DNA profiling with sets of short tandem repeat (STR) markers is the most popular method for identifying human DNA in forensics. Identification by STR typing might fail when DNA is degraded or is present in low amounts, such as in disaster victim identification (DVI) samples. In such cases, more information might be obtained by using additional markers such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Multiplex PCR and microarray are convenient techniques to analyze SNP markers. We used an AccuID(TM) Chip, SNP-based DNA chip manufactured by DNA Link Corporation, to confirm genetic relationship between two human bone samples that had been buried for more than 50 years and blood samples from the alleged descendants of the sources of the bone fragments. The chip combines an Affymetrix resequencing array with a multiplex PCR technology and can genotype hundreds of SNP markers in a single experiment. Genotyping the two bone samples yielded 90.5 and 77 SNP markers. The commonly genotyped markers (61 and 47 SNP loci) in each bone-family pair provided high paternity indices to support the genetic relationships in both cases.
Disasters ; DNA Fingerprinting ; DNA* ; Forensic Anthropology* ; Genotype ; Humans* ; Microsatellite Repeats ; Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis* ; Paternity ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide

In order to determine paternity by genetic testing, the Paternity Index (PI) and probability of paternity are calculated using likelihood ratio method. However, when it is necessary, additional testing can be performed to validate the genetic relationship. This research demonstrates autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) results of Jeju Island population in order to determine genetic relationship. Two notable cases showed that despite the acceptable PI value obtained from STR testing, average of 12 mismatches were found in total of 169 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphism typing. Such cases imply that cautious statistical approach is necessary when determining genetic relationship, especially within an isolated population group. Moreover, this would suggest that a further research and investigation are needed in order to understand the population structure of Korea.
Genetic Testing ; Humans ; Korea ; Microsatellite Repeats ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis ; Paternity* ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ; Population Groups

Objectives: This study was aimed to assess the usefulness of the quantitative assessment of clock drawing test (CDT) combined with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) compared to that of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) or the MMSE alone for screening of dementia in Parkinson disease (PD) in patients with a low educational level. Methods: A representative sample of 91 PD patients was administered MMSE, MoCA and CDT. The discriminative validity of the MMSE, MoCA, and a MMSE+CDT combination for dementia screening was determined by estimating the sensitivity and specificity of each test and by testing integrated discrimination improvement (IDI). Results: The mean age and educational years were 69.0 (years) and 7.3 in the study population. The best screening cut-off points for the MMSE, MoCA, and MMSE+CDT were 25/26, 21/22 and 41/42. In a group of patients with educational years ≤6,
Dementia

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the casual relationship between nurses' social capital and turnover intention and to verify the goodness of fit between a hypothetical model and actual data in order to suggest the best model. METHODS: This survey was conducted with 315 nurses working in general hospitals in Seoul. Data were collected from December 1 to December 30, 2011, and analyzed using SPSS Windows 18.0 and AMOS 16.0. RESULTS: Nurses' social capital was found to have a direct effect on reducting organization cynicism and increasing organizational commitment. Nurses' organizational cynicism and organizational commitment were found to have a direct effect on turnover intention, but social capital did not have a direct effect on turnover intention. However, social capital had a partial and indirect effect on turnover intention through mediating organizational cynicism and organizational commitment. CONCLUSION: Results of this study indicate that nurse managers should put increased effort in reducing nurses' organizational cynicism and improving their organizational commitment, two contrary parameters. At the same time managers need to develop plans to establish social capital more efficiently so that nurses have lower turnover intention.
Adult ; Female ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Intention ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/economics/*psychology ; *Organizational Culture ; *Personnel Turnover ; Questionnaires

Biomarkers are characteristic biological properties that can be detected and measured in a variety of biological matrices in the human body, including the blood and tissue, to give an indication of whether there is a threat of disease, if a disease already exists, or how such a disease may develop in an individual case. Along the continuum from exposure to clinical disease and progression, exposure, internal dose, biologically effective dose, early biological effect, altered structure and/or function, clinical disease, and disease progression can potentially be observed and quantified using biomarkers. While the traditional discovery of biomarkers has been a slow process, the advent of molecular and genomic medicine has resulted in explosive growth in the discovery of new biomarkers. In this review, issues in evaluating biomarkers will be discussed and the biomarkers of environmental exposure, early biologic effect, and susceptibility identified and validated in epidemiological studies will be summarized. The spectrum of genomic approaches currently used to identify and apply biomarkers and strategies to validate genomic biomarkers will also be discussed.
Disease Progression ; Environmental Exposure ; *Epidemiologic Studies ; *Genetic Markers ; Humans ; Molecular Epidemiology/*methods ; Neoplasms/epidemiology ; Republic of Korea/epidemiology

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study is aimed at elucidating potential temporal associations between the occurrence of Kawasaki disease (KD) and various viral infections. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We obtained monthly patterns of KD from the seventh nationwide survey and viral detection data from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2011 and evaluated temporal correlations between them for each month. The respiratory viruses detected using a multiplex real-time-polymerase chain reaction kit were influenza virus (A/H1N1, A/H3N2, A/H5N1, and B), adenovirus, parainfluenza virus (type 1, 2, 3), respiratory syncytial virus (type A, B), human rhinovirus, human coronavirus (OC43/229E, NL63), human bocavirus, and enterovirus. RESULTS: We obtained data from a total of 13031 patients who were treated for acute KD from 87 hospitals with pediatric residence programs. During this survey, KD showed highest overall incidence in summer and winter seasons and lowest incidence in February and October. We received viral detection data for a total of 14267 patients. Viral detection was highest during winter and spring seasons. The most commonly detected virus was human rhinovirus (32.6%), followed by influenza virus (26.8%). The monthly incidence of KD showed significant correlation with the monthly overall viral detection (p=0.022, r=0.382). In particular, human bocavirus and enterovirus have significant correlations with monthly patterns of KD occurrence (p=0.032 and p=0.007, respectively) and influenza virus correlated with KD occurrence with borderline significance (p=0.063). CONCLUSION: The temporal association between monthly occurrence of KD and viral detection suggests the etiologic importance of precedent infection in the development of KD.
Adenoviridae ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Coronavirus ; Enterovirus ; Human bocavirus ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Mucocutaneous Lymph Node Syndrome* ; Orthomyxoviridae ; Paramyxoviridae Infections ; Respiratory Syncytial Viruses ; Rhinovirus ; Seasons

