• The Korean Journal of Legal Medicine
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.111-125
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• 2018

Statistical analysis was performed on national forensic autopsy data collected in the Republic of Korea, with the exception of Ulsan, during 2017. A total of 8,777 cases were categorized based on the region; information was provided by the Police Agency and the Coast Guard regarding sex, age, manner of death, and cause of death. Analysis of the manner of death revealed that 3,971 cases (45.2%) were unnatural deaths, 3,679 cases (41.9%) were natural deaths, and 1,127 cases (12.8%) were unknown deaths. Among the unnatural deaths, the majority of the cases (1,740 cases, 43.8%) were accidents, 1,316 cases (33.1%) were suicide, 385 cases (9.7%) were homicide, and 530 cases (13.3%) were undetermined deaths. Among the unnatural deaths, the majority of the cases (1,575 cases, 39.7%) were trauma, followed by 793 cases (20.0%) of poisoning and 689 cases (17.4%) of asphyxia. Falling down was the major cause of death by trauma (737 cases, 46.8%). As a result of the classification of asphyxia based on previous study, strangulation was the major cause, with 538 cases (78.1%). Among the natural deaths, heart disease was the major cause (1,790 cases, 48.7%), followed by vascular disease (697 cases, 18.9%).

• Journal of forensic and investigative science
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.5-24
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• 2008

The necessity for the investigation of death occurred in military services has no differences to the death of civilians. But the death of military service members under the Universal Conscription System in Korea has special considerations because of hard accessibility by the bereaved family and closed environment of the army. The analysis of the death occurred during military service was carried out and the advanced death investigation system to prevent the death was proposed to prevent the declination of fighting spirit and efficiency and also to restore the solid support by the people. The deaths in the period 1995~2006 were 330 persons in 1995, 359 persons in 1996 and were decreased to 135 persons in 2006. The death caused by safety accidents including vehicle accident, drowning, fall were 56% and by military crimes including suicide, arms, homicide were 44%. The numbers of suicides were 108 persons in 1995 and were decreased to 79 persons in 2006. The numbers of suicides were decreased constantly, but the ratio of suicide to death were increased, so the suicide prevention is more important. The autopsy ratio was increased to 51.5% in 2005 and was much higher compared to the ratio for civilians. The main reasons of complaints by the bereaved family were for regaining reputation, death in harness and reinvestigation of death. The proposals for the advanced death investigation system were as follows. The unnatural deaths including the obvious accidental deaths and homicides have to be defined by the rules. The human resources to perform the autopsy can be supported by the forensic pathologists from medical school. The special training and quality assurance programs are needed for the crime scene investigator. To regain the impaired reputation from the suicide and to support the bereaved family has to be discussed by the government.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2014

Site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids (SSIUA) into protein can be achieved in vivo by coexpression of an orthogonal pair of suppressor tRNA and engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (ARS) that specifically ligates an unnatural amino acid to the suppressor tRNA. As a step to develop the SSIUA technique in Escherichia coli, here we established a new 2-step screening system that can be used for selecting an ARS variant(s) that ligates an unnatural amino acid to a suppressor tRNA. A positive selection system consists of chloramphenicol acetyl transferase gene containing an amber mutation at the $27^{th}$ residue, and efficiently concentrated amber suppressible ARS with a maximum enrichment factor of $9.0{\times}10^5$. On the other hand, a negative selection system was constructed by adding multiple amber codons in front of a lethal gene encoding the control of cell death B toxin (ccdB) which acts as an inhibitory protein of bacterial topoisomerase II. Amber suppression of ccdB by an orthogonal pair of Saccharomyces cerevisiae tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (TyrRS) and an amber suppressor tRNA significantly inhibits bacterial growth. This selection system was also able to efficiently remove amber suppressible ARS which could ligate natural amino acids to the suppressor tRNA. Thus, sequential combination of these two selection systems might be able to function as a powerful tool for selecting an ARS variant that specifically ligates an unnatural amino acid to the suppressor tRNA from an ARS mutant pool.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.154-158
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• 2013

