• Title/Summary/Keyword: Comprehensive model

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Comparison of Association Rule Learning and Subgroup Discovery for Mining Traffic Accident Data (교통사고 데이터의 마이닝을 위한 연관규칙 학습기법과 서브그룹 발견기법의 비교)

  • Kim, Jeongmin;Ryu, Kwang Ryel
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.1-16
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    • 2015
  • Traffic accident is one of the major cause of death worldwide for the last several decades. According to the statistics of world health organization, approximately 1.24 million deaths occurred on the world's roads in 2010. In order to reduce future traffic accident, multipronged approaches have been adopted including traffic regulations, injury-reducing technologies, driving training program and so on. Records on traffic accidents are generated and maintained for this purpose. To make these records meaningful and effective, it is necessary to analyze relationship between traffic accident and related factors including vehicle design, road design, weather, driver behavior etc. Insight derived from these analysis can be used for accident prevention approaches. Traffic accident data mining is an activity to find useful knowledges about such relationship that is not well-known and user may interested in it. Many studies about mining accident data have been reported over the past two decades. Most of studies mainly focused on predict risk of accident using accident related factors. Supervised learning methods like decision tree, logistic regression, k-nearest neighbor, neural network are used for these prediction. However, derived prediction model from these algorithms are too complex to understand for human itself because the main purpose of these algorithms are prediction, not explanation of the data. Some of studies use unsupervised clustering algorithm to dividing the data into several groups, but derived group itself is still not easy to understand for human, so it is necessary to do some additional analytic works. Rule based learning methods are adequate when we want to derive comprehensive form of knowledge about the target domain. It derives a set of if-then rules that represent relationship between the target feature with other features. Rules are fairly easy for human to understand its meaning therefore it can help provide insight and comprehensible results for human. Association rule learning methods and subgroup discovery methods are representing rule based learning methods for descriptive task. These two algorithms have been used in a wide range of area from transaction analysis, accident data analysis, detection of statistically significant patient risk groups, discovering key person in social communities and so on. We use both the association rule learning method and the subgroup discovery method to discover useful patterns from a traffic accident dataset consisting of many features including profile of driver, location of accident, types of accident, information of vehicle, violation of regulation and so on. The association rule learning method, which is one of the unsupervised learning methods, searches for frequent item sets from the data and translates them into rules. In contrast, the subgroup discovery method is a kind of supervised learning method that discovers rules of user specified concepts satisfying certain degree of generality and unusualness. Depending on what aspect of the data we are focusing our attention to, we may combine different multiple relevant features of interest to make a synthetic target feature, and give it to the rule learning algorithms. After a set of rules is derived, some postprocessing steps are taken to make the ruleset more compact and easier to understand by removing some uninteresting or redundant rules. We conducted a set of experiments of mining our traffic accident data in both unsupervised mode and supervised mode for comparison of these rule based learning algorithms. Experiments with the traffic accident data reveals that the association rule learning, in its pure unsupervised mode, can discover some hidden relationship among the features. Under supervised learning setting with combinatorial target feature, however, the subgroup discovery method finds good rules much more easily than the association rule learning method that requires a lot of efforts to tune the parameters.

Study of Value Estimation of Environmental Education of Gyeongnam Forest Museum using CVM (CVM을 이용한 경상남도산림박물관의 환경교육 가치추정 연구)

  • Kang, Kee-Rae;Ha, Sung-Gyone;Kim, Hee-Chae;Lim, Yeon-Jin;Kim, Dong-Pil;Park, Chang-Kun
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.105 no.1
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    • pp.149-156
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    • 2016
  • Forest museums can be defined as facilities for the collection, exhibition, and education of the forest or forest related artifacts or data. This study was performed to measure the educational value of Gyeongnam state forest museum's forest and its environment. The tool used was the Contingent Valuation Methods (CVM) which is well known as a value estimation tool of environmental goods. The study for the value estimation is performed from April, 2014 to October of the same year through selection of the subject, decision of proposed price, and orientation of the survey staffs and total of 386 surveys were used in analysis. The value estimation tool used the DBDC logit model and the input parameters were number of visit (time), degree of environmental education (contri), the environment conservation effort of the respondent (execu), the education level of the respondent (edu), and income of the respondent (inc) and trimmed mean (WTPtruncated) was used. The estimated value of flora and environment education per each person per visit is 23,338 won. When applied to the average annual visitors deducted from 2010 to 2014, which is 430,000 per year, the environmental value that Gyeongnam state forest museum is providing to visitors each year is about 10 billion won. The result of this study is significant to propose the value of forest education and environment that the forest museum is offering to the visitors in the current currency. This is an evidence to directly determine the value of the forest museum and therefore proposing an opportunity change the recognition toward the forest and environment education.

