Korea has one of the most advanced information infrastructure in the world. The issue of internet or cyberspace addiction came along with the advancement of high-speed internet and personal computers a decade ago. Internet addiction, once introduced humorously as webaholism, has now become one of the most important adolescent behavioral problems including sex, drug and other delinquent behaviors. Boosted by PC-room and innovative online game industries, the adverse effect of online game overuse now overwhelms other media including video game, online chatting, and cyberporn. Teenagers tend to prefer interactive media such as internet, mobile and peer-to-peer communications to classical uni-directional media such as T.V. and newspaper. The age of initial exposure to these media gets younger. Social and medical support network to remedy the problems does not seem to catch up with the rapidly evolving internet and game industry. The highly addictive and pervasive nature of role-playing and recent casual games are discussed, along with the medico-social and legislative efforts in need from the government, communities, schools and families.
Adolescent ; Adolescent Behavior ; Humans ; Interactive Tutorial ; Internet* ; Korea ; Microcomputers ; Periodicals ; Video Games

Bioinformatics is a rapidly emerging field of biomedical research. A flood of large-scale genomic, proteomic and postgenomic data means that many of the challenges in biomedical research are now challenges in informatics. Clinical informatics has long developed technologies to improve biomedical research and clinical care by integrating experimental and clinical information systems. Biomedical informatics, powered by high throughput technologies, genomic-scale databases, and advanced clinical information system, is likely to transform our biomedical understanding forever much the same way that biochemistry did to biology a generation ago. The emergence of health and biomedical informatics revolutionizing both bioinformatics and clinical informatics will eventually change the current practice of medicine, including diagnostics, therapeutics, and prognostics.
Biochemistry ; Biology ; Computational Biology ; Gene Expression ; Genomics ; Human Genome Project ; Informatics* ; Information Systems ; Medical Informatics ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis

BACKGROUND: In Korea, the law to restrict epilepsy patients from driving automobiles does not exist. However, the need for a regulatory law is controversial due to conflicting interests of the right to drive and the safety of those on the road. We investigated the opinions of Korean neurologists on this matter. METHODS: 223 neurologists participated in this survey. They answered a questionnaire comprised of 15 questions. RESULTS: The results of the survey are as follows: the regulation should be legislated (94.6%), the decision on the patient's driving must be done by the doctor (83.4%), the patient's driving is reported obligatorily (33.2%), the duration for the restriction should be 24 months (30%), the renewal of the driving license should be done every other year, the escaping rebuke for the reporter is also needed (90.6%), and the draft for the regulation should be composed by the Korean Epilepsy Society (74%). CONCLUSIONS: Many Korean neurologists agree that regulation of epilepsy patients who want to drive is needed. The new regulatory law should include general and individual restrictions based upon the conditions made by the Korean Epilepsy Society and must be accepted by the patients and other members of the society. (J Korean Neurol Assoc 19(5):485~488, 2001)
Automobile Driving ; Automobiles ; Epilepsy* ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Licensure ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; United Nations

BACKGROUND: Neurophysiological Index (NI) is a sensitive measure of changes during the course of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, NI applied at the ulnar nerve has limitation in that the initial manifestation of ALS is different among individual patients. This study was aimed to evaluate the efficiency of NI applied to the posterior tibial nerve system in a prospective study of progression in ALS patients. METHODS: The subjects of the study were 22 patients with definite or probable ALS based on revised EL Escorial criteria. NI applied to the ulnar nerve/abductor digiti minimi muscle and the posterior tibial nerve/abductor hallucis muslce, revised ALS functional rating scale, Norris scale, and grip power were obtained at four and eight months of the follow-up. RESULTS: Overall, NI at both ulnar and posterior tibial nerve systems showed a significant interval change at 4 and 8 months. Although NI in both nerve systems showed significant changes at an interval of 4 months in patients with upper limb onset, NI obtained from the ulnar nerve did not show a difference from the baseline in the lower limb onset patients. Moreover, there was a significant change of NI in the early stage ALS patients, compared to the late stage patients. CONCLUSIONS: In the lower limb onset patients, NI obtained from the posterior tibial nerve is more useful in evaluating the disease progression pattern. Moreover, NI is more effective in the evaluation of the patients in the early stage.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ; Disease Progression ; Hand Strength ; Humans ; Lower Extremity ; Muscles ; Prospective Studies ; Tibial Nerve ; Ulnar Nerve ; Upper Extremity

