• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.27-46
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study is two-fold: first, to discuss the concept of health diplomacy and the Korean government's response to contain the COVID-19 pandemic; second, to assess and compare assumptions of variances about foreigners' perceptions of how Korea is leveraging digital technology in battling the coronavirus spread, and its vaccine campaign; through the lenses of Chinese, Filipino, and Pakistani foreign nationals who are currently living in Korea. A total of 219 foreigners responded to the survey. The collected data were analyzed as percentages, mean averages, t-test, and ANOVA for statistical analysis. Results show that Korea is utilizing its digital technology practices and vaccine campaign in battling the pandemic through efforts of health diplomacy. ANOVA indicated significant results and assumptions of variance across three ethnic groups showing the Pakistani population had higher mean scores than the Chinese and Filipino about Korea's health diplomacy during the pandemic. This study contributes to the literature on Korea's digital technology practices and vaccine campaigns amidst the COVID-19 pandemic by promoting its image through health diplomacy efforts. It projects the country's soft image on a global scale, to save the lives of locals and foreign nationals, by providing insights into health diplomacy in Korea.

• The Korean Journal of Food & Health Convergence
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the service quality of delivery food on customers' emotional response and repurchase intention during the COVID19 pandemic. The proposed research model examined the effect on the service quality, customer sentiment response, and repurchase intention of delivery food. A questionnaire was distributed and measured for 300 consumers who had experience using food delivery services in the last 30 days. The questionnaires from previous researches were revised to fit the purpose of the present study. The survey results were analyzed to verify the reliability and validity of the measured variables. To verify the hypotheses a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used for the study. The results showed that taste, price fairness, and package design positively affected emotional response; moreover, repurchase intention was enhanced by emotional response. This research analyzed the relationships between service qualities of delivery food, emotional response, and repurchase intention when customers consume delivery food during COVID19 in Korea. This study extends the delivery food literature by combining customers' emotional behavior with SEM model. The result suggested competitive strategic plans and development directions of food delivery companies in the rapidly increasing food delivery industry, providing implications for further research.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
• /
• v.38 no.2
• /
• pp.93-98
• /
• 2020

Purpose: Due to COVID 19 pandemic, the treatment of cancer patients has become a dilemma for every oncologist. Cancer patients are at an increased risk of immunosuppression and have a higher risk to acquire any infection. There are individual experiences from some centers regarding the management of cancer patients during such a crisis. So we have developed our institutional strategy to balance between COVID and cancer management. Materials and Methods: Radiation Oncology departmental meeting was held to prepare a consensus document on Radiotherapy schedules and department functioning during this pandemic. Results: Strategies were taken in form of following areas were steps need to be taken to decrease risk of infection, categorise treatment on the basis of priority, radiotherapy schedules modification, academic meetings and management of COVID positive patient/personnel in Radiation Oncology department. Conclusion: We hope to strike the balance in overcoming both the battles and emerge as winners. Stringent long term follow up will be done for assessing the response or any unforeseen treatment related sequelae.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.141-156
• /
• 2023

Due to the unprecedented worldwide pandemic of the new Covid-19 infection, business trends of companies have changed significantly. Therefore, it is strongly required to monitor the rapid changes of innovation trends to design and plan future businesses. Since the pandemic, many studies have attempted to analyze business changes, but they are limited to specific industries and are insufficient in terms of data objectivity. In response, this study aims to analyze business trends after Covid-19 using Crunchbase, a global startup data. The data is collected and preprocessed every two years from 2018 to 2021 to compare the business trends. To capture the major trends, a network analysis is conducted for the industry groups and industry information based on the co-occurrence. To analyze the minor trends, LDA-based topic modelling and word2vec-based clustering is used. As a result, e-commerce, education, delivery, game and entertainment industries are promising based on their technological advances, showing extension and diversification of industry boundaries as well as digitalization and servitization of business contents. This study is expected to help venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to understand the rapid changes under the impact of Covid-19 and to make right decisions for the future.

