• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.349-357
• /
• 2017

The design of reinforced concrete structures strongly depends on the value of the compression concrete strength used for the structural components. Given the uncertainties involved on the materials quality provided by concrete manufacturers, in the construction stage, these components may be either over or under-reinforced respect to the nominal condition. If the structure is under reinforced, and the deficit on safety level is not as large to require the structure demolition, someone should assume the consequences, and pay for the under standard condition by means of a penalty. If the structure is over reinforced, and other failure modes are not induced, the builder may receive a bonus, as a consequence of the higher, although unrequested, building resistance. The change on the building safety level is even more critical when the structure is under a seismic environment. In this research, a reliability-based criteria, including the consideration of expected losses, is proposed for bonification/penalization, when there are moderated differences between the supplied and specified reinforced concrete strength for the buildings. The formulation is applied to two hypothetical, with regular structural type, 3 and 10 levels reinforced concrete buildings, located on the soft soil zone of Mexico City. They were designed under the current Mexican code regulations, and their responses for typical spectral pseudoaccelerations, combined with their respective occurrence probabilities, are used to calculate the building failure probability. The results are aimed at providing objective basis to start a negotiation towards a satisfactory agreement between the involved parts. The main contribution resides on the explicit consideration of potential losses, including the building and contents losses and the business interruption due to the reconstruction period.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.65-71
• /
• 2014

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, has seen a boom in construction in recent years. The old Baku city has been rapidly transforming into a new hub of high-rise buildings and lively cultural centers hosting the Euro Vision Song Contest in 2012 and European Games in 2015. A major population shift to Baku from its suburbs and the countryside has resulted in the doubling of Baku's population in the 4 years between 2009 and 2013. As of January 2013, Baku's population reached four million people, 43% of the citizens in Azerbaijan according to The State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan. With this trend, the city needs more high-rise buildings to accommodate rapidly increasing demands for more housing and business space. Until the Azerbaijan Seismic Building Code was published in 2010 and became effective, many different seismic criteria, in terms of building codes and seismic intensities, were used for all new high-rise projects in Baku. Some designers used the SNIP (Russian) code with seismic level 9 or level 8 with 1 point penalty. Others used the Turkish code with Seismic Zone 1, UBC 97 with Zone 2 through 4, or IBC with Sa = 0.75 g through 1.0 g. The seismic intensity is now clarified with the Azerbaijan Seismic Building Code. However, the Azerbaijan Seismic Building Code is appropriate for low-rise buildings applications but may be inappropriate for high-rise project applications. This is because the code-defined response spectrum yields unrealistically conservative seismic forces for high-rise buildings with long periods, as compared to those determined by other internationally accepted building codes. This paper provides observations and recommendations for code-based seismic load assessment of high-rise buildings in the Baku area.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.721-729
• /
• 1995

The Korean optimal nuclear fuel cycle strategy from the year 2000 to 2030 is derived using linear programming. The fuel cycle cost, the cost uncertainty, and the natural uranium consumption are used as the criteria for the optimization. These objectives are compromised by fuzzy decision-making technique which maximizes the minimum degree of satisfaction among the three objectives. The options for the back-end fuel cycle are direct disposal, reprocessing, and DUPIC. The optimal fuel cycle strategy of Korea is to start reprocessing in around 2010 and increase its capacity with the maximum of 800 tHM in around 2025, and to star DUPIC processing in 2025. The cot uncertainty and the natural uranium consumption of the optimal fuel cycle strategy are reduced by 7.1％ and 6.1％, respectively, at the cost penalty of 5.4％ compared with the cost-only optimal solution.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.97-114
• /
• 1996

