• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.89-120
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• 2008

With petroleum being a major source of energy in Korea, the quantity of petroleum transported via ocean routes is on its way up due to increased consumption. Due to the increase, more than 300 cases of pollution caused by petroleum occur annually. Moreover, the number of oil-spill accidents is also on the rise. Causes of such accidents, not including the disposal of waste oil on purpose, turn out to be human error during navigation or defects in the vessels, showing that most accidents are caused by humans. Therefore, to prevent future oil spills, it is imperative that navigation efficiency be enhanced by improving the quality of navigators and replacing old vessels with newer ones. Nevertheless, such improvements cannot occur overnight, so long- and mid-term efforts should be made to achieve it institutionally. As large-scale oil-spill accidents can happen at anytime along the coastal waters of Korea, it is necessary to set-up institutional devices which go beyond the compensation limit of 92FC. The current special law regarding this issue has its limits in that it prescribes compensation be supplemented solely by national taxes. Therefore, the setting-up of a new 'national fund' is recommended for consideration rather than to subscribe to the '2003 Convention for the Supplementary Fund'. It is strongly suggested that a National fund be created from fees collected from oil companies based on the risks involved in oil transportation and according to the profiteers pay principle. In addition, a public fund should be created to handle general environmental damage, such as the large-scale destruction of the ecosystem, which is distinct from the economic damage that harms the local people. The posterior responses to the large-scale oil spill have always been unsatisfactory because of the symbolic nature of the disasters included in such accidents. Oil-spills can be prevented in advance, because they are caused by human beings. But once they occur, they inflict long-term damage to both human life and the natural ecosystem. Therefore, the best response to future oil-spills is to work to prevent them.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.329-341
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• 2020

As COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the world, more than 45 million confirmed cases and over 1,000,000 deaths have occurred till now, and this situation is expected to continue for some time. In particular, more than half of the infections in European countries such as Italy and Spain occurred in nursing homes, and it is reported that over 4,000 people died in nursing homes for older adults in the United States. Therefore, the issues that need to be addressed after the COVID-19 crisis include finding a fundamental solution to group care and shifting to family-centered care. More specifically, it is expected that there will be ever more lively discussion on establishing and expanding hyper-technology based community care, that is, family-centered care integrated with ICT and other Industry 4.0 technologies. This poses a challenge of how to combine social security and social welfare with Industry 4.0 in concrete ways that go beyond the abstract suggestions made in the past. A case in point is the proposal involving smart welfare cities. Given this background, the present paper examined the concept, scope, and content of non-face-to-face care in the context of previous literature on the function and scope of the social security platform, and the concept and expandability of the smart welfare city. Implementing a smart city to realize the kind of social security and welfare that our society seeks to provide has significant bearing on the implementation of community care or aging in place. One limitation of this paper, however, is that it does not address concrete measures for implementing non-face-to-face care from the policy and legal/institutional perspectives, and further studies are needed to explore such measures in the future. It is expected that the findings of this paper will provide the future course and vision not only for the smart welfare city but also for the social security and welfare system in administrative, practical, and legislative aspects, and ultimately contribute to improving the quality of human life.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.277-291
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• 2021

Purpose: This study was undertaken to identify the alcohol drinking status of industrial workers, their health care practice, and dietary behavior, as well as their nutrient intake. Methods: In July 2019, 220 male subjects working in the Chungnam area were enrolled in the study. Their alcohol drinking status was evaluated by applying the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification-K (AUDIT-K) system. Demographic characteristics, status of health care practice, and dietary behaviors were assessed using a self-administered questionnaire; nutrient intakes were analyzed using 24-hour recalls. Data were analyzed by applying χ²-test, ANOVA, Duncan test, and Pearson's correlation analysis with SPSS v. 25.0. Results: Workers were classified by their alcohol drinking status as 'normal' (84, 38.2%), 'problem drinker' (45, 20.5%), 'alcohol dependence I' (60, 27.3%), and 'alcohol dependence II' (31, 16.0%). The alcohol drinking status showed significant differences with age (p < 0.05), monthly income (p < 0.05), smoking status (p < 0.05), and need for weight control (p < 0.05). Moreover, increased alcohol intake resulted in significantly decreased levels of health care practice and dietary behaviors (p < 0.05, p < 0.01, respectively). The energy intake was highest in the 'alcohol dependence I' group, followed by 'alcohol dependence II', 'problem drinker', and 'normal drinker' (p < 0.05). Intakes of vitamin E, vitamin C, and niacin in the 'alcohol dependence I' group were found to be higher than the other groups (p < 0.05). A negative correlation was obtained between alcohol drinking status, health care practice, and dietary behaviors, whereas a positive correlation was determined between alcohol drinking status, energy and water intakes. Conclusion: Considering these results, we conclude the necessity to consider nutritional and alcoholic education programs for improving the quality of work life of industrial workers, based on their alcohol drinking status.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.33-56
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• 2017

