How people perceive malicious comments differently: factors influencing the perception of maliciousness in online news comments

This study proposes a comprehensive model to investigate the factors that influence the perceived maliciousness of online news comments. The study specifically examines individual factors, including demographic characteristics (e.g., gender and age), personality traits (e.g., empathy and attitudes toward online news comments), and reading-related factors (e.g., the amount of news comment reading). Contextual factors such as issue involvement, perceived peer behavior, and the presence of malicious comments in news articles are also considered. The results suggest that most of the proposed variables have a significant impact on the perceived maliciousness of online news comments, except for morality and issue involvement. The findings have important theoretical implications for research on malicious online news comments and provide practical guidelines for online news platforms on how to reduce malicious comments by visualizing them alongside other news comments

Bronchoscopic Strategies to Improve Diagnostic Yield in Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients

In cases where pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) is not microbiologically diagnosed via sputum specimens, bronchoscopy has been the conventional method to enhance diagnostic rates. Although the additional benefit of bronchoscopy in diagnosing PTB is well-known, its overall effectiveness remains suboptimal. This review introduces several strategies for improving PTB diagnosis via bronchoscopy. First, it discusses how bronchoalveolar lavage or an increased number of bronchial washings can increase specimen abundance. Second, it explores how thin or ultrathin bronchoscopes can achieve specimen acquisition closer to tuberculosis (TB) lesions. Third, it highlights the importance of conducting more sensitive TB-polymerase chain reaction tests on bronchoscopic specimens, including the Xpert MTB/RIF assay and the Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra assay. Finally, it surveys the implementation of endobronchial ultrasound with a guide sheath for tuberculomas, collection of post-bronchoscopy sputum, and reduced use of lidocaine for local anesthesia. A strategic combination of these approaches may enhance the diagnostic rates in PTB patients undergoing bronchoscopy

Association between the National Health Insurance coverage benefit extension policy and clinical outcomes of ventilated patients: a retrospective study

Background This study aimed to investigate the association between the Korean National Health Insurance coverage benefit extension policy and clinical outcomes of patients who were ventilated owing to various respiratory diseases. Methods Data from 515 patients (male, 69.7%; mean age, 69.8±12.1 years; in-hospital mortality rate, 28.3%) who were hospitalized in a respiratory intensive care unit were retrospectively analyzed over 5 years. Results Of total enrolled patients, 356 (69.1%) had one benefit items under this policy during their hospital stay. They had significantly higher medical expenditure (total: median, 23,683 vs. 12,742 U.S. dollars [USD], P<0.001), out-of-pocket (median, 5,932 vs. 4,081 USD; P<0.001), and a lower percentage of out-of-pocket medical expenditure relative to total medical expenditure (median, 26.0% vs. 32.2%; P<0.001). Patients without benefit items associated with higher in-hospital mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 2.794; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.980–3.941; P<0.001). In analysis of patients with benefit items, patients with three items (“cancer,” “tuberculosis,” and “disability”) had significantly lower out-of-pocket medical expenditure (3,441 vs. 6,517 USD, P<0.001), and a lower percentage of out-of-pocket medical expenditure relative to total medical expenditure (17.2% vs. 27.7%, P<0.001). They were associated with higher in-hospital mortality (HR, 3.904; 95% CI, 2.533–6.039; P<0.001). Conclusions Our study showed patients with benefit items had more medical resources and associated improved in-hospital survival. Patients with the aforementioned three benefit items had lower out-of-pocket medical expenditure due to the implementation of this policy, but higher in-hospital mortality

Poor People and Poor Health: Examining the Mediating Effect of Unmet Healthcare Needs in Korea

