• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2007.03a
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• pp.229-238
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• 2007

This paper presents a study on construction safety in the People Democratic Republic of Laos (PDRL). Fifty workers experienced certain injuries in their construction sites and 15 top managers were interviewed in twenty-six construction projects in Vientiane, the capital of PDRL. Research results show that stepping on and/or striking against objects (48%), struck by falling objects (24%), falling of persons (12%) are major types of construction injuries. The paper stresses that the ignorance of top managers about their crucial role in safety improvement, using safety incentive to raise safety performance, lack of thorough understanding about benefit from labor safety performance, and the willingness to cut off safety performance expenditures is considered as obstructions of safety improvement programs. The survey indicates that physical working conditions, relationship among workers, foremen behaviors and the monthly wage were influencing factors to worker's job satisfaction. The study also highlights afternoon as dominant time that led to a large number of injuries.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.253-258
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• 2020

Depression is a disease with an increasing prevalence worldwide, and is highly associated with mortality as well as several diseases such as hypertension. The aim of this study is to discover clinical risk indicators associated with depression in the occupational group of simple labor workers. This study used the Seventh Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2016-2018) conducted by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In association between depression and demographic information, age, sex, degree of stress perception, and stress perception ratio indices had a very high statistical association with depression, and education level and marital status were also associated with depression. Obesity indices such as abdominal circumference and body mass index were not associated with depression. Among the blood information, hemoglobin and hematocrit were highly associated with depression, and statistical significance was maintained even in the analysis adjusted for sex and age. The results of this study can be used as information for the prevention and treatment of depression in the occupational group of simple labor workers in the future.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.83-88
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• 2017

Silk is appealing materials for many biomedical applications involving tissue engineering and implantable devices, because of its biocompatibility, environmental stability, controlled proteolytic biodegradability and morphologic flexibility. Silk matrix is required for the treatment of a wide wound area, but the present silk matrix is made by the second processing, and thus, the labor and the cost are high. In this work, we investigated the optimal production condition of natural silk 3D matrix using the silkworms and invented Automatic Silk Matrix Making Machine (ASMMM) for natural silk 3D matrix production. As a result, we determined that optimal production condition for making A4 paper size natural silk 3D matrix was used Rough aquarelle paper on surface at $25^{\circ}C$ and 30 silkworm larvae. These results are expected to provide basic data for the efficient production of the natural silk 3D matrix, and it is suggested that the produced natural silk 3D matrix is useful as a medical biomaterials.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.175-197
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• 2017

As a revision negotiation on the KORUS FTA has become a national pending issue, this study aims to analyze changes in the trade structure of Korean export industry before and after the KORUS FTA. For the analysis, this study used Market Comparative Advantage(MCA) and Intra-industry Trade(IIT) indexes. Results of the analysis are as follows: First, in analyzing the competitive and complementary relationships of export products using the MCA index, it was discovered that Korea has formed an export-oriented complementary relationship with the United States. Second, the results of analysing IIT showed that Korea has made a low-quality vertical IIT with the U.S. in some items while it has usually made a weak IIT with the U.S.. Based on the results above, this study proposes a few policy suggestions in the following areas: Improvement of competitiveness in trade-deficit service sector, achievement of the balance of profit and loss in goods and service sectors through the revision negotiation of the KORUS FTA, enhancement of competitiveness in competitive and comparative disadvantage items, reinforcement of ability to respond to consumption patterns in U.S. market, etc. in export-dominant items, and pursuit of horizontal-vertical division of labor in comparative advantage items and horizontal division of labor in comparative disadvantage items.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.22-28
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• 2022

Silkworms are very sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity, and unless it is a suitable temperature and humidity to grow, the productivity and quality of silkworms are greatly reduced. Therefore, it is very important to manage temperature and humidity for silkworm feeding facilities. In particular, it is essential to install heating facilities in Asian countries with distinct seasonal changes. During the feeding period, many farms manage the temperature and humidity of feeding facilities by installing and using electric heaters inside the facilities. However, it is very difficult to manage the room temperature stably by the heaters. In addition, unlike the temperature inside the facility, silkworms could undergo severe temperature changes as the inside of the rearing tray could not be warm enough. In this study, in order to improve the previous heating method, the new rearing method that directly heats the bottom of the rearing tray was developed. Compared to the previous room-heating system, the novel heater-installed tray (HIT) system significantly reduced the change in temperature during the experimental period. In addition, the number of days of silkworm growth up to harvest was shortened, which was effective in growth performance, and it was also found that silkworms grew more uniformly in HIT system than in previous system. Moreover, as the heater tubes were installed directly under the rearing tray, it quickly dried mulberry leaves and silkworm feces after feeding, and as a result, the environment in the tray was greatly improved with decrease the labor of breeder. In conclusion, these results suggest that the heater-installed rearing tray method greatly improves silkworm quality, increases weight of silkworms, and final profits compared to the previous room heating system with electric heaters.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.117-128
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• 2001

