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Changes of Chemical Species in Soil Solution Induced by Heavy Metals (중금속이 토양용액 중 화학종 변화에 미치는 영향)

  • Yang, Jae-E.;Lee, Ki-Won;Kim, Jeong-Je;Lim, Hyung-Sik
    • Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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    • v.14 no.3
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    • pp.263-271
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    • 1995
  • Chemical assessment of soil pollution with heavy metals was made by analyzing the changes in pH, ionic strength, cationic concentration and chemical species in the soil solution. Saturated pastes of the unpolluted soils were made by adding solutions containing Cu or Cd and the final Cu or Cd concentrations were in the range of 0 to 400 mg/kg. After equilibrating for 24 hours at $25^{\circ}C$, the soil solution was extracted from the saturated pastes by the vacuum extraction method and analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity, Cu, Cd, cations and inorganic ligands. Chemical species in soil solution were calculated by the GEOCHEM-PC program employing the input variables of pH, ionic strength(${\mu}$), molar concentrations of cations and ligands. Increasing Cu or Cd additions lowered pH of the soil solution but increased concentrations of Ca, Mg and K resulting in increases of ${\mu}$ of the soil solution. Effects of Cu on lowering pH and increasing ${\mu}$ were greater than those of Cd. Concentrations of Cu or Cd in soil solution were relatively very low as compared to those of additions, but increased linearly with increasing additions representing that concentrations of Cu were higher than those of Cd. At 400 mg/kg additions, concentrations of Cu were in the range of 0.51 to 11.70 mg/L but those of Cd were 34.4 to 88.5 mg/L. Major species of Ca, Mg and K were free ions and these species were equivalent to greater than 95 molar % of the existing respective molar concentrations. These cationic species were not changed by Cu or Cd additions. Major species of Cu in lower pH soils such as SiCL and SL were free $Cu^{2+}$ (>95 molar %), but those in LS having a higher pH were free $Cu^{2-}$ and Cu-hydroxide complex. At 100 mg Cu/kg treatment, $Cu^{2+}$ and Cu-hydroxide complex were equivalent to 73 and 22.4 molar %, respectively. These respective percentages were decreased and increased correspondingly with increasing Cu treatments. Major species of Cd in soil solution were free $Cd^{2+}$ and Cd-chloride complex, representing 79 to 85 molar % for $Cd^{2+}$ and 13 to 20% for Cd-chloride complex at 10 mg Cd/kg treatment. With increasing Cd additions to 400 mg/kg, $Cd^{2+}$ species decreased to $40{\sim}47%$ but Cd-chloride complexes increased to $53{\sim}60$ molar %. These results demonstrated that soil contamination with heavy metals caused an adverse effect on the plant nutritional aspects of soil solution by lowering pH, increasing cations temporarily, and increasing free metal concentrations and species enough to be phytotoxic.

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The Study on the Contents and Satisfaction of Oriental Medicine Examination Program (한방건강검진 프로그램의 내용과 참가자들의 만족도에 관한 연구)

