• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.341-351
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• 2014

Purpose : In this study, the medication effects of Milnacipran and Pregabalin, as well known as fibromyalgia treatment medicine, in fibromyalgia syndrome patients were compared through the change of BOLD signal in pain related functional MRI. Materials and Methods: Twenty fibromyalgia syndrome patients were enrolled in this study and they were separated into two groups according to the treatment medicine: 10 Milnacipran (MLN) treatment group and 7 Pregabalin (PGB) treatment group. For accurate diagnosis, all patients underwent several clinical tests. Pre-treated and post-treated fMRI image with block-designed pressure-pain stimulation for each group were obtained to conduct the statistical analysis of paired t-test and two sample t-test. All statistical significant level was less than 0.05. Results: In clinical tests, the clinical scores of the two groups were not significantly different at pre-treatment stage. But, PGB treatment group had lower Widespread Pain Index (WPI) and Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) score than those of MLN treatment group at post-treatment stage. In functional image analysis, BOLD signal of PGB treatment group was higher BOLD signal at several regions including anterior cingulate and insula than MLN treatment group at post-treatment stage. Also, paired t-test values of the BOLD signal in MLN group decreased in several regions including insula and thalamus as known as 'pain network'. In contrast, size and number of regions in which the BOLD signal decreased in PGB treatment group were smaller than those of MLN treatment group. Conclusion: This study showed that MLN group and PGB group have different medication effects. It is not surprising that MLN and PGB have not the same therapeutic effects since these two drugs have different medicinal mechanisms such as antidepressants and anti-seizure medication, respectively, and different detailed target of fibromyalgia syndrome treatment. Therefore, it is difficult to say which medicine will work better in this study.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.13-33
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• 1999

The aim of this study was to investigate fatigue scores, physical complaints, farmer's syndrome and to find out its risk factors among farmers. The questionnaire survey was conducted to 177 vinyl house workers and 213 farmers who lived in Chongyang gun of Chungnam province from February 24 to March 15, 1998. The obtained main results were followings; 1. The fatigue scores were not significantly different between vinyl house workers and farmers. The fatigue scores were higher in female group, lower education group, shorter sleep hours group(under 8 hours), nonsmoker, nondrinker group than otherwise groups. There was not statistically significant difference between the mean fatigue scores and age, eating habit and body mass index. Duration of farming years in vinyl house and farming area and number of farming workers in farmers family showed a slight relationship with the fatigue score. 2. Health scores were not different between vinyl house workers and farmers. The health states was poorer in female group, lower education group, shorter sleep hours group(under 8 hours), nonsmoker group, and nondrinker group than otherwise groups by health scores. Health scores were not related with age, eating habit and body mass index. 3. The proportion of farmer's syndrome was 49.1% in vinyl house workers and 52.1% in farmers. That was higher in female than in male and the higher proportion was found in the lower education group of vinyl house workers and farmers. The proportion of farmer's syndrome was higher in the group of smoker, alcohol drinkers and over or under weight in vinyl house workers, but did not differ in those of farmers. 4. By multiple logistic regression, sex and sleep hours were risk factors affecting to farmer's syndrome. Odds ration for female group was 2.53 (reference group was male) and that for over 8 sleep hours group was 0.74 (reference group was under 8 sleep hours group). 5. The chief complaints by CMI were "I am difficult to work due to aching the back and the limbs", "I feel prickle pain in the limbs", "I sometimes have a twinge in the limbs", "I am not quite well as having a pain in the limbs", "I feel weaker grasping power than before" in both of vinyl house workers and farmers. Vinyl house workers more frequently pointed out skin darkening, skin disease and hemorrhoids than farmers. 6. According to correspondence analysis, skin disease of vinyl house workers was related to vinyl house farmers and digestive and general symptom was associated with male and endocrinological and muscular symptom was associated with female in vinyl house workers. And it revealed that farmer's syndrome was highly related with female and farmers relatively. By the above results, the fatigue scores, perceive health and farmer's syndrome did not much differ in two groups, but aged female farmers should be considered as female farmers represented higher fatigue score, farmers syndrome and poorer perceive health than male farmers in addition to farmer's syndrome was increased with ageing process. Also feeble but distinguished symptoms which might be due to working environment were observed especially in vinyl house workers and that should be considered and investigated continuously.

