• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.640-643
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• 2004

As the size of a network increases, the network complexity and maintenance cost is high. In literatures, many cost factors of multistage interconnection networks were intensively investigated. However, in some parts, these types of cost definition are not satisfactory enough since they don't relate the cost measure to technology closely and also fail to incorporate exact tradeoffs in designing the network. In this paper, we propose some cost effective measures which combine the cost factors with performance-related reliability measures, and compare several networks for a guidance to select a certain case depending on the principal concerns for use.

• Journal of Korean Medical Science
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• v.33 no.46
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• pp.304.1-304.7
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• 2018

Background: The Republic of Korea has a very low prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, but the number of new HIV diagnoses has steadily risen, strongly indicating a large number of undetected HIV infections. Thus, it is important for Korean public health authorities to adopt and encourage cost-effective HIV detection tools, such as rapid HIV screening tests. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and rapid tests in a public health center (PHC) setting. Methods: We developed a decision analytic model to assess the per-examinee cost and the cost-effectiveness of identifying HIV patients in a PHC setting using two HIV testing strategies: conventional HIV screening by ELISA versus rapid HIV testing. Analysis was performed in two scenarios: HIV testing in an average-risk population and in a high-risk population. Results: Compared to the ELISA, the rapid test was cost-saving and cost-effective. The per-examinee cost was USD 1.61 with rapid testing versus USD 3.38 with ELISA in an average-risk population, and USD 4.77 with rapid testing versus USD 7.62 with ELISA in a high-risk population. The cost of identifying a previously undiagnosed HIV case was USD 26,974 with rapid testing versus USD 42,237 with ELISA in an average-risk population, and USD 153 with rapid testing versus USD 183 with ELISA in a high-risk population. Conclusion: Rapid testing would be more cost-effective than using conventional ELISA testing for identifying previously undiagnosed HIV-infected cases in Korea, a country with extremely low HIV prevalence.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.203-211
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• 2009

Korean public owners who order public multi-family housing construction projects have yet to gain access to a model for predicting construction cost. For this reason, their construction cost prediction is mainly dependent upon historic data and experience. In this paper, a cost-prediction model based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) in the design phase of public multi-family housing construction projects was developed. The developed model can determine the total construction cost by estimating the different Building, Civil, Mechanical, Electronic and Telecommunication, and Landscaping work costs. Model validation showed an accuracy of 97.56%, confirming the model's excellent viability. The developed model can thus be used to predict the construction cost to be shouldered by public owners before the design is completed. Moreover, any change orders during the design phase can be immediately applied to the model, and various construction costs by design alternative can be verified using this model. Therefore, it is expected that public owners can exercise effective design management by using the developed cost prediction model. The use of such an effective cost prediction model can enable the owners to accurately determine in advance the construction cost and prevent increase or decrease in cost arising from the design changes in the design phase, such as change order. The model can also prevent the untoward increase in the duration of the design phase as it can effectively control unnecessary change orders.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.319-326
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• 2015

In this paper, a cost-effective single switch multi-channel LED (light emitting diode) driver is proposed. While conventional LED drivers require as many non-isolated DC/DC converters as the number of LED channels, the proposed LED driver needs only one power switch and several balancing capacitors instead of expensive non-isolated DC/DC converters. Therefore, the proposed driver features a simpler structure, with a lower cost and a higher efficiency. Because its power switch can be turned off under the zero current switching condition, it has very desirable advantages such as improved electromagnetic interference characteristics and high efficiency. Moreover, it uses only a small number of DC blocking capacitors with no additional active devices for the current balancing of multi-channel LEDs. As a result, the proposed driver exhibits high reliability and is cost effective. To confirm the validity of the proposed driver, a theoretical analysis is performed, and design considerations and experimental results obtained from a prototype that is applicable to a 46" LED-TV are presented.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.664-676
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• 2018

Given the rapidly increasing market penetration of photovoltaic (PV) systems in many fields, including construction and housing, the effective maintenance of PV systems through remote monitoring at the panel level has attracted attention to quickly detect faults that cause reductions in yearly PV energy production, and which can reduce the whole-life cost. A key point of PV monitoring at the panel level is cost-effectiveness, as the installation of the massive PV panels that comprise PV systems is showing rapid growth in the market. This paper proposes an implementation method that involves the use of a panel-level wireless PV monitoring module (WPMM), and which assesses the cost-effectiveness of this approach. To maximize the cost-effectiveness, the designed WPMM uses a voltage-divider scheme for voltage metering and a shunt-resistor scheme for current metering. In addition, the proposed method offsets the effect of element errors by extracting calibration parameters. Furthermore, a design method is presented for portable and user-friendly PV monitoring, and demonstration results using a commercial 30-kW PV system are described.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.133-138
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• 2011