  • Lee Eun-Kyoung;Jahng Doo-Sub;Song Yung-Sun;Lee Ki-Nam
    • Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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    • v.6 no.1
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    • pp.51-95
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    • 2002
  • 1. As a point at issue of occidental medicine examination, followings have been indicated, 1) Occidental medical examination is performed by mainly test and instrument and therefore, role of doctors could be excluded and it could be diagnosed only for target disease and 2) in Korea, it could not be conducted in public medical system and therefore improvement effect of public health promotion could not be made due to increase of total medical expenses and infirmity of post management. These points are substantial limit of paradigm resided in occidental medicine and also problem caused by unique characteristics of medical system of Korea. In Korea, result of occidental medical examination show increased health risk from aged thirties and major diagnosed diseases are circulatory disease or chronic disease such as hepatic, hyperlipemic, hypertensional disease and diabetes, etc. Accounting that those chronic disease make a role as major public health risk, it is difficult that medical examination by only occidental medicine make effect on public health promotion. 2. Characteristics of oriental medicine examination could be summarized as diagnosis (information acquisition based on the facts) and demonstration (speculation based on acquired information) and in addition, quadruple diagnosis, as a medical examination method, include test as well as basic examination. Accounting on oriental medical examination, principally it is performed by independent herbalist and therefore, herbalist could acquire systemic result during first medical examination. Based on the theory of inner-outer examination, oriental medical examination has a principle of universe theory, systemic analysis of quadruple diagnosis, demonstration & reasoning. In addition, root of oriental medical examination could be found in pre-disease theory, a principal theory of oriental medicine. Pre-disease service could prove the advantage of oriental medicine in medical examination activities and therefore, it is needed that content of oriental medical examination should be actualized in current medical system. 3. In this study, oriental medical examination program, comprised of pulse-diagnosis, contrast muscular taking and medical consultation of herbalist is progressed communally with occidental medical examination. As pre-examination, questionary was given of general characteristics, health promoting life style, physical constitution and subjective symptom of musculoskeletal system. In addition, post-examination notification was given to subjects about health promoting control, physical constitution regimen and management of musculoskeletal system. During this study program, verification was conducted for input of acquired information and difference of each information after analysis and in addition, performed was analysis of factor influencing health promoting life style and musculoskeletal subjective symptom and evaluation of relationship of physical constitution and health promoting life study. In addition, it was verified of difference between musculoskeletal subjective symptom and result of muscle contrast picture evaluation. 4. Evaluation of oriental medical examination model is divided into 2 categories of oriental medical examination-consultation and result evaluation -post management. Oriental medical examination-consultation demands establishment of examination system, standardization of examination and establishment of examination form and in addition, it should be admitted as enlarged examination assists systemic quadruple diagnosis of herbalist not a key of oriental medical examination. In addition, information acquisition for research purpose should be performed according to the systemic research plan based on the separation of questionary for examination purpose and research purpose. For evaluation of the result, it was concluded that needed are result evaluation meets oriental medical system and post-notification system, informing health management information, based on examination result. 5. Accounting on satisfaction for oriental medical examination model, affirmative reply was much higher (66%) than negative (8.64%). Satisfaction of each area was in order of consultation of herbalist, systemic muscle contrast taking, pulse examination, post-notification and questionary fill-up and dissatisfaction was in order of post-notification, questionary fill-up, consultation of herbalist, systemic muscle contrast taking and pulse measurement. Satisfaction for collaborative examination of occidental and oriental medicine was over 60% and over 75% hope oriental examination would be included in later medical examination program. Based on this result, collaborative examination including occidental and oriental medicine could increase satisfaction of subjects for medical examination program.

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Production of Mother Bulbs with High Quality Using Bulbils of Garlic (Allium sativum L.) (마늘의 주아(珠芽)를 이용(利用)한 우양종구생산(優良種球生産))

  • Seo, Yeong-Bea;Kim, Dae-Kew;Sohn, Jae-Keun
    • Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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    • v.17
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    • pp.21-29
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    • 1999
  • This study was carried out to determine the promising method for the production of mother bulbs using garlic bulbs at the experimental field of Ange high school, Eusung in Korea from 1996 to 1998. The bulbs and bulbils were taken from a local cultivar 'Eusung' garlic. The growth of bulbil and yield potential were compared with different harvesting times and cultivation methods of bulbil. The harvesting time of bulbils which were capable of producing the mother bulbs was ranged from 15 days to 30 days after the emergence of flower stalks. The best results based on the yield and number of bulbs were obtained from the bulbils sampled at the just before garlic harvesting, 30 days after flower-stalk emergence. The mulching with transparent polyethylene(PE) film in bulbil cultivation was more effective for the plant growth and bulb formation than that with black PE film. The PE mulching from 30 days after seeding of bulbils to 30 days (late-April) before bulb harvesting was the moot effective for the increase of bulb yield. In the cultivation of garlic bulbils, application of lime (150 kg/10a) and compost (3,000 kg/10a) without any chemical fertilizers produced more bulbs in comparison with the standard level of fertilizer (N - $P_2O_5$ - $K_2O$ - compost - lime = 24.8 - 8.0 - 19.2 - 3,000 - 150 kg/10a). It was determined that the involucre seeding and assemble seeding of bulbils was effective and labour-saving methods for the production of mother bulbs from garlic bulbils. Input of labour force for the involucre seeding was decreased up to 61% as compared with the conventional drill seeding of bulbils. Mean yield from the cultivation of bulbil-derived single cloves was remarkably increased up to 95% in comparison with that of the common cloves. The larger size of single clove produced more yields, and the optimum planting density of single clove was $20{\times}10cm$. The cloves differentiated directly from bulbil showed to have higher yield potential than that from common cloves.

