• The Korean Nurse
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.52-67
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• 1989

True nursing care means total nursing care which includes physical, emotional and spiritual care. The modern nursing care has tendency to focus toward physical care and needs attention toward emotional and spiritual care. The total nursing care is mandatory for patients with terminal cancer and for this purpose, hospice care became emerged. Hospice case originated from the place or shelter for the travellers to Jerusalem in medieval stage. However, the meaning of modem hospice care became changed to total nursing care for dying patients. Modern hospice care has been developed in England, and spreaded to U.S.A. and Canada for the patients with terminal cancer. Nowaday, it became a part of nursing care and the concept of hospice care extended to the palliative care of the cancer patients. Recently, it was introduced to Korea and received attention as model of total nursing care. This study was attempted to assess the efficacy of hospice care. The purpose of this study was to prove a difference in terms of physical, emotional a d spiritual aspect between the group who received hospice care and who didn't receive hospice care. The subject for this study were 113 patients with advanced cancer who were hospitalized in the S different hospitals. 67 patients received hospice care in 4 different hospitals, and 46 patients didn't receive hospice care in another 4 different hospitals. The method of this study was the questionaire which was made through the descriptive study. The descriptive study was made by individual contact with 102 patients cf advanced cancer for 9 months period. The measurement tool for questionaire was made by author through the descriptive study, and included the personal religious orientation obtained from chung(originated R. Fleck) and 5 emotional stages before dying from Kubler Ross. The content ol questionaire consisted in 67 items which included 11 for general characteristics, 10 for related condition with cancer, 13 for wishes far physical therapy, 13 for emotional reactions and 20 for personal religious orientation. Data for this study was collected from Aug. 25 to Oct. 6 by author and 4 other nurse's who received education and training by author for the collection of data. The collected data were ana lysed using descriptive statistics, $X^2-test$, t-test and pearson correlation coefficient. Results of the study were as follows: "H.C Group" means the group of patient with cancer who received hospice care. "Non H.C Group" means the group of patient with cancer who did not receive hospice care. 1. There is a difference between H.C Group and Non H.C Group in term of the number of physical symptoms, subjective degree of pain sensation and pain control, subjective beliefs in physical cure, emotional reaction, help of present emotional and spiritual care from other personal, needs of emotional and spiritual care in future, selection of treatment method by patients and personal religious orientation. 2. The comparison of H.C Group and Non H.C Group 1) There is no difference in wishes for physical therapy between two groups(p=.522). Among Non H.C Group, a group, who didn't receive traditional therapy and herb medicine was higher than a group who received these in degree of belief that the traditional therapy and herb medicine can cure their disease, and this result was higher in comparison to H.C Group(p=.025, p=.050). 2) Non H.C Group was higher than H.C Group in degree of emotional reaction(p=.050). H.C Group was higher than Non H.C Group in denial and acceptant stage among 5 different emotional stages before dying described by Kubler Ross, especially among the patient who had disease more than 13 months(p=.0069, p=.0198). 3) Non H.C Group was higher than H. C Group in demanding more emotional and spiritual care to doctor, nurse, family and pastor(p=. 010). 4) Non H.C Group was higher than H.C Group in demanding more emotional and spiritual care to each individual of doctor, nurse and family (p=.0110, p=.0029, P=. 0053). 5) H.C Group was higher th2.n Non H.C Group in degree of intrinsic behavior orientation and intrinsic belief orientation of personal religious orientation(p=.034, p=.026). 6) In H.C Group and Non H.C Group, the degree of emotional demanding of christians was significantly higher than non christians to doctor, nurse, family and pastor(p=. 000, p=.035). 7) In H.C Group there were significant positive correlations as following; (1) Between the degree of emotional demandings to doctor, nurse, family & pastor and: the degree of intrinsic behavior orientation in personal religious orientation(r=. 5512, p=.000). (2) Between the degree of emotional demandings to doctor, nurse. family & pastor and the degree of intrinsic belief orientation in personal religious orientation(r=.4795, p=.000). (3) Between the degree of intrinsic behavior orientation and the degree of intrinsic: belief orientation in personal religious orientation(r=.8986, p=.000). (4) Between the degree of extrinsic religious orientation and the degree of consensus religious orientation in personal religious orientation (r=. 2640, p=.015). In H.C. Group there were significant negative correlations as following; (1) Between the degree of intrinsic behavior orientation and extrinsic religious orientation in personal religious orientation (r=-.4218, p=.000). (2) Between the degree or intrinsic behavior orientation and consensus religious orientation in personal religious orientation(r=-. 