Objective: There were two aims: First, to compare children’s rates of being battered in home, by peers, and by teachers among students between China and Korea, and second, to identify particular risk ...factors for such violence.
Methods: Children in grades four through six in Shanghai (238 cases) and Yanji (245 cases) in China and Seoul (248 cases) and Kimpo (241 cases) in Korea were surveyed by questionnaire method. They were asked to complete the Straus’ Conflict Tactics Scale and their frequencies in the three situations respectively, and other demographic items.
Results: Family violence during the last 1 year was experienced in 70.6% (minor 42.2%; serious 22.6%) of the children in China and 68.9% (minor 9.4%; serious 51.3%) of those in Korea. Experience rates of violence by peers were 42.7% (minor 25.7%; serious 13.7%) in China and 26.0% (minor 11.5%; serious 14.3%) in Korea. Finally, rates of corporal punishment by teachers were 51.1% (minor 28.0%; serious 4.1%) in China and 62.0% (minor 8.8%; serious 43.8%) in Korea. The most important and common risk factor for violence in one situation was the presence of violence in another situation.
Conclusions: The findings indicate that the differences in children’s overall experience rates were not particularly striking. However, Korean children experienced more severe forms of violence from family members and from teachers. Findings of risk factors clearly imply that there are children vulnerable to violence from multiple sources.
Objectif: L’étude avait deux objectifs: de comparer chez des étudiants chinois et koréens, les taux de violence physique perpétrée au foyer, par leurs pairs et par les enseignants; et d’identifier les facteurs de risques particuliers.
Méthode: On a administré une questionnaire à des enfants qui étaient dans la 4ème année de leurs études primaires: en Chine, 238 cas à Shanghai et 245 cas à Yanji; en Korée, 248 cas à Séoule et 241 cas à Kimpo. On s’est servi du Straus Conflict Tactics Scale pour connaı̂tre la fréquence des mauvais traitements dans les trois circonstances. D’autres renseignements démorgraphiques ont été recueillis.
Résultats: Durant l’année précédent l’étude, 70,6% des enfants chinois ont été victimes de violence familiale (violence grave, 22,6%; moins grave, 42,2%) alors que le taux pour les enfants koréens était de 68,9% (violence grave, 51,3%; violence moins grave, 9,4%). Lorsqu’il s’agit d’agressions par leurs pairs, on note que 42,7% des enfants chinois (violence grave, 13,7%, moins grave, 25,7%) et 26% des enfants foréens (Violence grave, 14,3%, moins grave, 11,5%) sont agressés. Enfin, pour ce qui est de la violence par les enseignants, 51,1% des enfants chinois (violence grave, 4,1%, violence moins grave, 28%) et 62% des enfants koréens (violence grave, 43,8%, moins grave, 8,8%) en sont victimes. La présence d’une autre agression constitue le facteur de risque le plus élevé pour une agression.
Conclusions: On remarque que les différences ne sont pas trè marquées. Cependant, les enfants koréens ont vécu une violence familiale et une violence par leurs enseignants qui était plus grave que ce que les enfants chinois ont connu. Les facteurs de risque portent à conclure que les enfants sont vulnérables à la violence vernant de plusieurs sources.
Objetivo: Los objetivos fueron dos: Primero, comparar las tasas de abuso en el hogar, por compañeros y por maestros entre estudiantes de China y Corea, y segundo, identificar los factores de riesgo especı́ficos de esta violencia.
Métodos: Los niños en los grados cuatro hasta el seis en Shanghai (238 casos) y Yanji (245 casos) en China y Seus (248 casos) y Kimpo (241 casos) en Corea, fueron encuestados por el método del cuestionario. Se les pidió responder a la Escala de Tácticas de Conflicto de Straus y sus frecuencias en las tres situaciones respectivamente, y otros datos demográficos.