• Biomedical Science Letters
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.211-222
• /
• 2022

After more than two years of efforts to end the corona pandemic, a gradual recovery is starting in countries with high vaccination rates. Easing public health policies for a full-fledged post-corona era, such as lifting the mandatory use of outdoor mask and quarantine measures in entry have been considered in Korea. However, the continuous emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 and limitations in vaccine efficacy still remain challenging. Fortunately, T cells and memory T cells, which are key components of adaptive immunity appear to contribute substantially in COVID-19 control. SARS-CoV-2 specific CD4⁺/CD8⁺ T cells are induced by natural infection or vaccination, and rapid induction and activation of T cells is mainly associated with viral clearance and attenuated clinical severity. In addition, T cell responses induced by recognition of a wide range of epitopes were minimally affected and conserved against the highly infectious subsets of omicron variants. Polyfunctional SARS-CoV-2 specific T cell memory including stem cell-like memory T cells were also developed in COVID-19 convalescent patients, suggesting long lasting protective T cell immunity. Thus, a robust T-cell immune response appears to serve as a reliable and long-term component of host protection in the context of reduced efficacy of humoral immunity and persistent mutations and/or immune escape.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.54 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2021

This review describes the risk factors of the nutrition crisis in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections and suggests precision nutrition against long-term psychological and physiological stress. The mandatory quarantine and the social distancing are associated with an interruption of the lifestyle routine, resulting in psychological (i.e., boredom) and physiological stress. The stress with multiple causes and forms induces over-compensation of energy-dense food, such as sugary comfort food, and is defined as "food craving" because carbohydrates positively affect the psychological stability with serotonin secretion. The consumption of foods that promote an immune response against viral infections (vitamins & minerals; Cu, folate, Fe, Se, Zn, and Vit A, B6, B12, C, and D), reduce inflammatory cytokines (w-3 fatty acids, Vit D, fibers, and Mg), contain antioxidants (beta-carotene, Vit E, C, Se, and phenolics), and sleep-inducing proteins (serotonin, melatonin, and milk products) is essential. In addition, a reduced Vit D deficiency in winter due to less time spent outdoors under quarantine has been reported to be associated with viral infections. The case fatality rate of COVID-19 was significantly dependent on age, sex, race, and underlying health condition. To prevent malnutrition and cachexia in elderly people, weight loss and muscle wasting should be monitored and controlled. Inadequate protein intake, sedentary lifestyle, and inflammation are significant risk factors for sarcopenia. Moreover, relatively high intakes of fat or carbohydrate compared to low protein intake result in abdominal obesity, which is defined as "sarcopenic obesity." Keeping the food-safety guidelines of COVID-19, this study recommends the consumption of fresh and healthy foods and avoiding sugar, fat, salt, alcohol, and commercially frozen foods.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.3-16
• /
• 2023

This study was to investigate the operation status and the students' perception for both theory-focused and practice-focused online class in engineering college that were implemented in responses to COVID-19. For this purpose of the study, the survey including the open-ended questions were conducted to the 147 students in college of engineering in 2021 at one of the universities located in the metropolitan area. The survey were analyzed by SPSS 26.0 and then findings were as follows. First, while the most students were satisfied with the operation of online classes that were implemented in response to COVID-19, many students were unsatisfied with the practice-focused online class. Also, there were some differences in the level of students' satisfaction for some factors of online class operation in terms of the students' background. Second, there were significant differences in some parts of students' satisfaction in terms of the background of students. specifically, males students were more satisfied with the supports of teaching assistant in online classes than female students and the junior and senior levels of students are more satisfied with the teaching strategies of online classes than freshman and sophomore year students. Third, the level of students' satisfaction was different in terms of the types of online platforms as well as the methods of communication between students and professors. Finally, even though the students in the college of engineering understand the benefits in the online classes, they indicated the limitations and difficulties for participating in practice-focused online class and demanded the improvement of the operation for the online lab classes. The further research needs to be conducted to investigate the status of operation for online lab and practice classes in college of engineering.

