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The accurate estimation of expected survival in terminal cancer patients is important. The palliative performance scale (PPS) is an important factor in predicting survival of hospice patients. The purpose of this study was to examine how initial status of PPS and changes in PPS affect the survival of hospice patients in Korea.
Method
We retrospectively examined 315 patients who were admitted to our hospice unit between January 2017 and December 2018. The patients were divided based on the PPS of ≥50% (group A) and ≤40% (group B). We performed survival analysis for factors associated with the length of survival (LOS) in group A. Based on the hospice team's weekly evaluation of PPS, we examined the effect of initial levels and changes in group A on the prognosis of patients who survived for 2 weeks or more.
Results
At the time of admission to hospice, 265 (84.1%) patients were PPS ≥50%, and 50 (15.9%) were PPS ≤40%. The median LOS of PPS ≥50% and PPS ≤40% were 15 (2–158 days) and 9 (2–43 days), respectively. Male, gastrointestinal cancer, and lower initial PPS all predicted poor prognosis in group A. Male, gastrointestinal cancer, and a PPS change of 10% or greater, compared with initial status 1 week and 2 weeks of hospitalization, were all predictors of poor prognosis in group A patients who survived for 2 weeks or longer.
Significance of results
Our research demonstrates the significance of PPS change at 1 week and 2 weeks, suggesting the importance of evaluating not only initial PPS but also change in PPS.
The extensive traces of Roman centuriation and its associated farms identified from aerial photographs near Lucera, ancient Luceria, in the plain of northern Apulia, have generally been attributed to the Gracchan agrarian reforms of the 130s/120s BC. However, the dating of these land divisions, on the basis of the excavation of the farms and centuriation roads by John Bradford and Barri Jones in 1949–50 and 1962–3, is of questionable reliability, and their work at Luceria was never properly published. This study reanalyses the scattered records and dating evidence from the excavation of seven farms of Bradford and Jones and three other sites surveyed by Bradford in the ager Lucerinus. This study argues that the farms and associated grids belong to Rome's establishment of a Latin colony at Luceria in 326 or 315/314 BC during the Second Samnite War, and that the farms were abandoned due to the Hannibalic War. This study therefore presents the earliest certain Roman centuriation for a colony, and it observes the devastating impact of Hannibal's invasion and prolonged occupation on landholding in southeastern Italy, which has been doubted in recent work on Italian agrarian history. In no other part of Italy does there exist a coherent group of nearby excavated small-scale farms, which provides new insight into Roman colonization in Apulia and the consequences of the Hannibalic War.
The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in the perception of disaster issues between disaster directors and general health care providers in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.
Methods:
The Gyeonggi provincial committee distributed a survey to acute care facility personnel. Survey topics included awareness of general disaster issues, hospital preparedness, and training priorities. The questionnaire comprised multiple choices and items scored on a 10-point Likert scale. We analyzed the discrepancies and characteristics of the responses.
Results:
Completed surveys were returned from 43 (67%) of 64 directors and 145 (55.6%) of 261 health care providers. In the field of general awareness, the topic of how to triage in disaster response showed the greatest discrepancies. In the domain of hospital level disaster preparedness, individual opinions varied most within the topics of incident command, manual preparation. The responses to “accept additional patients in disaster situation” showed the biggest differences (> 21 versus 6~10).
Conclusions:
In this study, there were disaster topics with discrepancies and concordances in perception between disaster directors and general health care providers. The analysis would present baseline information for the development of better training programs for region-specific core competencies, knowledge, and skills required for the effective response.