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A Basic Study for Sustainable Analysis and Evaluation of Energy Environment in Buildings : Focusing on Energy Environment Historical Data of Residential Buildings (빌딩의 지속가능 에너지환경 분석 및 평가를 위한 기초 연구 : 주거용 건물의 에너지환경 실적정보를 중심으로)

  • Lee, Goon-Jae
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.262-268
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    • 2017
  • The energy consumption of buildings is approximately 20.5% of the total energy consumption, and the interest in energy efficiency and low consumption of the building is increasing. Several studies have performed energy analysis and evaluation. Energy analysis and evaluation are effective when applied in the initial design phase. In the initial design phase, however, the energy performance is evaluated using general level information, such as glazing area and surface area. Therefore, the evaluation results of the detailed design stage, which is based on the drawings, including detailed information of the materials and facilities, will be different. Thus far, most studies have reported the analysis and evaluation at the detailed design stage, where detailed information about the materials installed in the building becomes clear. Therefore, it is possible to improve the accuracy of the energy environment analysis if the energy environment information generated during the life cycle of the building can be established and accurate information can be provided in the analysis at the initial design stage using a probability / statistical method. On the other hand, historical data on energy use has not been established in Korea. Therefore, this study performed energy environment analysis to construct the energy environment historical data. As a result of the research, information classification system, information model, and service model for acquiring and providing energy environment information that can be used for building lifecycle information of buildings are presented and used as the basic data. The results can be utilized in the historical data management system so that the reliability of analysis can be improved by supplementing the input information at the initial design stage. If the historical data is stacked, it can be used as learning data in methods, such as probability / statistics or artificial intelligence for energy environment analysis in the initial design stage.

Regeneration Processes of Nutrients in the Polar Front Area of the last Sea IV. Chlorophyll a Distribution, New Production and the Vertical Diffusion of Nitrate (동해 극전선역의 영양염류 순환과정 IV. Clorophyll a 분포, 신생산 및 질산염의 수직확산)

  • MOON Chang-Ho;YANG Sung-Ryull;YANG Han-Soeb;CHO Hyun-Jin;LEE Seung-Yong;KIM Seok-Yun
    • Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.259-266
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    • 1998
  • A study on the biological and chemical characteristics in the middle last Sea of Korea was carried out at 31 stations in October $11\~18$, 1995 on board the R/V Tam-Yang. The chlorophyll a concentration, new and regenerated production, and the vertical diffusion of nitrate from the thermocline structure were investigated. From the vertical distribution of chlorophyll a, subsurface maxima were observed near the thermorline at most stations including the frontal zone, except at the southern stations where the maximum chloropyll a concentration occurred at the surface, The nanophytoplankton was the most dominant fraction comprising $83.5\%$ of total phytoplankton cell numbers, but netphytoplankton were common at the southern stations where the dominant species were Rhizosolenia sp. Nitrogenous new production and regenerated productions were measured using the stable isotope $^{15}N$ nitrate and ammonia uptake method. The vertically integrated nitrogen production varied between 8.470 and $72.945\;mg\;N\;m^{-2}\;d^{-1}$. The f-ratio, which is the traction of new production from primary production, waried between 0.03 and 0.72, indicating that $3\%$ to $72\%$ of primary production was supported by the input of nutrients from below the euphotic zone and the rest are supported by ammonia recycled within the euphotic layer. This range of f-ratio encompasses from extremely oligotrophic to eutrophic area characteristics. The differences in productivity and f-ratio among stations were related to frontal structure and the bottom topography. The values were high near the frontal zone and low outside of it, and the station near Ulleng Island showed the highest f-ratio. Vertical diffusion coefficients were calculated from both the water column stability (Kz-1) of King and Devol's equation (1979) and new nitrogen requirement (Kz-2). The values of Kz-2 ($0.11\~0.55\;cm^2/s$) were relatively low compared to the values reported previously.