• 대한공업교육학회지
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.267-286
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• 2013

Recently, the advanced company has been sparing no efforts in improving necessary core knowledge and technology to achieve outstanding work performance. In this rapidly changing knowledge-based society, the company has confronted the task of creating a high value-added knowledge. The role of R&D workforce that corresponds to the characteristic and role of knowledge worker is getting more significant. As the life cycle of technical knowledge and skill shortens, in every industry, the technical knowledge and skill have become essential elements for successful business. It is difficult to improve competitiveness of the company without enhancing the competency of individual and organization. As the competency development which is a part of human resource management in the company is being spread now, it is required to focus on the research of determining necessary competency and to analyze the competency of a core organization in the research institute. 'H' is the semiconductor manufacturing company which has a affiliated research institute with its own R&D engineers. Based on focus group interview and job analysis data, vision and necessary competency were confirmed. And to confirm whether the required competency by job is different or not, analysis was performed by dividing members into workers who are in charge of circuit design and design before process development and who are in the process actualization and process development. Also, this research included members' importance awareness of the determined competency. The interview and job analysis were integrated and analyzed after arranging by groups and contents and the analyzed results were resorted after comparative analysis with a competency dictionary of Spencer & Spencer and competency models which are developed from the advanced research. Derived main competencies are: challenge, responsibility, and prediction/responsiveness, planning a new business, achievement -oriented, training, cooperation, self-development, analytic thinking, scheduling, motivation, communication, commercialization of technology, information gathering, professionalism on the job, and professionalism outside of work. The highly required competency for both jobs was 'Professionalism'. 'Attitude', 'Performance Management', 'Teamwork' for workers in charge of circuit design and 'Challenge', 'Training', 'Professionalism on the job' and 'Communication' were recognized to be required competency for those who are in charge of process actualization and process development. With above results, this research has determined the necessary competency that the 'H' company's affiliated research institute needs and found the difference of required competency by job. Also, it has suggested more enthusiastic education methods or various kinds of education by confirming the importance awareness of competency and individual's level of awareness about the competency.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2011

In this study, we examined the impact caused by chronic exposure to Mn by investigating the degree of brain activation based on the data of recognition activities using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). A questionnaire survey, blood tests, and fMRI tests were carried out with respect to two groups. Group 1 was an exposure group consisting of 15 male workers who are 34 years old or older, and who worked for longer than 10 years in a shipbuilding factory as a welder. Group 2 was a control group consisting of 15 workers in manufacturing industries with the same gender and age. The results showed that blood Mn concentration of Group 1($1.3\;{\mu}g/dl$) was significantly higher than that of Group 2($0.8\;{\mu}g/dl$)(p < 0.001), and Pallidal Index (PI) of Group 1 was also significantly higher than that of Group 2 (p < 0.001). PI value of the group whose blood Mn concentration was $0.93\;{\mu}g/dl$ or higher was significantly higher than that of the group whose blood Mn concentration was less than $0.93 \;{\mu}g/dl$ (p < 0.001). As for brain activity area within the control group, the right and the left areas of occipital cortex showed significant activity and the left area of middle temporal cortex, the right area of superior inferior frontal cortex and inferior parietal cortex showed significant activity. Unlike the control group, the exposure group showed significant activity on the right area of superior inferior temporal cortex, the left of insula area. In the comparison of brain activity areas between the two groups, the exposure group showed significantly higher activation than the control group in such areas as the right inferior temporal cortex, the left area of superior parietal cortex and occipital cortex, and cerebellum including middle temporal cortex. However, in nowhere the control group showed more activated area than the exposure group. As the final outcome, chronic exposure to Mn increased brain activity during implementation of arithmetic task. In an identical task, activation increased in superior inferior temporal cortex, and insula area. And it was discovered that brain activity increase in temporal area and occipital area was more pronounced in the exposure group than in the control group. This result suggests that chronic exposure to Mn in the work environment affects brain activation neuro-network.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.506-514
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• 2006

purpose of this work was to study the applied effects of out-of-class Chemical Experience Learning (CEL) Programs on scientific process skills and science-related attitude for middle school students. The out-of-class CEL Programs which were developed to make the funny out-of-class chemistry and the exciting science class', included the nature-friendly chemical experiments suitable for natural environment and composed of real life-centered experiences. The out-of-class CEL programs were applied to natural environment through all-day improvement activity. The science club students in D middle school in Busan were selected as the objects of the study consisting of one experiment group and one control group. The out-of-class CEL programs were applied to the experiment group and traditional class method was applied to the control group. The change of scientific process skills and science-related attitudes between two groups were compared and analyzed. And students reaction on the out-of-class CEL programs was investigated. As a result, out-of-class nature-friendly chemical experiments were improved scientific process skills and science-related attitudes of middle school students. Also, more than 70% of students in the experimental group gave positive feedbacks to the out-of-class CEL programs and increased attention, interest, and degree of self-participation in science.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.161-173
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• 2015

The guarantee of transportation for elderly and handicapped people is increasingly necessary owing to their growing social and economic activity. In March of 2013, a partial amendment to the law for transportation of the vulnerable was made by the government, to make more convenient transport a legal requirement. The amendment describes standards for the installation of transport facilities, and its support available. However, the adjustment of low-floor bus routes is not included. Therefore, low-floor buses are operating without consideration for the handicapped. This study evaluates the current low-floor bus system user experience by considering the residential distribution of vulnerable customers and analyzing their reasons for using public transport. As a result of this work, adjustments to current bus routes are proposed. The residential distribution of vulnerable people has been assessed using the supporting materials of the urban renewal project in Busan City, and their reasons for using public transport have been collected by a survey of the target user groups. The results show that group A, which has good accessibility, was in high demand, but provided the most limited service. Whereas group C, which also has good accessibility but was in low demand, provided its service most frequently. The data show the supply and demand inconsistencies of low-floor buses, and the inefficiency of bus route allocation. Therefore, this study proposes improvements to current methods for the effective operation of low-floor buses.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.584-592
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• 2001

