• Health Policy and Management
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-27
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• 2007

This study is designed to estimate an appropriate level of patient's cost-sharing for oriental medical services in the Korean National Health Insurance. The findings of this study can be summarized as follows: 1) The current co-payment system for oriental medical services does not reflect its cost structure in clinical practice due to inconsistency of cost-sharing plan in the NHI. 2) Both oriental medical institutions and their patients, as a result, are at a relative disadvantage in financial burden, compared with other services. 3) The substantial proportion of patients' cost-sharing depends on the amount of co-payment and the range of medical cost that a flat rate is applied to. 4) The extension of the range doesn't make any substantial decrease in patient's cost-sharing. 5) The fixed amount of co-payment is more sensitive than a range to total variations of patient's cost-sharing. Based on the above, the budget impacts of a new co-payment system were estimated for each co-insurance rate, according to given scenarios. The results range from -59 billion Won (-8.5%) to 16 billion Won(2.3%).

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.241-246
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• 2017

The comparative results of corrosion testing in humid tropical atmosphere in rural and coastal areas for hot dipped zinc coatings are presented below. The test was conducted in outdoor conditions over a period of five years. The mass loss and other performance characteristics of two types of zinc coatings were evaluated, analysed and discussed in relation to the climatic and environmental parameters. The corrosion rates of the coatings exposed to coastal conditions were about three times higher than the corrosion rates appreciated in rural conditions. The data demonstrates that the corrosion process obeys an equation of the form $M=At^n$, where M is the loss of metal and t is the time of exposure. A and n are constants which values depend on the environmental characteristics and the physicochemical behavior of the corrosion products respectively. Corrosion is strongly influenced by atmospheric time of wetness (TOW) and airborne salinity. The nature and composition of corrosion products are also considered. Simonkolleite, a major crystalline phase, was found in the zinc corrosion products exposed to coastal conditions, while zinc hydroxide and zinc hydrosulfate are easily found in rural settings.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.78-85
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• 2018

Effect of ball milling treatment on the hydrochloric acid leaching performance of black dross was investigated to recover alumina. Ball milling time and speed showed limited effect on the leaching behavior of the alumina in the mechanically dross. Under the optimum mechanical activation condition (for 1h at 700 rpm), the leaching of alumina in hydrochloric acid solution was significantly affected by leaching time and reaction temperature. MgO was completely dissolved in most of the leaching conditions, while a small amount of Ca, Fe, Si and Ti oxides was dissolved. Although 80% of alumina was dissolved, the dissolved minor components such as Ca, Fe, Mg, Si and Ti oxides should be separated to recover pure alumina solution.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.1-7
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• 2020

This paper investigates the determinants on decision to conduct seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) of listed companies on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange in Vietnam. Seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) are defined as the issue of more stocks by a firm to raise more capital after a primary issue. Using panel data collected from audited financial statements of 99 listed companies on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange during 2014-2018, the study employs a logit regression model by fixed effects method to examine factors that affect the decision to implement seasoned equity offerings of those companies. The findings of this study show that profit, revenue growth and company's size have a positively significant impact on the decision, while dividend pay-out ratio negatively significantly influences the equity issuing decision. Furthermore, these results are robust after controlling for the forms of equity offerings, i.e. bonus stocks, stock dividends and rights to buy shares. These findings are consistent with economic theories such as agency theory, pecking order theory, and growth opportunity theory, and also could be explained by the real situations of the Vietnamese stock exchange. This study has important implications for corporate managers, policy makers and investors.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.328-331
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• 2008

Corrosion behaviour of water intake gate steel structures with different protective measures was investigated. Five material alternatives were taken for investigation, including: imported and recycled stainless steel, carbon steel with hot zinc spraying, painting and composite coatings. Results of corrosion rate for carbon steel, SUS 304, hot zinc spray coats in three water systems of Mekong river basin (saline, blackish and fresh) were also presented. Corrosion rate of carbon steel decreased with decreasing salinity in the investigated water environments. Meanwhile, these values for zinc coated steel, behaved by another way. Environmental data for these systems were filed and discussed in relation with corrosion characteristics. Method of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was applied in materials selection for water intake gate construction. From point of Life Cycle Cost (LCA) the following ranking was obtained: Zinc sprayed steel < Recycled stainless steel < Composite coated steel < Painting steel < SUS 304 From investigated results, hot zinc spray coating has been applied as protective measure for steel structures of water intake systems in Mekong river basin.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.21-34
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• 2008