INSTRODUCTION Service quality is, unlike goods quality, an abstract and elusive constuct. Service quality and its requirements are not easily understood by consumers, and also present some critical research problems. However, quality is very important to marketers and consumers in that it has many strategic benefits in contributing to profitability of marketing activities and consumers' problem-solving activities. Moreover, despite the phenomenal growth of medical service sector, few researchers have attempted to define and model medical service quality. Especially, little research has focused on the evaluation of medical service quality and patient satisfaction from the perspectives of both the provider and the patient. As competition intensifies and patients are demanding higher quality of medical service, medical service quality and patient satisfaction has emerged as a critical research topic. The major purpose of this article is to explore the concept of medical service quality and its evaluation from both nurse and patient perspectives. This article attempts to achieve its purpose by (1)classfying critical service attibutes into threecategories(satisfiers, hygiene factors, and performance factors). (2)measuring the relative importance of need criteria, (3)evaluating SERVPERF model and SERVQUAL model in medical service sector, and (4)identifying the relationship between perceived quality and overall patient satisfaction. METHOD Data were gathered from a sample of 217 patients and 179 nurses in Seoul-area general hospitals. From the review of previous literature, 50 survey items representing various facets of the medical service quality were developed to form a questionnaire. A five-point scale ranging from "Strongly Agree"(5) to "Strongly Disagree"(1) accompanied each statement(expectation statements, perception statements, and importance statements). To measure overall satisfaction, a seven-point scale was used, ranging from "Very Satisfied"(7) to "Very Dissatisfied"(1) with no verbal labels for scale points 2 through 6 RESULTS In explaining the relationship between perceived performance and overall satisfaction, only 31 variables out of original 50 survey items were proven to be statistically significant. Hence, a penalty-reward analysis was performed on theses 31 critical attributes to find out 17 satisfiers, 8 hygiene factors, and 4 performance factors in patient perspective. The role(category) of each service quality attribute in relation to patient satisfaction was com pared across two groups, that is, patients and nurses. They were little overlapped, suggesting that two groups had different sets of 'perceived quality' attributes. Principal components factor analyses of the patients' and nurses' responses were performed to identify the underlying dimensions for the set of performance(experience) statements. 28 variables were analyzed by using a varimax rotation after deleting three obscure variables. The number of factors to be extracted was determined by evaluating the eigenvalue scores. Six factors wereextracted, accounting for 57.1% of the total variance. Reliability analysis was performed to refine the factors further. Using coefficient alpha, scores of .84 to .65 were obtained. Individual-item analysis indicated that all statements in each of the factors should remain. On 26 attributes of 31 critical service quality attributes, there were gaps between actual patient's importance of need criteria and nurse perceptions of them. Those critical attributes could be classified into four categories based on the relative importance of need criteria and perceived performance from the perspective of patient. This analysis is useful in developing strategic plans for performance improvement. (1) top priorities(high importance and low performance) (in this study)- more health-related information -accuracy in billing - quality of food - appointments at my convenience - information about tests and treatments - prompt service of business office -adequacy of accommodations(elevators, etc) (2) current strengths(high importance and high performance) (3)unnecessary strengths(low importance and high performance) (4) low priorities(low importance and low performance) While 26 service quality attributes of SERPERF model were significantly related to patient satisfation, only 13 attributes of SERVQUAL model were significantly related. This result suggested that only experience-based norms(SERVPERF model) were more appropriate than expectations to serve as a benchmark against which service experiences were compared(SERVQUAL model). However, it must be noted that the degree of association to overall satisfaction was not consistent. There were some gaps between nurse percetions and patient perception of medical service performance. From the patient's viewpoint, "personal likability", "technical skill/trust", and "cares about me" were most significant positioning factors that contributed patient satisfaction. DISCUSSION This study shows that there are inconsistencies between nurse perceptions and patient perceptions of medical service attributes. Also, for service quality improvement, it is most important for nurses to understand what satisfiers, hygiene factors, and performance factors are through two-way communications. Patient satisfaction should be measured, and problems identified should be resolved for survival in intense competitive market conditions. Hence, patient satisfaction monitoring is now becoming a standard marketing tool for healthcare providers and its role is expected to increase.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.169-195
• /
• 2020