Vitamin D and Risk of Respiratory Tract Infections in Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials (비타민 D와 소아 호흡기 감염의 위험성: 무작위 대조 연구에 대한 체계적 문헌고찰 및 메타분석)

  • Ahn, Jong Gyun;Lee, Dokyung;Kim, Kyung-Hyo
    • Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.109-116
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    • 2016
  • Purpose: Recent observational studies have found that vitamin D deficiency is associated with respiratory tract infections. However, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) regarding the efficacy of vitamin D in childhood respiratory tract infection (RTI) have yield inconsistent results. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the association between vitamin D supplementation and the risk of RTI. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted using MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trial. Randomized controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation for prevention of RTI in children were included for the analysis. Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing the risk of bias was used to assess the quality of the studies. Pooled risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were meta-analyzed using Review Manager 5.3. Results: A total of seven RCTs were included in the meta-analysis. According to a random-effects model, the risk ratio for vitamin D supplementation was 0.82 (95% CI: 0.69-0.98) and $I^2=62%$ for heterogeneity. On subgroup analysis, heterogeneity decreased in the subgroup with follow-up less than 1 year, participants ${\geq}5years$ of age, patients subgroup, and subgroup with dosing daily. Funnel plot showed that there might be publication bias in the field. Conclusions: The present meta-analysis supports a beneficial effect of vitamin D supplementation for the prevention of RTI in children. However, the result should be interpreted with caution due to limitations including a small number of available RCTs, heterogeneity among the studies, and potential publication bias.

Development of a Comprehensive Model of Disaster Management in Korea Based on the Result of Response to Sampung Building Collapse (1995), - Disaster Law, and 98 Disaster Preparedness Plan of Seoul City - (우리나라 사고예방과 재난관리 모형 개발을 위한 연구)