4597, p=.000). (3) Between the degree of intrinsic belief orientations and the degree of extrinsic religious orientation in personal religious orientation(r=-.4388, p=.000). (4) Between the degree of intrinsic belief orientation and the degree of consensus religious orientation in personal religious orientation(r=-. 5424, p=.000). 8) In Non H.C Group there were significant positive correlation as following; (1) Between the degree of emotional demandings to doctor, nurse, family & pastor and the degree of intrinsic behavior orientation in personal religious orientation(r= .3566, p=.007). (2) Between the degree of emotional demandings to doctor, nurse, family & pastor and the degree of intrinsic belief orientation in personal religious orientation(r=.3430, p=.010). (3) Between the degree of intrinsic behavior orientation and the degree of intrinsic belief orientation in personal religious orientation(r=.9723, p=.000). In Non H.C Group there were significant negative correlation as following; (1) Between the degree of emotional demandings to doctor, nurse, family & pastor and the degree of extrinsic religious orientation in personal religious orientation(r= -.2862, p=.027). (2) Between the degree of intrinsic behavior orientation and the degree of extrinsic religious orientation in personal religious orientation(r=-. 5083, p=.000). (3) Between the degree of intrinsic belief orientation and the degree of extrinsic religious orientation in personal religious orientation(r=-. 5013, p=.000). In conclusion above datas suggest that hospice care provide effective total nursing care for the patients with terminal cancer, and hospice care is mandatory in all medical institutions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.383-393
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• 2017

This study was conducted to analyze the dietary lifestyle of local Chinese consumers and to classify dietary characteristics according to their dietary lifestyle factors and dietary behaviors. This investigation was conducted for 1 month from 1 January 2017 targeting 300 adult males and females living in China using the online survey company surveymonkey. Four factors relating to dietary lifestyle were identified, gourmet factor, healthy factor, convenience factor and economic factor, and these were grouped into 4 clusters according to their dietary lifestyle factor scores. Group 1, the gourmet economy group, showed a high percentage of living alone and a high frequency of eating out, but a relatively low percentage of three regular meals per day. Their dietary lifestyle was sensitive to gourmet factors and economic factors, but less sensitive to health and convenience factors. Group 2, the wide interest group, contained a high percentage of individuals in their 30s, as well as more highly educated individuals and a higher income than other groups. Because their dietary lifestyle scores tended to be higher than those of other groups, they sought a variety of new foods and gourmet meals for enjoyment of dining and life, as well as well-being food materials and foods related to health. Group 3, the health economic group, constituted a family-type consumer group with lower income level than the other groups. Members of this group were seeking health food and natural food in their dietary lifestyle and tended to pursue a high economic profit ratio when purchasing food. Finally, group 4 showed a relatively higher percentage of women over 30 and individuals with a college level or higher education than the other groups. This group was more interested in health and taste than price and convenience, and showed the highest LOHAS orientation among middle aged Chinese women. Moreover, members of this group directly utilized their knowledge regarding nutrition in real life.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.177-193
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• 2014

Over the past decade, there has been a rapid diffusion of electronic commerce and a rising number of interconnected networks, resulting in an escalation of security threats and privacy concerns. Electronic commerce has a built-in trade-off between the necessity of providing at least some personal information to consummate an online transaction, and the risk of negative consequences from providing such information. More recently, the frequent disclosure of private information has raised concerns about privacy and its impacts. This has motivated researchers in various fields to explore information privacy issues to address these concerns. Accordingly, the necessity for information privacy policies and technologies for collecting and storing data, and information privacy research in various fields such as medicine, computer science, business, and statistics has increased. The occurrence of various information security accidents have made finding experts in the information security field an important issue. Objective measures for finding such experts are required, as it is currently rather subjective. Based on social network analysis, this paper focused on a framework to evaluate the process of finding experts in the information security field. We collected data from the National Discovery for Science Leaders (NDSL) database, initially collecting about 2000 papers covering the period between 2005 and 2013. Outliers and the data of irrelevant papers were dropped, leaving 784 papers to test the suggested hypotheses. The co-authorship network data for co-author relationship, publisher, affiliation, and so on were analyzed using social network measures including centrality and structural hole. The results of our model estimation are as follows. With the exception of Hypothesis 3, which deals with the relationship between eigenvector centrality and performance, all of our hypotheses were