• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.152-158
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• 2012

Purpose: To understand the epidemiology of head trauma and the utilization of brain CT in Korea, we analyzed a national sampling data set, the National Patient Sample obtained from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. Methods: We retrospectively collected and analyzed demographic and clinical data on enrolled patients from the National Patient Sample based on medical claims data for 2009. The data included patient's age, sex, treatment date, diagnosis codes, procedure codes related with CT, holiday or night consultation fee, and fee for emergency management services. Results: In 2009, the estimated population with head trauma was 819,059(1.8%), and the rate of brain CT utilization was 22.4%. Children ages 5 to 15 were the most commonly injured group(22.8%), but had the lowest brain CT utilization(16.5%). The mean age of the estimated population with head trauma was $34.9{\pm}0.5years$ old, and male patients accounted for 60.5% of that population. Intracranial injury was found in 8.6% of all head traumas, and the rate of intracranial injury in children was lower than it was in adults(4.1% vs. 10.9%, p<0.001). Twenty- three percent of patients with head trauma visited the emergency department (ED). More patients with head trauma visited medical facilities in the daytime on weekdays(66.5% vs. 33.5%, p<0.001), but head CT was performed more frequently at night or on weekends/holidays(16.1% vs. 34.7%, p<0.001) There is low incidence of head trauma in the winter in children (p<0.001). In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, patients who were adults, female, or ED visitors were more likely to undergo brain CT (odds ratio (OR): 1.65, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.47-1.84; OR: 1.40, 95% CI: 1.27-1.54; OR: 7.80, 95% CI: 6.91-8.80, respectively). Conclusion: In this study, we analyzed the national epidemiologic trend for head trauma, and the pattern of utilization of brain CT.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.26 no.3 s.43
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• pp.400-411
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• 1993

The aim of this study is to analyze the variations among hospitals and hospital groups in resource use and procedures of diagnostic and therapeutic process, such as laboratory tests, radiologic examinations, tissue diagnosis, timing of surgery after admission, the time required for operation. The study was performed for five procedures including cesarean section (C/S), appendectomy, cholecystectomy, cataract extraction, and pediatric pneumonia. The 2,316 subjects were selected from medical insurance claims list, and from this list 413 cases were sampled for medical record review. The patterns of resource utilization and process of treatment were described according to hospitals and characteristics of hospital groups. The major results were as follows : 1. The numbers of laboratory and radiologic tests showed significant difference among hospitals and hospital groups. In case of hospital groups, we could find tendencies of more tests with increasing hospital bed size. 2. In general, the proportion of operative cases evaluated by tissue diagnosis postoperatively among all operations ranged from 28.3% to 100%. The proportion varied among hospital groups, of which general hospital A group(more than 15 specialty) showed the highest proportion. 3. Post-admission delay until operation and the time required for operative procedure were not invariable among hospitals and hospital groups. The duration of operation in tertiary hospitals was slightly shorter than general hospitals, with varying statistical significance. We could find that probably there were differences of quality among hospitals in some components of procedures, which suggested that the implementation of quality assurance activities would be mandatory. In this study, we simply described the patterns of resource utilization and some features of clinical process, with institution of the need for advanced studies with in-depth analyses for each component of diagnosis and treatment procedures.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2017

The rotavirus-induced diarrhea of human and animal neonates is a major public health concern worldwide. Until recently, no effective therapy is available to specifically inactivate the rotavirion particles within the gut. Passive immunotherapy by oral administration of chicken egg yolk antibody (IgY) has emerged of late as a fresh alternative strategy to control infectious diseases of the alimentary tract and has been applied in the treatment of diarrhea due to rotavirus infection. The purpose of this concise review is to evaluate evidence on the properties and performance of anti-rotavirus immunoglobulin Y (IgY) for prevention and treatment of rotavirus diarrhea in human and animal neonates. A survey of relevant anti-rotavirus IgY basic studies and clinical trials among neonatal animals (since 1994-2015) and humans (since 1982-2015) have been reviewed and briefly summarized. Our analysis of a number of rotavirus investigations involving animal and human clinical trials revealed that anti-rotavirus IgY significantly reduced the severity of clinical manifestation of diarrhea among IgY-treated subjects relative to a corresponding control or placebo group. The accumulated information as a whole depicts oral IgY to be a safe and efficacious option for treatment of rotavirus diarrhea in neonates. There is however a clear need for more randomized, placebo controlled and double-blind trials with bigger sample size to further solidify and confirm claims of efficacy and safety in controlling diarrhea caused by rotavirus infection especially among human infants with health issues such as low birth weights or compromised immunity in whom it is most needed.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.37-69
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• 2001