BACKGROUND: South Korea has experienced problems with excessive pharmaceutical expenditures. In 2010, the South Korean government introduced an outpatient prescription incentive program to effectively manage pharmaceutical expenditures. Therefore, we examined the relationship between the outpatient prescription incentive program and pharmaceutical expenditures. METHODS: We used data from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database, which included medical claims filed for 22,732 clinics from 2011–2014 to evaluate associated pharmaceutical expenditures. We performed multiple regression analysis and Poisson regression analysis using generalized estimating equation models to examine the associations between outpatient prescription incentives and the outcome variables. RESULTS: The data used in this study consisted of 123,392 cases from 22,372 clinics (average 5.4 periods follow-up). Clinics that had received outpatient prescription incentives in the last period had better cost saving and Outpatient Prescribing Costliness Index (OPCI) (received: proportion of cost saving, β=6.8179; p-value <0.0001; OPCI, β=−0.0227; p-value <0.0001; reference=non-received). Moreover, these clinics had higher risk in the provision of outpatient prescription incentive (relative risk, 2.772; 95% confidence interval, 2.720 to 2.824). The associations were higher in clinics that had separate prescribing and dispensing programs, or had professional staff. CONCLUSION: The introduction of an outpatient prescription incentive program for clinics effectively managed problems with rapid increases of pharmaceutical expenditures in South Korea. However, the pharmaceutical expenditures still increased in spite of the positive impact of the outpatient prescription incentive program. Therefore, healthcare professionals and health policy makers should develop more effective alternatives (i.e., for clinics without separate prescribing and dispensing programs) based on our results.
Cost Savings ; Delivery of Health Care ; Health Expenditures ; Health Policy ; Health Services Research ; Humans ; Korea* ; Motivation* ; National Health Programs ; Outpatients* ; Prescriptions*

BACKGROUND: South Korea has experienced problems with excessive pharmaceutical expenditures. In 2010, the South Korean government introduced an outpatient prescription incentive program to effectively manage pharmaceutical expenditures. Therefore, we examined the relationship between the outpatient prescription incentive program and pharmaceutical expenditures. METHODS: We used data from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database, which included medical claims filed for 22,732 clinics from 2011–2014 to evaluate associated pharmaceutical expenditures. We performed multiple regression analysis and Poisson regression analysis using generalized estimating equation models to examine the associations between outpatient prescription incentives and the outcome variables. RESULTS: The data used in this study consisted of 123,392 cases from 22,372 clinics (average 5.4 periods follow-up). Clinics that had received outpatient prescription incentives in the last period had better cost saving and Outpatient Prescribing Costliness Index (OPCI) (received: proportion of cost saving, β=6.8179; p-value <0.0001; OPCI, β=−0.0227; p-value <0.0001; reference=non-received). Moreover, these clinics had higher risk in the provision of outpatient prescription incentive (relative risk, 2.772; 95% confidence interval, 2.720 to 2.824). The associations were higher in clinics that had separate prescribing and dispensing programs, or had professional staff. CONCLUSION: The introduction of an outpatient prescription incentive program for clinics effectively managed problems with rapid increases of pharmaceutical expenditures in South Korea. However, the pharmaceutical expenditures still increased in spite of the positive impact of the outpatient prescription incentive program. Therefore, healthcare professionals and health policy makers should develop more effective alternatives (i.e., for clinics without separate prescribing and dispensing programs) based on our results.
Cost Savings ; Delivery of Health Care ; Health Expenditures ; Health Policy ; Health Services Research ; Humans ; Korea* ; Motivation* ; National Health Programs ; Outpatients* ; Prescriptions*

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The relationship between intestinal Behçet’s disease (BD) and cancer remains unclear. We conducted a nationwide, population-based study to determine the risk of cancer in patients with intestinal BD. METHODS: Using the National Health Insurance claims records, we collected data on 365 patients who had been diagnosed with intestinal BD between 2011 and 2014. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) of overall and site-specific cancers in patients with intestinal BD in comparison with the general population were calculated. RESULTS: Among 167 men with intestinal BD, four cases of cancer were observed; among 191 women with BD, eight cases of cancer were observed. The risk of all cancers was significantly higher in women with intestinal BD than in women of the general population (SIR, 4.27; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.84 to 8.41). However, in men with intestinal BD, the risk of all cancers was not significantly higher than that in men of the general population (SIR, 2.08; 95% CI, 0.57 to 5.33). The risk of hematologic cancer was significantly higher in both men and women with intestinal BD than in their counterparts in the general population (SIR, 23.90; 95% CI, 2.89 to 86.32 in men; SIR, 34.47; 95% CI, 4.17 to 124.51 in women). In particular, patients with intestinal BD showed a higher risk of leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome than the general population. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with intestinal BD demonstrated a higher risk of hematologic cancer, especially leukemia, than the general population. Furthermore, women with intestinal BD showed a higher risk of all cancers.
Female ; Humans ; Incidence ; Leukemia ; Male ; Myelodysplastic Syndromes ; National Health Programs

No abstract available.
Korea ; Prekallikrein