The unnatural dead body refers to a corpse which is suspicious of unusual death and the dead case has been occurred more than 20 thousands times every year during the recent five years and most of them are found decayed. Police Scientific Investigators investigate unnatural dead bodies and its surroundings in all-around way and determine whether the death is involved with a crime, and most of the Scientific Investigators are exposed to a danger to get infected with pathogenic bacteria which are generated during the decaying process of dead body and are mostly to cause serious injuries on human beings. In line with the fact, the present study conducted a bacterial analysis by collecting excretions from 60 dead bodies and culturing the bacteria to evaluate infection risk of the police agents. The study cultured bacteria from 60 bodies and classified pathogenic bacteria of 108 strains, and its main bacteria are found to be them (; Acinetobacter baumannii 20 strains (19%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa 19 strains (18%), E. coli 18 strains (17%), Klebsiella pneumoniae 11 strains (10%), Proteus mirabillis 10 strains (9%), Enterococcus faecium 10 strains (9%), Staphylococcus aureus 9 strains (8%), Bacillus spp. 5 strains (5%), Streptococcus pneumoniae 3 strains (3%), Candida albicans 2 strains (2%), Mycobacterium tuberculosis 1 strains (1%)). The study results are expected to be used as educational data for preventing the Police Scientific Investigator from infections with bacteria or as a minimum data for improving work environment of the agents.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.239-246
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• 2011

Korea has a problem in treating unnatural dead bodies; law enforcement police officers have a difficulty in analyzing an accurate cause of a death, for they are not specialized in autopsy. But they must take charge of the affair at a spot for the first time. Sometimes this may give an indulgence to a killer. It results in generating an unjust victim. So, a police activity in response to an unnatural dead body must be improved surely. As a response to it, this thesis scrutinizes the unnatural dead body treatment under the Japanese police system, taking a continental law, which has a legal structure similar to our's, and on the basis of it presents a suggestion in response to an unnatural dead body by Korean police. First, the system on treating the unnatural dead body has to be severe. Second, police engaging in treating the unnatural dead body have to take the education on treating dead bodies more deeply. Third, implements on treating dead bodies have to be secured.

• Journal of forensic and investigative science
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-30
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• 2006

The preliminary investigative activities by the police officer play a critical role in identifying the cause of death in unnatural death investigations. The failure to secure the crime scene leads to the destruction of significant evidence, which results in the difficulty or impossibility to identify the cause of death. In order to prevent this jeopardizing crucial evidence, and to identify the level of preliminary investigation on the scene, this research is conducted and analyzed with questionnaires of 300 police first responders and 100 detectives. As a result, it was disclosed that there is a possibility for first responders to fail to ensure scene security, scene observation, and canvass interviews. Besides, when medical personnel have no choice but to contaminate the crime scene in order to save lives, it is necessary for them to take photos and to take proper actions before they enter the scene. The importance of scene-control education cannot be emphasized enough in order to prevent media from entering and destroying the evidence. Through research of actual conditions of unnatural death cases which occurred in Kyongbook Province for last five years, the statistics regarding a few different types of death were analyzed as follows. Evidence that homicide, suicide, accidental death, and disaster deaths have increased year by year. Therefore, it is deemed necessary for the government to take multilateral policies to reduce them, and for police to reinforce their investigative skills. Further, the insufficient number of autopsy facilities and forensic pathologists, only 13% of the deceased (1,237 cases) have had an autopsy conducted to identify the cause of death for last five years. The other, 87.3% (8,496 cases) of the deceased, were handled through simple postmortem examination. The significance of this percentage is that there is still the possibility not revealing the cause of unjust deaths. Therefore, it is necessary to furnish police agency with the reasonable amount of funding for autopsies and maintaining enough forensic pathologists.