As high-dynamic range (HDR) and wide-color gamut (WCG) contents become more and more popular in multimedia markets, color mapping of the distributed contents to different rendering devices plays a pivotal role in HDR distribution eco-systems. The widely used and economic gamut-clipping (GC)-based techniques perform poorly in mapping WCG contents to narrow gamut devices; and high-performance color-appearance model (CAM)-based techniques are computationally expensive to commercial applications. In this paper, we propose a novel color gamut mapping (CGM) algorithm to solve the problem. By introducing a color transition/protection zone (TPZ) and a set of perceptual hue fidelity constraints into the CIE-1931 space, the proposed algorithm directly carries out CGM in the perceptually non-uniform space, thus greatly decreases the computational complexity. The proposed TPZ effectively achieves a reasonable compromise between saturation preserving and details protection in out-of-gamut colors. The proposed hue fidelity constraints reference the measurements of human subjects' visual responses, thus effectively preserve the perceptual hue of the original colors. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm clearly outperforms the GC-CGM, and performs similarly or better than the expensive CAM-CGM. The proposed algorithm is real-time and hardware friendly. It is an important supplement of the SMPTE ST.2094-40 standard.
Low rates of bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) were identified as a shortcoming in the “chain of survival” for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) care in the Korean city of Ansan. This study sought to evaluate the effect of an initiative to increase bystander CPR and quality of out-of-hospital resuscitation on outcome from OHCA. The post-intervention data were used to determine the next quality improvement (QI) target as part of the “Plan-Do-Study-Act” (PDSA) model for QI.
Hypothesis:
The study hypothesis was that bystander CPR, return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), and survival to discharge after OHCA would increase in the post-intervention period.
Methods:
This was a retrospective pre/post study. The data from the pre-intervention period were abstracted from 2008–2011 and the post-intervention period from 2012–2013. The effect of the intervention on the odds of ROSC and survival to hospital discharge was determined using a generalized estimating equation to account for confounders and the effect of clustering within medical centers. The analysis was then used to identify other factors associated with outcomes to determine the next targets for intervention in the chain of survival for cardiac arrest in this community.
Results:
Rates of documented bystander CPR increased from 13% in the pre-intervention period to 37% in the post-intervention period. The overall rate of ROSC decreased from 18.4% to 14.3% (risk difference −4.1%; 95% CI, −7.1%–1.0%), whereas survival to hospital discharge increased from 3.9% to 5.0% (risk difference 1.1%; 95% CI, −1.8%–3.8%), and survival with good neurologic outcome increased from 0.8% to 1.6% (risk difference 0.8%; 95% CI, −0.8%–2.4%). In multivariable analyses, there was no association between the intervention and the rate of ROSC or survival to hospital discharge. The designated level of the treating hospital was a significant predictor of both survival and ROSC.
Conclusion:
In this case study, there were no observed improvements in outcomes from OHCA after the targeted intervention to improve out-of-hospital CPR. However, utilizing the PDSA model for QI, the designated level of the treating hospital was found to be a significant predictor of survival in the post-period, identifying the next target for intervention.
We propose a new method for preparing atom probe tomography specimens from nanoparticles using a fusible bismuth–indium–tin alloy as an embedding medium. Iron nanoparticles synthesized by the sodium borohydride reduction method were chosen as a model system. The as-synthesized iron nanoparticles were embedded within the fusible alloy using focused ion beam milling and ion-milled to needle-shaped atom probe specimens under cryogenic conditions. An atom probe analysis revealed boron atoms in a detected iron nanoparticle, indicating that boron from the sodium borohydride reductant was incorporated into the nanoparticle during its synthesis.
The status of Asian populations of the Eurasian otter Lutra lutra is largely unknown. Since its designation as a Natural Monument (in 1983) and as Endangered (in 1997) in South Korea the authorities there have been trying to conserve and recover the species. We conducted a national otter survey by standard methods in 2017 and compared the current otter distribution to those recorded in a previous survey (2010). We found otter signs in 84.5% of 1,105 10 × 10 km grid cells, with the highest sprainting intensity in the south-west in the Yeongsan River Basin and on the south coast, where we recorded 7.05 and 6.26 spraints/site, respectively. Despite relatively low spraint densities, the otter has expanded its range since 2010 by colonizing urban areas. This trend suggests that South Korea could be a source area for the recovery of the Eurasian otter in East Asia.
