• STI Policy Review
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.75-97
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• 2014

Entrepreneurial financing, such as publicly initiated venture capital or grant schemes, serves as an important policy instrument that aims to bridge the financing gap facing young, innovative businesses, a gap that is mainly due to higher risk and growing uncertainty, and to strategically promote the creation of new ventures through the revitalization of their venture capital industries. This study examines public venture capital initiatives in Australia, Canada, and Sweden, and discovered that all three countries actively foster their venture capital industry through the formation of funds or the provision of tax incentives. It is notable that the majority of financing initiatives heavily depend on supply-side measures rather than demand-driven policies that focus on stimulating private investment in technological innovations and discoveries. This paper discusses in-depth the policy impact of public financing initiatives and their subsequent side-effects raised in the process such as overlapping in funding structure across the country, lack of monitoring and evaluation for feedback, fragmentation across the government ministries and agencies, and competition with the private sector, which may cause inefficiency as a result of public intervention. Financial constraints may arise for many reasons, partly resulting from the lack of investment readiness of young entrepreneurs. This signals a policy shift towards the creation of market-driven demand away from the traditional supply-push approach, and is a grand challenge to policymakers in entrepreneurial financing. Attention is leaning towards the efficiency and effectiveness of these public-financing initiatives in terms of their policy roles. It is worth noting that policy should focus on generating synergy so available resources can be channeled into the early, risky stage of new ventures, working as facilitator to the achievement of an intended policy goal.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.20-24
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• 2012

Construction while being an economic activity that provides facilities and infrastructure, it is beneficial to man in some aspects and detrimental in others. There have been environmental concerns related to construction activities globally which mainly focus on atmospheric emissions, depletion of natural resources and energy issues. This study was carried out to assess the impacts of construction activities on the environment in Iganga Municipality and to propose measures for their mitigation. The methodology included: review of relevant literature, observations of the general environmental effects of construction activities, focus groups and a survey conducted among construction industry role players to determine their perceptions and opinions regarding environmental impact of construction activities. The collected data was presented in tabular form and analysed by description of responses to questions. The study revealed that forests were the most greatly degraded due to high demand of timber for construction followed by wetlands degradation. The findings of this study will be useful to architects, designers and builders in order to carefully design buildings and other infrastructure that are environmentally friendly and sustainable. Construction materials and their mode of acquisition are harmful threats to the environment. There is need to reduce the consumption of these materials through recycling and reusing wastes to reduce on waste generation, use of virgin materials and the subsequent waste of energy used in new material production.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.201-209
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• 2017

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the socioeconomic inequality in malnutrition in under-5 children in Iran in order to help policymakers reduce such inequality. Methods: Data on 8443 under-5 children were extracted from the Iran Multiple Indicator Demographic and Health Survey. The wealth index was used as proxy for socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic inequality in stunting, underweight, and wasting was calculated using the concentration index. The concentration index was calculated for the whole sample, as well as for subcategories defined in terms of categories such as area of residence (urban and rural) and the sex of children. Results: Stunting was observed to be more prevalent than underweight or wasting. The results of the concentration index at the national level, as well as in rural and urban areas and in terms of children's sex, showed that inequality in stunting and underweight was statistically significant and that children in the lower quintiles were more malnourished. The wasting index was not sensitive to socioeconomic status, and its concentration index value was not statistically significant. Conclusions: This study showed that it can be misleading to assess the mean levels of malnutrition at the national level without knowledge of the distribution of malnutrition among socioeconomic groups. Significant socioeconomic inequalities in stunting and underweight were observed at the national level and in both urban and rural areas. Regarding the influence of nutrition on the health and economic well-being of preschool-aged children, it is necessary for the government to focus on taking targeted measures to reduce malnutrition and to focus on poorer groups within society who bear a greater burden of malnutrition.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.33-46
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• 2017

Increasing popularity of smartphone is creating many changes in payment market sector also. The new fin-tech and simple mobile payment service have provided convenience as well as various benefits and value-added services to create new payment culture. However, the infrastructure of offline shops is too poor for users to use the simple mobile payment services in Korea. There are several reasons why the support of simple mobile payment services by offline shops has reached the limit in Korea. They include the reluctance of shop owners due to highly priced devices, the failure of NFC of the leading offline payment infrastructure to support iOS, the services that are biased to the specific manufacturers and smartphones (Samsung Pay and LG Pay), prefer large shops (SSG Pay and L PAY), and focus on online transactions. This study used the Bluetooth technology that is the standard feature built in all smartphone to expand the offline shops that accept the simple mobile payment services ensuring universality and scalability from the convenience of customer's and service provider's aspects. Applying the same payment scene as the existing NFC payment method from the user's aspect and the Bluetooth technology from the service provider's aspect enables support of all smartphones and offering value-added services such as electronic receipt and promotions through the large-capacity bidirectional data transfer. This study is intended to review the simple mobile payment services in Korea and other countries, propose the simple mobile payment service model for Korea by analyzing the Bluetooth technology and preceding studies of payment services using BLE technology, and develop the pilot system using the BLE technology to verify the proposed system with actual shops.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.333-342
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• 2018

