• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.295-312
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• 2006

The use of the national pension funds to welfare has been criticized due to its low profitability, with concern about financial instability and the lack of funds. Despite the small amount of the funds employed to the welfare, therefore, it has been decreasing so far. It is resulted from the fact that the use of funds to the welfare sector failed to provide its valid reasons, and take the policy direction firmly. There are three main logical reasons for the welfare investment of national pension funds: Firstly, no state is capable to take the full responsibility for the entire social welfare, and therefore, the funds can be used for social welfare. Secondly, the funded system, contrasted with the case of pay-as-you-go system, has inevitably caused discriminations to the present elderly through excluding them institutionally from pension participation. At last, so as to its selective system, the minimum contribution period of 10 years brings about the equity problem between the people who can afford it and the people who hardly can. Therefore, investing a proportion of funds to the welfare is entirely reasonable in that it can alleviate the discriminations to the present elderly generation and the marginal participants, rather than to meet their social welfare needs. With regard to the policy decision, the profitability of the investment, and the choice of the welfare work, on the other hand, the policy direction should be given a sufficient consideration of a various policy factors such as the necessity of social consensus, independence of the welfare work in relations with other national welfare work, policy identity to judge whether the work is worth long-run or short-run, and the reliance of direct-operated work and indirect-operated work. As a result of all these efforts above mentioned, an investment to the welfare of the national pension funds could be vitalized, and gain public confidence.

• Archives of design research
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• v.18 no.1 s.59
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• pp.175-184
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• 2005

With the rapid progress of the aging society in Korea, the silver generation is emerging as another class of users in the new population structure. This is a social issue to be dealt with, and the effect of such a change is being observed dearly in the design area. In addition, there are increasing demands for consideration of minor groups of users including the elderly, the disabled, the left-handed, children and pregnant women and nursing mothers, who have been treated as the weak. Such a human-centered idea may be the manifestation of the recovery of humanity and the self-realization of human beings through experiences and reflections of the industrial society of the past. The present study examined the tendency of design standardization centering on universal design, which has emerged in response to user-centered social needs, and suggested general considerations for the necessity of introducing such standards. These days the meanings of standardization are not limited to quality, performance, safety and economic aspect. Standardization is required to consider the diversity and the welfare of human beings. In addition, one of the important functions of standardization is to provide designers with important clues and guidelines for designing. In reality, however, standardization has been rejected by the circle of design for the reason that it deters free creation, so research on the introduction of standardization has been at standstill. As ISO/IEC Guide71 was published in November 2001, based on which, the Korea Standards Association established KS A ISO/IEC Guide71 without changing its contents. In companies' manufacturing activities, the progress of standardization in connection to universal design is growing more important. However, usefulness and interchangeability for the absolute majority resulting from standardization are incomparable. Lastly, the realization of universal design requires human-centered design mind, based on users' experiences and needs, the characteristics of the human bodies and inconvenient elements rather than standards for the sake of standardization.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.235-246
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• 2014

In the late 1980s, 5 new towns such as Bundang, Ilsan, Pyeongchon, Sanborn, Jungdong were constructed to solve housing problems and to disperse functions concentrated within Seoul. As the city got matured, it began to appear the initial signs of urban problems such as aging of high rise-density apartment sites, traffic congestion, lack of parking spaces and aging of infrastructure. Therefore, in order to cope with urban problems, it is very important to apprehend the process of urban growth, its change and the feature of physical/human elements. So, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the changes in housing and population characteristics for past 20 years by use of Census data from 1995 to 2010. First, the new town's goal of population and housing plan at the time of construction was analyzed how it was achieved, and it is close to the performance of the goal. And the trend of changes in the population and household characteristics was analyzed by every five year's data. As the result of analysis, it shows socio-demographic changes such as aged and elderly population growth, rapid increase in one generation's household and single person household, highly educated city, monthly rent household's increase and charter household's reduction. Results of this analysis can be utilized to aforethought management of new towns. But it is required more sustained and systematic urban monitoring and data analysis because the one-off analysis of the city's characteristics alone is difficult enough to grasp them.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.84-92
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• 2019