• Knowledge Management Research
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.145-165
• /
• 2021

As of late December 2019, the spread of COVID-19 pandemic began which put the entire world in panic. In order to overcome the crisis and minimize any subsequent damage, the government as well as its affiliated institutions must maximize effects of pre-existing policy support and introduce a holistic response plan that can reflect this changing situation- which is why it is crucial to analyze social topics and people's interests. This study investigates people's major thoughts, attitudes and topics surrounding COVID-19 pandemic through the use of social media and big data. In order to collect public opinion, this study segmented time period according to government countermeasures. All data were collected through NAVER blog from 31 December 2019 to 12 December 2020. This research applied TF-IDF keyword extraction and LDA topic modeling as text-mining techniques. As a result, eight major issues related to COVID-19 have been derived, and based on these keywords, this research presented policy strategies. The significance of this study is that it provides a baseline data for Korean government authorities in providing appropriate countermeasures that can satisfy needs of people in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
• /
• v.51 no.4
• /
• pp.101-118
• /
• 2023

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the utilization rate of neighborhood parks and green spaces increased significantly, and the outbreak served as an opportunity to highlight the values and functions of neighborhood parks and green spaces for urban residents. This study aims to empirically analyze how citizens' movement and the use of neighborhood parks and green spaces changed before and after COVID-19 and examine the social and spatial characteristics that affected these changes. As a research method, first, people's mobility around neighborhood parks and green spaces before and after the COVID-19 pandemic were compared using signal data from telecommunication carriers. Through the analysis of changes in residence time and movement volume, the movement characteristics of citizens after COVID-19 and changes in walking-based park visits were examined. Second, the factors affecting the mobility change in neighborhood parks and green spaces were analyzed. The social and spatial characteristics that affect citizens' visits to neighborhood parks and green spaces before and after COVID-19 were examined through correlation and multiple regression analysis. Subsequently, through cluster analysis, the types of living areas for the post-COVID era were classified from the perspective of the supply and management of neighborhood parks and green spaces services, and directions for improving neighborhood parks and green spaces by type were presented. Major research findings are as follows: First, since the outbreak of COVID-19, activities within 500m of the residence have increased. The amount of stay and walking movement increased in both 2020 and 2021, which means that the need to review the quantitative standards and attractions of neighborhood parks and green spaces has increased considering the changed scope of the walking and living area. Second, the overall number of visits to neighborhood parks and green spaces by walking has increased since the outbreak of COVID-19. The number of visits to neighborhood parks and green spaces centered on the house and the workplace increased significantly. The park green policy in the post-COVID era should be promoted by discovering underprivileged areas, focusing on areas where residential, commercial, and business facilities are concentrated, and improving neighborhood parks and green services in quantitative and qualitative terms. Third, it was found that the higher the level of park green service, the higher the amount of walking movement. It is necessary to use indicators that contribute to improving citizens' actual park green services, such as walking accessibility, rather than looking at the criteria for securing green areas. Fourth, as a result of cluster analysis, five types of neighborhood parks and green spaces were derived in response to the post-COVID era. This suggests that it is necessary to consider the socioeconomic status and characteristics of living areas and the level of park green services required in future park green policies. This study has academic and policy significance in that it has laid the basis for establishing neighborhood parks and green spaces policy in response to the post-COVID era by using various analysis methodologies such as carrier signal data analysis, GIS analysis, and statistical analysis.

• Clinical Nutrition Research
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.269-282
• /
• 2023

Vitamin D participates in the biological function of the innate and adaptive immune system and inflammation. We aim to specify the effectiveness of the vitamin D supplementation on the side effects BioNTech, Pfizer vaccination, and immunoglobulin G response against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in subjects tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this multi-center randomized clinical trial, 498 people tested positive for COVID-19 were divided into 2 groups, receiving vitamin D capsules or a placebo (1 capsule daily, each containing 600 IU of vitamin D) over 14-16 weeks. Anthropometric indices and biochemical parameters were measured before and after the second dose of vaccination. Fourteen to 16 weeks after supplementation, the intervention group had an immunoglobulin G (IgG) increase of 10.89 ± 1.2 g/L, while the control group had 8.89 ± 1.3 g/L, and the difference was significant between both groups (p = 0.001). After the second dose of vaccination, the supplement group significantly increased their 25-hydroxy vitamin D from initially 28.73 ± 15.6 ng/mL and increased to 46.48 ± 27.2 ng/mL, and the difference between them was significant. Those with a higher body mass index (BMI) had the most of symptoms, and the difference of side effects according to BMI level was significantly different. In 8 weeks after supplementation obese participants had the lowest IgG levels than overweight or normal subjects. The proportion of all types of side effects on the second dose was significantly diminished compared with the first dose in the intervention group. Supplementation of 600 IU of vitamin D3 can reduce post-vaccination side effects and increase IgG levels in participants who received BioNTech, Pfizer vaccine.