Search

Objective: to investigate pertussis vaccination rates during pregnancy and the routine recommendation rates by maternity healthcare professionals (HCPs), including influencing factors, in Korea. Materials and methods: Two different questionnaires were developed and conducted anonymously for pregnant or postpartum women and maternity HCPs in 30 multi-centers. Maternal pertussis vaccination rates and maternity HCPs’ recommendation rates were analyzed. Independent influencing factors were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression analysis, respectively. Results: The rate of pertussis vaccination during pregnancy among 466 women was 67%. Among 164 multiparous women, 35.5% received pertussis vaccinations during every pregnancy. However, 27.9% among all pregnant women did not receive information about pertussis and vaccination. The independent influencing factors for maternal pertussis vaccination, given as the tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis (Tdap), were “getting informed” (OR 18.597, 95% CI 11.206–30.861), “informed by OBGYN doctors” (OR 4.426, 95% CI 2.144–9.267), and “metropolitan residence” (OR 3.048, 95% CI 1.419–6.548). Among a total of 373 maternity HCPs, 210 (56.3%) routinely recommended pertussis vaccination, but 21.7% of the total maternity HCP participants did not know the maternal Tdap guideline. The independent factors affecting routine recommendation were the awareness of guideline (OR 9.771, 95% CI 5.227–18.265, p

The objective of this paper is to study topological properties of the prime spectrum of a unitary semimodule over a semiring with zero and nonzero identity. We define a top semimodule over a semiring, show that the prime spectrum is a T 0 -space, and prove that each irreducible closed subset of the prime spectrum has a generic point and that the prime spectrum is a compact space if the top semimodule is finitely generated. For a multiplication semimodule over a commutative semiring, we reveal the structure of the radical of a subsemimodule and prove that the multiplication semimodule is finitely generated iff the prime spectrum is a compact space, that in the prime spectrum, every basic open set is compact and the intersection of finitely many basic open sets is also compact, and that the prime spectrum is a spectral space if the multiplication semimodule is finitely generated.

We performed a network meta-analysis to build clear hierarchies of efficacy and tolerability of pharmacological interventions for the treatment and prevention of delirium. Electronic databases including PubMed, Google Scholar, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PsycINFO, and MEDLINE were searched published up to February 22, 2019. A total of 108 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating pharmacotherapy on delirium were included for analysis, and the strength of evidence (SoE) was evaluated for critical outcomes. In terms of treatment, quetiapine (low SoE), morphine (low SoE), and dexmedetomidine (moderate SoE) were effective in the intensive care unit (ICU) patients. In terms of prevention, dexmedetomidine (high SoE) and risperidone (high SoE) significantly reduced the incidence of delirium in ICU surgical patients, while ramelteon (high SoE) reduced the incidence of delirium in ICU medical patients. Despite the efficacy, dexmedetomidine and risperidone demonstrated higher drop-out rate (moderate to high SoE). Haloperidol and other antipsychotics, except for quetiapine and risperidone, showed no benefit. None of the agents showed benefit in non-ICU patients. In conclusion, dexmedetomidine may be a drug of choice for both treating and preventing delirium of the ICU and postsurgical patients. However, it may be less tolerable, and side-effects should be adequately managed. Current evidence does not support the routine use of antipsychotics. For medical patients, oral ramelteon might be useful for prevention.