To reduce the processing cost of the single grain REBCO (RE: Rare-earth elements) bulk superconductors, a cost-effective process should be developed. One possible way of developing the cost-effective process is the use of low-cost precursor powders. In this study, the single grain YBCO superconductors were fabricated using a home made powder. $YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-y}$ (Y123) powders were synthesized at $850-900^{\circ}C$ in air by the powder calcination method with repeated crushing and heat treatment steps. The processing parameters for the fabrication of single grain Y123 bulk superconductors, $T_{max}$ (maximum temperature), $T_p$ (peritectic temperature) and a cooling rate through $T_p$ were optimized. To enhance the flux pinning capacity of the single grain Y123 samples, $Y_2BaCuO_5$ (Y211) particles were dispersed in the Y123 matrix by adding $Y_2O_3$ powder to the calcined Y123 powder. Applying the optimized processing condition, the single grain Y123 superconductors with $T_c=91\;K$ and $J_c=1.5{\times}10^4\;A/cm^2$ at 2 T were successfully fabricated using a home made powder. The levitation forces and trapped magnetic field at 77 K measured using a Nd-B-Fe permanent magnet of 5300 G were 47 N and 3000 G, respectively, which are comparable to those obtained for the samples fabricated using a commercial grade Y123 powders.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.19-25
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• 2016

Engineering structures including civil infrastructures require a life-cycle cost and benefit during their service lives. The service life of a structure can be extended through appropriate inspection and maintenance actions. In general, this service life extension requires more life-cycle cost and cumulative benefit. For this reason, structure managers need to make a rational decision regarding the service life management considering both the cost and benefit simultaneously. In this paper, the probabilistic decision tool to determine the optimal service life based on cost-benefit analysis is presented. This decision tool requires an estimation of the time-dependent effective cost-benefit under uncertainty to formulate the optimization problem. The effective cost-benefit is expressed by the difference between the cumulative benefit and life-cycle cost of a deteriorating structure over time. The objective of the optimization problem is maximizing the effective cost-benefit, and the associated solutions are the optimal service life and maintenance interventions. The decision tool presented in this paper can be applied to any deteriorating engineering structure.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.260-266
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• 2005

The deterioration of a shunting locomotive was characterized for the lifetime assessment. The locomotive has been used for shunting works in steel making processes, and in this investigation, various types of technical evaluation methods for the locomotive parts were employed to assess the current deterioration status and to provide important clue for lifetime prediction. Unlike other rolling stocks in railway applications, the diesel shunting locomotive is composed of major components such as diesel engine, transmission, gear box, brake system, electronic devices, etc., which cover more than 70 percent of the total price of the locomotive. Therefore, in this paper, each part of major components in the diesel locomotive was analyzed in terms of the degree of deterioration. The lift-cycle-cost (LCC) analysis was performed based on the maintenance and repair history as compared with economical cost to provide the cost-effective prediction, i.e., to assess either repair for reuse or putting the locomotive out of service based on cost-effective calculation.

• Journal of the military operations research society of Korea
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.79-92
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• 1980

In cost-only incentive contract the emphasis is the attainment of efficient and effective cost control. In contrast multiple incentives contract correlates contractor's profit motives with the generalized government objective function, the decision variables of which are performance or quality (technical progress), time or schedule (timely development and delivery) and the cost (efficient and effective cost control) Under multiple incentive structure, it is essential to formulate the trade-off curves between cost and performance, which are called iso-fee curves. Trade-off curves depict the combination of cost and performance achievement for which the contractor will be rewarded with the same fee. The basic function of trade-off curves is to show he the contractor will be motivated by incentive arragement to trade off or sacrifice the achievement in one incentive element for the acnievment in another.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.249-256
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• 1999

This study is intended to propose a systematic procedure for the development of the reliability-based seismic safety and cost-effective Performance criteria for design and upgrading of long span PC bridges. In the paper, a set of cost function models for life cycle cost analysis of bridges is proposed. The total life cycle cost functions consist of initial cost and direct/indirect damage costs considering repair/replacement costs, human losses and property damage costs, road user costs, and indirect regional economic losses. The damage costs are successfully expressed in terms of Park-Ang median global damage indices and damage probabilities. The proposed approach is successfully applied to model bridges in both regions of a moderate seismicity area like Seoul, Korea and a high one like Tokyo, Japan. It may be expected that the proposed approach can be effectively utilized for the development of cost-effective performance criteria for design and upgrading of various types of bridges as well as long span PC bridges.