Resultados: Sufrieron violencia familiar durante el último año en 70.6% (leve 42.2%; grave 22.6%) de los niños en China y 68.9% (leve 9.4%, grave 51.3%) de los de Corea. La experiencia de violencia por los compañeros fue 42.7% (leve 25.7%; grave 13.7% en China y 26.0% (leve 11.5%; grave 14.3%) en Corea. Finalmente, las tasas de castigo corporal infligido por maestros fue de 51.1% (leve 28.0%; grave 4.1%) en China y 62.0% (leve 8.8%; grave 43.8%) en Corea. El factor de riesgo más importante y común de violencia en una sola situación fue la presencia de violencia en otra situación.
Conclusiones: Los resultados indican que las diferencias en las tasas de experiencias en general no fueron particularmente significativas. Sin embargo, los niños coreanos vivieron formas de violencia más severas de los miembros de la familia y de los maestros. Los resultados de los factores de riesgo señalan claramente que hay niños vulnerables a la violencia de múltiples fuentes.
AIM:To deduce strategic guidelines of gastric mucosa associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma (MALTOMA) by evaluating the long-term outcome of patients in respect to various treatment modalities.METHODS:A ...total of 55 patients with MALTOMA from May 1992 to August 2002 were retrospectively reviewed.RESULTS: Complete remission was obtained in 24 (82.8%) of 29 patients treated with anti Helicobacter pylori(H pylori) regimen only. The duration to reach complete remission was 12 months (85 percentile, 2-33 months).Five patients showed complete remission with radiation therapy (26-86 months).Two of them were Hpyloritreatment failure cases.CONCLUSION: Hpylorieradication is an effective primary treatment option for low grade MALTOMA and radiation therapy could be considered in patients with no evidence of Hpyloninfection or who do not respond to Hpylorieradication therapy 12 months after successful eradication.
Recently, free space optical sensor networks (FSOSNs), which are based on free space optics (FSO) instead of radio frequency (RF), have gained increasing visibility over traditional wireless sensor ...networks (WSNs) due to their advantages such as larger capacity, higher security, and lower cost. However, the performance of FSOSNs is restricted to the requirement of a direct line-of-sight (LOS) path between a sender and a receiver pair. Once a node dies of energy depletion, the network would probably suffer from a dramatic decrease of connectivity, resulting in a huge loss of data packets. Thus, this paper proposes a reconfigurable routing protocol (RRP) to overcome this problem by dynamically reconfiguring the network virtual topology. The RRP works in three phases: (1) virtual topology construction, (2) routing establishment, and (3) reconfigurable routing. When data transmission begins, the data packets are first routed through the shortest hop paths. Then a reconfiguration is initiated by the node whose residual energy falls below a threshold. Nodes affected by this dying node are classified into two types, namely maintenance nodes and adjustment nodes, and they are reconfigured according to the types. An energy model is designed to evaluate the performance of RRP through OPNET simulation. Our simulation results indicate that the RRP achieves better performance compared with the simple-link protocol and a direct reconfiguration scheme in terms of connectivity, network lifetime, packet delivery ratio and the number of living nodes.
The water quality and phytoplankton communities in the Daechung Reservoir, Korea, were monitored from summer to autumn in 1999, 2001, and 2003. The temporal patterns of cyanobacterial blooming caused ...by
Microcystis were then elucidated using a combination of two artificial neural networks (ANNs): self-organizing map (SOM) and multilayer perceptron (MLP). The SOM was initially used to cluster the phytoplankton communities, then the MLP was applied to identify the major environmental factors causing the abundance of phytoplankton in the clustered communities. The SOM divided the phytoplankton communities into four clusters based on their algal composition (Cyanophyceae, Chlorophyceae, Bacillariophyceae, and others). In particular, cluster II was mostly composed of sampling times in August and September, and closely matched the period of severe cyanobacterial bloom dominated by Cyanophyceae. Meanwhile, cluster IV was mainly composed of the samples collected in the other periods, covering April, May, June, and October, and was mostly dominated by Bacillariophyceae. Cyanophyceae was the main component of the total algae, and its variation among the clusters showed a similar pattern to that of the changes in the chlorophyll-
a concentration. Based on the MLP model, the water temperature, total particulate nitrogen, daily irradiance, and total nitrogen were highlighted as the four most important environmental variables predicting cyanobacterial abundance, yet quite different environmental variables were found to affect the chlorophyll-
a concentration. The usage of sampled data and analyses by ANNs are also discussed with reference to an early alert system for algal bloom.
