• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.87-109
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• 2024

At the 8th Party Congress in 2021, North Korea announced a plan to build 50,000 housing units in Pyongyang, and this paper analyzes the economic effects and related informal costs of of the project. Currently, Pyongyang is experiencing a significant housing shortage. It is estimated that the number of households in Pyongyang increased by 184,000 between 1994 and 2020, while the estimated new housing supply during the period was only 30,000. Pyongyang's 50,000 housing units construction project is characterized by the goal of improving the living conditions of workers, the application of the new city construction method, and the largest state-led housing construction since the Arduous March. The project is expected to generate economic effects such as increasing workers' motivation to work, increasing tourism resources, and generating income from related industries. On the one hand, a significant portion of the construction cost of the 50,000-unit housing project in Pyongyang is passed on to companies and households in the form of informal cost such as quasi-taxes and manpower mobilization. In addition, there may be congestion in the power supply and sewerage facilities that occur when moving in. If these costs are not taken into account, the feasibility of a housing construction project may not be properly assessed, making it difficult to sustain it in the long term.

• Journal of the HCI Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.5-12
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• 2019

Social exclusion, which does not fulfill the desire for respect as one of the most basic human desires, makes those who perceive themselves to be socially excluded seek physical warmth. However, very few studies have examined whether this phenomenon-wherein social exclusion develops a preference for warmth-can be generalized to the emotional or symbolic aspects, such as the color of lighting. This study aimed to verify the effects of perceived social exclusion on warm lighting preferences, and two experiments were performed for this purpose. In Experiment-1, participants who were respected by people the previous day were assigned to the group that did not perceive social exclusion (non-perceived social exclusion group), and those who were not respected were assigned to the group that perceived social exclusion (perceived social exclusion group). Following this, their preference for warm lighting (3000K), neutral lighting (4000K), and cold lighting (6000K) was measured. The results showed that the perceived social exclusion group had a stronger preference for warm lighting and a weaker preference for cold lighting than did their counterparts. Moreover, the perceived social exclusion group showed a strong preference for warm lighting over neutral lighting; they also showed a weak preference for cold lighting. In Experiment-2, after assigning the participants into groups as in Experiment-1, the participants' preference for a space with warm lighting, neutral lighting, and cold lighting was measured. The results showed that the perceived social exclusion group had a stronger preference for the space with warm lighting and a weaker preference for cold lighting than did their counterparts. Further, the perceived social exclusion group showed a strong preference for the space with warm lighting over the space with neutral lighting; they also showed a weak preference for the space with cold lighting. The findings of this study have implications that can be applied to designing living spaces for people who experience social exclusion, such as handicapped individuals, multicultural families, or immigrant workers, as well as developing artificial intelligence services and cyber-friend characters for this demographic.