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Numerical Simulation of the Formation of Oxygen Deficient Water-masses in Jinhae Bay (진해만의 빈산소 수괴 형성에 관한 수치실험)

  • CHOI Woo-Jeung;PARK Chung-Kill;LEE Suk-Mo
    • Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.413-433
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    • 1994
  • Jinhae Bay once was a productive area of fisheries. It is, however, now notorious for its red tides; and oxygen deficient water-masses extensively develop at present in summer. Therefore the shellfish production of the bay has been decreasing and mass mortality often occurs. Under these circumstances, the three-dimensional numerical hydrodynamic and the material cycle models, which were developed by the Institute for Resources and Environment of Japan, were applied to analyze the processes affecting the oxygen depletion and also to evaluate the environment capacity for the reception of pollutant loads without dissolved oxygen depletion. In field surveys, oxygen deficient water-masses were formed with concentrations of below 2.0mg/l at the bottom layer in Masan Bay and the western part of Jinhae Bay during the summer. Current directions, computed by the $M_2$ constituent, were mainly toward the western part of Jinhae Bay during flood flows and in opposite directions during ebb flows. Tidal currents velocities during the ebb tide were stronger than that of the flood tide. The comparision between the simulated and observed tidal ellipses showed fairly good agreement. The residual currents, which were obtained by averaging the simulated tidal currents over 1 tidal cycle, showed the presence of counterclockwise eddies in the central part of Jinhae Bay. Density driven currents were generated southward at surface and northward at the bottom in Masan Bay and Jindong Bay, where the fresh water of rivers entered. The material cycle model was calibrated with the data surveyed in the field of the study area from June to July, 1992. The calibrated results are in fairly good agreement with measured values within relative error of $28\%$. The simulated dissolved oxygen distributions of bottom layer were relatively high with the concentration of $6.0{\sim}8.0mg/l$ at the boundaries, but an oxygen deficient water-masses were formed within the concentration of 2.0mg/l at the inner part of Masan Bay and the western part of Jinhae Bay. The results of sensitivity analyses showed that sediment oxygen demand(SOD) was one of the most important influence on the formation of oxygen depletion. Therefore, to control the oxygen deficient water-masses and to conserve the coastal environment, it is an effective method to reduce the SOD by improving the polluted sediment. As the results of simulations, in Masan Bay, oxygen deficient water-masses recovered to 5.0mg/l when the $50\%$ reduction in input COD loads from Masan basin and $70\%$ reduction in SOD was conducted. In the western part of Jinhae Bay, oxygen deficient water-masses recovered to 5.0mg/l when the $95\%$ reduction in SOD and $90\%$ reduction in culturing ground fecal loads was conducted.

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A Study on the Design of Case-based Reasoning Office Knowledge Recommender System for Office Professionals (사례기반추론을 이용한 사무지식 추천시스템)

  • Kim, Myong-Ok;Na, Jung-Ah
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.131-146
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    • 2011
  • It is becoming more essential than ever for office professionals to become competent in information collection/gathering and problem solving in today's global business society. In particular, office professionals do not only assist simple chores but are also forced to make decisions as quickly and efficiently as possible in problematic situations that can end in either profit or loss to their company. Since office professionals rely heavily on their tacit knowledge to solve problems that arise in everyday business situations, it is truly helpful and efficient to refer to similar business cases from the past and share or reuse such previous business knowledge for better performance results. Case-based reasoning(CBR) is a problem-solving method which utilizes previous similar cases to solve problems. Through CBR, the closest case to the current business situation can be searched and retrieved from the case or knowledge base and can be referred to for a new solution. This reduces the time and resources needed and increase success probability. The main purpose of this study is to design a system called COKRS(Case-based reasoning Office Knowledge Recommender System) and develop a prototype for it. COKRS manages cases and their meta data, accepts key words from the user and searches the casebase for the most similar past case to the input keyword, and communicates with users to collect information about the quality of the case provided and continuously apply the information to update values on the similarity table. Core concepts like system architecture, definition of a case, meta database, similarity table have been introduced, and also an algorithm to retrieve all similar cases from past work history has also been proposed. In this research, a case is best defined as a work experience in office administration. However, defining a case in office administration was not an easy task in reality. We surveyed 10 office professionals in order to get an idea of how to define a case in office administration and found out that in most cases any type of office work is to be recorded digitally and/or non-digitally. Therefore, we have defined a record or document case as for COKRS. Similarity table was composed of items of the result of job analysis for office professionals conducted in a previous research. Values between items of the similarity table were initially set to those from researchers' experiences and literature review. The results of this study could also be utilized in other areas of business for knowledge sharing wherever it is necessary and beneficial to share and learn from past experiences. We expect this research to be a reference for researchers and developers who are in this area or interested in office knowledge recommendation system based on CBR. Focus group interview(FGI) was conducted with ten administrative assistants carefully selected from various areas of business. They were given a chance to try out COKRS in an actual work setting and make some suggestions for future improvement. FGI has identified the user-interface for saving and searching cases for keywords as the most positive aspect of COKRS, and has identified the most urgently needed improvement as transforming tacit knowledge and knowhow into recorded documents more efficiently. Also, the focus group has mentioned that it is essential to secure enough support, encouragement, and reward from the company and promote positive attitude and atmosphere for knowledge sharing for everybody's benefit in the company.