The cracks are developed in reinforced concrete(RC) beams at the early stage of service load because of the relatively small tensile strength of concrete. The structural strength and stiffness are decreased by reduction of tensile resistance capacity of concrete due to the developed cracks. Using the fiber reinforced concrete that is increased the flexural strength and tensile strength at tensile part can enhance the strength and stiffness of concrete structures and decrease the tensile flexural cracks and deflections. Therefore, the RC beams used of the fiber reinforced concrete at. tensile part ensure the safety and serviceability of the concrete structures. In this work, analytical model of a dual concrete beams composed of the normal strength concrete at compression part and the high tension strength concrete at tensile part is developed by using the equilibrium conditions of forces and compatibility conditions of strains. Three groups of test beams that are formed of one reinforced concrete beam and two dual concrete beams for each steel reinforcement ratio are tested to examine the flexural behavior of dual concrete beams. The comparative study of total nine test beams is shown that the ultimate load of a dual concrete beams relative to the RC beams is increased in approximately 30%. In addition, the flexural rigidity, as used here, referred to the slope of load-deflection curves is increased and the deflection is decreased.

• Journal of Conservation Science
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.249-259
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• 2016

Effect of the flame retardants on Dancheong is studied in the present work. Two kinds of flame retardants were applied on Dancheong specimens and compared with control groups on which distilled water was applied instead of the flame retardants. The flame retardants enhanced the hygroscopic property of the surface of Dancheong. Furthermore, the added flame retardants reacted with oyster shell white($CaCO_3$) and lead red($Pb_3O_4$), producing new chemical compounds like Calcium phosphate tribasic and Lead Phosphates which make the painted layer of Dancheong dissolving and whitening over certain period of time. When applied in excessive amount and exposed in repetitive wet and dry condition, especially, they aggravate the surface problems significantly. These results will provide a good reference on the study of the discoloring/whitening effect of Dancheong layers at many traditional wooden building in Korea.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.242-252
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• 2016

This study seeks to verify the effect size of the variables relating to job satisfaction through a meta-analysis focusing on previous papers over the last 20 years that have examined the job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers and verified the trend by publication year through a meta-regression analysis. The study results are as follows. First, the results demonstrated that the total effect size of the variables relating to kindergarten teachers was large. Second, the organization's internal variable and organization's external variable groups, except for the individual characteristics variable group, showed a large effect size at similar levels. Third, the status of teachers in the individual characteristics variable group showed a meaningfully large effect size and the interpersonal relationship variable in organization's internal variable group showed a relatively larger effect size than the organizational climate variable did. Finally, the results of the verification of the trend by publication year showed that job satisfaction increased for all variables, except for the individual characteristics variable in more recent publications. This study highlights the imperative of making every effort to improve the organization's internal and external environment. In particular, measures to reduce job stress and work load are required. Furthermore, the atmosphere that is devoted to the teaching profession and teacher efficacy is important.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.49 no.12
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• pp.209-218
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• 2012

Recently, the Field Programmable Stateful Logic Array (FPSLA) was proposed as one of the most promising system integration technologies which will extend the life of the Moore's law. This work is the first proposal of the FPSLA design automation flow, and the approaches to logic synthesis, synchronization, physical mapping, and automatic placement of the FPSLA designs. The synchronization at each gate for pipelining determines the x-coordinates of cells, and reduces the placement to 1-dimensional problems. The objective function and its gradients for the non-linear optimization of the net length and placement density have been remodeled for the reduced global placement problem. Also, a recursive algorithm has been proposed to legalize the placement by relaxing the density overflow of bipartite bin groups in a top-down hierarchical fashion. The proposed model and algorithm are implemented, and validated by applying them to the ACM/SIGDA benchmark designs. The output state of a gate in an FPSLA needs to be duplicated so that each fanout gate can be connected to a dedicated copy. This property has been taken into account by merging the duplicated nets into a hyperedge, and then, splitting the hyperedge into edges as the optimization progresses. This yields additional 18.4% of the cell count reduction in the most dense logic stage. The practicality of the FPSLA can be further enhanced primarily by incorporating into the logic synthesis the constraint to avoid the concentrated fains of gates on some logic stages. In addition, an efficient algorithm needs to be devised for the routing problem which is based on a complicated graph. The graph models the nanowire crossbar which is trimmed to be embedded into the FPSLA fabric, and therefore, asymmetric. These CAD tools can be used to evaluate the fabric efficiency during the architecture enhancement as well as automate the design.