this study were used current ration and quick ratio as a proxy indicator for liquidity. The independent variables were ownership type, hospital type, location, bed size, period of establishment, short-term liabilities to total assets, long-term liabilities to total assets, borrowings to total assets, fixed asset ration, net profit to total assets, operating margin to gross revenue, growth rate of net worth to total assets, total asset turnover, and business risk(volatility of profit). The major findings of this study were as follows. Trends of liquidity(current ratio, quick ratio) had been continuously decreased. Especially, There were very distinct decreasing trends of personal hospitals and less than 300beds, which weakened liquidity. The factors had significant effect on current ratio were short-term debt to total assets(-), fixed asset ratio(-), business risk(+). High short-term debt to total assets, high fixed asset ratio and high business risk significantly decreased in liquidity. The factors that significantly affected on quick ratio were short-term debt to total assets(-), borrowings to total assets(+), fixed asset ratio(-), business risk(+).

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.118-132
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to present the psychological capital as a leading factor affecting organizational commitment, to determine the role of job satisfaction as a mediator among those, and finally to find the way to increase the commitment by suggesting a new idea for human resources management in the foodservice firms which were having difficulties in finding new employees and in high turnover rates. A survey was conducted on the employees in foodservice firms including both franchise management and direct management restaurants for the period of the month of February 2012, and the data were analyzed with frequency analysis, reliability test, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, path analysis, and mediating effect analysis by using SPSS 15.0 and AMOS 7.0. As a result of the study, the psychological capital factors such as hope, resiliency, and optimism had significant effects on organizational commitment, and job satisfaction strongly mediated the relations of the psychological capital factors as presented above and the organizational commitment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.230-236
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• 2017

The recent domestic construction market is in a difficult situation due to reduction of the government's SOC budget and new orders from public-sector, and the deterioration of housing supply situation in the private sector etc. In addition, the number of disasters in the construction industry has increased in recent years with 26,570 people (up 5.7% from the previous year) in 2016, unlike other industries that are in a declining trend. As such, the construction industry has unique characteristics and problems such as high industrial accidents rate, abnormal subcontracting structure, excessive working hours and work intensity. As a result, the construction workers have a lot of job stresses. Job stress has been recognized as one of the major causes of industrial accidents and many researches have been conducted on that. However, most of the researches were about the factors that induce job stress and how these factors affect disaster occurrence, job satisfaction, job performance, turnover intentions, and job exhaustion. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of positive psychological capital on job stress, which is emerging as a new human resources development paradigm useful in corporate management in order to find ways to reduce job stress. To do this, 347 data collected from construction workers in Daejeon, Sejong, and Chungcheong provinces were analyzed using statistical package(IBM SPSS 22) for basic statistical analysis, reliability analysis, and regression analysis. As a result, positive psychological capital has shown an alleviate effect on job stress. In particular, the higher the optimism, hope, and resiliency of positive psychological capital, the lower the job stress. However, the higher the self - efficacy, the higher the job stress.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.631-640
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• 2020