  • Lee, In-Sook
    • Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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    • v.11 no.1
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    • pp.289-316
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    • 2000
  • 우리나라의 경우 지역사회 재난 관리계획과 훈련이 보건의료적 모형이라기 보다는 민방위 모형에 입각하기 때문에 사고 현장에서의 환자 중증도 분류, 합리적 환자배분 및 이송, 병원 응급실에서의 대처 등이 체계적으로 이루어지지 못하고 있으며, 지역사회가 이에 즉각적으로 반응할 수 없다. 본 연구는 삼풍 붕괴사고 시에 대응방식과 그 후의 우리나라 응급의료 체계를 분석함으로써 대형사고 예방과 재난관리를 위한 우리나라 응급의료체계의 개선방안과 간호교육에서의 준비부분을 제시하고자 한다. 1 삼풍 사고 발생시에는 이를 관장할 만한 법적 근거인 인위적 재해에 관한 재난관리법이 없었다. 따라서 현장에서는 의학적 명령체계를 확보하지 못했기 때문에 현장에서의 응급 처치는 전혀 이루어지지 못하였다. 현장에서의 중증도 분류. 응급조치와 의뢰, 병원과 현장본부 그리고 구급차간의 통신 체계 두절, 환자 운송 중 의료지시를 받을 수 있도록 인력, 장비, 통신 체계가 준비되지 못하였던 점이 주요한 문제였다. 또한 병원 응급실에서는 재난 계획이 없거나 있었더라도 이를 활성화하여 병원의 운영 체계를 변환해가지 못하였다. 2. 삼풍백화점 붕괴사고 한달 후에는 인위적 재해에 대한 재난관리법이 제정되고, 행정부 수준별로 매년 지역요구에 합당한 재난관리 계획을 세우도록 법으로 규정하였다. 재난 관리법에는 보건의료 측면에서의 현장대응, 주민 참여, 응급 의료적 대처, 정보의 배된. 교육/훈련 등이 포함되어 있어야 한다. 그러나 법적 기반이 마련된 이후에도 한국 재난 계획 내에는 응급의료 측면의 대응 영역은 부처간 역할의 명시가 미흡하며, 현장에서의 응급 대응과정을 수행할 수 있는 운영 지침이 없이 명목상 언급으로 그치고 있기 때문에 계획을 활성화시켜 지역사회에서 운영하기는 어렵다. 즉 이 내용 속에는 사고의 확인 /공고, 응급 사고 지령, 요구 평가, 사상자의 중증도 분류와 안정화, 사상자 수집, 현장 처치 생명보존과 내과 외과적 응급처치가 수반된 이송, 사고 후 정신적 스트레스 관리, 사고의 총괄적 평가 부분에 대한 인력간 부처간 역할과 업무가 분명히 제시되어 있지 못하여, 사고 발생시 가장 중요한 연계적 업무 처리나 부문간 협조를 하기 어렵다. 의료 기관과 응급실/중환자실, 시민 안전을 책임지고 있는 기관들과의 상호 협력의 연계는 부족하다. 즉 현재의 재난 대비 계획 속에는 부처별 분명한 업무 분장, 재난 상황에 따른 시나리오적 대비 계획과 이를 훈련할 틀을 확보하고 있지 못하다. 3. 지방 정부 수준의 재난 계획서에는 재난 발생시 보건의료에 관한 사항 전반을 공공 보건소가 핵심적 역할을 하며 재난 관리에 대처해야 된다고 규정하고 있다. 그러므로 보건소는 지역사회 중심의 재난 관리 계획을 구성하고 이를 운영하며, 재난 현장에서의 응급 치료 대응 과정은 구조/ 구명을 책임지고 있는 공공기관인 소방서와 지역의 응급의료병원에게 위임한다. 즉 지역사회 재난 관리 계획이 보건소 주도하에 관내 병원과 관련기관(소방서. 경찰서)이 협동하여 만들고 업무를 명확히 분담하여 연계방안을 만든다. 이는 재난관리 대처에 성공여부를 결정하는 주요 요인이다. 4 대한 적십자사의 지역사회 주민에 대한 교육 프로그램은 연중 열리고 있다. 그러나 대부분의 교육주제는 건강증진 영역이며. 응급의료 관리는 전체 교육시간의 8%를 차지하며 이중 재난 준비를 위한 주민 교육 프로그램은 없다. 또한 특정 연령층이 모여있는 학교의 경우도 정규 보건교육 시간이 없기 때문에 생명구조나 응급처치를 체계적으로 배우고 연습할 기회가 없으면서 국민의 재난 준비의 기반확대가 되고 있지 못하다. 5. 병원은 재난 관리 위원회를 군성하여 병원의 진료권역 내에 있는 여러 자원을 감안한 포괄적인 재난관리계획을 세우고, 지역사회를 포함한 훈련을 해야 한다. 그러나 현재 병원은 명목상의 재난 관리 계획을 갖고 있을 뿐이다. 6. 재난관리 준비도를 평가할 때 병원응급실 치료 팀의 인력과 장비 등은 비교적 기준을 충족시키고 있었으나 병원의 재난 관리 계획은 전혀 훈련되고 있지 못하였다 그러므로 우리나라 재난 관리의 준비를 위해서는 현장의 응급의료체계, 재난 대응 계획, 이의 훈련을 통한 주민교육이 선행되어야만 개선될 수 있다. 즉 민방위 훈련 모델이 아닌 응급의료 서비스 모델에 입각한 장기적 노력과 재원의 투입이 필요하며, 지역사회를 중심으로 대응 준비와 이의 활성화 전략 개발, 훈련과 연습. 교육에 노력을 부여해야 한다. 7. 현장의 1차 응급처치자에 대해서는 법적으로 명시하고 있는 역할이 없다. 한국에서는 응급구조사 1급과 2급에 대한 교육과 규정을 1995년 이후 응급의료에 관한 법률에서 정하고 있다. 이 교육과정은 미국이 정하고 있는 응급구조사 과정 기준과 유사하지만 실습실이나 현장에서의 실습시간이 절대적으로 부족하다. 덧붙여 승인된 응급구조사 교육 기관의 강사는 강사로서의 자격기준을 충족할 뿐 아니라 실습강사는 대체적으로 1주일의 1/2은 응급 구조차를 탑승하여 현장 활동을 끊임없이 하고 있으며, 실습은 시나리오 유형으로 진행된다. 그러므로 우리나라의 경우 응급 구조사가 현장 기술 인력으로 역할 할 수 있도록 교과과정 내에서 실습을 강화 시켜야하며, 졸업생은 인턴쉽을 통한 현장 능력을 배양시키는 것이 필요하다. 8. 간호사의 경우 응급전문간호사의 자격을 부여받게 됨에 따라, 이를 위한 표준 교육 지침을 개발함으로써 병원 전 처치와 재난시 대응할 수 있는 역량을 보완해야 한다. 또한 현 자격 부여 프로그램 내용을 고려하여 정규자격 간호사가 현장 1차 치료자(first responder)로 역할 할 수 있도록 간호학 교과과정을 부분 보완해야한다.

