• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.55-67
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• 2001

A phenomenological study was conducted to investigate the experiences of mothers pregnant via in vitro fertilization (IVF). Sample of nine mothers participated. Ten theme clusters emerged when the formulated meanings were organized into categories. During the infertility period, the participants were subject to self- depreciation, envy, anxiety, and depression. It changed their priorities in life from a job-oriented life to one where having a baby was the most important thing. After trying numerous alternative therapies, IVF became their last hope in having a baby. Since the success rate for IVF is low (only 20-30%), the participants for the treatment were overwhelmed with uncertainty, and it led to further anxiety, depression and despair. Success of pregnancy gave them extreme satisfaction, but they became very cautious in their day-to-day life because of their fear of abortion and early delivery. Some were even worried about the side effect of IVF during the pregnancy. Finally, the delivery of the baby gave them relief from the obligation of having a baby. Women did not have any difficulties in rearing a "test tube baby" except in the case of twins. Most women had no ethical difficulty in having a baby by IVF. However they did not wish this information to be revealed to other people. They again turned to IVF to have a son(s) when the resultory child(s) was a daughter(s). This is because of the strong preference for sons in Korean society.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.43-54
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• 2006

The National Wealth Survey Method has been used to estimate capital stocks in Korea by the Korea National Statistical Office in every 10 years. However, this method requires huge amount of time and money, Since the Benchmark Year Method also has similar problems of difficulties to estimate the annual retirement rate and depreciation, the Korea National Statistical Office is now considered to adapt the Perpetual Inventory Method being used by the most OECD countries as an alternative. Hence, in this paper, the concepts of the Perpetual Inventory Method are introduced and its formation plans for the National Wealth Survey are suggested.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.1326-1330
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• 2001

This study analyzed the lowest production cost and the greatest profit to be obtained from marketing hogs to determine the optimal operation scale for family-owned farrow-to-finish farms. Data were collected from 39 farrow-to-finish farms with 500 to 5,000 inventories for two consecutive years, and treated with GLM and quadratic regression models using the REG procedure. Analysis results indicated that farms capable of marketing 2,933 and 3,286 hogs annually had the lowest production cost and the greatest profit, respectively. Further analysis attributed the lowest production cost or the highest return in farms with an optimal scale of 3,000 to a higher survival rate of the herd, as well as lower expenses in veterinary medicine, labor, utilities and fuel, transportation, and depreciation. A similar feed conversion efficiency was observed for all the farms studied. Obviously, the cost efficiencies were associated with the economy of the operation scale of hog production until it reached 3,000 hogs marketed annually for a family-run unit. Beyond the optimal scale of 3,000 hogs, good stockmanship was more difficult to maintain and the herd management deteriorated as increasing mortality confirms. It is conclude that, unless advanced management is applied, the operation scale should not expand beyond 3,000 hogs.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.60-74
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• 2009

This study purports to verify managerial effectiveness of the integrated delivery system(IDS) of Japanese health care institutions through comparing the managerial performance between hospital groups providing with both acute and nursing care and those with acute care only. Data on the managerial performance of 697 hospitals providing with nursing care together and 819 hospitals providing with acute care only were collected from Japanese Central Social Insurance Medical Councils 2001, 2003, 2005, and were analyzed using mean comparison test(t-test) between the two groups. The results revealed that there were significant differences between the two groups in such indicators as ratio of material cost, labor cost, depreciation rate, total margin, operating margin, average number of outpatient per day, average revenue of an inpatient per day, total amount of labor cost, gross revenue per employee, and labor productivity. However, we could not find out any consistent evidence which support the effect of integrated delivery system on the hospital managerial performance. Further discussion was made on the limitation of the study and future research agenda relevant to the topic.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.1629-1639
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• 2016

This study is to estimate the production efficiency of abalone aquaculture and to find its determinants utilizing the survey data of operating expenses in 2015. The first part of the analysis applied both DEA and Super-DEA for the estimation of efficiency of each aquaculture household as DMU. We used wages, feeding costs and area as inputs and annual profits and sales as outputs of the model. The second part of the study applied both Tobit and OLS for the identification of determinants of the efficiency. We investigated cost-ratio, depreciation costs, careers, value of living seeds, cleaning costs of farming ground and a ratio of 1 and 2 year-old abalone at shipment as potential determinants. The estimation results show us that the average technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency score turn out to be 72%, 81% and 85% respectively. The Super-BCC and Super-CCR models reveal their average efficiency scores as 81% and 80%. All of the variables used to identify the determinants of the efficiency. The study results suggests that the production efficiency can be improved by cleaning farming ground and hence lowering the death rate of seeds.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.184-191
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• 2009