Purpose: This study aimed to examine premenstrual symptoms (PMS) of shift nurses and identify the association between PMS, sleep, and occupational stress. Methods: This study was conducted with a secondary data analysis that used data from the Shift Work Nurse's Health and Turnover study. The participants were 258 nurses who were working in shifts including night shifts. PMS, sleep patterns (sleep time and sleep time variability), sleep quality, and the occupational stress of each participant were measured using the Moos Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, a sleep diary, an actigraph, the Insomnia Severity Index, and the Korean Occupational Stress Scale, respectively. Data were analyzed using SPSS 23 and STATA 15.1 to obtain descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation coefficients, multiple linear regression with generalized estimating equations (GEE) and Baron and Kenny's mediating analysis. Results: The average PMS score, average sleep time, average sleep time variability, average sleep quality score, and average occupational stress score of the participants was 53.95 ± 40.45, 7.52 ± 0.89 hours, 32.84 ± 8.43%, 12.34 ± 5.95, and 49.89 ± 8.98, respectively. A multiple linear regression analysis with GEE indicated that sleep time variability (B = 0.86, p = .001), and sleep quality (B = 2.36, p < .001) had negative effects on nurses' PMS. We also found that sleep quality had a complete mediating effect in the relationship between occupational stress and PMS. Conclusion: These findings indicate that both sleep time variability and sleep quality are important factors associated with PMS among shift work nurses. To improve shift nurses' PMS status, strategies are urgently needed to decrease sleep time variability and increase sleep quality.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.250-260
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the role experiences of occupational health nurse. The research question was "what are daily experiences in practice?" Methods: The data were collected through the focus-group interviews with nine occupational health nurses and analyzed by the grounded theory of Strauss and Corbin (1998). Results: The core category on occupational health nurse role experience was named as "struggling alone with the dual role". The causal conditions included 'unfamiliar area' and 'new work'. The contextual conditions included 'overload of work, 'tasks beyond OHN job' and 'disharmony with colleagues'. The intervening conditions were analyzed as supportive factors and discouraging factors. There were action/interaction strategies 'getting information about tasks', 'working as a professional', 'establishing a cooperative relationship', 'seeking help' by trying to regulate the phenomenon. Finally they succeed in 'establishing the identity' and 'feeling proud', but sometimes they could be 'suffering from low morale', or 'considering turnover'. Conclusion: Through these results, it can be explained that occupational health nurses have been exerting themselves to establish their role with various situation through the conflicted context. Based on the findings, we suggest developing the diverse continuing education programs to be tailored for OHN's needs and reinforcing the occupational health services under the legal and political support.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.147-170
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• 1999

This study was performed to assess the financial performance of medical institutions and examine the affecting factors in Taegu metropolitan and Kyungpook province. The major results are as follows ; The liability to total assets was significantly different according to the ownership type of medical institution. It was the highest in the case of juridical person having a special status. The total assets turnover and value added to total assets were significantly different according to the type of medical institution, period of establishment, and ownership type of medical institution. They were higher in the tertiary medical institution, in private hospital and university hospital, and they were increased with establishment period of medical institution. The growth rate of patient revenues were significantly different according to the type of medical institution, period of establishment, and the growth rate of adjusted inpatient days were significantly different by period of establishment. The return on assets and net profit to gross revenues were the highest in private hospital. Private hospital went into the black, but other hospitals went into the red figures. According to the multiple regression analysis for the net profit to gross revenues, ownership type, period of establishment, and management strategy of medical institution were significant It was higher in private hospital and medical institution with prospector management strategy, and it was increased with establishment period of medical institution. In multiple logistic regression analysis for the status of financial performance in medical institution, period of establishment, management strategy of medical institution were significant It was better in medical institution with prospector management strategy and longer period of establishment.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.68-79
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• 2003

Although seagrasses are relatively abundant, few studies have been conducted on seagrass physiology and ecology in Korea. Zostera marina is the most abundant seagrass species, widely distributed throughout all coastal areas of the Korean peninsula. To examine seasonal dynamics and spatial variations of eelgrass, Zostera marina distributed on the coast of Korea, morphological characteristics, biomass, tissue nutrient constituents, leaf productivity and environmental factors were monitored monthly from the eelgrass beds in Kabae Bay and Kosung Bay on the south coast of the Korean peninsula from June 2001 to June 2002. Eelgrass density, biomass, morphological characteristics, leaf productivities, and tissue nutrient constituents exhibited clear seasonal variations, and these seasonal trends reflected seasonal changes in water temperature. Eelgrass shoot density and biomass at Kabae Bay site showed more obvious seasonal trends than Kosung Bay. No strong seasonality in Kosung Bay site appeared to be caused by high water temperature ($>30{\circ}C$) during summer months at this site. Despite differences in nutrient availabilities between two study sites, eelgrass biomass and leaf productivities were not significantly different between study sites, and this lack of spatial variations implies that the ambient nutrient availabilities at the present study sites are in excess of seagrass nutrient demand. Eelgrass tissue N content and sediment pore water DIN concentrations exhibited reverse relationship at the present study. This reverse relationship suggests in situ nutrient concentrations are not good indicator of nutrient availabilities, and regeneration and turnover rates of sediment nutrients are also important factors to determine nutrient availabilities at the site.