• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.601-606
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• 2017

Cystoisospora is responsible for morbidity in immunocompromised patients. PCR is sensitive for diagnosing Cystoisospora; however, it needs reevaluation for differential molecular diagnosis of cystoisosporiasis. We aimed at evaluating melting curve analysis (MCA) after real-time PCR (qPCR) in diagnosis and genotyping of Cystoisospora as an alternative to conventional PCR. We included 293 diarrheic stool samples of patients attending the Department of Clinical Oncology and Nuclear Medicine of Cairo University Hospitals, Egypt. Samples were subjected to microscopy, nested PCR (nPCR), and qPCR targeting the internal transcribed spacer 2 region (ITS2) of the ribosomal RNA (r RNA) gene followed by melting temperatures ($T_ms$) analysis and comparing the results to PCR-RFLP banding patterns. Using microscopy and ITS2-nPCR, 3.1% and 5.8% of cases were Cystoisospora positive, respectively, while 10.9% were positive using qPCR. Genotyping of Cystoisospora by qPCR-MCA revealed 2 genotypes. These genotypes matched with 2 distinct melting peaks with specified $T_ms$ at $85.8^{\circ}C$ and $88.6^{\circ}C$, which indicated genetic variation among Cystoisospora isolates in Egypt. Genotype II proved to be more prevalent (65.6%). HIV-related Kaposi sarcoma and leukemic patients harbored both genotypes with a tendency to genotype II. Genotype I was more prevalent in lymphomas and mammary gland tumors while colorectal and hepatocellular tumors harbored genotype II suggesting that this genotype might be responsible for the development of cystoisosporiasis in immunocompromised patients. Direct reliable identification and differentiation of Cystoisospora species could be established using $qPCR-T_ms$ analysis which is useful for rapid detection and screening of Cystoisospora genotypes principally in high risk groups.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.89-95
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• 2015

All living organisms have a biological clock that orchestrates every biological process and function, and this internal clock operates following a circadian rhythm. This biological clock is known to influence various clinical indicators such as blood pressure and body temperature. Also, the fluctuation of signs and symptoms of diseases including pain disorders are affected by circadian rhythm. It has been reported that the pain intensity of various somatic and neuropathic pain disorders show unique pain patterns that depend on the passage of time. The generation of pain patterns could be explained by extrinsic (e.g., physical activity, tactile stimulation, ambient temperature) and also intrinsic factors (neural and neuroendocrine modulation) that are related to the circadian rhythm. It is important to recognize and identify the individual pain pattern in pain therapy to approve treatment outcome. Moreover, chronotherapeutics which considers pain patterns and pharmacokinetics in context of the circadian rhythm could produce greater analgesia in response to medication. However, only a limited number of studies handle the issue of pain patterns according to circadian rhythm and chronotherapeutics in the orofacial region. The present review intends to reflect on the most recent and relevant data concerning the bidirectional relation between pain disorders of the orofacial region and circadian patterns.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.1108-1112
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• 2011

Voice can be widely used to classify the four constitution types and to recognize one's health condition from extracting meaningful features as physical quantity in traditional Korean medicine or Western medicine. In this paper, we proposed the method to update the standard operating procedure (SOP) to acquire and record voices for extracting stable vocal features since they are sensitive to the variation of a subject's utterance. At first, we obtained pitch frequencies from vowels and the sentence and intensity form the sentence as features with voices acquired under subjects' utterance conditions and then the deviation ratios of features from median values according to the utterance conditions were obtained and the condition to minimize the ratio was selected as a new SOP. As a result, we decided the SOP for a subject to utter vowels with the length of 2s~1s and sentences with over 2s interval between them after practice, in consideration of the deviation and qualitative requirements. Stable voice features obtained from updated SOP produce accurate diagnosis, which will be developed and simplified for using in the u-Healthcare system of personalized medicine.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.46 no.10
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• pp.611-626
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• 2023

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease caused by distinctive mutations in individual patients; therefore, each patient may display different cell-type compositions. Although most patients with AML achieve complete remission (CR) through intensive chemotherapy, the likelihood of relapse remains high. Several studies have attempted to characterize the genetic and cellular heterogeneity of AML; however, our understanding of the cellular heterogeneity of AML remains limited. In this study, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells obtained from same patients at different AML stages (diagnosis, CR, and relapse). We found that hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) at diagnosis were abnormal compared to normal HSCs. By improving the detection of the DNMT3A R882 mutation with targeted scRNAseq, we identified that DNMT3A-mutant cells that mainly remained were granulocyte-monocyte progenitors (GMPs) or lymphoid-primed multipotential progenitors (LMPPs) from CR to relapse and that DNMT3A-mutant cells have gene signatures related to AML and leukemic cells. Copy number variation analysis at the single-cell level indicated that the cell type that possesses DNMT3A mutations is an important factor in AML relapse and that GMP and LMPP cells can affect relapse in patients with AML. This study advances our understanding of the role of DNMT3A in AML relapse and our approach can be applied to predict treatment outcomes.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.22
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• pp.10021-10025
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• 2014