It is widely recognized that ISO 9000 certification bring some profits, such as enhancement of quality system and some concerns. Since one of the major concerns is cost for certification, this paper considers the cost for ISO 9000 certification in Japanese companies through review some winning reports and case studies. Specifically, a model that describes the certification activities and their cost is derived through reviewing some winning reports in order to give a framework of cost estimation. Based on the model, we estimate the certification cost in an electric division of a company through an interview survey. Furthermore, we focused on the cost for promotion and administration as a cost for the sake only certification, because these activities will not be needed if a company does not implement ISO certification. It is concluded that this cost may vary approximately 300,000-700,000 (US$) per certification by the interview and telephone surveys to Japanese steel companies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.29-40
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• 2020

Korean firms have been vigorously searching and exploring overseas market opportunities through export and overseas investment. As of end of 2019, there were more than 80,000 Korean overseas subsidiaries all over the world. With Korean overseas direct investment increasing recently, it became one of the important issues for overseas investors to be successful in the global market. There are a lot of studies on factors influencing the performance of overseas subsidiaries such as 'firm' and 'country' factors. This study empirically examines subsidiary performance determinants with 'industry architectures' by using a sample of 292 overseas Korean firm subsidiaries. Industry architectures are the stable but evolving sets of rules and roles through which labor is divided within a sector. This article considers how industry architectures shape success in international expansion. Industry architectures differ between countries, are not necessarily technologically determined, shape firms' capabilities and their competitive environment, and constitute a distinct level of analysis. We extract antecedents of related theory and empirically test its impact with a survey of Korean firms expanding in emerging economies. We would say this is the first study which tries to focus on industry architectures with the performance of Korean overseas subsidiaries. We find that separability and similarity of industry architectures across countries and localization of subsidiaries are robust and important predictors of success in international expansion. Our results suggest that industry architectures should be added to firm and country as an intermediate level of analysis that helps explain success in international expansion. While we established a pattern, much more remains to be done. We focus on the success of foreign operations, but we do not consider the broader benefits of going abroad, such as the learning or network effects that accrue at the level of the entire firm. The next obvious question is whether the results would differ in the developed market context. These we leave for future research to consider.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.115-134
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• 2020

Purpose - International trade leads to the international division of labor, improving the efficiency of the global economic system. Transport costs are a more serious barrier to international trade than customs tariffs. An increase in competition in the transport sector may thus lead to a reduction in transport costs. However, if a carrier's nationality significantly influences transport costs, simply adding more competing carriers of different nationalities would be ineffective. Therefore, it is necessary to establish national or regional carriers to influence competition and reduce transport costs. This study investigates this "nationality effect" by treating Hanjin Shipping's collapse as a natural experiment. Design/methodology - The theoretical basis of this study is the 3rd-degree price discrimination in container shipping market. By using the monthly data of container freight rates of Korea, China and Japan, this study shows the so-called Korea Premiums, which are the empirical counterparts of nationality effect in Korea container shipping market. For this empirical investigation, the structural model with state-space form is used and the dummy models are also estimated. In addition, because China has been also affected by the Hanjin's collapse, the China premiums are considered too. Findings - Compared with Japan's case, it is shown that there had been the so-called Korea premiums since the collapse of Hanjin Shipping. These results are robust from both the state-space model and dummy models. The time pattern of Korea premiums was consistent with the market evolution, especially the pattern of substitutability in container shipping markets. In addition, this paper shows the magnitude of Korea premiums. Originality/value - The argument of this study that the nationality effect can be interpreted as an extended concept of the home market effect is original, which is expected to evoke future research efforts. Further, the discussion on the shipping industrial policy from both horizontal and vertical aspects will provide the relevant policy makers with solid information, especially for the policy coordination in a global scale.

• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.136-141
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• 2016

The production scale of mushrooms in Korea is approximately 600 billion won, which is 1.6% of Korea's gross agricultural output. In Korea, ca. 190,000 tons of mushrooms are harvested annually. Although the numbers of mushroom farms and cultivators are constantly decreasing, total mushroom yields are increasing owing to large-scale cultivation facilities and automation. The recent expansion of the well-being trend has caused an increase in mushroom consumption in Korea: the annual per capita mushroom was 3.9 kg ('13), whichis a little higher than that in Europe. Thus, mushroom export, mainly Flammulina velutipes and Pleurotus ostreatus, has increased since the mid-2000s. Recently, however, it is slightly reduced. Nevertheless, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the United States, and the Netherlands continue to export mushrooms, and Korea has increased its export to Australia, Canada, Southeast Asia, etc. Canned Agaricus bisporus, the first export of the Korean mushroom industry, reached it speak sales in 1977-1978. When Korea initiated trade with China in 1980, the international prices of mushrooms fell sharply, leading to shrinkage of the domestic markets. Spurred by the high demand to develop substitute goods for A. bisporus, the oyster mushroom (P. ostreatus) gained attention since it seemed to suit the taste of Korean consumers. Although the log cultivation technique for oyster mushroom was developed in the early 1970s, it required a great deal of labor. Thus, we developed the shelf cultivation technique, which is easier to manage and allows for mass production. In this technique, the growing shelf is made mafrom fermented rice straw, whichis the only P. ostreatus medium in the world and isused only in South Korea. After then, the use of cotton wastes as an additional material of medium, the productivity. Currently, we are developing a standard cultivation technique and environmental control system that can stably produce mushrooms throughout the year. The increase of oyster mushroom production may boostthe domestic market and contribute to industrial development. In addition, oyster mushroom production technology played a role in forming the basis for the development of bottle cultivation, which made mass production. In particular, bottle cultivation using liquid spawn could allow for the export of F. velutipes and Pleurotus eryngii. In addition, the white varieties of F. velutipes were second developed in the world after Japan. We also developed the new A. bisporus cultivar 'Saeah', which is easy to grow in Korea. In hopes to advance the mushroom industry, we will continue to develop cultivars with international competitive power and to improve cultivation techniques.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.131-153
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• 1999

Since 1980's there have been two trends that obviously developed in the would -- economics globalization and urban internationalization. China, with is reform and opening-up policy and rapid economic growth, keeps pace with these two trends. The term "International City" has no putative standard or definition. If we make an analogue of urban functional hierarchy in the world with a pyramid, the International Citiesa are the few elites on its top. The highest level international cities can be called "World City" or "Global City". In today's new international division of labor, they are diversified leading cities with control capacity on a world scale, like New York, London, and Tokyo. The secondary international cities are either diversified cities with influence and regulative functions on multinational scale or specialized cities on politics, economics, culture, or other aspects with worldwide impact. Judged by different criteria, there is no city that is qualified as International City with the exception of Hong Kong, which was returned to the P.R. of China in 1997. Nevertheless, Some favorable conditions for the development of the international city still exist in China. This country is already the sixth largest economic entity in the world, and the second largest economic entity in the world, and the second largest one if GNP estimated by ppp. Furthermore its import and export value make up for 40% of its GNP, indicating that China is repidly merging into global economy. In this 1, 2 billion-population country, the difference of economic levels between urban and rural, coastal and inland regions is so big that a few metropolises in the coastal region have the possibilities and potentials to develop into international cities regardless of rather low GNP per capita of the whole country. This article will focus on analysis from several perspectives, such as the proportion of foreign trade values in GDP, the proportion of imports and exports by foreign funded enterprises in total foreign trade value; distribution of the 500 largest foreign-funded enterprises; distribution of the 500 enterprises with largest import and export values; distrigbution of foreign computer and telecom companies with offices in China; the number of outward flights per week and the international tourists; the value of foreign capital used in cities and so on. From this analysis, it is predicted that Chinese international cities will surely emergy from the eastern coastal regions and they must be the core cities of metropolitan interlocking regions that have been formed or in the process of forming. Those international cities will arise from south to north in turn : Hong Kong-Guangzhu, Shanghai, Beijing-Tianjin, and perhaps the last one is Dalian-Shenyang. The other side of this issue is that there is a long way for the coming international cities in China except Hong Kong. At least China and these core cities must continually devote to (1) improve the regional composition of foreign capital sources. (2) improve the composition of export commodities. (3) improve the investment environment (including hard and soft environment) to attract more transnational corporations to settle. (4) deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises and establish Chinese own transnational corporations to enter the world market.ons to enter the world market.