As Internet usage is becoming more common worldwide and smartphone become necessity in daily life, technologies and applications related to mobile Internet are developing rapidly. The results of the Internet usage patterns of consumers around the world imply that there are many potential new business opportunities for mobile Internet technologies and applications. The location-based service (LBS) is a service based on the location information of the mobile device. LBS has recently gotten much attention among many mobile applications and various LBSs are rapidly developing in numerous categories. However, even with the development of LBS related technologies and services, there is still a lack of empirical research on the intention to use LBS. The application of previous researches is limited because they focused on the effect of one particular factor and had not shown the direct relationship on the intention to use LBS. Therefore, this study presents a research model of factors that affect the intention to use and actual use of LBS whose market is expected to grow rapidly, and tested it by conducting a questionnaire survey of 330 users. The results of data analysis showed that service customization, service quality, and personal innovativeness have a positive effect on the intention to use LBS and the intention to use LBS has a positive effect on the actual use of LBS. These results implies that LBS providers can enhance the user's intention to use LBS by offering service customization through the provision of various LBSs based on users' needs, improving information service qualities such as accuracy, timeliness, sensitivity, and reliability, and encouraging personal innovativeness. However, privacy concerns in the context of LBS are not significantly affected by service customization and personal innovativeness and privacy concerns do not significantly affect the intention to use LBS. In fact, the information related to users' location collected by LBS is less sensitive when compared with the information that is used to perform financial transactions. Therefore, such outcomes on privacy concern are revealed. In addition, the advantages of using LBS are more important than the sensitivity of privacy protection to the users who use LBS than to the users who use information systems such as electronic commerce that involves financial transactions. Therefore, LBS are recommended to be treated differently from other information systems. This study is significant in the theoretical point of contribution that it proposed factors affecting the intention to use LBS in a multi-faceted perspective, proved the proposed research model empirically, brought new insights on LBS, and broadens understanding of the intention to use and actual use of LBS. Also, the empirical results of the customization of LBS affecting the user's intention to use the LBS suggest that the provision of customized LBS services based on the usage data analysis through utilizing technologies such as artificial intelligence can enhance the user's intention to use. In a practical point of view, the results of this study are expected to help LBS providers to develop a competitive strategy for responding to LBS users effectively and lead to the LBS market grows. We expect that there will be differences in using LBSs depending on some factors such as types of LBS, whether it is free of charge or not, privacy policies related to LBS, the levels of reliability related application and technology, the frequency of use, etc. Therefore, if we can make comparative studies with those factors, it will contribute to the development of the research areas of LBS. We hope this study can inspire many researchers and initiate many great researches in LBS fields.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 1970

The present status of control measures for public health important helminthic infections in Korea was surveyed in 1969 and the following results were obtained. The activities of parasitic examination and Ascaris treatment for the positives which were done during 1966 to 1969 were brought in poor result and could not decrease the infection rate. It is needed to improve or strengthen the activities. The mass treatment activities for paragonimiasis and clonorchiasis in the areas which were designated by the Ministry of Health were carried out during 1965 to 1968 with no good results in decrease of estimated number of the patients. There were too many pharmaceutical companies where many kinds of anthelmintics were produced. It may be better to reduce the number of anthelmintics produced and control the quality. The human feces, the most important source of helminthic infections, was generally not treated in sanitary ways because of the poor sewerage system and no sewage treatment plant in urban areas and insanitary latrines in rural areas. The field soils of 170 specimens were collected from 34 areas out of 55 urban and tourist areas where night soil has been prohibited by a regulation to be used as a fertilizer, and examined for parasites contamination with the result of Ascaris egg detection in 44%. Some kinds of vegetables of 64 specimens each from the supply agents of parasite free vegetables and general markets were collected and examined for parasites contamination with the results of Ascaris egg detection in 25% and 36% respectively. The parasite control activities and the ability of parasitological examination techniques in the health centers of the country were not satisfactory. The budget of the Ministry of Health for the parasite control was very poor. The actual expenditure needed for cellophane thick smear technique was 8 Won per a specimen. As a principle the control of helminthic infections might be led toward breaking the chain of events in the life cycle of the prasites and eliminating environmental and host factors concerned with the infections, and the following methods nay be pointed out. 1) Mass treatment might be done to eliminate human reservoirs of an infection. 2) Animal reservoirs which are related with human infections night be eliminated. 3) The excretes of reservoirs, particularly human feces, should be treated in sanitary ways by the means of sanitary sewerage system and sewage treatment plant in urban areas and sanitary latrines such as waterborne latrine, aqua privy and pit latrine in rural areas. The increase of national economical development and prohibition of the habit of using night soils as a fertilizer might be very important factors to achieve the purpose. 4) The control of vehicles and intermediate hosts might be done by the means of prohibition of soil contamination with parasites, food sanitation, insect control and snail control. 5) The improvement of insanitary attitudes and bad habits which are related with parasitic infections night be done by the means of prohibition of habit of using night soils as a fertilizer, and improving eating habits and personal hygiene. 6) Chemoprophylactic measure and vaccination may be effective to prevent the infections or the development of a parasite to adult in the bodies when the bodies were invaded by parasites. Further studies and development of this kind of measures are needed.