No abstract available.

OBJECTIVE: This paper proposes an ontology plan for oriental-medical service in ubiquitous computing environment. With popularization of ubiquitous computing technology, recently oriental medicine field becomes interested in oriental medicine knowledge management system and needs more systematic-scientific knowledge management and information communication. But oriental medical scientists have various standards which classify a pulse, so the information about pulse is massive. METHOD: In this paper, for more systematic-scientific knowledge management and information communication, we designed and implemented ontology using the pulse which is used as diagnosis basis in oriental medicine. by using the pulse which is classified into twenty eight division we implemented ontology based on characteristic of each pulse. We represented the pulse with OWL language and used Racer as inference engine to check errors of implemented ontology. RESULT / CONCLUSION: Given the information of the pulse-diagnosis ontology, systematic-scientific knowledge management and information communication become possible so that oriental doctors are able to provide faster and effective medical service. Furthermore, self-diagnosis and medical service will be possible at anytime and anywhere regardless of time and place. In the future research, we will implement an integrated ontology with the whole of diagnosis basis in oriental medicine based on pulse ontology implemented in this paper.
Hypogonadism ; Knowledge Management ; Medicine, East Asian Traditional ; Mitochondrial Diseases ; Ophthalmoplegia ; Strigiformes

No abstract available.
Acoustics*

OBJECTIVES: The transmission of medical information is currently a daily routine. Medical information needs efficient, robust and secure encryption modes, but cryptography is primarily a computationally intensive process. Towards this direction, we design a selective encryption scheme for critical data transmission. METHODS: We expand the advandced encrytion stanard (AES)-Rijndael with five criteria: the first is the compression of plain data, the second is the variable size of the block, the third is the selectable round, the fourth is the optimization of software implementation and the fifth is the selective function of the whole routine. We have tested our selective encryption scheme by C++ and it was compiled with Code::Blocks using a MinGW GCC compiler. RESULTS: The experimental results showed that our selective encryption scheme achieves a faster execution speed of encryption/decryption. In future work, we intend to use resource optimization to enhance the round operations, such as SubByte/InvSubByte, by exploiting similarities between encryption and decryption. CONCLUSIONS: As encryption schemes become more widely used, the concept of hardware and software co-design is also a growing new area of interest.
Medical Informatics

Three hundred ninety potentially curative resections for an adenocarcinoma of the stomach were performed in the Surgical Department of Chonbuk National University Hospital between 1991 and 1995. Eighty-nine patients were over 65 years of age, and three hundred-one patients were under 65 years of age. Pre-operative risk factors were statistically common in the over 65-years-old group(p<0.0044). Among the risk factors, pulmonary dysfunction was the most common pre-operative risk factor in both age groups, but diabetes mellitus was statistically significant factor in the under 65-years-old group. The incidence of post-operative complications revealed no statistical difference between two groups, and diarrhea was the most common complication in both groups. The incidence of complications increased when the disease was in an advanced stage and we did an extended operation, including a gastrectomy and a lymphadenectomy, but there was no statistical difference between the two age groups. The 3-year survival rate was higher when we did a curative resection with a subtotal or a total gastrectomy with a D2 lymphadenectomy than when we did non-curative resection, but there was no statistical difference between the two age groups. Hence, a curative resection including a radical gastrectomy with a D2 lymphadenectomy, if it is indicated, is reasonable approach for improving the survival rate in patients with an adenocarcinoma of the stomach, even elderly patients over 65 years of age.
Adenocarcinoma ; Aged* ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Diarrhea ; Gastrectomy ; Humans ; Incidence ; Jeollabuk-do ; Lymph Node Excision ; Risk Factors ; Stomach ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Survival Rate*

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to compare the clinical outcomes according to surgical approach of extranasal, endonasal endoscopic, and a combined approach of the two, suggesting the indication of each surgical approach for excision of sinonasal inverted papilloma (IP). SUBJECTS AND METHOD: Fifty-six IP patients who had been operated at the department of Otorhinolaryngology, Pusan National University Hospital from January, 1995 to March, 2001 were retrospectively assessed. The patients were arbitrarily divided into three groups such as excision through extranasal approach (EEA), endonasal endoscopic excision (EEE), and EEE combined with Caldwell-Luc's approach (EEE+C-L) group. RESULTS: The most commonly affected sites by CT/MRI preoperatively was the nasal cavity followed in the decreasing order of frequency by maxillary, ethmoid, sphenoid, and frontal sinus. In the EEA group, the originated sites were the nasal cavity (2/6), maxillary (1/6), and frontal sinus (2/6). In the EEE group, the origin sites by operative findings were the nasal cavity (30/41), maxillary (5/41), sphenoid (3/41), and ethmoid (2/41) sinus. In the EEE+C-L group, eight cases (8/9) originated from the maxillary sinus. There were six cases associated with malignant tumors, five synchronous and one metachronous, treated combined with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. A total of eight cases recurred during the follow-up period. The recurrence rate was 16.6% (1/6) in EEA, 14.6% (6/41) in EEE and 10.1% (1/9) in EEE+C-L group, and there was no significant difference according to surgical approaches. CONCLUSION: EEE yielded a successful outcome only when the IP was limited to the originating sites of nasal cavity, medial and upper wall of maxillary sinus, ethmoid sinus, and sphenoid sinus. The complete removal of the tumor by EEE alone could not be achieved when the tumor was originated from the anterior, inferior, and posterolateral wall of maxillary sinus, requiring application of C-L's approach at the same time. EEA can be used with more benefits than EEE when the tumor is originated from the frontal sinus or when the mass tends to invade extensively.
Busan ; Drug Therapy ; Endoscopy ; Ethmoid Sinus ; Follow-Up Studies ; Frontal Sinus ; Humans ; Maxillary Sinus ; Nasal Cavity ; Otolaryngology ; Papilloma, Inverted* ; Paranasal Sinuses ; Radiotherapy ; Recurrence ; Retrospective Studies ; Sphenoid Sinus

Percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainge (PTBD) is a widely accepted technique for the decotnn of biliary obstruction. However, PTBD is most frequently performed in patients whose prognosis is poor becauase of unresectable malignancy, sepsis, or advanced age. And this technique has disadvantages which inclusdes loss of biliary fluids, fat malabsorption, discomfort and psychologic problem for many patients. A 68-year-old man admitted to the hospital because of obstructive jaundice. He had received cholectystectomy two yeas ageo due to the perforation of gallbladder caused by adenocarcinoma of cystic duct. An external PTBD was placed. But because of the chronic bile loss, a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) was inserted and drainge of bile into the stomach through an extracoporeal circuit utilizing the PTBD as an exit and PEG as an entrance was achieved.
Adenocarcinoma ; Aged ; Bile ; Cystic Duct ; Drainage* ; Gallbladder ; Gastrostomy* ; Humans ; Jaundice, Obstructive ; Prognosis ; Sepsis ; Stomach

OBJECTIVES: Diplophonia is the voice of two separate tones through quasi-periodic variations in the vocal cord vibration when an imbalance in the tension and the level applied to the vocal cords. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the occurrence of the diplophonia and the endoscopic findings in the unilateral vocal cord paralysis. MATERIALS AND METHOD: A retrospective review was employed using video recorded images of larynx with unilateral vocal cord paralysis. A total 104 patients selected for this study complained of voice change due to unilaterally paralyzed vocal cord. Video-recordings were obtained using a laryngeal telescope. The paralyzed positions, bowing, shapes of the paralyzed arytenoids and level differences between two vocal folds were evaluated according to whether diplophonia. existed or not. RESULTS: A large number of patients of paramedian paralysis showed diplophonia when the bowing of paralyzed vocal fold was shown. However, diplophonia was shown in a small number of patients with median and intermediate paralysis. Diplophonia also seems to occur when the vertical mismatch was shown. CONCLUSION: Occurene of diplophonia depends largely on the paralyzed position, adequate glottal gap such as paramedian position, with the presence of bowing of paralyzed vocal cord.
Endoscopy ; Humans ; Larynx ; Paralysis* ; Retrospective Studies ; Telescopes ; Vibration ; Vocal Cord Paralysis ; Vocal Cords* ; Voice

BACKGROUND/AIM: We identified risk factors for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) through a nine-year follow-up study, ending last year, of 4,339 patients with chronic liver diseases. The aim of this study was to establish an individual prediction model according to risk factors for the development of HCC. METHODS: We studied a total of 994 patients who had regular check-ups from January 1990 to December 1998. We analyzed the risk factors and established the individual prediction model to predict the risk rate for HCC using logistic regression analysis. We applied the model to patients who were enrolled over the next two years. RESULTS: 90 (9.05%) out of 994 patients developed HCC during a mean of 33 months of follow-up. The risk index for individual patients was made by considering the relative risk level of statistically significant risk factors. From 1999 to 2000, 480 patients were newly enrolled and divided into three groups by their risk index and probability of HCC development. These patients were classified into a low risk group (less than 5% probability), an intermediate risk group (5% to 10% probability), and a high risk group (more than 10% probability). According to this classification, 1 of 191 patients in the low risk group (0.523%), 5 of 176 patients in the intermediate risk group (2.84%), and 21 of 113 patients in the high risk group (18.6%) were diagnosed with HCC. CONCLUSION: We confirmed the reliability of the newly established individual prediction model for the screening of HCC. This model may help screening programs to be done effectively by focusing on high risk groups for HCC.
Carcinoma, Hepatocellular* ; Classification ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Korea* ; Liver Diseases ; Logistic Models ; Mass Screening ; Risk Factors*

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.
Comparative Study ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Agents/*administration & dosage/adverse effects ; Hepatic Encephalopathy/*drug therapy ; Humans ; Lactulose/*administration & dosage/adverse effects ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prospective Studies ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't ; Rifamycins/*administration & dosage/adverse effects ; Treatment Outcome