Background: The study aimed to describe the age distribution of breast cancer diagnosis among Chinese females for comparison with the United States and the European Union, and provide evidence for the screening target population in China. Materials and Methods: Median age was estimated from hospital databases from 7 tertiary hospitals in China. Population-based data in China, United States and European Union was extracted from the National Central Cancer Registry, SEER program and GLOBOCAN 2008, respectively. Age-standardized distribution of breast cancer at diagnosis in the 3 areas was estimated based on the World Standard Population 2000. Results: The median age of breast cancer at diagnosis was around 50 in China, nearly 10 years earlier than United States and European Union. The diagnosis age in China did not vary between subgroups of calendar year, region and pathological characteristics. With adjustment for population structure, median age of breast cancer at diagnosis was 50~54 in China, but 55~59 in United States and European Union. Conclusions: The median diagnosis age of female breast cancer is much earlier in China than in the United States and the European Union pointing to racial differences in genetics and lifestyle. Screening programs should start at an earlier age for Chinese women and age disparities between Chinese and Western women warrant further studies.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.81-88
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• 2009

Objectives: With more and more health economic evaluations being performed in many countries, the question of whether the results from the foreign studies can be transferred to other country is becoming important. The objective of this study was to conduct a case study using three transferability diagnosis tools for economic evaluation on rheumatoid arthritis. Methods: Three diagnosis tools were used to assess transferability: Welte's tool, Boulenger's and Urdahl's. Five researchers who have experience on economic evaluation made consensus on the evaluation through the semi-delphi method. Results: With Welte's tool, absolute and relative prices in healthcare, practice variation, health-status preference, productivity and work-loss time were evaluated as biased. The transferability information score by Boulenger's was 85.9%, which means qood quality reporting. In case of Urdahl's, research questions were well defined and reporting was transparent and explicitly stated. However, both the relevance of data inputs to Korea and robustness of model were relatively low. In conclusion the UK study on rheumatoid arthritis could be partially transferable to Korea, and will need modeling-based adjustments.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 1975

The boundary has been one of the most important information in radiographic images and the degrees of difficulty involved varies greatly with the quality of the picture. These Buantifications are the means to diagnoses. The purpose of this paper is to quantify intensity variation and the threshold decision which is based on statistical principles and is developed to detect limits in liver scintigrams the entire picture is devide4 into 64 small regions. The kurtosis and variances for each smal region are used as indications to select the histograms the thresholds are computed according to the method o(maximum likelihood which minimizes the probability o( misclassification. Therefore Ive have demonstrated the applicability of the boundary detection and proved good agreement with human recognition, and we can use it for the diagnosis data of liver disease.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.27-41
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• 1991

The purpose of this study is to estimate cesarean section rate in Korea and analyze characteristics of health care institution which affect regional variation in the rate. We have searched vaginal and cesarean section deliveries among Diagnosis Related Group dat based upon insurance claim bills which have been submitted to Korean Insurance Corporation for two years since March, 1985. The results are as follows: 1. Out of all delivery cases of 87,500, cesarean section rate was 16.3% (14,299 cases). 2. Cesarean section rate varied according to size and ownership of health care institutions. In above 6- bed sized hospitals, the rate was at about 20% higher than small sized institutions, but rather in hospitals that have more than 500 beds, it was somewhat low. Classified by the hospital ownership, the rate was low at 18.4% in hospitals of religious organization and highest at private or corporate hospitals. 3. This study shows large regional variation in cesarean section rate; there are two times differences between region with the highest and lowest rate. Strongly related factors in that variation was the ownership of health care institution and urbanization variables. Low level of cesarean section rate in a region is explained by high proportion of delivery cases at institutions of religious organization and at insitutions in county level site. This result shows that apart from medical conditions of patients, indications of cesarean section differs from health care providers, and especially ownership of institution strongly affect them. Cesarean section rate in Korea is supposed to be at high level and development of utilization review programs to keep appropriate cesarean section rate is needed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.57-62
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• 2015

In this paper, we design fuzzy inference-based deterioration diagnosis system through different image for rapid as well as efficient diagnosis of electrical equipments. When the deterioration diagnosis of the electrical equipment starts, abnormal state of assigned area is detected by comparing with the temperature of the first normal state of the area. Deterioration state of detected area is diagnosed by using fuzzy inference algorithm. In the fuzzy inference algorithm, fuzzy rules are defined by If-then form and are described as look-up table. Both temperature and its ensuing variation are used as input variables. While triangular membership function is used for the fuzzy input variables of fuzzy rules, singleton membership function is used for the output variable of fuzzy rules. The final output is calculated by using the center of gravity of fuzzy inference method. Experimental data acquired from individual electrical equipments is used in order to evaluate the output performance of the proposed system.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.147-155
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• 2009

Occlusion force measuring and analysis is a diagnostic method of tooth dynamics through the related force analysis. In this paper, we design and implement a series of occlusion force measuring software and evaluate its utility as a base system for a new occlusion force measure and analysis system development. For the reason, we developed a group of tools to measure the normal and abnormal occlusion force. Firstly, we have visualized the occlusion force distribution with quantitative figures. The center of force (COF) variation was visualized the path of marker according to teeth dynamics and the distribution of occlusion forces in 14 tooth regions. Secondly, we have implemented a left and right tooth force balance measurement ratio tool to estimate a specific tooth region force. Furthermore, the measured occlusion force variation recorded in the software each 0.5 second. As the result of the physical examination by the accessed hardware of sensor sheet method, we confirmed the distribution and balance of forces effectively.