In a technological driven environment, a depreciation estimate which is based on traditional life analysis results in a decelerated rate of capital recovery. This time pattern of technological growths models needs to be incorporated into life analysis framework especially in those industries experiencing fast technological changes. The approximation technique for calculating the variance can be applied to the six growth models that were selected by the degree of skewness and the transformation of the functions. For the Pearl growth model, the Gompertz growth model, and the Weibull growth model, the errors have zero mean and a constant variance over time. However, transformed models like the linearized Fisher-Pry model, the linearized Gompertz growth model, and the linearized Weibull growth model have increasing variance from zero to that point at which inflection occurs. It can be recommended that if the variance of error over time is increasing, then a transformation of observed data is appropriate.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.23-27
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• 2012

A seawater pumps in the nuclear power plant is responsible for providing cooling water to other components all the time. Because of the depreciation, the seawater pump with current impeller consumes too much power for maintaining the total head. Therefore the objective of this study is to reduce power with maintaining certain the total head by cutting the current impeller. By using a commercial CFD code, FLUENT, the overall performance of seawater pump with current and modified impeller was simulated. Also Affinity law was applied at pumps with various impeller diameter and evaluated the validity of the affinity law. The numerical results show that the pump efficiency is quite irrelevant to the diameters of the impellers and the pump efficiency becomes worse over the designed flow rate. And affinity law result and numerical one show good agreements at small change of impeller diameter. One of the impeller diameters was decided to modify and was applied to the nuclear power plant with the numerical study above.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.736-737
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• 2015

In these days, international construction market including construction companies has much grown due to globalization and economic boom in the mid 2000's. The size of international construction market, measured with overseas revenue of 225 construction firms, has expanded 2.7 times from 2003 to 2008 according to the ENR. However, after the global financial crisis of 2008 it has faced condition of low growth. In this research, major changes of international construction market and top contractors have been studied. In this study, changes of international construction market have been analyzed in the aspect of region and product including general buildings, transportation, petroleum, etc. Then, in order to find the changes of top contractors which obtained good accomplishment, business performance of companies have been examined by the compound annual growth rate, profit margin and international revenue by comparing the data before 2008 and after. The purpose of the study is to understand major changes of international construction market. Also, strategy changes of top contractors against market stagnation, profit depreciation, high competition have been inferred through the study. The result of the study would contribute to analyzing the strategies of construction companies in international market.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.225-234
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• 2016

This project sought to conduct an economic feasibility study regarding the commercial production of bio-hydrogen by the marine hyperthermophilic archaeon, Thermococcus onnurineus NA1 using carbon monoxide-containing industrial off-gas. We carried out the economic evaluation of the bio-hydrogen production process using the raw material of steel mill by-product gas. The process parameter was as follows: $H_2$ production rate was 5.6 L/L/h; the conversion of carbon monoxide was 60.7%. This project established an evaluation criterion for about 10,000 tonne/year. Inflation factors were considered as 3%. The operating costs were recalculated based on prices in 2014. The total investment required for development was covered 30% by capital and 70% by a loan. The operation cost for the 0.5-year test and integration, and the cost for the first three months in the 50% production period were considered as the working capital in the cost estimation. The costs required for the rental of office space, facilities, and other related costs from the construction through to full-scale production periods were considered as continuing expenses. Materials, energy, waste disposal and other charges were considered as the operating cost of the development system. Depreciation, tax, maintenance and repair, insurance, labor, interest rate charges, general and administrative costs, lubrication and miscellaneous expenses were also calculated. The hydrogen price was set at US$ 4.15/kg for the economic evaluation. As a result, the process was considered to be economical with the payback period of 6.3 years, NPV of 18 billion Won and IRR of 26.7%.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.528-535
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• 2003

The purposes of this study were: 1) to investigate the operational and financial characteristics of contract-managed high school food services in Seoul, 2) to analyze the financial performance of high school food services 3) to develop guidelines for meal pricing and facilities investment costs. From Oct to Nov 2001, questionnaires were mailed to 249 high schools that were managed by contract food service companies. A 40.2％ response rate was recorded. The results of this study were as follows: 1. Student enrollment in high schools run by contract-managed food services was 1,518, with a 68.5％ participation rate in the school lunch program. The average meal price was 2,141 won. 2. Based on the income statement analysis, average total sales were 410,440,504 won and average net profit was 16,098,558 won. 3. The optimum food cost per meal was 1,200-1,300 won per meal, calculating using the methods of conversion factor, RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance), and nutrient exchange unit. 4. Guidelines for meal pricing were developed using the modified actual pricing method based on facilities investment cost, number of meals and food cost. The ratio of labor cost, general management expenses and ordinary profit were adopted from the schools with liability. The food cost, depreciation and interest cost were calculated based on unit meal. 5. The guideline for facilities investment was developed based on the number of meals, meal price and food cost. The guideline included the maximum facilities investment cost paid by the contract food service management company. (Korean J Nutrition 36(5): 528∼535, 2003)