Objectives The purpose of this study was to estimate the mediating effect of subjective unmet healthcare needs on poor health. The mediating effect of unmet needs on health outcomes was estimated. Methods Cross-sectional research method was used to analyze Korea Health Panel data from 2011 to 2015, investigating the mediating effect for each annual dataset and lagged dependent variables. Results The magnitude of the effect of low income on poor health and the mediating effect of unmet needs were estimated using age, sex, education level, employment status, healthcare insurance status, disability, and chronic disease as control variables and self-rated health as the dependent variable. The mediating effect of unmet needs due to financial reasons was between 14.7% to 32.9% of the total marginal effect, and 7.2% to 18.7% in lagged model. Conclusions The fixed-effect logit model demonstrated that the existence of unmet needs raised the likelihood of poor self-rated health. However, only a small proportion of the effects of low income on health was mediated by unmet needs, and the results varied annually. Further studies are necessary to search for ways to explain the varying results in the Korea Health Panel data, as well as to consider a time series analysis of the mediating effect. The results of this study present the clear implication that even though it is crucial to address the unmet needs, but it is not enough to tackle the income related health inequalities

Correlations between regional characteristics of counties and the ratio of intracounty to extracounty sources of COVID-19 in Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea

Objectives This study aimed to examine the correlations between the regional characteristics of counties in Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea and the ratio of intracounty to extracounty sources of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Methods The region of the infectious contact was analysed for each COVID-19 case reported in Gangwon Province between February 22, 2020 and February 7, 2022. The population, population density, area, the proportion of urban residents, the proportion of older adults (>65 years), financial independence, and the number of adjacent counties were assessed for each of the 18 counties in Gangwon Province. Correlation coefficients between regional characteristics and the ratio of intracounty to extracounty infections were calculated. Results In total, 19,645 cases were included in this study. The population, population density, proportion of older adults, and proportion of urban residents were significantly correlated with the ratio of intracounty to extracounty infections. A stratified analysis with an age cut-point of 65 years showed that the proportion of older adults had a significant negative correlation with the ratio of intracounty to extracounty infections. In other words, the proportions of extracounty infections were higher in counties with higher proportions of older adults. Conclusion Regions with ageing populations should carefully observe trends in infectious disease outbreaks in other regions to prevent possible transmission

Combined chemotherapy and intra-arterial chemotherapy of retinoblastoma

PurposeRetinoblastoma (RB) is the most common primary malignant intraocular tumor in children. Although systemic chemotherapy has been the primary treatment, intra-arterial chemotherapy (IAC) represents a new treatment option. Here, we performed alternate systemic chemotherapy and IAC and retrospectively reviewed the efficacy and safety of this approach.MethodsPatients diagnosed with intraocular RB between January 2000 and December 2011 at Severance Children's Hospital, Yonsei University, were reviewed. Before February 2010, the primary treatment for RB was chemotherapy (non-IAC/CTX). Since February 2010, the primary treatment for RB has been IAC (IAC/CTX). External beam radiotherapy or high-dose chemotherapy were used as "last resort" treatments just prior to enucleation at the time of progression or recurrence during primary treatment. Enucleation-free survival (EFS) and progression-free survival were assessed.ResultsWe examined 19 patients (median age, 11.9 months; range, 1.4 to 75.6 months) with a sum of 25 eyes, of which, 60.0% were at advanced Reese Ellsworth (RE) stages. The enucleation rate was 33.3% at early RE stages and 81.8% at advanced RE stages (P=0.028). At 36 months, EFS was significantly higher in the IAC/CTX group than in the non-IAC/CTX group (100% vs. 40.0%, P=0.016). All 5 patients treated with IAC achieved eye preservation, although most patients were at advanced RE stages (IV-V).ConclusionDespite the limitation of a small sample size, our work shows that an alternative combined approach using IAC and CTX may be safe and effective for eye preservation in advanced RB

Effects of interval and sprint training under hypobaric hypoxia on aerobic, anaerobic, and time trial performance in elite Korean national male mountain bike cyclists—a pilot study