Due to the lack of an effective prophylactic intervention and diagnosis, human liver fluke Clonorchis sinensis continues to afflict a large human population, causing a chronic inflammatory bile duct disease. With an aim to identify target antigens for sensitive serodiagnosis, adenylate kinase 3 of C. sinensis (CsAK3) was successfully expressed in soluble form in Escherichia coli by fusion to an RNA-interacting domain derived from human Lys-tRNA synthetase and purified by Ni2+-affinity chromatography. Anti-CsAK3 serum was raised by immunization of mice, and Western blotting confirmed that CsAK3 was expressed in adult-stage C. sinensis. Histochemical analysis showed that CsAK3 was localized to the subtegumental tissue of C. sinensis and was excreted into the bile duct of the host. When tested against sera from various parasite-infected patients by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, the recombinant CsAK3 elicited a specific response to C. sinensis-infected sera. The results suggest that CsAK3, either alone or in combination with other antigens, could be used for improving the clinical diagnosis of clonorchiasis.
An essential component for assessing the accuracy and fluency of language learners is understanding how mode of communication and task type affect performance in second-language (L2) acquisition. This study investigates how text-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and face-to-face (F2F) oral interaction can influence the performance of language learners in producing grammatical forms accurately when learners of English as a second language complete different tasks in their L2. Findings show a systematic variability in learner interlanguage that depends on mode of communication and task type. L2 learners used articles more correctly and produced advanced-stage questions more frequently in text-based SCMC than in F2F. These findings suggest that task types and the mode of communication in which a task is completed need careful selection based on pedagogical purposes in order to maximize L2 learning and better evaluate L2 performance.
The Sewol ferry disaster is one of the most tragic events in Korea’s modern history. Among the 476 people on board, which included Danwon High School students (324) and teachers (14), 304 passengers died in the disaster (295 recovered corpses and 9 missing) and 172 survived. Of the rescued survivors, 72 were attending Danwon High School, located in Ansan City, and residing in a residence nearby. Because the students were young, emotionally susceptible adolescents, both the government and the parents requested the students be grouped together at a single hospital capable of appropriate psychiatric care. Korea University Ansan Hospital was the logical choice, as the only third-tier university-grade hospital with the necessary faculty and facilities within the residential area of the families of the students. We report the experiences and the lessons learned from the processes of preparing for and managing the surviving young students as a community-based hospital. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:389–393)
Suicide rates are high among elderly individuals experiencing socioeconomic insecurity. Socioeconomic security is of critical importance for elderly individuals and directly affects mental health, including suicidal behavior. Thus, we investigated the relationship between socioeconomic status and suicidal ideation in elderly individuals.
Method:
We conducted a cross-sectional study using data on 58,590 individuals 65 years of age or older from the Korean Community Health Survey 2013. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify relationships between socioeconomic factors (food insecurity, household income, and living arrangement) and suicidal ideation in the elderly population.
Results:
The study included 58,590 participants (24,246 males and 34,344 females). Of those, 2,847 males and 6,418 females experienced suicidal ideation. Participants with food insecure were more likely to experience suicidal ideation than were those who were food secure (males: OR = 1.60; 95% CI, 1.34–1.90; females: OR = 1.54; 95% CI, 1.38–1.72). We found a similar pattern among participants with a low household income and those living alone. Additionally, male and female subjects who were food insecure and living alone or food insecure and had a low household income showed a marked increase in suicidal ideation.
Conclusion:
Our findings suggest that low socioeconomic status is associated with an increased risk of suicidal ideation among the elderly. Furthermore, intervention programs that address the prevalence of elderly suicide, particularly among those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, are needed.
Many transgenic domestic animals have been developed to produce therapeutic proteins in the mammary gland, and this approach is one of the most important methods for agricultural and biomedical applications. However, expression and secretion of a protein varies because transgenes are integrated at random sites in the genome. In addition, distal enhancers are very important for transcriptional gene regulation and tissue-specific gene expression. Development of a vector system regulated accurately in the genome is needed to improve production of therapeutic proteins. The objective of this study was to develop a knock-in system for expression of human fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) in the bovine β-casein gene locus. The F2A sequence was fused to the human FGF2 gene and inserted into exon 3 of the β-casein gene. We detected expression of human FGF2 mRNA in the HC11 mouse mammary epithelial cells by RT-PCR and human FGF2 protein in the culture media using western blot analysis when the knock-in vector was introduced. We transfected the knock-in vector into bovine ear fibroblasts and produced knock-in fibroblasts using the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 system. Moreover, the CRISPR/Cas9 system was more efficient than conventional methods. In addition, we produced knock-in blastocysts by somatic cell nuclear transfer using the knock-in fibroblasts. Our knock-in fibroblasts may help to create cloned embryos for development of transgenic dairy cattle expressing human FGF2 protein in the mammary gland via the expression system of the bovine β-casein gene.