Background/Aims
: The emergence of a YMDD mutant resistant to lamivudine therapy has been reported in patients with hepatitis B treated with long-term lamivudine therapy. However, it is not well ...known whether the YMDD mutant could be detected early in lamivudine therapy in hepatitis B virus (HBV) endemic areas. The aim of this study was to investigate the emergence of the YMDD mutant during short-term lamivudine therapy in South Korea.
Methods
: We prospectively investigated the emergence of the YMDD mutant by the nested PCR assay using restriction fragment length polymorphism in 28 patients with chronic hepatitis B who were treated with 100 mg of lamivudine daily for 12 weeks.
Results
: The YMDD mutant was detected in 17 (60.7%) out of 28 patients at week 12, and the only type of mutation found was the YIDD mutation. When we carried out the nested PCR serially in five patients, YIDD mutants were detected as early as 2 weeks by the nested PCR assay. The nested PCR results were in concordance with DNA sequencing in one patient's serial samples.
Conclusions
: YMDD mutants in HBV were detected within a few weeks during lamivudine therapy in South Korea, which suggests that the YMDD mutant may exist even before lamivudine therapy in HBV endemic areas.
We herein report a patient with advanced hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) beyond the Milan criteria. He underwent orthotopic liver transplantation after successful HCC ...downstaging that satisfied the University of California, San Francisco criteria, using concurrent chemoradiation therapy with a combination of repeated hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) and sorafenib. A 52-year-old male was diagnosed with advanced hepatitis B virus-related HCC beyond the Milan criteria. He underwent concurrent chemoradiation therapy (50 Gy with 20 fractions over 5 weeks with HAIC using 5-fluorouracil at a dose of 500 mg/day, which was administered during the first and fifth weeks of radiation therapy) as an initial treatment modality. This was followed by the combined use of HAIC using 5-fluorouracil (500 mg/m(2) for 5 hours on days 1-3) and cisplatin (60 mg/m(2) for 2 hours on day 2) every 4 weeks (twelve cycles) and sorafenib (from the third to the twelfth cycle of HAIC) to treat the remaining HCC. Because a remarkable decrease in the tumor burden that satisfied the University of California, San Francisco criteria was observed after these combination treatments, the patient underwent orthotopic liver transplantation with curative aim and survived for 11 months without evidence of HCC recurrence.
Manganese oxide electrodes possessing pseudo-capacitance behaviors were successfully made with a simple sol–gel method. The experimental results showed that the specific capacitance was 101.2F/g for ...pure manganese oxide films after annealing at 300°C. However, the specific capacitance increased to 232.3F/g with iron acetate (1.0mol% Fe) addition and after annealing at 350°C. The surface morphology observations revealed that the annealing temperature of 350°C produced a higher surface area film with smaller pores. X-ray diffraction results showed that the manganese-iron oxide was composed of Mn3O4 and Mn2O3 phases, without iron oxide diffraction peaks. The manganese-iron oxide electrode with Mn3O4 and Mn2O3 phases exhibited good electrochemical performance and capacitance efficiency.