The deterioration of the urban heat environment due to climate change and the occurrence of heat-related diseases have emerged as one of the major social problems. This has led to more research on climate change, including heat waves, but it is mainly focused on climate factors. However, the urban heat island phenomenon accelerates the summer heat wave, and the increasing trend of heat-related patients in urban areas suggests the impact of the city's environment. Thus, this study analyzed the effects of physical and social characteristics of urban areas on heat-related patients in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. The analysis showed that the ratio of the total area of residential, commercial and industrial facilities, the main source of heat energy locality, among the land use statuses, was not statistically significant, but the road area and the green area were found to have a positive and negative The population density and the percentage of people aged 65 or older, the percentage of people living alone and the proportion of people receiving basic living were all shown to be significant, with only the ratio of elderly living alone and the ratio of population density having negative effects. The results of the study can be used to develop urban policy alternatives related to local warming patients.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.69 no.2
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• pp.117-141
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences of the factors affecting the entry of depression by generations and to present a practical strategy for preventing of depression by life-cycle. For this purpose, we analyzed the factors influencing the depression of adults, middle-aged and elderly people through the discrete-time hazard model. The results of this study are as follows: First, the lower the self-esteem, the lower the income satisfaction and the family satisfaction people have, the higher the likelihood of entering the depression they have. In addition, age, educational level, health status, presence of chronic diseases, employment status, regional area, and leisure life satisfaction were variables that showed difference by generation. In the case of adulthood(aged 20 ~ 39), unemployed persons are more likely to enter the depression than younger workers. On the other hand, the middle-aged(40 ~ 64 year olds) are more likely to enter the depression if they are older, have poor health status, have no chronic disease, and have low leisure satisfaction. Finally, older people(aged 65 and over) are more likely to enter the depression when the education level is higher, the health condition is worse, and the leisure satisfaction is lower. If they lived in an urban and rural complex, they are more likely to enter the depression. Based on these results, it is necessary to establish a support plan reflecting the characteristics revealed by generations in order to prevent the entry of depression.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.111-137
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• 2018

Considering the increase in health insurance benefits and the elderly population of the baby boomer generation, the amount consumed by health care in 2020 is expected to account for 20% of US GDP. As the healthcare industry develops, competition among the medical services of hospitals intensifies, and the need of hospitals to manage the quality of medical services increases. In addition, interest in online reviews of hospitals has increased as online reviews have become a tool to predict hospital quality. Consumers tend to refer to online reviews even when choosing healthcare service providers and after evaluating service quality online. This study aims to analyze the effect of sentiment score of healthcare service quality on hospital rating with Yelp hospital reviews. This study classifies large amount of text data collected online primarily into five service quality measurement indexes of SERVQUAL theory. The sentiment scores of reviews are then derived by SERVQUAL dimensions, and an econometric analysis is conducted to determine the sentiment score effects of the five service quality dimensions on hospital reviews. Results shed light on the means of managing online hospital reputation to benefit managers in the healthcare and medical industry.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.1273-1280
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• 2019

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the leading causes of blindness in the elderly population, and damage to retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells due to oxidative stress contributes to the development of AMD. Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fischer is one of the most widely used herbal medicines for the treatment of various diseases in Asian countries. Although recent studies indicated that treatment with G. uralensis can protect cells from oxidative stress, its mechanisms in RPE cells remain unknown. We evaluated the effect of a G. uralensis ethanol extract (GU) on $H_2O_2$-induced oxidative injury in ARPE-19 RPE cells. The GU pretreatment attenuated reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation induced by $H_2O_2$, which was associated with induced expression of nuclear factor erythroid-derived-2-like 2 (Nrf2) and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). GU also suppressed $H_2O_2$-induced DNA damage and mitochondrial dysfunction. The inhibitory effect of GU on $H_2O_2$-induced apoptosis was associated with the protection of caspase-3 activation. Overall, GU appeared to protect RPE cells from oxidative injury by inhibiting DNA damage and reducing apoptosis. Further studies are needed to determine the regulation of Nrf2-mediated HO-1 expression, but our results suggest the possibility of using GU to reduce the risk of AMD.