A new cost management system, called Activity Based Costing (ABC) system, has arisen to solve the limitation of a Traditional Cost Accounting (TCA) system until last two decades and ABC has been applied by many companies. TCA systems have limitation in tracing cost because they arbitrarily allocate overhead cost to the cost objects without standard for direct cost distribution. ABC is an accounting system that assigns costs to products or services based on the resources they consume. The costs of all activities are traced to the products for which they are performed. Therefore ABC is a cost management system that provides a matrix to accurately quantify consumed resources triggered by activities and activities triggered by products and services. There is little implementation of ABC in the health services field, one of service industries, due to complicated and many activities, and volatile cost object. However, the necessity for applying reasonable cost accounting system is largely issuing as strategy responding hostile environment, and financial pressure, and it is imperative to implement the Activity Based Costing (ABC) system. Therefore, this study presents the framework to develop ABC system for total health service organizations. Cost objects in this study base on medical service activities per health insurance claim from one general hospital located in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). Medical service activities include all health insurance claims in the hospital. The purpose of the study is presenting useful tools and basic frame to develop Activity Based Costing system for health service organizations which want to use ABC system. The steps to develop ABC system for health service organizations are following: 1. Identifying of activity centers; 2. Definition of cost objects and activity by activity center; 3. Analysis of activity and tracing activity contribution; 4. Allocation of direct cost for specific activity; 5. Allocation of indirect cost for specific activity; 6. Allocation of depreciation for facilities, applicants, and consumption goods; 7. Allocation of administration cost; 8. Allocation of cost among activity centers; and 9. Tracing cost of cost objects by activity center. This study identified necessary information from existing reports which hospitals generally made by each step, and defined outcome which had to be produced in each step using this information. The steps of this study had limitation to apply all different size hospitals because the steps were structured ABC system by one hospital, however, this study used similar basic framework and methods with general cases. When a health service organization want to apply Activity Based Costing (ABC) system on all activities of it in future days, this study is very useful to design system structure in the health service organization.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.919-929
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• 2015

This study aims to develop a modeling-based learning program about geologic structures and to reveal the relationship between the argumentation patterns and levels of students' mental models. Participants included 126 second grade high school students in four sessions of modeling-based learning regarding continental drift, oceanic ridges, transform faults, and characteristics of faults. A modeling-based learning program was implemented in two classes of the experimental group, and teacher-centered traditional classes were carried out for the other students in the comparison group. Science achievement scores and the distribution of students' mental models in experimental and comparison groups were quantitatively compared. The video-taped transcripts of five teams' argumentation were qualitatively analyzed based on the analytic framework developed in the study. The analytic framework for coding students' argumentation in the modeling-based learning was composed of five components of TAP and the corresponding components containing alternative concepts. The results suggest that the frequencies of causal two-dimensional model and cubic model were high in the experimental group, while the frequencies of simple two-dimensional model and simple cross sectional model were high in the comparison group. The higher the frequency of claims, an argumentation pattern was proven successful, and the level of mental model was higher. After the rebuttal was suggested, students observed the model again and claimed again according to new data. Therefore, the model could be confirmed as having a positive impact on students' argumentation process.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.699-728
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• 2005

This article is basically an extension of Barten(1993), Brown et al. (1995), Holt and Bishop's(2002) price formation system. A new dynamic price formation system is attempted considering full rationality of the consumers' side. The underlying idea of the new dynamic price formation system is that consumers are rational and farsighted and thus consider past and future consumptions in addition to current consumption to accept the prices traders called. In an empirical application, the U.S. commercial fish demand data are particularly interesting to this analysis in which the species are over fished, including many of the most valuable species. Especially, the grouper-snapper complex are under management jurisdiction of the National Marine Fisheries Council. In the empirical section, it shows how to adapt the model to estimate the marginal values to consumers of commercial fisheries. Since it is conceived of regulations as inducing movements along the marginal value curves, it is of growing importance to regional and national policy makers who are confronted with competing claims on diminishing fish stocks by commercial fisheries interests. It performs well and shows the plausible signs and magnitudes of price flexibilities and interaction among species. It further contributes to the general methodology of applied economics.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.27 no.3 s.47
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• pp.609-626
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• 1994