Rifaximin has been reported to be effective for the treatment of hepatic encephalopathy (HE) in Europe. However, it is unknown whether Rifaximin is effective for the treatment of HE in Koreans, ...therefore we conducted a open-label prospective randomized study to evaluate the efficacy of rifaximin versus lactulose in Korean patients. Fifty-four patients with liver cirrhosis and hepatic encephalopathy were enrolled. Thirty-two patients were randomized to receive rifaximin and 22 to receive lactulose both over a 7-day periods. Before and at the end of treatment, gradation of blood ammonia, flapping tremor, mental status, number connection test (NCT) were performed and estimation of HE indexes determined. Both rifaximin and lactulose were effective in the majority of patients (84.4% and 95.4%, respectively, p = 0.315). Blood NH3, flapping tremor, mental status, and NCT was significantly improved by rifaximin and lactulose, and the post- treatment levels of these measures were similar for the rifaximin and lactulose-treated groups, as was the HE index (rifaximin group (10.0 --> 4.2, p = 0.000); lactulose group (11.3 --> 5.0, p = 0.000)). One patient treated with rifaximin complained of abdominal pain, which was easily controlled. There was no episode of renal function impairment in either treatment group. Rifaximin proved to be as safe and as effective as lactulose for the treatment of Korean patients with hepatic encephalopathy.
To determine the association between increasing volumes of crystalloids and colloids administered before transfusion of packed red blood cells in women with persistent postpartum haemorrhage and ...adverse maternal outcomes.
Retrospective cohort study in the Netherlands. Women with persistent postpartum haemorrhage and known clear fluids volume for resuscitation were included. Women who received ≤2 L of clear fluids were the reference group. We determined the effect of every additional litre of clear fluids on total blood loss, severe maternal morbidity and mortality. Results were adjusted for patient and bleeding characteristics.
Of the 883 included women, 199 received ≤2 L of clear fluids. Median blood loss for the reference group was 2.9 L (interquartile range 2.2–3.4). Adjusted mean difference in blood loss compared with the reference group was 0.2 L (95% confidence interval −0.1 to 0.5) for women in the >2 to ≤3 L, 0.4 L (0.1–0.7) for the >3 to ≤4 L category, 0.6 L (0.5–0.7) for the >4 to ≤5 L category, and 1.9 L (1.5–2.3) for the >5 to ≤7 L category. Adjusted odds ratios for adverse maternal outcomes were 1.0 (0.7–1.6), 1.2 (0.8–1.9), 1.8 (1.1–3.1) and 4.4 (2.6–7.5) for women in the 2 to ≤3 L category, >3 to ≤4 L, >4 to ≤5 L, and >5 to ≤7 L volume categories respectively. Results were similar in strata of different severities of bleeding.
Clear fluids volume >4 L was independently associated with adverse maternal outcome in women with persistent postpartum haemorrhage.
The efficacy of adefovir dipivoxil (ADV) or entecavir (ETV) rescue monotherapy has not been directly compared in hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive patients with lamivudine (3TC)-resistant ...chronic hepatitis B (CHB). We compared the efficacy of ADV and ETV rescue monotherapy in HBeAg-positive patients with confirmed genotypic 3TC resistance.
A total of 160 HBeAg-positive patients with confirmed 3TC resistance underwent switch therapy (91 ADV and 59 ETV). Parameters assessed included alanine aminotransferase (ALT) normalization, HBeAg seroconversion, undetectable serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA by PCR (lower detection limit <300 copies/ml), virological breakthrough and initial virological response (IVR) at 3 (IVR-3) and 6 (IVR-6) months.
Following 52 weeks of treatment in the ADV and ETV groups, serum HBV DNA became undetectable in 25 (27.5%) and 21 (35.6%; P=0.292) patients, ALT normalization occurred in 67/78 (85.9%) and 43/47 (91.5%; P=0.351), HBeAg seroconversion in 4 (4.4%) and 1 (1.7%; P=1.000), IVR-3 in 19 (20.9%) and 18 (30.5%), IVR-6 in 40 (44.0%) and 25 (42.4%) and virological breakthrough in 2 (2.2%) and 1 (1.7%; P=1.000) patients, respectively.
ADV and ETV revealed comparable efficacy after 52 weeks of treatment in HBeAg-positive patients with 3TC resistance. Undetectable HBV DNA in serum following 52 weeks of treatment was predictable with IVR-3 and IVR-6 in both groups.
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