supported. In line with our hypothesis, degree centrality (H1) was supported with its positive influence on the researchers' publishing performance (p<0.001). This finding indicates that as the degree of cooperation increased, the more the publishing performance of researchers increased. In addition, closeness centrality (H2) was also positively associated with researchers' publishing performance (p<0.001), suggesting that, as the efficiency of information acquisition increased, the more the researchers' publishing performance increased. This paper identified the difference in publishing performance among researchers. The analysis can be used to identify core experts and evaluate their performance in the information privacy research field. The co-authorship network for information privacy can aid in understanding the deep relationships among researchers. In addition, extracting characteristics of publishers and affiliations, this paper suggested an understanding of the social network measures and their potential for finding experts in the information privacy field. Social concerns about securing the objectivity of experts have increased, because experts in the information privacy field frequently participate in political consultation, and business education support and evaluation. In terms of practical implications, this research suggests an objective framework for experts in the information privacy field, and is useful for people who are in charge of managing research human resources. This study has some limitations, providing opportunities and suggestions for future research. Presenting the difference in information diffusion according to media and proximity presents difficulties for the generalization of the theory due to the small sample size. Therefore, further studies could consider an increased sample size and media diversity, the difference in information diffusion according to the media type, and information proximity could be explored in more detail. Moreover, previous network research has commonly observed a causal relationship between the independent and dependent variable (Kadushin, 2012). In this study, degree centrality as an independent variable might have causal relationship with performance as a dependent variable. However, in the case of network analysis research, network indices could be computed after the network relationship is created. An annual analysis could help mitigate this limitation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.74-88
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• 2019

This study developed the Assessment Indicator evaluating eco-cultural value of temple forest in Korea and applied the developed Assessment Indicator to Songgwang-sa(also known as Seungbo-sachal), one of the Three Jewels Temple. Literature reviews and the draft of Assessment Indicator were drawn from brainstorming(including 2 forest therapy experts, 1 Buddhist monk expert, 1 landscape architect, 1 forest expert, and 6 researchers). After that, the Assessment Indicator drawn from the group of experts(the 1st in-depth interview: 32 people, the 2nd in-depth interview: 30 people) was verified and revised. The final Assessment Indicator, which was composed of 4 parts and 20 items, was developed. The results are as follows. The eco-cultural Assessment Indicator of temple forest was composed of 4 parts, which were Historical Cultural value, Ecological value, Recreatory Visitational value, and Educational Useful value, and 20 items and each item had 5 points. Historical Cultural value had 5 items and its total points were 25. Ecological value had 5 items and had total 25 points. Recreatory Visitational value had 6 items, 30 total points. Educational Useful value had 4 items, 20 total points. The total points of the eco-cultural Assessment Indicator were 100 points. As a result of applying the developed Assessment Indicator to the target place, Songgwang-sa in Mt. Jogye, Historical Cultural value of temple forest was calculated as 23 points(out of 25). Ecological value was 21 point(out of 25), Recreatory Visitational value, 22 points(out of 30), and Educational Useful value, 16 points(out of 20). The total points were 82(out of 100). Consequently, this study is meaningful based on the following 5 aspects. Firstly, this study challenged the development of the eco-cultural Assessment Indicator of temple forest for the first time. It is significant because the developed Assessment Indicator can be a useful resource for the eco-cultural value of temple forest. Secondly, the result showed that Educational Useful value and Recreatory Visitational value of forest temple were very low. Therefore, the supports for leisure, tour, education, and use of temple forest are needed from Korea Forest Service, Ministry of Environment, Cultural Heritage Administration and other government agencies since they acknowledge the temple forest as the best customers in Korea. Thirdly, the excellence or for eco-cultural value of temple forest needs to be extended in a national level. It is possible to make a Korean National Bran(e.g., the Therapy at the Temple) by blending temple stay, which is only in temples, and therapy, and is also possible to be a global tour industry. Fourthly, this study suggested legal definition about the necessary of legal definition for temple forest because there is no legal definition on temple forest in the current situation. When the definition of temple forest is legally arranaged, it would be a foundation for conserving eco-cultural value of temple forest, for organizing exclusively responsible departments in governmental institutions, and further for registering temple forest as World Natural Heritage. Lastly, the developed eco-cultural Assessment Indicators of temple forest from this study would be applied to "the 7 Sansa, Buddhist Mountain Monasteries in Korea(Sansa)" and the characteristics of each 7 temple are drawn. This study would be a basic data for temples' management and use with the eco-cultural Assessment Indicator of temple forest.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.40-51
