• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.5-33
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• 1995

The objective of the study are two-fold: one is to explore the relationship between environment, organizational structure, and organizational effectiveness of public health centers in Korea, and the other is to examine the validity of contingency theory for improving the organizational structure of public health care agencies, with special emphasis on public health nursing administration. Accordingly, the conceptual model of the study consisted of three different concepts: environment, organizational structure, and organizational effectiveness, which were built up from the contingency theory. Data were collected during the period from 1st of May through 30th of June, 1990. From the total of 249 health centers in the country, one hundred and five centers were sampled non proportionally, according to the geopolitical distribution. Out of 105, 73 health centers responded to mailed questionnaire. The health centers were the unit of the study, and a various statistical analysis techniques were used: Reliability analysis(Cronbach's Alpha) for 4 measurement tools; Shapiro-Wilk statistic for normality test of measured scores of 6 variables: ANOVA, Pearson Correlaion analysis, regressional analysis, and canonical correlation analysis for the test of the relationships and differences between the variables. The results were. as follows : 1. No significant differences between forma lization, decision-making authority and environmental complexity were found(F=1.383, P=.24 ; F=.801, P=.37). 2. Negative relationships between formalization and decision-making authority for both urban and rural health centers were found(r=-.470, P=.002 ; r=-.348, P=.46). 3. No significant relationship between formalization and job satisfaction for both urban and rural health centers were found (r=-.242, P=.132, r=-.060, P=.739). 4. Significant positive relationship between decision - making authority and job satisfaction were found in urban health centers (r=.504, P=.0009), but no such relationship was observed in rural health centers. Regression coefficient between them was statistically significant($\beta=1.535$, P=.0002), and accuracy of regression line was accepted (W=.975, P= .420). 5. No significant relationships among formalization and family planning services, maternal health services, and tuberculosis control services for both urban and rural health centers were found. 6. Among decision-making authority and family planning services, maternal health services, and tuberculosis control services, significant positive relationship was found between de cision-making authority and family planning services(r=.286, P=.73). 7. A significant difference was found in maternal health services by the type of health centers (F=5.13, P=.026) but no difference was found in tuberculosis control services by the type of health centers, formalization, and decision-making authority. 8. A significant positive relationships were found between family planning services and maternal health services and tuberculosis control services, and between maternal health services and tuberculosis control services (r=-.499, P=.001 ; r=.457, P=.004 ; r=.495, P=.002) in case of urban health centers. In case of rural health centers, relationships between family planning services and tuberculosis control services, and between maternal health services and tuberculosis control services were statistically significant (r=.534, P=.002 ; r=.389, P=.027). No significant relationship was found between family planning and maternal health services. 9. A significant positive canonical correlation was found between the group of independent variables consisted of formalization and de cision-making authority and the group of dependent variables consisted of family planning services, maternal health services and tuberculosis control services(Rc=.455, P=.02). In case of urban health centers, no significant canonical correlation was found between them, but significant canoncial correlation was found in rural health centers(Rc=.578, P=.069), 10. Relationships between job satisfaction and health care productivity was not found significant. Through these results, the assumed relationship between environment and organizational structure was not supported in health centers. Therefore, the relationship between the organizational effectiveness and the congruence between environment and organizational structure that contingency theory proposes to exist was not able to be tested. However decision-making authority was found as an important variable of organizational structure affecting family planning services and job satisfaction in urban health centers. Thus it was suggested that decentralized decision making among health professionals would be a valuable strategy for improvement of organizational effectiveness in public health centers. It is also recommended that further studies to test contingency theory would use variability and uncertainty to define environment of public health centers instead of complexity.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.333-342
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• 2003

The objective of this paper is to present an algorithm to locate and size damage in a beam structure. The method uses the changes in the modal strain energy distribution. A damage index, utilized to identify possible location and corresponding severity of local damage, is formulated and expressed in terms of modal displacements that can be obtained from mode shapes of the undamaged and the damaged structures. The possible damage locations in the structure arc determined by the application of damage indicator according to previously developed decision rules. The robustness and effectiveness of the method arc demonstrated using numerical examples of beam structures with simulated damage.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.129-139
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• 2016