Objectives : This paper analysed the alternative methods of calculating conversion factor for oriental medicine in the National Health Insurance and estimated the conversion factor(reimbursing price level) of the oriental medical services, based on health insurance claims data and macro economic data. Methods : Comparing cost accounting method, SGR model, and index model to estimate conversion factor in the national health insurance, six empirical models were derived depending on the scope of revenue considered in financial indicators. Classifications of data and sources used in the analysis were identified as officially released by the government. Results and Conclusion : Cost accounting analysis and SGR model showed a two digit decrease in the physician fee schedule of oriental medical services in the national health insurance, while index model indicated a positive increase in the fee reimbursed. As expected, SGR model measured an overall trend of health expenditures rather than an individual financial status of medical institutions, and index model properly estimated the level of payments to oriental medical doctors. Upon a declining share of health expenditures on oriental medicine, a global budget system fixed to a flat rate of total budget could be an opportunity as well as a challenge.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.77-84
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• 2017

White and black dross are resulted from the recycling of aluminum. There are no established processes to recover valuable materials from black dross. Hydrometallurgical processes seem to be suitable for the treatment of aluminum dross. The salts in the black dross are recovered by dissolving with water. The residues are treated by either alkaline or acid leaching. Although the leaching rate of alumina by NaOH is lower than that by acid, its intermediates are more suitable to the production of alumina-based materials. The future direction for the treatment and recovery of valuable materials from aluminum dross is discussed.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.10
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• pp.47-56
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• 2021

It is unavoidable for businesses, especially commercial banks, to compete with other firms and financial institutions in a globalized and internationalized world. Basel I, II, and III were developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision with the primary purpose of supporting banks in dealing with potential risks and enhancing their ability to absorb losses. Basel II and III require the minimum capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 8% and 10.5%, respectively. This paper estimates the optimal CAR of 26 commercial banks in Vietnam from 2016 to 2020 using the two-stage DEA method. According to the empirical findings, banks with ideal CARs exceeding 8% (as defined by Basel II) and 10.5 percent (as defined by Basel III) account for approximately 98 percent and 88 percent of all banks, respectively. Furthermore, 75.83 percent of all banks need to boost their existing CAR to achieve the optimal level of CAR as well as obtain the best performance. On average, the optimal CAR of state-owned banks is higher than other joint-stock banks, respectively 26 percent and 19 percent. Consequently, it is recommended for Vietnam commercial banks to reach optimal CAR and comply with the new policy set by Basel III with the purpose of approaching the efficient frontier.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.557-570
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• 2019

In this study, a novel hierarchical approach is investigated to extract coronary vessel from X-ray angiogram. First, we propose to combine Decimation-free Directional Filter Bank (DDFB) and Homographic Filtering (HF) in order to enhance X-ray coronary angiographic image for segmentation purposes. Because the blood vessel ensures that blood flows in only one direction on vessel branch, the DDFB filter is suitable to be used to enhance the vessels at different orientations and radius. In the combination with HF filter, our method can simultaneously normalize the brightness across the image and increases contrast. Next, a coarse-to-fine strategy for iterative segmentation based on Otsu algorithm is applied to extract the main coronary vessels in different sizes. Furthermore, we also propose a new approach to segment very small vessels. Specifically, based on information of the main extracted vessels, we introduce a new method to extract junctions on the vascular tree and level of nodes on the tree. Then, the window based segmentation is applied to locate and extract the small vessels. Experimental results on our coronary X-ray angiography dataset demonstrate that the proposed approach can outperform standard method and attain the accuracy of 71.34%.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.47-60
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• 2023

Purpose: During and after Covid-19 pandemic, technology has emerged as a key factor in supporting the recovery of the economy and the rise of living standards. This study examines seven factors affecting the intention of food delivery apps usage, which include Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence, Hedonic Motivation, Price Value, and Habit, and how much influence they have on the customers' behavioral continuance of food delivery apps after Covid-19 Pandemic. Research methodology: This research is a quantitative descriptive research with 473 qualified respondents from 550 respondents collected. Besides using the UTAUT2 model (Venkatesh et al., 2012), Information Quality was added to give a better explanation for the consumers' intention towards continuance behavior using food delivery apps. The collected data is then processed using SPSS 22.0. Results: Habit factors and Information Quality factors have significant positive effects on promoting food delivery apps usage intention, which in turn influences continuance behavior. In addition, Habit factors and Information Quality factors together have an effect of 48.57% on Behavioral Intention. Conclusion: The result proves that positive habits and food information quality can increase the usage intention towards the behavioral continuance of consumers. Higher usage frequency can be improved by increasing these two factors.