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• 2019

Ginseng has a unique production system that is different from those used for other crops. It is subject to the Ginseng Industry Act., requires a long-term cultivation period of 4-6 years, involves complicated cultivation characteristics whereby ginseng is not produced in a single location, and many ginseng farmers engage in mixed-farming. Therefore, to bring the production of Ginseng in line with GAP standards, it is necessary to better understand the on-site practices of Ginseng farmers according to established control points, and to provide a proper action plan for improving efficiency. Among ginseng farmers in Korea who applied for GAP certification, 77.6% obtained it, which is lower than the 94.1% of farmers who obtained certification for other products. 13.7% of the applicants were judged to be unsuitable during document review due to their use of unregistered pesticides and soil heavy metals. Another 8.7% of applicants failed to obtain certification due to inadequate management results. This is a considerably higher rate of failure than the 5.3% incompatibility of document inspection and 0.6% incompatibility of on-site inspection, which suggests that it is relatively more difficult to obtain GAP certification for ginseng farming than for other crops. Ginseng farmers were given an average of 2.65 points out of 10 essential control points and a total 72 control points, which was slightly lower than the 2.81 points obtained for other crops. In particular, ginseng farmers were given an average of 1.96 points in the evaluation of compliance with the safe use standards for pesticides, which was much lower than the average of 2.95 points for other crops. Therefore, it is necessary to train ginseng farmers to comply with the safe use of pesticides. In the other essential control points, the ginseng farmers were rated at an average of 2.33 points, lower than the 2.58 points given for other crops. Several other areas of compliance in which the ginseng farmers also rated low in comparison to other crops were found. These inclued record keeping over 1 year, record of pesticide use, pesticide storages, posts harvest storage management, hand washing before and after work, hygiene related to work clothing, training of workers safety and hygiene, and written plan of hazard management. Also, among the total 72 control points, there are 12 control points (10 required, 2 recommended) that do not apply to ginseng. Therefore, it is considered inappropriate to conduct an effective evaluation of the ginseng production process based on the existing certification standards. In conclusion, differentiated certification standards are needed to expand GAP certification for ginseng farmers, and it is also necessary to develop programs that can be implemented in a more systematic and field-oriented manner to provide the farmers with proper GAP management education.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2019

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the main driving forces leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The technologies associated with AI have already shown superior abilities that are equal to or better than people in many fields including image and speech recognition. Particularly, many efforts have been actively given to identify the current technology trends and analyze development directions of it, because AI technologies can be utilized in a wide range of fields including medical, financial, manufacturing, service, and education fields. Major platforms that can develop complex AI algorithms for learning, reasoning, and recognition have been open to the public as open source projects. As a result, technologies and services that utilize them have increased rapidly. It has been confirmed as one of the major reasons for the fast development of AI technologies. Additionally, the spread of the technology is greatly in debt to open source software, developed by major global companies, supporting natural language recognition, speech recognition, and image recognition. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the practical trend of AI technology development by analyzing OSS projects associated with AI, which have been developed by the online collaboration of many parties. This study searched and collected a list of major projects related to AI, which were generated from 2000 to July 2018 on Github. This study confirmed the development trends of major technologies in detail by applying text mining technique targeting topic information, which indicates the characteristics of the collected projects and technical fields. The results of the analysis showed that the number of software development projects by year was less than 100 projects per year until 2013. However, it increased to 229 projects in 2014 and 597 projects in 2015. Particularly, the number of open source projects related to AI increased rapidly in 2016 (2,559 OSS projects). It was confirmed that the number of projects initiated in 2017 was 14,213, which is almost four-folds of the number of total projects generated from 2009 to 2016 (3,555 projects). The number of projects initiated from Jan to Jul 2018 was 8,737. The development trend of AI-related technologies was evaluated by dividing