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Ttrosine Hydroxylase in Japanese Medaka (Oryzias latipes): cDNA Cloning and Molecular Monitoring of TH Gene Expression As a Biomarker (송사리 Tyrosine Hydroxylase: cDNA 클로닝 및 생물지표로서의 TH 유전자 발현의 분자생물학적 추적)

  • Shin, Sung-Woo;Kim, Jung-Sang;Chon, Tae-Soo;Lee, Sung-Kyu;Koh, Sung-Cheol
    • Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.131-137
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    • 2000
  • The release of hazardous waste materials into the environment poses serious risks in humans and ecosystems. The risk assessment of environmental pollutants including hazardous chemicals requires a comprehensive measurement of hazard and exposure of the chemicals that can be achieved by toxicity evaluation using a biological system such as biomarkers. In this report we have tried to develop a biomarker used to elucidate a molecular basis of, and to monitor abnormal behaviors caused by diazinon in Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) as a model organism. First, an attempt was made to clone tyrosine hydroxylase gene from Japanese medaka that would be a candidate for a biomarker for neuronal modulations and behaviors. For monitoring experiments at behavioral and molecular biological levels, the fish were treated under different sublethal conditions of diazinon and their behavioral responses were observed . In this study we have successfully cloned a partial TH gene from the medaka fish through PCR screening of an ovary cDNA library. DNA sequencing analysis revealed that the amplified fragment was 327 bp encoding 109 amino acids. Comparing the DNA sequence of medaka TH with other species, TH gene revealed the DNA sequence was completely identical to that of rat TH. In the RT-PCR, 330 Up of mRNA was consistently amplified in all the treated samples including control There were no significant differences in the TH expression level regardless of treating concentrations (1∼5,000 ppb) and time (0∼48 hr) The reason appeared to be that RT-PCR was not performed using through a quantitative analysis normalized against an actin gene expression. Organ or tissue - specific detection of TH activity and mRNA as biomarkers will be a useful monitoring tool for neurobehavioral changes in fish influenced by toxic chemicals. Furthermore, quantitative analysis of locomotive patterns and its correlation with the neurochemical and molecular data would be highly useful in measuring toxicity and hazard ofvarious environmental pollutants.

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Study on Implementation Measures of Provincial Self-governing Police System : Focusing on the Implication from Enlargement of Work Scope of Self-governing Police of Jeju Province (광역자치경찰제의 정착방안에 관한 연구 - 제주자치경찰의 사무확대에 대한 시사점을 중심으로 -)

  • Kim, Seong-Hee
    • Korean Security Journal
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    • no.59
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    • pp.37-69
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    • 2019
  • According to viewpoints of researchers and stakeholders, various opinions can be suggested on self-governing police system. Therefore, success of Korean self-governing police system will be defending on how to balance among conflicting values such as Empowerment, Political neutrality, Financial issues, Comprehensive competence in maintaining public safety. Before the launching of self-governing police system nation-wide, the experience of Jeju provincial police will be valuable model case. In specific, enlargement of work scope of self-governing police in Jeju province which has been introduced since last year will be a useful reference. There is more pessimism about self-governing police of Jeju province so far. However, this perspective is mostly based on the issue regarding hardwares such as manpower, equipment, law and organization. Issues regarding softwares such as organizational culture, operation system and work process need more attention to evaluate self-governing police system properly. To mark the first year after enlargement of work scope of Jeju police, this study demonstrate the overall result and implications of self-governing police of Jeju province based on documents, statistics, reports and media reports. In result, several preconditions are needed to implement the self-governing police system nation-wide successfully. 1. Strengthen the link between local government and local police 2. Establish the foundation for collaboration of state and local police 3. Enhance the aspect of citizen autonomy in local level 4. Reinforcing the capability of handling situation of state and local police 5. Invigorating the inter-organizational working group to operate self-governing police system effectively. The self-governing police system is unclosed topic to discuss. After this study, in-depth studies should be followed with more resources. Particularly, additional perspective including redundancy and equity need to be considered regarding self-governing police. By getting with the changes of macroscopic trends - lowbirth and aging, the fourth industrial revolution and possible reunification of north and south Koreas - these studies should suggest the long-term blueprint of self-governing police system of Korea.