The objective of this study was to investigate the problem behavior and its convergent factors in out-of-school adolescents, with a focus on gender differences. This study was a secondary data analysis study using out-of-school adolescents research data at Busan women and family development institute. The study was conducted in a total of 499 out-of-school adolescents (337 males, 162 females). The type of the 8 problem behaviors (run away from home, drop out, prostitution, violence, internet game addiction, theft, drug addiction, and smoking) were identified. The collected data were analyzed with multiple logistic regression. Among the problem behaviors of the participants, internet game addiction and theft were more significantly high in male out-of-school adolescents than female out-of-school adolescents. In internet game addiction, male out-of-school adolescents were 1.90 times higher than female out-of-school adolescents (p=.008, 95% CI=1.18-3.06). In theft, male out-of-school adolescents were 1.92 times higher than female out-of-school adolescents (p=.006, 95% CI=1.21-3.03). When the social measures were provided for those adolescents, a distinguished approach is required depending on the problem behavior and gender.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.227-251
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• 2004

The objective of this study is to explore the characteristic of welfare for the disabled on the focus of 'Welfare Law for the Disabled' through multiple paradigm of disability. A proper understanding of disability theory requires more than a distinction between individual and social model approaches. It is also helpful to distinguish between materialist and idealist explanations. These two dimensions are used to generate a four-fold typology. In 'Welfare Law for the Disabled of 1981', individual materialist position was dominated. In 'Welfare Law for the Disabled of 1989', individual idealist position dawned to appear. In 'Welfare Law for the Disabled of 1999' which expanded diverse community services, individual idealist position was strengthened and social creationist position started to appear. Several characteristics are found out after analysis of 'Welfare Law for the Disabled of 1999'. Individual materialist position, individual idealist position, and social creationist position are mixed. Though the goal of the law is based on social creationist position, the central policies and measures are based on individual materialist position and individual idealist position. So it is necessary to amend 'Welfare Law for the Disabled' in the direction of including social creationist position and social constructionist position.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.92-110
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• 2012

An active policy role is suggested for collaboration that will enhance national level Science and Technology (S&T) capabilities. In contrast, some studies see a limited role of policy support for collaborative S&T research at the individual level (including research groups or institutional levels) due to their self-organizing nature. Two views on S&T collaboration look at different levels but existing research largely ignores the context of developing countries. This paper shows how S&T collaborations between Brazil and Korea have developed over the past two decades. The paper indicates the gaps between initiation and the actual establishment of collaborative research at national and individual levels, differences in the focus areas of research, differences in resources and project planning, and the nature of collaborations. Collaborative research activities at the national level were initiated before the individual level but activated later than the individual level; in addition, the focus areas of research were laid down earlier at the national level with individual collaborations focused on different areas. Project types remained different at each level (i.e. top-down and bottom-up) or with a slightly changing mix. This study suggests appropriate policy measures (such as the timely and effective information collection of activities at different levels and proactive coordination) that could reduce the gaps in the timing and alignment of research areas. This paper also alludes to an evolutionary model to develop S&T collaboration among developing countries.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.343-354
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to examine the perception of PBL hybrid curriculum of nursing students, using qualitative research conducted through focus group interviews. The data were collected from interviews with 25 nursing students of 4th grade after dividing into 4 groups. The analysis resulted in 6 major categories such as 1) inefficiency of PBL hybrid curriculum, 2) anxiety about learning, 3) dissatisfaction with PBL operation, 4) difficulty in group activity, 5) acceptance of PBL and 6) change and satisfaction. Based on the result, it is suggested that measures should be taken to minimize loss of learning contents in PBL, proportion of course evaluation should be increased to follow original intention of PBL evaluation, and detailed tutor education program should be developed and operated by PBL specialist and professional department.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.107-115
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• 2012

The level of information protection is relatively low, in comparison with the informatisation in this country. The budget for information protection is also quite marginal at 5% of the entire information-related policy budget. The passive information protection practices by companies, which focus more on the aftermaths, lead to repeated expenses for risk management. The responses to the violation of information protection should be changed from the current aftermaths-oriented focus to prevention and early detection of possible violations. We should also realize that the response to a violation of protected information is not a responsibility of an individual but a joint responsibility of the nation and the industry. South Korea has been working towards to building a systematic foundation since 2004 when guidelines were announced regarding the information protection policy and the safety diagnosis. The current level of safety policies cannot provide a perfect protection against actual violation cases in administrative, technological and physical ways. This research evaluates the level of prevention that the current systematic protection policy offers, and discusses its limitation and possible ways for improvement. It also recommends a list effective measures for protection against information violation that companies can employ to maintain the actual target safety level.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-29
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• 2022

Climate action is at the top of the agenda in the international community, as demonstrated at the 2021 G7 Summit and the 2021 UN Climate Summit. Major developed countries are scrambling to make a transition to a green economy and create a new growth momentum. Following the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016, they focus on "carbon neutrality" as an effective means of tackling climate change. The Republic of Korea, a high-carbon economy, submitted its second Nationally Determined Contribution and announced carbon neutrality as a top policy priority. Accordingly, the country increases government budget in research and development (R&D) and science and technology (S&T) policies. Against this backdrop, this study analyzed policies on carbon-neutral S&T and R&D in major advanced countries. The analysis was made by identifying globally pending issues in carbon-neutral policies and climate technology. In addition, focus group interviews were conducted six times with 10 experts to come up with three R&D strategies and action plans for government-funded research institutes to achieve carbon neutrality. To be specific, the following measures were suggested. First, creative and innovative R&D programs are required to solve the problem of carbon emissions. Second, it is necessary to establish carbon neutrality policies and infrastructure which are sustainable to run and manage. Third, it is crucial to promote cooperation in climate technology based on excellence. In conclusion, the strategies proposed in this study are expected to provide directions and implications for policymakers, researchers, and scholars in science and technology to develop effective strategies to achieve national carbon neutrality.