The Simulation of Pore Size Distribution from Unsaturated Hydraulic Conductivity Data Using the Hydraulic Functions (토양 수리학적 함수를 이용한 불포화 수리전도도로부터 공극크기분포의 모사)

  • Yoon, Young-Man;Kim, Jeong-Gyu;Shin, Kook-Sik
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.43 no.4
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    • pp.407-414
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    • 2010
  • Until now, the pore size distribution, PSD, of soil profile has been calculated from soil moisture characteristic data by water release method or mercury porosimetry using the capillary rise equation. But the current methods are often difficult to use and time consuming. Thus, in this work, theoretical framework for an easy and fast technique was suggested to estimate the PSD from unsaturated hydraulic conductivity data in an undisturbed field soil profile. In this study, unsaturated hydraulic conductivity data were collected and simulated by the variation of soil parameters in the given boundary conditions (Brooks and Corey soil parameters, ${\alpha}_{BC}=1-5L^{-1}$, b = 1 - 10; van Genuchten soil parameters, ${\alpha}_{VG}=0.001-1.0L^{-1}$, m = 0.1 - 0.9). Then, $K_s$ (1.0 cm $h^{-1})$ was used as the fixed input parameter for the simulation of each models. The PSDs were estimated from the collected K(h) data by model simulation. In the simulation of Brooks-Corey parameter, the saturated hydraulic conductivity, $K_s$, played a role of scaling factor for unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, K(h) Changes of parameter b explained the shape of PSD curve of soil intimately, and a ${\alpha}_{BC}$ affected on the sensitivity of PSD curve. In the case of van Genuchten model, $K_s$ and ${\alpha}_{VG}$ played the role of scaling factor for a vertical axis and a horizontal axis, respectively. Parameter m described the shape of PSD curve and K(h) systematically. This study suggests that the new theoretical technique can be applied to the in situ prediction of PSD in undisturbed field soil.

Development of the Information Delivery System for the Home Nursing Service (가정간호사업 운용을 위한 정보전달체계 개발 I (가정간호 데이터베이스 구축과 뇌졸중 환자의 가정간호 전산개발))

  • Park, J.H;Kim, M.J;Hong, K.J;Han, K.J;Park, S.A;Yung, S.N;Lee, I.S;Joh, H.;Bang, K.S
    • Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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    • v.4
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    • pp.5-22
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    • 1997
  • The purpose of the study was to development an information delivery system for the home nursing service, to demonstrate and to evaluate the efficiency of it. The period of research conduct was from September 1996 to August 31, 1997. At the 1st stage to achieve the purpose, Firstly Assessment tool for the patients with cerebral vascular disease who have the first priority of HNS among the patients with various health problems at home was developed through literature review. Secondly, after identification of patient nursing problem by the home care nurse with the assessment tool, the patient's classification system developed by Park (1988) that was 128 nursing activities under 6 categories was used to identify the home care nurse's activities of the patient with CAV at home. The research team had several workshops with 5 clinical nurse experts to refine it. At last 110 nursing activities under 11 categories for the patients with CVA were derived. At the second stage, algorithms were developed to connect 110 nursing activities with the patient nursing problems identified by assessment tool. The computerizing process of the algorithms is as follows: These algorithms are realized with the computer program by use of the software engineering technique. The development is made by the prototyping method, which is the requirement analysis of the software specifications. The basic features of the usability, compatibility, adaptability and maintainability are taken into consideration. Particular emphasis is given to the efficient construction of the database. To enhance the database efficiency and to establish the structural cohesion, the data field is categorized with the weight of relevance to the particular disease. This approach permits the easy adaptability when numerous diseases are applied in the future. In paralleled with this, the expandability and maintainability is stressed through out the program development, which leads to the modular concept. However since the disease to be applied is increased in number as the project progress and since they are interrelated and coupled each other, the expand ability as well as maintainability should be considered with a big priority. Furthermore, since the system is to be synthesized with other medical systems in the future, these properties are very important. The prototype developed in this project is to be evaluated through the stage of system testing. There are various evaluation metrics such as cohesion, coupling and adaptability so on. But unfortunately, direct measurement of these metrics are very difficult, and accordingly, analytical and quantitative evaluations are almost impossible. Therefore, instead of the analytical evaluation, the experimental evaluation is to be applied through the test run by various users. This system testing will provide the viewpoint analysis of the user's level, and the detail and additional requirement specifications arising from user's real situation will be feedback into the system modeling. Also. the degree of freedom of the input and output will be improved, and the hardware limitation will be investigated. Upon the refining, the prototype system will be used as a design template. and will be used to develop the more extensive system. In detail. the relevant modules will be developed for the various diseases, and the module will be integrated by the macroscopic design process focusing on the inter modularity, generality of the database. and compatibility with other systems. The Home care Evaluation System is comprised of three main modules of : (1) General information on a patient, (2) General health status of a patient, and (3) Cerebrovascular disease patient. The general health status module has five sub modules of physical measurement, vitality, nursing, pharmaceutical description and emotional/cognition ability. The CVA patient module is divided into ten sub modules such as subjective sense, consciousness, memory and language pattern so on. The typical sub modules are described in appendix 3.

