South Koreans' attitudes toward foreigners, minorities and multiculturalism

노트 : Paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Boston, MA from August 1-4, 2008

ACCURACY OF THE SOFTWARE GENLOCK WITH DIGITAL CAMCORDERS

Recently, digital camcorders have gained popularity as a viable means of recording movements in video motion analysis, mainly due to the ease of use and reasonably high image resolution. Digital camcorders, however, suffer from a major drawback, lack of the hardware genlock capability. Camcorders thus operate independently from each other and introduce time offsets among themselves. These time offsets in turn violate the requirement of simultaneous observations from multiple cameras in the 3·D analysis, producing erroneous real-life coordinates of the markers. This is especially true in fast motions, in which a small time offset can be translated into a large spatial error, and the time offsets must be corrected before the 3-D reconstruction. The genlock (synchronization) of the cameras can be potentially achieved by a software-based strategy, the software genlock. The purpose of this stUdy was to investigate the accuracy of the software genlock using digital camcorders

The Effect of Herbal Diet on Skeletal Muscle Mass After Resistance Training in Rats

Resistance training has been well established as an effective strategy for muscle hypertrophy, increase in skeletal muscle mass and strength. Herbal diet has been introduced as an alternative treatment to alleviate muscle atrophy and therapeutic intervention. However, there is little evidence on the effect of herbal diet on skeletal muscle mass. To investigate whether herbal diet affects skeletal muscle mass after resistance training in rats. Twenty-four rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: 1) Control (CON, N=8), 2) Resistance training (RT, N=8), 3) RT+Herb (RTH, N=8). Resistance training was performed every other day for 8 weeks using ladder climbing. The ladder climbing exercise consisted of 3 sets of 5 repetitions with a 1 min rest interval between the repetitions and a 2 min rest between the sets. Huang Qi (Radix Astragali Membranceus) was given via oral gavage once a day for 8 weeks (1 ml mixed with water based on concentration of 368 mg/kg). All rats received sham treatment, same as treatment groups. All data were analyzed using One-way ANOVA. After 8 weeks of interventions, muscle mass of Gastrocnemius, Plantaris, and Flexor hallucis longus showed significant increases in RT and RTH groups compared to CON (

Impacts of Reforestation on Stabilization of Riverine Water Levels in South Korea

We investigate how reforestation contributed to stabilization of riverine water levels in South Korea. For the purpose, we estimate an equation capturing dynamic relationships among rainfall, upstream-area tree stock, and downstream water levels in three river systems of Hongcheon, Mangyeong, and Hyeongsan, using daily observations of precipitation and water levels for the period from 1985 to 2005. Simulation based on estimation results shows that increase in the tree stock in a river basin leads to a significantly suppressed peaking in riverine water levels in response to an abrupt and concentrated rain in the upstream area. For instance, an hour-long concentration of 100mm rain results in 0.7m rise in water level if the volume of growing stock is 1 million m3 , whereas the rise in water level stays below 0.27m with 5 million m3 in the growing-stock volume

Clinical Significance of p16 Protein Expression Loss and Aberrant p53 Protein Expression in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is a disease with poor prognosis mainly due to low resection rates and late diagnosis. To increase resectability and improve survival rates, a better understanding of pancreatic cancer pathogenesis and more effective screening techniques are required. New methods, such as genetic and molecular alterations, may suggest novel approaches for pancreatic cancer diagnosis and treatment. We immunohistochemically investigated 44 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded specimens of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma using monoclonal anti-p16 antibodies and monoclonal anti-p53 antibodies. The expressions of p16 and p53 proteins were compared using the Chi-square test with SPSS. Disease-free survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method, verified by the Log-Rank test. Loss of p16 expression was noted in 20 (45.5%) cases and aberrant p53 protein expression was detected in 14 (31.8%) cases. Loss of p16 expression was associated with a higher incidence of lymph node metastasis (p=0.040) and a more advanced stage (p=0.015), although there was no significant correlation between p16 expression and survival. Aberrant p53 protein expression correlated with histologic grade (p=0.038). Disease-free survival rate was significantly lower in the aberrant p53 protein positive group compared to the negative group (p=0.029). From our results, we suggest that p53 is not a prognostic factor; however, p16 and p53 genes do play important roles in the progression of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Nucleosome deposition and DNA methylation at coding region boundaries

