• Journal of agriculture & life science
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.83-89
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• 2010

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the environmental and genetic factors on the carcass traits of Korean cattle. We have used the data of 22,954 Korean cattle slaughtered from 2005 to 2009 in Gyeongnam region and estimated the genetic parameters of 36,868 cattle including the pedigree individuals by means of EM-REML analytical method. In summary, the heritability of the carcass weight, eye muscle area, backfat thickness and marbling score was 0.39, 0.30, 0.33 and 0.62, respectively. The carcass weight and the eye muscle area showed high correlation between them with the genetic correlation of 0.86 and the phenotypic correlation of 0.72. The high heritability of marbling score is assumed to be the result of focusing the breed improvement on the quality of the meat. Through this study, it is considered that the Korean cattle in Gyeongnam region are improving, which will thus contribute to the increase of the farmer's income. Additional study on the economic trait must be carried out to obtain clearer results that will lead to further improvement of Korean cattle.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.68-76
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• 2021

Foodborne outbreaks frequently occur worldwide and result in huge economic losses. It is the therefore important to estimate the costs associated with foodborne diseases to minimize the economic damage. At the same time, it is difficult to accurately estimate the economic loss from foodborne disease due to a wide variety of cost components. In Korea, there are a limited number of analytical studies attempting to estimate such costs. In this study we investigated the components of economic cost used in foreign countries to better estimate the cost of foodborne disease in Korea. Seven recent studies investigated the cost components used to estimate the cost of foodborne disease in humans. This study categorized the economic loss into four types of cost: direct costs, indirect costs, food business costs, and government administration costs. The healthcare costs most often included were medical (outpatient) and hospital costs (inpatient). However, these cost components should be selected according to the systems and budgets of medical services by country. For non-healthcare costs, several other studies considered transportation costs to the hospital as an exception to the cost of inpatient care. So, further discussion is needed on whether to consider inpatient care costs. Among the indirect costs, premature mortality, lost productivity, lost leisure time, and lost quality of life/pain, grief and suffering costs were considered, but the opportunity costs for hospital visits were not considered in any of the above studies. As with healthcare costs, government administration costs should also be considered appropriate cost components due to the difference in government budget systems, for example. Our findings will provide fundamental information for economic analysis associated with foodborne diseases to improve food safety policy in Korea.