the study period into three phases. The appearance frequency of topics indicate the technology trends of AI-related OSS projects. The results showed that the natural language processing technology has continued to be at the top in all years. It implied that OSS had been developed continuously. Until 2015, Python, C ++, and Java, programming languages, were listed as the top ten frequently appeared topics. However, after 2016, programming languages other than Python disappeared from the top ten topics. Instead of them, platforms supporting the development of AI algorithms, such as TensorFlow and Keras, are showing high appearance frequency. Additionally, reinforcement learning algorithms and convolutional neural networks, which have been used in various fields, were frequently appeared topics. The results of topic network analysis showed that the most important topics of degree centrality were similar to those of appearance frequency. The main difference was that visualization and medical imaging topics were found at the top of the list, although they were not in the top of the list from 2009 to 2012. The results indicated that OSS was developed in the medical field in order to utilize the AI technology. Moreover, although the computer vision was in the top 10 of the appearance frequency list from 2013 to 2015, they were not in the top 10 of the degree centrality. The topics at the top of the degree centrality list were similar to those at the top of the appearance frequency list. It was found that the ranks of the composite neural network and reinforcement learning were changed slightly. The trend of technology development was examined using the appearance frequency of topics and degree centrality. The results showed that machine learning revealed the highest frequency and the highest degree centrality in all years. Moreover, it is noteworthy that, although the deep learning topic showed a low frequency and a low degree centrality between 2009 and 2012, their ranks abruptly increased between 2013 and 2015. It was confirmed that in recent years both technologies had high appearance frequency and degree centrality. TensorFlow first appeared during the phase of 2013-2015, and the appearance frequency and degree centrality of it soared between 2016 and 2018 to be at the top of the lists after deep learning, python. Computer vision and reinforcement learning did not show an abrupt increase or decrease, and they had relatively low appearance frequency and degree centrality compared with the above-mentioned topics. Based on these analysis results, it is possible to identify the fields in which AI technologies are actively developed. The results of this study can be used as a baseline dataset for more empirical analysis on future technology trends that can be converged.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.52
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• pp.393-424
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• 2017

This study investigates the relationship between South Korean youths' Confucian values and sense of citizen ethics while presenting outlook on the sense of citizen ethics based on the theory of human nature. The purpose of this study, by doing so, is to present educational measures. For this purpose, empirical research method was applied in this study. In the empirical study, youths were surveyed and the answers were statistically analyzed and discussed with a view to achieve the study purpose. In the empirical research part of the study, Korean youths' awareness on Confucian values was examined along with its relationship with the sense of citizen ethics. The effect of Confucian values on sense of citizen ethics and their relationship were analyzed to evaluate the receptivity of youths on Confucian ideas and usefulness of sense of citizen ethics. This study investigated a total of final 311 sets of data from male and female students at middle and high schools located in Seoul, Gyeonggi, South Korea. First, to identify the youths' Confucian values and level of sense of citizen ethics, descriptive statistical analysis was conducted. As a result, the survey subjects were found to have, concerning the Confucian values, world view M=3.54, human relations view M=3.66, morality cultivation M=3.76, and social order M=3.45, higher than 3.0 to represent positive levels. The morality cultivation, in particular, was recorded the highest among all whereas the social order was relatively lower, which represents the degree of relying on Confucian values to establish social order. Second, the sub-variables of Confucian values were verified according to the personal characteristics of the surveyed youths and differences in their entire perception was investigated. As a result, according to gender, morality cultivation was found higher in female students (M=3.85) than in male students (M=3.64). According to the subjective economic level of their household, world view was found higher in upper class (M=3.98) than middle-low class (M=3.25) and low class (M=3.22) while human relations view was found higher in middle-upper class (M=3.79) than low class (M=3.46). As for the family type, morality cultivation was found higher in extended family (M=3.83) than nuclear family (M=3.62); and social order was higher in extended family (M=3.54) than nuclear family (M=3.36). Third, to verify the study theme of identifying the effects of youths' Confucian values on sense of citizen morality, hierarchical regression analysis was employed in this study, which used the multi-level model of multiple regression analysis. As a result, the Confucian values was found to have significant positive (+) correlations with the entire