An Exploratory Study on the Association Between Social Capital and Self-Rated Health of South Korean Women with Disabilities

The purpose of this chapter was to explore the relationship between social capital and self-rated health status as assessed in the activities of the everyday life of South Korean women with disabilities. For this purpose, the authors analyzed the 8th data of the panel survey of employment for the disabled (PSED) that included a sample of 275 women with disabilities who are paid worker. The authors found that working environment, working hours, personal development possibilities, communication-and interpersonal-relationships, the fairness of performance assessment, welfare benefits, training opportunities, and job satisfaction differed significantly in relation to the self-rated health status of women with disabilities. The authors also found that for working hours, communication, and interpersonal relationships, significantly higher self-rated health status was found for satisfied compared to the satisfaction group. For personal development possibilities, welfare benefits, and training opportunities, self-rated health status was significantly higher for the satisfaction group than the dissatisfied group. For fairness of the performance assessment, self-rated health status of the satisfaction group was significantly higher than in the dissatisfied and the normal group. Therefore, in order to improve the self-rated health of South Korean women with disabilities, it is necessary to provide working environment considering their disability characteristics and various training opportunities in their workplace

Polarization retention of thin ferroelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene film capacitors

Excellent retention of the initial remanent polarizations was observed in ca. 200 nm thick ferroelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) film capacitors with the writing pulse amplitude and time width of +/- 20 V and 1 ms, respectively, over 200 h at 80 degrees C. The opposite state program turned out more sensitive to retention deterioration than the same state one in both switching and nonswitching mode when either writing pulse amplitude or time width decreases. Nonswitching retention in the opposite state mode is in particular one of the most critical properties for designing a ferroelectric polymer capacitor memoryopen8

Mitigating Health Inequalities of Socially Vulnerable in South Korea: Role for Social Work

The purpose of this study is to develop a social work education strategy for mitigating health inequalities among the socially vulnerable. The limitations of the healthcare approach to health promotion and health inequality, which we examined through the health belief model describing an individual’s health behavior, emphasize the prevention of diseases that have not yet occurred or are likely to occur, healthcare management for them, and the functions and role of the community in the process, based on the individual’s spontaneity to practice health behaviors. Therefore, to compensate for these limitations, it is deemed necessary to add healthcare curriculum, such as public health, social epidemiology, and etiology, to the existing curriculum of social work based on an in-depth understanding of social vulnerability and social environment as well as the importance of preventing and managing diseases

Recovery of remanent polarization of poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) thin film after high temperature annealing using topographically nanostructured aluminium bottom electrode

Facile recovery of ferroelectric polarization after high temperature annealing was observed in a poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) thin film on an etched Al bottom electrode which has a topographically nanostructured surface with hexagonal registry of the recessed hemispherical bowls of approximately 100 nm diameter. Fairly large remanent polarization of 10 mu C/cm(2) was obtained after annealing up to 185 degrees C with the etched Al electrode, while the polarization rapidly dropped near the melting temperature of P(VDF-TrFE) (similar to 150 degrees C) with a flat Al electrode. The topographic electrode is found to facilitate the reorganization of P(VDF-TrFE) crystal under electric field. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physicsopen142

Malignancies in Korean Patients with Inflammatory Myopathy

The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and the common type of malignancies in Korean patients with polymyositis (PM) and dermatomyositis (DM) and to evaluate the differences of clinical and laboratory findings between patients with malignancy and those without malignancy. Forty-one Korean patients, who were diagnosed as PM or DM, were enrolled in this study. They fulfilled the Bohan and Peter's criteria for a definite diagnosis of PM and DM. Patients with PM were 25 and those with DM were 16. Eleven out of 41 patients (26.8%) had malignancies. The malignancy was diagnosed simultaneously or later in 81.8% of patients with inflammatory myopathy (IM). The breast cancer was the most common malignancy. In this study, forty three years old as a screening age for malignancy had 88.9% sensitivity and 50.2% specificity. The serum levels of creatine kinase (CK) were significantly lower in patients with malignancy than those without malignancy

The Utilization of Traditional Herbal Medicine for Treatment in Traditional Korean Medicine Clinics

A cross-sectional study has been conducted to detect the facts about the use of traditional herbal medicines (THMs) in South Korea. The questionnaire has been adopted from the 2017 National Survey for the usage of traditional Korean medicine (TKM) and consumption of THMs. A total number of 1346 participants have been involved in this study. Results showed that the non-decoction types of herbal medicines, which are mostly used for therapeutic purposes (89.0%), and the decoction types of herbal medicines were not only used for the purpose of treatment of diseases (62.5%) but also health improvement purposes (21.9%). Results presented that decoction types of THMs are used for musculoskeletal diseases (56.0%), digestive diseases (21.3%), and respiratory diseases (6.3%), whereas the non-decoction types of THMs are commonly used in musculoskeletal diseases (55.6%), respiratory diseases (20.5%), and digestive diseases (18.1%). Future studies are highly recommended to detect more details about the medical use of THMs in South Korea