Dense plasma focus (DPF) device is conventionally operated in focus mode, to achieve pinch plasma with highest possible temperature and density to maximize the soft and hard x-rays and charged particles. In this paper, we report the first ever application of non-focus mode of DPF device, which is free of magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) instabilities, for the deposition of zinc oxide thin films (ZnO TFs) on silicon substrates for various number (5, 10, 15 and 20) of non-focused deposition shots (NFDS). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of as-deposited ZnO TFs confirms the growth along (0 0 2) orientation only. The ZnO TFs are then annealed at 600 °C temperature for 2 h. The XRD patterns of annealed ZnO-TFs confirm the wurtzite phase of ZnO with (1 0 0), (0 0 2) and (1 0 0) planes with improved crystallinity. The up and down shifting of ZnO (0 0 2) diffraction plane indicates the presence of residual stresses which are reduced in annealed ZnO TF. The surface morphology, like shape, size and the distribution of rounded nano-particles, is strongly associated with increasing number of NFDS. Raman analysis shows the development of downshifted E2 (high) and upshifted A1 longitudinal optical (LO) modes centered at 430 cm−1 and 580 cm−1 compared to bulk ZnO (430 and 575 cm−1) indicating the presence of tensile residual stress due to mismatch of thermal expansion coefficient of ZnO TF and Si substrate and due to the presence of oxygen vacancies and Zn interstitials, respectively. The XPS analysis confirms the presence of Zn, Zn–O, C–O, and Zn–OH bonds. The energy band gap and refractive index of annealed ZnO-TF are found to be 3.30 eV and 1.88, respectively. A new method of high quality ZnO TFs synthesis using MHD instability free non-focusing mode of DPF device will open a new alternative synthesis technique.

Background Ear and mastoid disease can easily be treated by early detection and appropriate medical care. However, short of specialists and relatively low diagnostic accuracy calls for a new way of diagnostic strategy, in which deep learning may play a significant role. The current study presents a machine learning model to automatically diagnose ear disease using a large database of otoendoscopic images acquired in the clinical environment. Methods Total 10,544 otoendoscopic images were used to train nine public convolution-based deep neural networks to classify eardrum and external auditory canal features into six categories of ear diseases, covering most ear diseases (Normal, Attic retraction, Tympanic perforation, Otitis externa±myringitis, Tumor). After evaluating several optimization schemes, two best-performing models were selected to compose an ensemble classifier, by combining classification scores of each classifier. Findings According to accuracy and training time, transfer learning models based on Inception-V3 and ResNet101 were chosen and the ensemble classifier using the two models yielded a significant improvement over each model, the accuracy of which is in average 93·67% for the 5-folds cross-validation. Considering substantial data-size dependency of classifier performance in the transfer learning, evaluated in this study, the high accuracy in the current model is attributable to the large database. Interpretation The current study is unprecedented in terms of both disease diversity and diagnostic accuracy, which is compatible or even better than an average otolaryngologist. The classifier was trained with data in a various acquisition condition, which is suitable for the practical environment. This study shows the usefulness of utilizing a deep learning model in the early detection and treatment of ear disease in the clinical situation. Fund This research was supported by Brain Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT ( NRF-2017M3C7A1049051 ).

This study examines the effects of motivational and cognitive factors of budgetary participation on performance concurrently under different conditions of task uncertainty. Drawing upon prior literature, goal acceptance and job-relevant information were identified as mediators conveying the motivational and cognitive influence of participation to performance, while task uncertainty as a moderator conditioning such mediated relationships. Multigroup structural equation modeling on survey data collected from 229 Korean managers revealed that the motivational and cognitive effects of participation on performance vary significantly between high and low task uncertainty conditions. When there was low task uncertainty, the motivational factor was more important than the cognitive factor in determining performance. When there was high task uncertainty, however, both motivational and cognitive factors were important determinants of performance. In addition, the intervening role of these two factors, in general, appeared more significant under high than low task uncertainty conditions.

While evidence shows that consonants play a primary role over vowels in reading Roman script, it remains unclear whether this primacy extends to reading non-Roman script. This study investigated the role of vowels in L2 English word reading among native Korean readers. Seventy six Korean- and English-speaking adults read words in a naming test. Stimuli included four conditions: lowercase, uppercase, letter strings with no vowels (e.g., cmmn for common), and letter strings with randomly missing letters (e.g., corct for correct). Overall, the vowel deletion manipulation gave rise to higher accuracy and faster reading than the random omission condition for the two groups. When the baseline was controlled, the group and condition variables jointly affected accuracy, but the condition and L1 script are independent of each other for latency. Results suggest that the consonant letter primacy observed in Roman script may not fully extend to other alphabetic languages.