sense of citizen ethics in order of human relations view(${\beta}=.499$), world view(${\beta}=.412$), social order(${\beta}=.341$), and morality cultivation(${\beta}=.241$). Confucian value showed significant positive (+) correlations with autonomy in order of morality cultivation(${\beta}=.458$), human relations view(${\beta}=.454$), social order(${\beta}=.362$), and world view(${\beta}=.158$). Confucian values was found to have significant positive (+) correlations with community spirit in order of human relations view(${\beta}=.295$), social order(${\beta}=.281$), and morality cultivation(${\beta}=.232$). As shown in the findings above, youths' Confucian values was found to have significant positive (+) effects on the sense of citizen ethics. It is noted that the higher the Confucian values, the more positive the sense of citizen ethics would be. Consequentially, the Confucian values was identified to play an important role in the sense of citizen ethics in the modern society. Based on this analysis, this study presented specific measures - the necessity and possibility of education on sense of citizen ethics under the theory of human nature. To this end, this study proposed to find an optimal interface between the contemporary sense of citizen ethics and Confucian ethics through the respect for human life and nature, man of virtue as the ideal human model, and united society as a desirable society model.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.33
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• pp.31-62
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• 2019

The purpose of this article is to study on the Daesoon Cosmology of the Correlative Relation between Mugeuk and Taegeuk. Daesoon cosmology is a cosmology based on the juxtaposition between the Gucheon Sangje and the world. In this article, I would like to say that this theory in Daesoon Thought was developed in three stages: the phase of the Mugeuk Transcendence of Gucheon Sangje, the stage of the Taegeuk Immanence, and the phase of the Grand Opening of the Later World between Mugeuk and Taegeuk as a correlative gentle reign. First of all, the phase of the Mugeuk Transcendence of Gucheon Sangje has been revealed as a yin-yang relationship. The stage of the Taegeuk Immanence represents the togetherness of harmony and co-prosperity between yin and yang, and the phase of the Grand Opening of the Later World between Mukeuk and Taegeuk refers to the unshakable accomplishment of its character and energy. It will be said that this is due to the practical mechanism in the correct balance of yin-yang making a four stage cycle of birth, growth, harvest, and storage. In addition, the Daesoon stage of the settlement of yin and yang is revealed as a change in the growth of all things and the formation of the inner circle. The mental growth reveals the characteristics of everything in the world, each trying to shine at the height of their own respective life as they grow up energetically. The dominant culture of cerebral communion renders a soft and elegant mood and combines yin and yang to elevate the heavenly and earthly period through transcendental change into sympathetic understanding. The stage of the Grand Opening of the Later World between Mugeuk and Taegeuk is one of the earliest days of the lunar month and also the inner circle of Taegeuk. It is in line with Ken Wilbur's integrated model as a step to the true degrees to develop into a world with brightened degrees. It is a beautiful and peaceful scene where celestial maidens play music, the firewood burns, and the scholars command thunder and lightning playfully. Human beings achieve a state of happiness as a free beings who lives as gods upon the earth. This is the world of theGrand Opening of the Later World between Mugeuk and Taegeuk. Daesoon Thought was succeeded by Dojeon in 1958, when Dojeon emerged as the successor in the lineage of religious orthodoxy and was assigned the task of handling Dao in its entirety. In addition, Daesoon is a circle and represents freedom and commonly shared happiness among the populous. Cosmology in the Daesoon Thought will enable us to understand deep dimensions and the identity of members as individuals within an inner circle of correlation between transcendence and immanence. This present study tries to analyze the public effects philologically and also the mutual correlation by utilizing the truthfulness of literature and rational interpretation. The outlook for the future in Daesoon Thought also leads to the one-way communication of Daesoon as a circle.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.163-193
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• 1997

Medical services are a fundamental and essential service in all urban areas. The location and accessibility of medical service facilities and institutions are critical to the diagnosis, control and prevention of illness and disease. