• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.773-775
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• 2006

Purpose: The sternalis muscle is an accessory muscle of the anterior chest wall. This is a rare anatomic variant reported in approximately 8 percent of the population, with variation among races. While several anatomic studies of the sternalis muscle exist, nothing in the literature addresses the implications of this muscle on staged breast reconstruction with implant. Methods: We encountered two consecutive patients with a left sternalis muscle who underwent immediate staged breast reconstruction with a tissue expander. We offer a strategy for dealing with this rare, but known, anatomic variant during staged implant reconstruction. Firstly, recognizing the presence of a sternalis muscle mandates the elevation of the pectoralis major muscle and the sternalis muscle in continuity. Secondly, slight modifications must be made during the submuscular dissection to create a properly placed pocket for the tissue expander. Results: While our encounters with this anatomic variant are few, our experiences with two consecutive patients illustrate that the reconstructive surgeon must be familiar with the sternalis muscle and be prepared to adapt his or her technique for tissue expander placement when faced with this accessory muscle. Conclusion: To date, no reports exist in the literature describing the operative implications of this anatomic variant. We offer our technique for dealing with this accessory muscle during staged implant reconstruction of the breast.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.1037-1054
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• 2016

Structural parameter evaluation and external force estimation are two important parts of structural health monitoring. But the structural parameter identification with limited input information is still a challenging problem. A new simultaneous identification method in time domain is proposed in this study to identify the structural parameters and evaluate the external force. Each sampling point in the time history of external force is taken as the unknowns in force evaluation. To reduce the number of unknowns for force evaluation the time domain measurements are divided into several windows. In each time window the structural excitation is decomposed by orthogonal polynomials. The time-variant excitation can be represented approximately by the linear combination of these orthogonal bases. Structural parameters and the coefficients of decomposition are added to the state variable to be identified. The extended Kalman filter (EKF) is augmented and selected as the mathematical tool for the implementation of state variable evaluation. The proposed method is validated numerically with simulation studies of a time-invariant linear structure, a hysteretic nonlinear structure and a time-variant linear shear frame, respectively. Results from the simulation studies indicate that the proposed method is capable of identifying the dynamic load and structural parameters fairly accurately. This method could also identify the time-variant and nonlinear structural parameter even with contaminated incomplete measurement.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.61-67
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• 2007

The allele frequencies of markers as well as linkage disequilibrium (LD) can be changed in cases due to the LD between markers and the disease allele, exhibiting spurious associations of markers. To identify the true association, classical statistical tests for dealing with confounders have been applied to draw a conclusion as to whether the association of variants comes from LD with the known disease allele. However, a more direct test considering LD using estimated haplotype frequencies may be more efficient. The null hypothesis is that the different allele frequencies of a variant between cases and controls come solely from the increased disease allele frequency and the LD relationship with the disease allele. The haplotype frequencies of controls are estimated using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm from the genotype data. The estimated frequencies are applied to calculate the expected haplotype frequencies in cases corresponding to the increase or decrease of the causative or protective alleles. The suggested method was applied to previously published data, and several APOE variants showed association with Alzheimer's disease independent from the APOE ${\varepsilon}4$ variant, rs429358, regardless of LD showing significant simulated p-values. The test results support the possibility that there may be more than one common disease variant in a locus.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.2051-2055
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• 2012

Background: The cell cycle checkpoint kinase 2 (CHEK2) gene I157T variant may be associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer, but it is unclear whether the evidence is sufficient to recommend testing for the mutation in clinical practice. Materials and Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, EMBASES, Elsevier and Springer for relevant articles before Apr 2012. Summary odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated using a fixed-effects or random-effects models with Review Manager 5.0 software. Results: A total of seven studies including 4,029 cases and 13,844 controls based on the search criteria were included for analysis. A significant association of the CHEK2 I157T C variant with unselected CRC was found (OR = 1.61, 95% CI = 1.40-1.87, P < 0.001). We also found a significant association with sporadic CRC (OR = 1.48, 95% CI = 1.23-1.77, P < 0.001) and separately with familial CRC (OR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.41-2.74, P < 0.001). Conclusion: This meta-analysis demonstrates that the CHEK2 I157T variant may be another important CRC-predisposing gene, which increases CRC risk, especially in familial CRC.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.190-198
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• 2012