This study was conducted to investigate whether variations in hospital services utilization across small geographic areas in Korea existed, and if so, what factors are responsible for the variation. The claims data of the fiscal year 1992 obtained from the regional health insurance societies were used for the study. Main findings of the research can be summarized as follows: 1 Extremal Quotients (EQ) of hospital expenditure per capita and hospital days per capita were 2.69 and 2.73, and Coefficient of Variation (CV) were 0.14, both, respectively. The EQ and the CV of admission rate were also 2.71, 0.15. The EQ and the CV of expenditure per admission were 1.73, 0.10 and those of hospital days per admission were 1.29, 0.06. All these statistics were statistically significant and this result provides strong evidence for the existence of small area variations. 2. Comparing patterns of variation among areas, the area which showed higher utilization amounts is Chansungp'o. Koje area, whereas the areas which showed lower utilization amounts are Yongju, Changhung, Miryang, Mokp'o, Koch'ang area. 3. Multivariate analytic methods were used to examine factors related to the variation across areas. In terms of the health resource availability variables, beds per capita or physicians per capita were positively associated with all utilization indices. As for the health service market structure variables, the proportion of health care institutions operating for less than f years was positively related to the expenditure per capita, hospital days per capita and expenditure per admission. In addition the proportion of the private health care institutions also had a negative relationship with total utilization amount and admission rate and the proportion of physicians under age 40 was negatively associated with expenditure per capita and expenditure per admission. With regard to the socio-demographic characteristics, proportion of medicaid population was positively related to hospital days per capita, and percentage of paved road was positively related to hospital days per admission. As a conclusion, wide variations existed across small areas in Korea and supply factors were found to be important in explaining the variation.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.1039-1047
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• 2020

Atmospheric rivers, which transport large amount of water vapor from mid-latitude to the inland, are an important driving force of water cycle and extreme hydrologic phenomenas. The main objective of this study is to analyze the hydrological impact of the AR landfalls on the Korean Peninsula in 2000 - 2015. The result showed that the AR is closely related to the characteristics of precipitation, water level and runoff in the Korean Peninsula. The landfalls of the AR affected about 57% of annual precipitation on the Korean Peninsula, and had a greatest impact on the summer rainfall. It also affected the water level and runoff at the five major rivers of Korea, and water levels exceeding the thresholds of flood warning were observed when the AR landed. Moreover, it was found that the runoff above the third quartile with AR landfalls. These results suggest that the AR not only has a significant influence on the hydrological characteristics of the Korean Peninsula, but also have a close relationship with the extreme hydrological events like floods. The results of this study are expected to be used as the reference for the analysis of the impact of the AR on the various fields in the Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.147-158
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to explore changes of elementary science class in student oriented group inquiry activities using a Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) template that enhance scaffolding of inquiry. The changes focused on students' written reports and perceptions of their learning environment as well as discourse patterns. One fourth-grade class of 29 students participated in this study, and a developed work sheet of science writing was utilized to scaffold student's inquiry activities. Four units in the first-semester text book for fourth grade of the-, 2007 Educational Curriculum Revision were chosen for scaffolding inquiry, and sixteen lessons of instruction were all videotaped. For investigating students' written reports, a framework based on the aspects of science inquiry by Millar (2010) was used to evaluate the coherence between student inquiry activities and their claims. Secondly, a regular fourth-grade class was selected as the control group and was compared with the experiment group using the pre- and post-test of the survey on the perception of science class and science. Lastly, students' discourse patterns of the beginning science lesson were compared with those of the closing lesson. We found that the coherence in the last class increased significantly in students' written reports compared to the first one. Findings also indicated that students' perceptions on their learning environment moved toward student-centered. Based on our discourse patterns analysis, the last class was more student-centered from being teacher-centered than the first one.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.971-976
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• 2007

In the U.S., utility damages or utility delay caused by conflicts during the underground utility relocation is one of the weighty problem in the construction industry. Also, in domestic case, delay and additional cost caused by underground utility(i.e, electricity, communication, gas, water supply and sewerage) relocation has been happened so that there is an increase of claims for responsibility between owners and contractors. However, there is insufficient survey for the recent circumstance of additional cost for delay and design changes caused by utility relocation and shortage of enough research for solving and analyzing of causes and their ripple effect. This research presents a result of the study about the best practices of FHWA(Federal Highway Administration), SHAs(State Highway Agencies) and the utility companies managing utility relocation. Also, it presents the basic concept of SUE(Subsurface Utility Engineering), the most reliable tool of FHWA presented, and investigates the developing status about SUE in Korea. At the end of this paper, this research proposes a practical and more applicable study about the efficient utility relocation focusing on local industry.