A Preliminary Study for Expending of Hospital-Based Horne Health Care Coverage - Focused on Accident Inpatients Who has the Workers Compensation Insurance - (병원중심 가정간호사업 관리대상범위 확대를 위한 기초연구)

  • Lee, Sook-Ja;Lee, Jin-Kyung;Ryu, Ho-Sihn
    • Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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    • v.6
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    • pp.5-18
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    • 1999
  • This study was attempt to encourage for developing on rehabilitation delivery system and programs as a substitute service instead of hospitalization for accident patients at work, such as hospital based home health care nursing service. It needs vary substitutes service of hospitalization to curtail the length of stay for inpatients who were hospitalized with workers compensation insurance. It focused on developing an estimation of early discharge day of accident inpatients based on a detail statement of treatment for 115 inpatients who were hospitalized at General Hospital in 1997. This study has four specific purpose as follows. First, to find out the status of health service utilization. Second, to estimate the early discharge days and income increasing effect based on the early discharge for those patients. Third, to identify the factors to affect total medical expenditure and the length of stay for those inpatients. Forth, to figure out the need of utilizing home health care nursing service for accident patients. In order to analyze of the length of stay and medical expenditure for inpatients who were hospitalized due to the accident, the authors conducted with micro-analysis and macroanalysis from medical records and medical expenditure records. Micro-analysis was done by nominal group discussion of 4 expertise with the critical criteria. such as a decrease in the amount of treatment after surgery, treatments, tests, drugs and changes in the tests consistency, drug methods, vital signs, start of ROM exercise, doctor's order, patient's outside visiting ability, stable conditions. In addition to identify affected variables for medical expenditure. the length of stay and income effect due to early discharge day, the data was analyzed with multiple regression analysis and linear regression analysis model by SPSS-PC for windows and Excell program. Results of this study as follows. First, the mean length of stay was 37.1 days, whereas the mean length of stay due to early discharge was 28.2 days at the hospital. The estimation of early discharge days were shown that depends on the length of stay. The longer length of stay, the longer length of early discharge days, such as under 7 days length of stay patients was to estimated the mean length of stay was 4.9 days and early discharge days was 4.6. whereas the mean length of stay was 122.6 days and early discharge days was 92.0 respectively. The mean medical expenditure per day were found to be 133.409 Won. whereas the mean medical expenditure per day was shown negative linear trends according to the length of stay at the hospital. The estimation results of the income effect due to 11 early discharge days per bed was around 2,150,000 won. However, it means not the real benefits from early discharge, but the income increasing amount without considering medical prime cost in general hospital. Therefore, it needs further analysis on the cost containments and benefits under the considering as well turn over rates per bed as the medical prime costs. The length of stay was most significant and the sign was positive to the total medical expenditure, as expected. Surgery and patient's residential area also an important variable in explaining medical expenditure. The level of complications was most significant variable in explaining the length of stay. The level of the needs on horne health care nursing service which can be used for early discharge accident patients were shown very high. The needs distribution varied from 65.5% of patients and 88.9% of caregivers, to 96.4% of doctors, and 99.1% of nurses. In addition horne health nurse responded that they can be managed the accident inpatients from early discharge. From these research findings. the following suggestions has been drawn it needs to develop strategies on rehabilitation delivery system in order to focused on consumer's side which is planned for 21 century health policy in Korea. Vary intermediate facilities and horne health care would have been developed in the community based for comprehensive rehabilitation services as a substitutes of hospitalization for shortening the length of stay of hospitalizations. In hospital based horne health care nursing service, it's available immediately to utilize for the patients who wanted rehabilitation services as a substitutes of hospitalization under the cooperations with workers compensation insurance company.