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a smoking cessation education on endothelial function and carboxyhemoglobin levels in smokers with variant angina. Methods: A nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used. Participants were 60 male smokers with variant angina admitted to one hospital: the control group (30) between September and December, 2009, and the experimental group (30) between February and May, 2010. Endothelial function, as defined by flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) of the brachial artery, and serum carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) were determined at baseline and at 3 months after the initiation of education in both groups. Results: Three months after the program, smoking cessation was successful in 22 of the 30 smokers in the experimental group, but only in 4 of 30 smokers in the control group ($p$<.001). After the education, the experimental group showed a significant increase in FMD, and a significant decreased in serum COHb compared with the control group. Conclusion: The findings indicate that this smoking cessation education program is effective for hospitalized smokers with variant angina.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.69-74
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• 2005

Kalopanax pictus is a long-lived woody species mostly distributed in East Asia. K. pictus has been regarded as medically and ecologically important species in Korea. Thornless castor aralia variant, local name 'Cheongsong' is an endemic to Cheongsong province in Korea. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) was used to investigate the genetic variation and structure of Korean populations of two species. A high level of genetic variation was found in six K. pictus populations. Twelve primers revealed 49 loci, of which 29 were polymorphic (59.2%). Nei's gene diversity for K.pictus and K. pictus variant were 0.119 and 0.098, respectively. Mean of genetic diversity in K. pictus was higher than average values for species with similar life history traits. The asexual and sexual reproduction, perennial habitat, and longevity are proposed as possible factors contributing to high genetic diversity. An indirect estimate of the number of migrants per generation (Nm=0.857) indicated that gene flow was not extensive among Korean populations of K.pictus. It is suggested that the isolation of geographical distance and reproductive isolation between K.pictus and K.pictus variant populations may have played roles in shaping the population structure of this species.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.581-588
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• 1997

Time-variant mobile radio fading channels distort amplitude, frequency and phase of a transmitted signal. On channels that have time-variant spectral nulls, the conventional equalizers which have low convergence speed and high sensitiveness to phase distortion yields very poor error rate performance. In this paper, the performance of a combined structure with the data-recycling algorithm and fractionally spaced equalizer (FSE) has been investigated on time-variant mobile radio fading channels through computer simulations and compared to other kinds of equalizers. The results show that the data-recycling FSE has excellent capabilities for tracking rapidly time-variant mobile channels and effective compensation for phase distortion.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.154-156
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• 2017

Constant variance of degradation data over time has been generally assumed to estimate storage lifetime using destructive, accelerated degradation data over time. However, performance data of ammunitions deteriorate over time, and the standard deviation would tend to increase over time. This paper shows storage lifetime comparison results for constant variance and time-variant variance assumptions of degradation data over time, and proposes that time-variant variance assumption should be considered to increase accuracy in lifetime estimation.

• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.183-187
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• 2008

Pseudohyperplastic prostatic adenocarcinoma is a rare histologic variant of prostatic adenocarcinoma that resembles benign nodular hyperplasia. Immunohistochemistry can verify the absence of basal cells, but it is frequently admixed with conventional adenocarcinoma. Because fine needle aspiration cytology is rarely performed in primary prostatic adenocarcinoma, the cytology of the pseudohyperplastic variant has not been described. We experienced a case of metastatic pseudohyperplastic adenocarcinoma in a pulmonary nodule of 75-year-old man. The cytologic smear was mostly composed of large, flat sheets with elongated branching papillae in a clean background. The sheets showed a well-defined honeycomb appearance of tall columnar, regularly arranged monotonous cells with little cytologic atypia. In subsequent prostatic biopsy, pseudohyperplastic variants were identified together with conventional adenocarcinoma of Gleason's grade 3 and 4. The cytologic features of pulmonary nodules were identical to those of pseudohyperplastic components of prostatic adenocarcinoma.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.8
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• pp.1986-1992
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• 2009

A user often searches a data by inputting a variant such as the abbreviation or substring of a word, or a misspelled word. The simple approach to the searching for variants is to build a variants dictionary. However, it entails enormous cost and time and can not handle variants by misspelling. Approximate searching, searching by approximate string matching, is a good approach to the searching. A problem in the approach is that it cannot handle variants by abbreviations. This paper propose a method for searching various variants including abbreviations and misspelled words, by using the trie indexing. First, this paper shows a variant matching method with the calculation of path weighted-metric. In addition, it provides variant searching algorithm to reduce the search time.