With the increase in air transportation, air delays are inevitable, and the damage of air consumers is also increasing. In Korea, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced 「the Criteria for Protection of Users of Air Transportation」, but the Criteria does not include aviation delays except Tarmac delay, but this criteria is a only public notice, not an Act. Lately, a clause about Tarmac delay was newly established as Article 61bis of the Aviation Business Act, and was enacted from May 27, 2020. The Air carriers' Tarmac delay are subject to mandatory regulations. This research showed how lawsuits were implemented for the protection of aviation consumers related to aviation delays prior to the imposition of this article. In addition, the study examined at the public law level, whether the protection rights of aviation consumers is the fundamental right under the Constitution and whether the government should be the main subjects of consumer protection. And then we studied the effect of enforcement about the Tarmac Delay Rule of the United States. This rule acts as a federal regulation. Subsequently, the Biscone case presented that it was not easy for the US court to accept a lawsuit against the passengers for tarmac delay. There are limitations in remedying the damages of airline consumers due to delays either in Korea trial or the U.S. trial. Finally it needs strengthening the penalty to secure the effectiveness of the Tarmac delay clause regulations. In order to protect airline consumers, it was proposed that the protection of aviation consumer law should be established through the revision as the Enforcement Rules of the Airline Business Act.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.37-80
• /
• 2022

By analyzing informed consent and the refusal of emergency medical treatment (called patient dumping) under the current Emergency Medical Service Act, this study suggests that an emergency medical professional is only liable for patient dumping if their duty to protect the patient's life takes precedence over the patient's right to self-determination. In emergency medical situations, as in general medical situations, medical treatment should be performed after the emergency medical professional informs the patient about the medical treatment, including its necessity and methods, and obtains consent from the patient. Refusing or evading the performance of emergency medical services on the excuse of the informed consent not considering a waiver or alteration of informed consent requirements without reasonable reasons violates the Emergency Medical Service Act and thus makes an emergency medical professional liable to administrative disposition or criminal penalty. In other words, depending on the existence of a waiver of alteration of the informed consent, patient dumping may be established. If the patient is a minor or has no decision-making ability, and their legal representative makes a decision against the patient's medical interests, the opinion of the legal representative is not unconditionally respected. A minor also has the right to decide over their body, and the decisions of their legal representatives should be in the patient's best interests. If the patient refuses treatment, in principle, the obligation of life protection of emergency medical professionals is the top priority. However, making these decisions in the aforementioned situations in the emergency medical field is difficult because of the absence of explicit regulations regarding these exceptional problems. This study aims to organize the following precedents of the Supreme Court of Korea. The court states that, when balancing the conflicting interests between the duty to provide emergency medical service and the duty to inform is unavoidable for emergency medical professionals, they should put the duty to protect the patient's life ahead of the duty to inform if the patient's life matters. Exceptionally, when a patient has seriously considered whether they should receive treatment before the emergency medical situation, their right to self-determination can be considered equal to the obligation of emergency medical professionals to provide emergency medical treatment. This research also suggests that an amendment of the Emergency Medical Service Act should include the following. First, the criteria for determining the decision-making ability of emergency patients should consist of medical content. Second, additional consent from a medical professional is unnecessary for first-aid treatment. Finally, new provisions for emergency medical obligations for minors, new provisions for the decision standard when there are conflicting opinions about the treatment of a patient, and new penalty provisions for professionals who suspend emergency medical examinations and treatments need to be established.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
• /
• v.105
• /
• pp.95-126
• /
• 2008

We are all too aware of the ravages of scientific misconduct in the Korean academic community. Plagiarism and fabricated research have become an important issue after many figures such scientist Hwang Woo-suk, former Education Minister Kim Beong-joon and former Korea University President Lee Phil-sang were involved in research ethics scandals. Recent case of falsified data is the instance of Seoul University investigator Hwnag Woo-suk admittted full responsibility for the fabrication and use of false data in a paper published in 2005. Another important lessons learned by Hwang case were that the need of international accepted standards about research misconduct, the matter of authorship, proper allocation of credit, respect for human subjects in scientific research and conflict of interests. And Education Minister Kim Byong-joon have drawn the attention of the general public to the issue of self-plagiarism. Important lessons learned by Kim case were that the need of clear criteria on what is considered plagiarism and historical application. Most recently, Korea University president Lee Phil-sang plagiarized his pupils' academic work. Important lessons learned by Lee case were that the need of after penalty about research misconduct, research mentoring, and desirable whistleblowing. And I suggested three major lessons learned by synthesized review. The fist is the need of public system and institution, the second is the role of media, and the third is the need and direction of research ethics education. The government, universities and research centers are aware of the matters and lessons learned about reseach ethics of Hwang, Kim and Lee cases. And they suggest to set up education programs, guidelines and institutional measures for research ethics.