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Evaluation of Shoreline Retreat Rate due to a Sea Level Rise using Theory of Equilibrium Beach Profile (평형해빈단면이론을 이용한 해수면 상승에 따른 해안후퇴율 산정)

  • Kang, Tae Soon;Cho, Kwangwoo;Lee, Jong Sup;Park, Won Kyung
    • Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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    • v.26 no.4
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    • pp.197-206
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    • 2014
  • The purpose of this study is to evaluate coastal erosion due to a sea-level rise. The shoreline retreat rate was calculated due to future sea-level rise. Shoreline retreat rates were quantified with the cross-sectional data of 23 sandy coasts (12 sites from east coast, 5 sites from south coast, and 6 sites of west coast) and 3 cross-sectional profiles from each side of the coasts in Korea. The theory of equilibrium beach profile was employed in this study to evaluate the applicability of the theory into the coast of Korea and was tested with 15 cross-sectional beach profiles. Four scenarios of future sea level rise such as 38 cm, 59 cm, 75 cm, and 100 cm were adopted to estimate the shoreline retreat rates. Overall shoreline retreat rates for the coasts in Korea were predicted as 43.7% for 38 cm, 60.3% for 59 cm, 69.2% for 75 cm, and 80.1% for 100 cm sea level rises, respectively. Retreat rates in the east coast (29.6% for 38 cm, 45.1% for 59 cm, 56.0% for 75 cm, and 69.9% for 100 cm) showed relatively low compared to the south coast (51.9%, 67.6%, 77.2%, 87.3%) and the west coast (53.8%, 71.0%, 78.5%, 86.4%). However, all sandy coasts in Korea were assessed to be vulnerable with increasing sea-level rise. There are uncertainties in the assessment of this study, which include the limitation of the assessment model and the lack of the spatio-temporal data of the beach profiles. Therefore, this study shows that it is very important to spend integrated efforts to respond coastal erosion including comprehensive observations(monitoring) and the development of scientific understanding on the field.

Studies on Determinant Factors of SCM Performance: From the Supplier Perspective (SCM 성과 결정요인에 관한 통합적 연구: 공급업체 관점으로)

  • Park, Kwang-Oh;Chang, Hwal-Sik
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.21 no.1
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    • pp.1-27
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    • 2011
  • In an attempt to cope with widespread, dynamic, and accelerating changes in both internal and external business environments, companies often utilize information technologies such as SCM(Supply Chain Management). To date, SCM research has mainly focused on the effects of dynamic factors on SCM success and emphasized adoption strategies and critical success factors. Consequently, the effects of more static factors such as interdependency between SCM partners have been largely ignored. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the effects of both dynamic and static factors on SCM performance by controlling for information quality and partnership quality. The five factors examined in this study include innovative ness, mutual dependency, quality of information, partnership quality, and SCM performance. All factors were examined from the perspective of part suppliers, except the mutual dependency which was examined from two aspects: supplier's dependency on customer and customer's dependency on supplier. Data was collected through five hundred survey questionnaires distributed to the part supplier companies that have implemented SCM systems for at least one year. As a result, a total of 170 valid responses were obtained. A structural equation research model was fitted using SAS 9.1.3 and SMART-PLS 2.0. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, innovativeness positively affected SCM information quality. SCM partnership quality, and ultimately SCM performance. The path coefficient between innovativeness and information quality was 0.387, with a t-value of 3.528. Innovativeness also had a positively direct effect on partnership quality. The path coefficient was 0.351 with a t-value of 3.366. The total effect of innovativeness on partnership quality was significant, although its indirect effect on partnership quality by altering information quality was negligible. The total indirect effect of innovativeness on SCM performance by affecting information quality and partnership quality was significant with a p-value of 0.014. Innovativeness played an important role in determining SCM performance. Second, mutual dependency showed no significant effect on SCM information quality. This result contradicts the earlier assertion that the more dependent two companies are, the more accurate and timely the information they exchange ought to be. This study showed that this may not be the case; a partner may provide information of poor quality even when it is strongly dependent on the other. Mutual dependency showed significant effect on partnership quality. However, when the mutual dependency perceived by suppliers was divided into two parts, one being a supplier's dependency on its customer company and the other being a customer's dependency on the supplier, the latter showed a significant impact on the perceived SCM partnership quality. This result indicates that a customer company can hardly improve the partnership quality perceived by suppliers by making them more dependent. It improves only when the suppliers perceive that their partners, typically having more bargaining power, are more dependent on them. The overall effect of mutual dependency of any kind on SCM performance, however, was not significant. Although mutual dependency has been mentioned as an important static factor influencing almost every aspect of cooperation on a supply chain, its influences may not be as significant as it was initially perceived to be. Third, the correlation between information quality and partnership quality was 0.448 with a p-value of less than 0.001. Information quality had a path coefficient of 0.256 to partnership quality with a t-value of 2.940. The quality of information exchanged between partners may have an impact on their partnership quality. Fourth, information quality also had a significant impact on SCM performance with a path coefficient of 0.325 with a t-value of 3.611. In this study, SCM performance was divided into four categories: product quality, cost saving, service quality, and order fulfillment. Information quality has Significant impacts on product quality, cost saving and service quality, but not on order fulfillment. Fifth, partnership quality, as expected, had a significant impact on SCM performance. The path coefficient was 0.403 with a t-value of 3.539. Partnership quality, like information quality, had positive impacts on product quality, cost saving and service quality, but showed no impact on order fulfillment. It seemed that order fulfillment is the hardest category of performance that SCM can satisfy. One major limitation of this study is that it surveyed only the suppliers. To better understand the dual aspects of SCM, it is important to survey both suppliers and the assemblers, especially in pairs. This research, to our best knowledge, was the first attempt to study the level of dependency between the two groups by measuring the dual aspects of SCM and studying mutual dependency from the categories of suppliers and assemblers each.. In the future, a more comprehensive and precise measurement of SCM characteristics needs to be achieved by examining from both the supplier's and assembler's perspectives.

