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DNA chip data routinely contain gene expression levels of thousands of genes and the analysis should be supported by various computational tools. To be brief, the analysis procedure consists of four steps including image scanning, image processing, mathematical interpretation and biological interpretation. In image processing step, we should detect the spots and measure the signals of the spots and the background. In mathematical interpretation step, first of all we should massage the measured signals to make them appropriate for further mathematical analysis. The massaged data could be analyzed by various computational methods especially when the data were generated for multiple samples comparisons. The clustering techniques including hierarchical clustering, k-means clustering, SOTA, SOM are the most popular methods in this step. Various other multivariate statistics and related machine learning techniques are being introduced and applied to DNA chip data analysis recently. And finally the most important step we should tackle is the biological interpretation task. Although the depth of the domain knowledge about the biological situation under which the data were generated is the most important factor to elucidate the biological context, it could be supported by various bioinformatics tools including MEDLINE abstract processing by NLP techniques or genetic network models constructed by Boolean networks algorithms.

The study was conducted from November 1995 to May 1996 at the one general hospital in Seoul. The total subjects of this study were 412 patients who have the experience of fall accident, among them 31 was who have fallen during hospitalization and 381 was who visited emergency room and out patient clinic. The purposes of this study were to determine the characteristics, risk factors and results of fall accident and to suggest the nursing strategies for prevention of fall. Data were collected by reviewing the medical records and interviewing with the fallers and their family members. For data analysis spss/pc+ program was utilized for descriptive statistics, adjusted standardized X2-test. The results of this study were as follows: 1) Total subjects were 412 fallers, of which 245 (59.5%) were men and 167 (40.5%) were women. Age were 0-14 years 79 (19.2%), 15-44 years 125 (30.4%), 45-64 years 104 (25.2%), over 65 years 104 (25.2%). 2) There was significant association between age and the sexes (X2 = 39.17, P = 0.00). 3) There was significant association between age and history of falls (X2 = 44.41, P = .00). And history of falls in the elderly was significantly associated with falls. 4) There was significant association with age and medical diagnosis (X2 = 140.66, P = .00), chief medical diagnosis were hypertension (34), diabetes mellitus (22), arthritis (11), stroke (8), fracture (7), pulmonary tuberculosis (6), dementia (5) and cataract (5). 5) There was significant association between age and intrinsic factors: cognitive impairment, mobility impairment, insomnia, emotional problems, urinary difficulty, visual impairments, hearing impairments, use of drugs (sedatives, antihypertensive drugs, diuretics, antidepressants) (P < 0.05). But there was no significant association between age and dizziness (X2 = 2.87, P = .41). 6) 15.3% of total fallers were drunken state when they were fallen. 7) Environmental factors of fall accident were unusual posture (50.9%), slips (35.2%), trips (9.5%) and collision (4.4%). 8) Most of falls occurred during the day time, peak frequencies of falls occurred from 1 pm to 6 pm and 7 am to 12 am. 9) The places of fall accident were roads (22.6%), house-stairs (16.7%), rooms, floors, kitchen (11.2%), the roof-top, veranda, windows (10.9%), hospital (7.5%), ice or snowy ways (5.8%), bathroom (4.9%), playground, park (4.9%), subway-stairs (4.4%) and public-bathrooms (2.2%). 10) Activities at the time of fall accident were walking (37.6%), turning around or reaching for something (20.9%), going up or down stairs (19.2%), exercise, working (17.4%), up or down from a bed (2.7%), using wheelchair or walking aids, standing up or down from a chair (2.2%) and standing still (2.2%). 11) Anatomical locations of injuries by falls were head, face, neck (31.3%), lower extremities (29.9%), upper extremities (20.6%), spine, thorax, abdomen or pelvic contents (11.4%) and unspecified (2.9%). 12) Types of injures were fracture (47.6%), bruises (13.8%), laceration (13.3%), sprains (9.0%), headache (6.6%), abrasions (2.9%), intracranial hemorhage (2.4%) and burns (0.5%). 13) 41.5% of the fallers were hospitalized and average of hospitalization was 22.3 days. 14) The six fallers (1.46%) died from fall injuries. The two fallers died from intracranial hemorhage and the four fallers died of secondary infection; pneumonia (2), sepsis (1) and cellulitis (1). It is suggested that 1) Further study is needed with larger sample size to identify the fall risk factors. 2) After the fall accident, comprehensive nursing care and regular physical exercise should be emphasized for the elderly person. 3) Safety education and safety facilities of the public place and home is necessary for fall prevention.

The role of macrophages was observed in intranasally infected C3H/HeJ mice with trophozoites (3 x 10(5)) of Acanthamoeba culbertsoni which was a kind of free-living amoebae inducing meningoencephalitis in human and experimental animals. The mortality was 60% in the group of intraperitoneally injected mice with silica (0.5 mg/0.5 ml). It was much higher than that of 10% in the group of amoeba infected mice without silica administration. The phagocytic index of peritoneal macrophages co-cultured with Toxoplasma gondii was estimated daily. In contrast to the control and amoeba infected group which didn't show significant fluctuation of the phagocytic indices, the silica administrated group revealed under 3% until day 3, and gradual increase up to 24.7% in day 5 which was same level of amoeba infected group without silica administration. The level of interleukin-1b (IL-1b) measured by ELISA was the highest in the amoeba infected group without silica injection and the lowest in the amoeba infected group with silica administration. In the test of the amoebicidal activity of mice peritoneal macrophages in vitro, silica administration revealed reducing effect on amoebicidal activity of macrophages. In conclusion, macrophages were proven to play a significant role in defense mechanism against the development of experimentally induced Acanthamoeba meningoencephalitis.