Nucleosomes and methylation have been observed to peak at both ends of protein coding units in a genome-wide survey

A situational analysis of ear and hearing care in South Korea using WHO ear and Hearing Care Situation Analysis tool

ObjectivesThe WHO emphasizes lifelong management of hearing diseases such as hearing loss and advocates for prevention. The Ear and Hearing Care Situation Analysis (EHCSA) tool was designed by the WHO for assessment and quality improvement of state-led management of hearing loss prevention and management programs. The purpose of this study was to use the EHCSA to assess the ear and hearing management program in Korea and to establish goals consistent with best practices for improving policies and services related to ear and hearing care.MethodsThe EHCSA was used as a need assessment of the ear and hearing management services in the country. The EHCSA consists of two sections. Section 1 consists of 41 questions to evaluate health policies and support services. Section 2 consists of 203 questions to evaluate human resources and services of the ear and hearing management sector.ResultsThere are an estimated 800,000 people with hearing loss in Korea. Policies such as hearing aid support are in place, and outreach services such as free hearing tests are also being actively conducted. In all medical institutions, ear and hearing management treatment and medication prescriptions could be received without barriers. Workers in the fields of ear and hearing management, such as audiologists, language therapists, special education teachers, and sign language interpreters, are specialized and have well-established guidelines for training.ConclusionOverall, the domestic ear and hearing management sector has confirmed that policies and services are well-prepared in comparison with advanced countries such as the United States, Iran, and China. The use of the EHCSA was functional in collecting data on the current state of domestic ear and hearing management policies and services in Korea, can be used for continuous quality improvement and expansion of medical services, and can be used as a reporting mechanism to the WHO

A study on factors affecting the safety zone in ship-to-ship LNG bunkering

The objective of this paper is to examine the characteristics of leaked-gas dispersion in ship-to-ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering, thereby providing an insight towards determining the appropriate level of safety zones. For this purpose, parametric studies are undertaken in various operational and environmental conditions, with varying geometry of the ships, gas leak rate, wind speed and wind direction. The study applies computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for case-specific scenarios where a hypothetical LNG bunkering ship with a capacity of 5100 m3 in tank space is considered to refuel two typical types of large ocean-going vessels: an 18,000 TEU container ship and a 319,000 DWT very large crude oil carrier. It is found that wind speed, wind direction, ship geometry and loading condition are important parameters affecting the extent of safety zones in addition to gas leak rate and leak duration. Details of the computations and discussions are presented

Monitoring daily evapotranspiration in Northeast Asia using MODIS and a regional Land Data Assimilation System

We applied an approach for daily estimation and monitoring of evapotranspiration (ET) over the Northeast Asia monsoon region using satellite remote sensing observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Frequent cloud cover results in a substantial loss of remote sensing information, limiting the capability of continuous ET monitoring for the monsoon region. Accordingly, we applied and evaluated a stand-alone MODIS ET algorithm for representative regional ecosystem types and an alternative algorithm to facilitate continuous regional ET estimates using surface meteorological inputs from the Korea Land Data Assimilation System (KLDAS) in addition to MODIS land products. The resulting ET calculations showed generally favorable agreement (root-mean-square error  \u3c 1.3 mm d−1) with respect to in situ measurements from eight regional flux tower sites. The estimated mean annual ET for 3 years (2006 to 2008) was approximately 362.0 ± 161.5 mm yr−1 over the Northeast Asia domain. In general, the MODIS and KLDAS-based ET (MODIS-KLDAS ET) results showed favorable performance when compared to tower observations, though the results were overestimated for a forest site by approximately 39.5% and underestimated for a cropland site in South Korea by 0.8%. The MODIS-KLDAS ET data were generally underestimated relative to the MODIS (MOD16) operational global terrestrial ET product for various biome types, excluding cropland; however, MODIS-KLDAS ET showed better agreement than MOD16 ET for forest and cropland sites in South Korea. Our results indicate that MODIS ET estimates are feasible but are limited by satellite optical-infrared remote sensing constraints over cloudy regions, whereas alternative ET estimates using continuous meteorological inputs from operational regional climate systems (e.g., KLDAS) provide accurate ET results and continuous monitoring capability under all-sky conditions