Abdominal Obesity in Relation to the Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Impaired Fasting Glucose among some Korean Adults: A Retrospective Cohort Study (복부비만이 제2형 당뇨병 및 공복혈당장애 발생에 미치는 영향: 후향적 코호트 연구)

  • Ryu, Seung-Ho;Beck, Sung-Ho;Kim, Dong-Il;Suh, Byung-Seong;Kim, Woon-Sool;Sung, Ki-Chul;Chang, Yoo-Soo
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.37 no.4
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    • pp.359-365
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    • 2004
  • Objectives : This study was performed to determine whether an increase in abdominal obesity is an independent risk factor for impaired fasting glucose and type 2 DM. Methods : Among 24,212 adults over 30 years who undertook comprehensive medical screening examinations from Jan to Dec 1999, in a university hospital in Seoul, a total of 11,183 subjects were selected who had no DM at baseline and who were followed up more than once by Dec 2002. The average follow up period was 2.4 (${\pm}0.5$) years. DM was defined as having a fasting glucose level $\geq$ 126mg/dl, and impaired fasting glucose as showing a fasting glucose level between 110 and 125 mg/dl. Body weight, height and waist circumference (WC) were simultaneously measured with blood sampling. The relative risks (RRs) for DM and impaired fasting glucose by WC were calculated using Cox proportional hazard model. Ageadjusted rates were estimated by direct standardization using a reference population of 2000 from 30 to 80 years. Results : The average age of the subjects was 41.7 (${\pm}7.0$) years; males 41.2 (${\pm}6.5$) and females 45.6 (${\pm}9.2$). RRs for type 2 DM by WC with the reference group of WC < 80cm were as follows: 2.66 (95%, CI $0.55{\sim}12.8$) for WC of $80{\sim}89cm$ in men, 5.92 (95%, CI $1.08{\sim}32.3$) for WC $\geq$ 90 cm in men, and 2.64 (95%, CI $0.23{\sim}29.8$) for WC of $80{\sim}89cm$ in females. RRs for impaired fasting glucose by WC were 3.03 (95%, CI $2.18{\sim}4.22$) for WC $80{\sim}89cm$ in men, 6.10 (95%, CI $4.25{\sim}8.75$) for WC $\geq$ 90cm in men, and 1.56 (95%, CI $0.43{\sim}5.67$) for WC $80{\sim}89cm$ in women, and 8.08 (95%, CI $2.22{\sim}29.4$) for WC $\geq$ 90cm in females. These results remained significant after adjustment for age, BMI and fasting glucose concentrations at baseline in both sexes. Annual increment of more than 1 cm in WC was associated with the development of DM and impaired fasting glucose independently of age, sex, BMI, or presence of abdominal obesity. Conclusion : In Korean adults, abdominal obesity increased the risk for the development of type 2 diabetes and impaired fasting glucose. This result supports many other prospective studies suggesting abdominal obesity as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.