Purpose - This paper examines the explanatory power of the agency theory in the determination of cash holdings for Korean retail firms. If the agency theory holds, a firm with strong corporate governance structure tends to have low cash holdings. A strong governance structure makes the CEO of this firm to behave in the interests of shareholders and thus the CEO has low incentive to stockpile cash holdings, which can be easily diverted for the CEO's own managerial purposes. We investigate this relationship between corporate governance structure and cash holdings, by using corporate governance scores as a proxy variable that captures the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanism. Research design, data, and methodology - We adopt the sample of publicly listed retail firms in KOSPI market from 2005 to 2013. Financial and accounting statements are gathered from the WISEfn database. We also use the corporate governance scores published by Korean Corporate Governance Service. The relationship between the corporate governance scores and cash holdings is cross-sectionally estimated based on the ordinary least square method. This estimation method is widely accepted in the existing literature. The sample of large conglomerates, Chebol, and the remainder firms are separately examined as well, to account for the distinctive internal financing environment in these large conglomerates. Results - We mainly contribute to the extant literature by providing empirical evidence against the agency theory of cash policy. Unlike the prediction of agency theory, we confirm statistically insignificant or even positive correlations between the set of corporate governance scores and cash-asset ratios. Almost all the major corporate governance attributes including total score, shareholder rights, board structure, and the quality of information disclosure do not show negative correlations with cash holdings, which poses a strong challenge to the validity of the agency theory in the determination of retail firms' cash holdings. Conclusions - This study presents interesting empirical results with respect to the cash policy in Korean retail firms. Consistent to prior studies, I verify that the agency theory only limitedly explains the level of cash holdings. Future studies may obtain more robust results by examining a longer sample period.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.225-233
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• 2012

The research discusses interrelationship of structural and reliability importance measures which used in the probabilistic safety assessment. The most frequently used component importance measures, such as Birnbaum's Importance (BI), Risk Reduction (RR), Risk Reduction Worth (RRW), RA (Risk Achievement), Risk Achievement Worth (RAW), Fussel Vesely (FV) and Critically Importance (CI) can be derived from two structure importance measures that are developed based on the size and the number of Minimal Path Set (MPS) and Minimal Cut Set (MCS). In order to show an effectiveness of importance measures which is developed in this paper, the three representative functional structures, such as series-parallel, k out of n and bridge are used to compare with Birnbaum's Importance measure. In addition, the study presents the implementation examples of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) metrics and alternating renewal process models with exponential distribution to calculate the availability and unavailability of component facility for improving system performances. System state structure functions in terms of component states can be converted into the system availability (unavailability) functions by substituting the component reliabilities (unavailabilities) for the component states. The applicable examples are presented in order to help the understanding of practitioners.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3150-3155
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• 2007

This paper describes an experimental work to investigate the effect of mesh screen device on the jet structure and acoustic characteristics of over-expanded supersonic jet. The mesh screen device is placed into the supersonic jet stream. In order to perturb mainly the initial jet shear layer, the hole is perforated in the central part of the mesh screen. The diameter of the perforated hole and the location of mesh screen device are varied. A Schlieren optical system is used to visualize the flow fields of supersonic jet without and with the mesh screen device. Pitot pressure measurement is carried out to obtain the pressure distribution in the jet flow. Acoustic measurement also is performed to obtain the OASPL and noise spectra. The results obtained show that the jet structure and the jet noise control effectiveness is strongly dependent upon the diameter of the perforated hole and the location of the mesh screen device in the jet stream. Provided that the mesh screen device is placed at the location to perturb effectively the initial shear layer, the present control method is effective in suppressing the supersonic jet noise.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2017

For structural damage detection of shear buildings, this paper proposes a new concept using structural element mass-stiffness vector (SEMV) based on special mass and stiffness distribution characteristics. A corresponding damage identification method is developed combining the SEMV with the cross-model cross-mode (CMCM) model updating algorithm. For a shear building, a model is assumed at the beginning based on the building's distribution characteristics. The model is updated into two models corresponding to the healthy and damaged conditions, respectively, using the CMCM method according to the modal parameters of actual structure identified from the measured acceleration signals. Subsequently, the structural SEMV for each condition can be calculated from the updated model using the corresponding stiffness and mass correction factors, and then is utilized to form a new feature vector in which each element is calculated by dividing one element of SEMV in health condition by the corresponding element of SEMV in damage condition. Thus this vector can be viewed as a damage detection feature for its ability to identify the mass or stiffness variation between the healthy and damaged conditions. Finally, a numerical simulation and the laboratory experimental data from a test-bed structure at the Los Alamos National Laboratory were analyzed to verify the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed method. Both simulated and experimental results show that the proposed approach is able to detect the presence of structural mass and stiffness variation and to quantify the level of such changes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.148-157
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• 2012

Reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) problem is usually formulated as an optimization problem to minimize an objective function subjected to probabilistic constraint functions which may include deterministic design variables as well as random variables. The challenging task is that, because the probability models of the random variables are often assumed based on limited data, there exists a possibility of selecting inappropriate distribution models and/or model parameters for the random variables, which can often lead to disastrous consequences. In order to select the most appropriate distribution model from the limited observation data as well as model parameters, this study takes into account a set of possible candidate models for the random variables. The suitability of each model is then investigated by employing performance and risk functions. In this regard, this study enables structural design optimization and fitness assessment of the distribution models of the random variables at the same time. As the first paper of a two-part series, this paper describes a new design method considering probability model uncertainties. The robust performance of the proposed method is presented in Part 2. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, an example of ten-bar truss structure is considered. The numerical results show that the proposed method can provide the optimal design variables while guaranteeing the most desirable distribution models for the random variables even in case the limited data are only available.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.4 no.1 s.4
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• pp.47-62
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• 1998

We explicate the forming mechanism of Sasang constitution as the principle of energy distribution which is based on the evolutionary hypothesis. The result was obtained as follows: 1. The principle of form-image (形象) in oriental medicine can be explained with the relation between structure and function that a life acquires through the adaptation and evolution. 2. The Sung-jung (性情) in Sasang constitutional medicine can be explained as the strategy for survival or the pattern of adaptation by which an individual or a species lives in this world. 3. The forming mechanism of Sasang constitutional organic phase (臟局) can be explained as the principle of energy distribution which includes three hypothesis (hypothesis of limited resources, hypothesis of preference and hypothesis of effectiveness). 4. It is postulated that the local hemodynamics is one of the most important factors that determine the difference of Sasang constitutional organic function. 5. The relation of metabolic rate, local hemodynamics and thermo-metabolism is inseparable and it is the important point of forming mechanism of Sasang constitution and the diagnosis of pulse.

• Proceedings of the Mineralogical Society of Korea Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.52-52
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• 2001

Clays coated with cationic surfactants (organoclays) have been investigated due to their effectiveness in sorbing organic compounds from water The objectives of this study were to (1) study the sorption characteristics or a cationic surfactant (HDTMA) to clay minerals; (2) examine the partitioning of HOC (naphthalene) to the adsorbed surfactants within the context of the first objective, and (3) develop overall HOC distribution coefficients that consider sorbed surfactant amounts. The sorption of hydrophobic organic contaminant was due to partitioning of the organics into the organic pseudophase created by the surfactant tail groups. Sorption of naphthalene by HDTMA-clays at different surfactant surface coverages revealed that the naphthalene K$\_$d/ values were affected by the surface concentration of surfactant. In our study the kaolinite was modified with a cationic surfactant to achieve different fractional organic carbon contents and different surfactant molecule configurations on the surface. All of the sorption isotherms were nearly linear and could be described by a distribution coefficient (K$\_$d/). The sorption of naphthalene by the surfactant-modified kaolinite was found to be dependent on the bound surfactant molecule configuration as well as on the fractional organic carbon content but halloysite was not affected by the increase of surfactant amounts. Results from this investigation provide additional insight into the role that sorbed surfactant structure plays in HOC partitioning.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.113-125
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• 2023

Purpose: Support policies for small and medium-sized retailers (SMSRs) have been promoted in various ways over the past 20 years, but they are generally regarded as unsuccessful. The purpose of this study is to analyze the process and impact of policy changes, identify the reasons for the lack of success, and explore policy alternatives. Research design, data and methodology: This study explored major policies in various categories such as the retail industry, traditional markets, and Micro-Enterprises from the mid-1990s to the present. It also analyzed the short- and long-term impacts of major policies at the retail format level like SMSRs, using data from Statistics Korea's service industry survey. Results: This research found that sudden shifts in policy philosophy conflicted with the existing market structure and reduced the effectiveness of policies. It also found that policies aimed at improving competitiveness at the SMSRs-level had some effect, while polices aimed at supporting expenses at the individual store-level were difficult to achieve their intended purpose. Conclusions: The failure of the policy to support SMSRs is fundamentally due to the late response and conflicts between policies. It was also not successful due to the policy's focus on individual store-level expenses and maintaining employment rather than structural improvements of SMSRs format.