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study on the location of medical facilities in Kwangju and the utilization of these facilities by the inhabitants. The following information is a summary of the findings: (1) Korea, like many countries, is now witnessing an increase in the age of its population as a result of higher living standards and better medical services. Korea is also experiencing a rapid increase in health care costs. To ensure easy access to medical consultation, diagnosis and treatment by individuals, the hierarchical efficient location of medical facilities, low medical costs, equalized medical services, preventive medical care is important. (2) In Korea, the quality of medical services has improved significantly as evident by the increased number of medical facilities and medical personnel. However, there is still a need for not only quantitative improvements but also for a more equitable distribution of and location of medical services. (3) There are 503 medical facilities in Kwangju each with a need to service 2,556 people. This is below the national average of 1,498 inhabitants per facility. The higher locational quotient and satisfactory population per medical facility showed at the civic center. On the other hand, problem regions such as the traditional residential area in Buk-Gu, Moo-deung mountain area and the outer areas of west Kwangju still maintain rural characteristics. (4) In the study area there are 86 general medicine clinics which provide basic medical services. i. e. one clinic per every 14,949 residents. As a basic service, its higher locational quotient showed in the residential area. The lower population concentration per clinic was found in the civic center and in the former town center, Songjeong-dong. In recently build residential areas and in the civic center, the lack of general medicine clinics is not a serious medical services issue because of the surplus of medical specialists in Korea. People are inclined to seek a consultation with a specialist in specific fields rather than consult a general practitioner. As a result of this phenomenon, there are 81 internal medicine facilities. Of these, 32.1% provide services to people who are not referred by a primary care physician but who self-diagnose then choose a medical facility specializing in what they believe to be their health problem. Areas in the city, called dongs, without any internal facilities make up 50% of the total 101 dongs. (5) There are 78 surgical facilities within the area, and there is little difference at the locational appearance from internal medicine facilities. There are also 71 pediatric health clinics for people under 15 years of age in this area, represents one clinic per 5,063 people. On the quantitative aspect, this is a positive situation. Accessibility is the most important facility choice factor, so it should be evenly located in proportion to demander distribution. However, 61% of 102 dongs have no pediatric clinics because of the uneven location. (6) There are 43 obstetrical and gynecological clinics in Kwangju, and the number of residents being served per clinic is 15,063. These services need to be given regularly so it should increase the numbers. There are 37 ENT clinics in the study area with the lower concentration in Dong-gu (32.4%) making no locational differences by dong. There are 23 dermatology clinics with the largest concentration in Dong-Gu. There are 17 ophthalmic clinics concentrated in the residential area because of the primary function of this type of specialization. (7) The use of general medicine clinics, internal medicine clinics, pediatric clinics, ENT clinics by the inhabitants indicate a trend toward primary or routine medical services. Obstetrics and gynecology clinics are used on a regular basis. In choosing a general medicine clinic, internal medicine clinic, pediatric clinic, and a ENT clinic, accessibility is the key factor while choice of a general hospital, surgery clinic, or an obstetrics and gynecology clinic, thes faith and trust in the medical practitioner is the priority consideration. (8) I considered the efficient use of medical facilities in the aspect of locational and management and suggest the following: First, primary care facilities should be evenly distributed in every area. In Kwangju, the number of medical facilities is the lowest among the six largest cities in Korea. Moreover, they are concentrated in Dong-gu and in newly developed areas. The desired number of medical facilities should be within 30 minutes of each person's home. For regional development there is a need to develop a plan to balance, for example, taxes and funds supporting personnel, equipment and facilities. Secondly, medical services should be co-ordinated to ensure consistent, appropriate, quality services. Primary medical facilities should take charge of out-patient activities, and every effort should be made to standardize and equalize equipment and facility resources and to ensure ongoing development and training in the primary services field. A few specialty medical facilities and general hospitals should establish a priority service for incurable and terminally ill patients. (9) The management scheme for the inhabitants' efficient use of medical service is as follows: The first task is to efficiently manage medical facilities and related services. Higher quality of medical services can be accomplished within the rapidly changing medical environment. A network of social, administrative and medical organizations within an area should be established to promote information gathering and sharing strategies to better assist the community. Statistics and trends on the rate or occurrence of diseases, births, deaths, medical and environment conditions of the poor or estranged people should be maintained and monitored. The second task is to increase resources in the area of disease prevention and health promotion. Currently the focus is on the treatment and care of individuals with illness or disease. A strong emphasis should also be placed on promoting prevention of illness and injury within the community through not only public health offices but also via medical service facilities. Home medical care should be established and medical testing centers should be located as an ordinary service level. Also, reduced medical costs for the physically handicapped, cardiac patients, and mentally ill or handicapped patients should be considered.