Globular clusters (GCs) is dominated by behaviors of high-mass components such as neutron stars (NSs) and black holes (BHs). In this work, we perform direct N-body simulations of a GC assuming two BH masses. We used the BH masses of 10 and 20 M⊙ with total math ratio between those two populations is assumed to be 2:1 and 5:1. Our results show that the heavier BHs (20 M⊙) are depleted in the early stage of cluster evolution. The existence of heavier BH components increase the retention rate of lighter BHs during the cluster evolution. About 30% of ejected BHs are in binaries.
Cancer is a leading cause of death, and the dietary pattern in Korea is changing rapidly from a traditional Korean diet to a Westernised diet. In the present study, we investigated the effects of dietary factors on cancer risk with a prospective cohort study. Among 26 815 individuals who participated in cancer screening examinations from September 2004 to December 2008, 8024 subjects who completed a self-administered questionnaire concerning demographic and lifestyle factors, and a 3 d food record were selected. As of September 2013, 387 cancer cases were identified from the National Cancer Registry System, and the remaining individuals were included in the control group. The hazard ratio (HR) of cancer for the subjects older than or equal to 50 years of age was higher (HR 1·80, 95 % CI 1·41, 2·31; P< 0·0001) than that for the other subjects. Red meat consumption, Na intake and obesity (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2) were positively associated with overall cancer incidence in men (HR 1·41, 95 % CI 1·02, 1·94; P= 0·0382), gastric cancer (HR 2·34, 95 % CI 1·06, 5·19; P= 0·0365) and thyroid cancer (HR 1·56, 95 % CI 1·05, 2·31; P= 0·0270), respectively. Participants who had at least three dietary risk factors among the high intakes of red meat and Na, low intakes of vegetables and fruits, and obesity suggested by the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research at baseline tended to have a higher risk of cancer than the others (HR 1·26, 95 % CI 0·99, 1·60; P= 0·0653). In summary, high intakes of red meat and Na were significant risk factors of cancer among Koreans.
To compare the characteristics and risk factors for surgical site infections (SSIs) after total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in a nationwide survey, using shared case detection and recording systems.
Design.
Retrospective cohort study.
Setting.
Twenty-six hospitals participating in the Korean Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System (KONIS).
Patients.
From 2006 to 2009, all patients undergoing THA and TKA in KONIS were enrolled.
Results.
SSI occurred in 161 (2.35%) of 6,848 cases (3,422 THAs and 3,426 TKAs). Pooled mean SSI rates were 1.69% and 2.82% for THA and TKA, respectively. Of the cases we examined, 42 (26%) were superficial-incisional SSIs and 119 (74%) were “severe” SSIs; of the latter, 24 (15%) were deep-incisional SSIs and 95 (59%) were organ/space SSIs. In multivariate analysis, a duration of preoperative hospital stay of greater than 3 days was a risk factor for total SSI after both THA and TKA. Diabetes mellitus, revision surgery, prolonged duration of surgery (above the 75th percentile), and the need for surgery due to trauma were independent risk factors for total and severe SSI after THA, while male sex and an operating room without artificial ventilation were independent risk factors for total and severe SSI after TKA. A large volume of surgeries (more than 10 procedures per month) protected against total and severe SSI, but only in patients who underwent TKA.
Conclusions.
Risk factors for SSI after arthroplasty differ according to the site of the arthroplasty. Therefore, clinicians should take into account the site of arthroplasty in the analysis of SSI and the development of strategies for reducing SSI.