The purpose of our study to determine the effects of interval hypoxic training (IHT) and repeated sprint training in hypoxia (RSH) on metabolic and cardiac function during submaximal exercise, aerobic and anaerobic performance, and time trial performance in elite Korean national male mountain bike (MTB) cyclists. The participants included elite Korean national male MTB cyclists (n = 4) preparing for the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou 2022. The hypoxic training frequency was 90 min (3 days per week for 4 weeks). Before and after hypoxic training, metabolic and cardiac functions during submaximal exercise, aerobic performance, anaerobic performance and time trial performance were measured. Oxygen uptake, carbon dioxide excretion, and heart rate tended to decrease, and stroke volume, end-diastolic volume and cardiac output tended to increase. In aerobic, anaerobic and time trial performances, the peak torque in aerobic performance significantly increased (p = 0.046). Maximal oxygen uptake and exercise time in aerobic performance, relative peak power, relative mean power, post-exercise blood lactate level, fatigue index in anaerobic performance, and time trial performance showed an improved tendency (all p = 0.068). Our pilot study confirmed that although the sample size was small, IHT and RSH can potentially improve athletic performance in elite Korean national male MTB cyclists

Civic Participation and Self-rated Health: A Cross-national Multi-level Analysis Using the World Value Survey

Objectives: Civic participation, that which directly influences important decisions in our personal lives, is considered necessary for developing a society. We hypothesized that civic participation might be related to self-rated health status. Methods: We constructed a multi-level analysis using data from the World Value Survey (44 countries, n=50 859). Results: People who participated in voting and voluntary social activities tended to report better subjective health than those who did not vote or participate in social activities, after controlling for socio-demographic factors at the individual level. A negative association with unconventional political activity and subjective health was found, but this effect disappeared in a subset analysis of only the 18 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Moreover, social participation and unconventional political participation had a statistically significant contextual association with subjective health status, but this relationship was not consistent throughout the analysis. In the analysis of the 44 countries, social participation was of borderline significance, while in the subset analysis of the OECD countries unconventional political participation was a stronger determinant of subjective health. The democratic index was a significant factor in determining self-rated health in both analyses, while public health expenditure was a significant factor in only the subset analysis. Conclusions: Despite the uncertainty of its mechanism, civic participation might be a significant determinant of the health status of a country

Semi-supervised distributed representations of documents for sentiment analysis

Learning document representation is important in applying machine learning algorithms for sentiment analysis. Distributed representation learning models of words and documents, one of neural language models, have overcome some limits of vector space models such as bag-of-words model and have been utilized successively in many natural language processing tasks including sentiment analysis. However, because such models learn the embeddings only with a context-based objective, it is hard for embeddings to reflect the sentiment of texts. In this research, we address this problem by introducing a semi-supervised sentiment-discriminative objective using partial sentiment information of documents. Our method not only reflects the partial sentiment information, but also preserves local structures induced from original distributed representation learning objectives by considering only sentiment relationships between neighboring documents. Using real-world datasets, the proposed method has been validated by sentiment visualization and classification tasks. The visualization results of Amazon review datasets demonstrate the enhancement of the sentiment class separation when document representations of our proposed method are compared to other methods. Sentiment prediction from our representations also appears to be consistently superior to other representations in both Amazon and Yelp datasets. This work can be extended to develop effective document embeddings applied to other discriminative tasks. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Estimating the Reducing Power of Carbon Nanotubes and Granular Activated Carbon Using Various Compounds

Determining the degree of the reducing power of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and granular activated carbon (GAC) enables their effective application in various fields. In this study, we estimate the reducing power of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and GAC by measuring the reduction degree of various compounds with different reduction potentials. MWCNTs and GAC materials can reduce Cr(VI), Fe(III) and PMo12O403−, where the reduction potentials range from +1.33 V to +0.65 V. However, no reduced forms of PW12O403− and SiW12O404− compounds were detected, indicating that the reducing power of MWCNTs and GAC is insufficient for reduction potentials in the range +0.218 V to +0.054 V. MWCNTs exhibit a short reduction time (5 min), whereas GAC exhibits a gradually increasing reduction degree of all the compounds assessed until the end of the reaction. This indicates a higher reduction degree than that of MWCNTs systems. Acidic initial pH values favor reduction, and the reduction degree increases as the pH becomes lower than 4.0. Moreover, large quantities of MWCNTs and GAC increase the concentrations of the reduced compounds