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Technical Efficiency in Korea: Interindustry Determinants and Dynamic Stability (기술적(技術的) 효율성(效率性)의 결정요인(決定要因)과 동태적(動態的) 변화(變化))

  • Yoo, Seong-min
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.21-46
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    • 1990
  • This paper, a sequel to Yoo and Lee (1990), attempts to investigate the interindustry determinants of technical efficiency in Korea's manufacturing industries, and also to conduct an exploratory analysis on the stability of technical efficiency over time. The hypotheses set forth in this paper are most found in the existing literature on technical efficiency. They are, however, revised and shed a new light upon, whenever possible, to accommodate any Korea-specific conditions. The set of regressors used in the cross-sectional analysis are chosen and the hypotheses are posed in such a way that our result can be made comparable to those of similar studies conducted for the U.S. and Japan by Caves and Barton (1990) and Uekusa and Torii (1987), respectively. It is interesting to observe a certain degree of similarity as well as differentiation between the cross-section evidence on Korea's manufacturing industries and that on the U.S. and Japanese industries. As for the similarities, we can find positive and significant effects on technical efficiency of relative size of production and the extent of specialization in production, and negative and significant effect of the variations in capital-labor ratio within industries. The curvature influence of concentration ratio on technical efficiency is also confirmed in the Korean case. There are differences, too. We cannot find any significant effects of capital vintage, R&D and foreign competition on technical efficiency, all of which were shown to be robust determinants of technical efficiency in the U.S. case. We note, however, that the variables measuring capital vintage effect, R&D and the degree of foreign competition in Korean markets are suspected to suffer from serious measurement errors incurred in data collection and/or conversion of industrial classification system into the KSIC (Korea Standard Industrial Classification) system. Thus, we are reluctant to accept the findings on the effects of these variables as definitive conclusions on Korea's industrial organization. Another finding that interests us is that the cross-industry evidence becomes consistently strong when we use the efficiency estimates based on gross output instead of value added, which provides us with an ex post empirical criterion to choose an output measure between the two in estimating the production frontier. We also conduct exploratory analyses on the stability of the estimates of technical efficiency in Korea's manufacturing industries. Though the method of testing stability employed in this paper is never a complete one, we cannot find strong evidence that our efficiency estimates are stable over time. The outcome is both surprising and disappointing. We can also show that the instability of technical efficiency over time is partly explained by the way we constructed our measures of technical efficiency. To the extent that our efficiency estimates depend on the shape of the empirical distribution of plants in the input-output space, any movements of the production frontier over time are not reflected in the estimates, and possibilities exist of associating a higher level of technical efficiency with a downward movement of the production frontier over time, and so on. Thus, we find that efficiency measures that take into account not only the distributional changes, but also the shifts of the production frontier over time, increase the extent of stability, and are more appropriate for use in a dynamic context. The remaining portion of the instability of technical efficiency over time is not explained satisfactorily in this paper, and future research should address this question.

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