BACKGROUND: Seasonal variations in the occurrence and mortality from stroke patients has been widely acknowl-edged and studied extensively but without conclusive results. Several studies suggest a circannual rhythm for stroke, with a peak onset and mortality in the winter. We aimed to identify the seasonal variations of monthly admissions and mortality in stroke patients. METHODS: From 1989 to 1998, 2526 first stroke populations were enrolled in this study, which included ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke patients. Fatal events were defined as those in which the patient died within 28 days after the beginning of symptoms. We analyzed the seasonal variations of monthly admissions and mor-tality in stroke patients. RESULTS: We concluded that the monthly admissions and mortality rate of stroke patients showed seasonal variations. Monthly admissions for stroke was highest in December and lowest in August. Also, the mortality rate was highest in November (4.1%) and lowest in July (2.4%). Major causes of death were herniation, sepsis due to pneumonia, urinary tract infection, sore, and cardiovascular diseases including congestive heart failure and myocardial infarction. CONCLUSIONS: There were greater monthly admissions and mortality of strokes during the winter season in our hospital.
Cardiovascular Diseases ; Cause of Death ; Heart Failure ; Humans ; Mortality* ; Myocardial Infarction ; Pneumonia ; Seasons* ; Sepsis ; Stroke* ; Urinary Tract Infections

Toxicogenomics combines transcriptome, proteome and metabolome profiling with conventional toxicology to investigate the interaction between biological molecules and toxicant or environmental stress in disease caution. Toxicogenomics faces the problems of comparison and integration across different sources of data. Cause of unusual characteristics of toxicogenomic data, researcher should be assisted by data analysis and annotation for getting meaningful information. There are already existing repositories which claim to stand for toxicogenomics database. However, those just contain limited abilities for toxicogenomic research. For supporting toxicologist who comes up against toxicogenomic data flood, now we propose novel toxicogenomics knowledgebase system, XPERANTO-TOX. XPERANTO-TOX is an integrated system for toxicogenomic data management and analysis. It is composed of three distinct but closely connected parts. Firstly, Data Storage System is for reposit many kinds of '-omics' data and conventional toxicology data. Secondly, Data Analysis System consists of analytical modules for integrated toxicogenomics data. At last, Data Annotation System is for giving extensive insight of data to researcher.
Information Storage and Retrieval ; Knowledge Bases* ; Metabolome ; Proteome ; Statistics as Topic ; Toxicogenetics* ; Toxicology ; Transcriptome

No abstract available.
Spinocerebellar Ataxias* ; Trinucleotide Repeats

Sleep is a highly organized and complicated state that is fundamental to life. We have an absolute need to sleep during about one-third of our lives. There are two types of sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. NREM sleep is divided into stages 1, 2, and 3 which is representing a degree of relative depth in sleep. Each sleep stage shows unique features including some variations in electroencephalographic waves, eye movements, and muscle tone. Although sleep pattern changes are associated with aging, how sleep physiology and sleep patterns change over an individual's life span is not well-defined. Circadian rhythms, which are the daily rhythms in physiology and behavior, regulate the sleep-wake cycle. Comprehensive understanding of normal sleep physiology should be very important to better understand not only the effects of sleep related diseases but also the impacts of pathological sleep on various diseases of other systemic organs. This review aims to enhance knowledge focused on normal sleep physiology and its regulation.
Aging ; Circadian Rhythm ; Eye Movements ; Muscles ; Neurobiology ; Physiology* ; Sleep Stages ; Sleep, REM

The scientific societies have provided with important resources of scientific research products, archived in journals and proceedings. Use of advanced information technology would benefit the scientific information management processes. Korean Society of Medical Informatics (KOSMI) has developed a web-based and XML-enabled paper submission management system since 2002. This paper describes KOSMI's a web-based paper submission management system which manages the processes of submitting, reviewing and distributing papers online. We demonstrate in the paper management system XML (eXtensible Markup Language) technology which is an emerging standard for information exchange on the World Wide Web. One user's request, the management program generates an electronic document in an XML format, which can be systematically managed via standardized way of modern information processing. We believe that the current effort will facilitate more scientific information exchange in a standard format and enhance the lead of knowledge-based information society.
Automatic Data Processing ; Information Management ; Internet ; Medical Informatics* ; Societies, Scientific

Post-transcriptional nucleotide sequence modification of transcripts by RNA editing is an important molecular mechanism in the regulation of protein function and is associated with a variety of human disease phenotypes. Identification of RNA editing sites is the basic step for studying RNA editing. Databases and bioinformatics resources are used to annotate and evaluate as well as identify RNA editing sites. No method is free of limitations. Correctly establishing an analytic pipeline and strategic application of both experimental and bioinformatics methods constitute the first step in investigating RNA editing. This review summarizes modern bioinformatics approaches and related resources for RNA editing research.
Base Sequence ; Computational Biology ; Humans ; Phenotype ; Resin Cements ; RNA ; RNA Editing