• Journal of forensic and investigative science
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.44-56
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• 2006

The reform necessity of medicolegal death investigation system is continuously issued. The problems from the current death investigation system are discussed, specially on the professionalism of the involved personnel such as policemen, doctors, prosecutors. Death investigation exists not only to prosecute the criminals but also primarily to protect the general public's health, safety, and welfare. The reform proposals of death investigation system are followed as below. Statutes require that the prosecutor be notified of certain deaths. All deaths that may reasonably result from anything other than natural disease should be investigated. A death certificate is a legal document which authenticate a death, therefore it is issued by the doctor. The postmortem examination must be rearranged on the university base and performed by the qualified doctors who are trained at least in pathology. The police officer specified in death investigation and forensic identification should be encouraged to keep doing their special work in many ways.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.108-113
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• 2017

A sudden cardiac death (SCD) is defined as an unnatural sudden death caused by heart disease. To determine the cause of death, observation of the microscopic change in cardiac muscle tissue is suggested, rather than visual postmortem examination. However, this suggestion is time consuming to be applied in the field, is cost-ineffective, and is inconvenient. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand whether temporary inspection used to examine the cardiac marker (Myoglobin, CK-MB, cTn I) in postmortem blood via rapid cardiac triple test kit (which is used by clinics to diagnose patients with acute myocardial infarction) can effectively be utilized for the paragnosis of sudden, unnatural cardiac death. The results of postmortem examination and temporary investigation found that 23 groups (76.7%), among the 30 experimental groups, were assumed to be non-traumatic sudden cardiac deaths, which indicated a positive response (according to comparison with forensic autopsy); 4 groups, among the 10 control groups, were assumed to be cerebrovascular disease, which indicated a negative response; 1 group was assumed to be alcoholic and drug poisoning, indicating a positive response; and 1 group was assumed to be oxygen deficiency due to suffocation, indicating a positive response. Hence, it was found that the level of sensitivity and specificity of cardiac marker's temporary inspection showed significant result, 76.7% and 80% respectively. Given this, temporary inspection can be effectively used for the paragnosis of sudden cardiac death when the medical history, situation of the site, and postmortem interval are considered together. With the result of precedent research on time of first revelation and extinction in blood, and difference in concentration over time progress according to the characteristic of cardiac marker's (myoglobin, CK-MB, cTn I) individual material, further research on concentration of cardiac marker per each post time needs to be conducted in order to estimate time science death (which is required to identify the cause of death and investigation).

• Journal of forensic and investigative science
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.5-10
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• 2006

In the era of Joseon Dynasty there was a national system of postmortem investigation with literatures of postmortem inspection. The author reviewed the postmortem findings in the literature(Shinjumoowonrok) to compare with recent knowledges of forensic medicine. Characteristics of old system of postmortem investigation was three instance investigation system and was carried out only with a postmortem inspection without autopsy. The postmortem findings described in the old literature were about various kinds of death, such as cases of suicide and homicide and natural and unnatural death. Most of postmortem findings in the Shinjumoowonrok were accurate and reasonable in the aspect of recent knowledges of forensic medicine.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.61 no.5
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• pp.34-47
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• 2011

Grotesque make-up causes a visual shock among modern people beyond the standardized beauty definition, attracts their attention, and manifests itself as a phenomenon of "something bizarre, extremely unnatural, ugly, and funny." The purposes of this study were to investigate the characteristics of grotesque in today's make-up as well as its concepts and features and to figure out its aesthetic characteristics based on the results. The research scope was limited to the fashion make-up of the collections from 2005 to 2010 and the advertising make-up during the same period. In the make-up phenomenon examined according to the grotesque characteristics, the pale skin expression, frightened eyes, and emphasis on black induce disgusting fear, sadness, death, sin, fear for life and death, and obsession. As the make-up emphasized only one part by neglecting the original form and exaggerated it to the point of distortion, the exaggerated abnormality led to a sense of social crisis, desperation, and absence of form. As for devilish playfulness, the make-up accompanied by grotesqueness and humor brought the suppressed, closed world in a tight framework out to fluidity and openness, conveying satire, ludicrousness, ridicule, and accusation of the modern society. The heterogeneous disharmony was found in the use of objects in heterogeneous combinations, presenting unreality, fiction, displeasure, ambivalence, and loss of value of human existence.