Interaction between Out-of-Pocket Maximum and Indemnity Health Insurance (본인 부담상한제와 민영 실손의료보험의 상호작용)
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- The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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- v.10 no.3
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- pp.667-673
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- 2024
This study aims to diagnose the issues arising from the relationship between the out-of-pocket maximum in health insurance and private indemnity health insurance and propose policy tasks for institutional improvement. Through literature research, the study analyzed the damage to consumers caused by the non-payment of refunds exceeding the out-of-pocket maximum and the changing role of indemnity insurance due to the strengthening of health insurance coverage. The results confirmed that unilateral interpretation of insurance clauses and incomplete sales practices infringe upon consumer rights, and that insurance premiums do not decrease despite the reduction in coverage of indemnity insurance. Therefore, the study emphasized the urgency of institutional improvements such as rationalization of product structure, transparency of risk rate calculation, and reinforcement of consumer information provision, as well as the need for social consensus on the rational division of roles between health insurance and private insurance. This study is significant in that it provides policy implications for the developmental reorganization of the healthcare system.
Objective: Hypothyroidism (HT) influences spermatogenesis and is associated with male infertility. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP), a biological product rich in growth factors, promotes tissue repair. In this study, the likely protective effects of PRP on testicular tissue damage in carbimazole (CBZ)-induced HT were evaluated. Methods: Forty male rats were divided into four groups. HT was induced by administering CBZ (1.35 mg/kg orally, for 45 days). Two doses of PRP (40 µL each, locally injected into the testis on days 15 and 30) were also given. After 45 days, blood samples were taken from the heart to measure triiodothyronine (T3), thyroxine (T4), and testosterone levels, and semen analysis was performed. For stereological assessment, the left testis was removed, fixed, embedded, sectioned, and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. The right testis was excised to evaluate antioxidant levels. Results: CBZ was demonstrated to induce HT, characterized by significant reductions in T3 and T4. HT was associated with decreased testicular weight, impaired sperm parameters, reduced testosterone concentration, diminished antioxidant activity, reduced volumes of testicular components, and lower total numbers of testicular cells of various types. When HT samples were treated with PRP, improvement was observed for all of these changes. This protective effect could be attributed to the growth factors present in PRP. Conclusion: PRP appears to prevent the structural changes in the testes and the deterioration in sperm quality caused by CBZ-induced HT. This protective effect is likely due to mitigation of oxidative damage and elevation of testosterone levels.
It is known that polymer concretes are 8~10 times more expensive than ordinary Portland cement concretes; therefore, in the production of polymer concrete products, it is very important to reduce the amount of polymer binders used because this occupies the most of the production cost of polymer concretes. In order to develop a technology for the reduction of polymer binders, smooth and spherical aggregates were prepared by the atomizing technology using the oxidation process steel slag (electric arc furnace slag, EAFS) and the reduction process steel slag (ladle furnace slag, LFS) generated by steel industries. A reduction in the amount of polymer binders used was expected because of an improvement in the workability of polymer concretes as a result of the ball-bearing effect and maximum filling effect in case the polymer concrete was prepared using the smooth and spherical atomized steel slag instead of the calcium carbonate (filler) and river sand (fine aggregate) that were generally used in polymer concretes. To investigate physical properties of the polymer concrete, specimens of the polymer concrete were prepared with various proportions of polymer binder and replacement ratios of the atomized reduction process steel slag. The results showed that the compressive strengths of the specimens increased gradually along with the higher replacement ratios of the atomized steel slag, but the flexural strength showed a different maximum strength depending on the addition ratio of polymer binders. In the hot water resistance test, the compressive strength, flexural strength, bulk density, and average pore diameter decreased; but the total pore volume and porosity increased. It was found that the polymer concrete developed in this study was able to have a 19% reduction in the amount of polymer binders compared with that of the conventional product because of the remarkable improvement in the workability of polymer concretes using the spherical atomized oxidation steel slag and atomized reduction steel slag instead of the calcium carbonate and river sand.
This study was conducted to investigate effect of the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor activity, the protective effect of the extract on SH-SY5Y cell death by
This study attempted to investigate the perception and usage status for meat products of dietitians in the food service business in Seoul and Gangwon province. 32.8% of dietitians decided the menu reflecting the taste of students. Most of the dietitians (89.2%) checked the manufacture date of the processed meat products when they were supplied. To address the question as to whether they could distinguish the difference among ham, pressed ham, and sausage, most of them answered; 'can distinguish a little' (47.5%) or 'can't distinguish' (36.7%). The most frequently provided processed meat products were ham (33.9%), followed by sausage (21.7%). However, it is assumed that the dietitians might have mistaken the pressed ham for the classic ham. The most common frequency of the serving processed meat product in the food services was once a month (41.6%). Most desired aspect of quality improvement for the processed meat products was answered as 'hygiene/safety' (31.5%), and followed by 'higher quality' (26%). In conclusion, the improvement of the product quality and the strengthening of public information would be prerequisites for expanding the use of processed meat products in the food services and business-to-business (B2B) market in the future.
Animal cell culture industry has a large market and an exponential growth rate among biological industry field. Chines hamster ovary(CHO) cells are the most widely used cell lines for recombinant protein production. They can avoid infection from polio, herpes, hepatitis B, HIV, measles, adenovirus and etc. Moreover it is easy to transfection recombinant genes and possible to suspension culture. Serum free media is one of the most important factor of protein production. Because serum has problems. Serum is not defined the contents until now, it has a number of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and unknown molecules that cause of risk involve in infection and high cost of product purification. CHO cell line cultured using serum free media were the basis of a very successful method to produce(glyco-)protein in mammalian cells, which are then used as pharmaceutical products. Also, the low protein content of the developed medium facilitates downstream processing and product purification. But non-adapted CHO cells have a limit of proliferation cultured using serum free media and it takes very long time to adapt non-adapted cells to serum free media. There are a number of causes of a limit of proliferation using serum free media. Absence of growth factors and growth stimulating molecules is a major factor of the reasons. It makes growth signals and moves cell cycle. And increase of cellular stress is another reason. It induces increase of intraceullar ROS concentration. The purpose of this study is about improvement of proliferation capacity of non-adapted CHO cells cultured using serum free media without adaptation process.
Introduction As consumers' purchase behavior change into a rational and practical direction, the discount store industry came to have keen competition along with rapid external growth. Therefore as a solution, distribution businesses are concentrating on developing PB(Private Brand) which can realize differentiation and profitability at the same time. And as improvement in customer loyalty beyond customer satisfaction is effective in surviving in an environment with keen competition, PB is being used as a strategic tool to improve customer loyalty. To improve loyalty among PB users, it is necessary to develop PB by examining properties of a customer group, first of all, quality level perceived by consumers should be met to obtain customer satisfaction and customer trust and consequently induce customer loyalty. To provide results of systematic analysis on relations between antecedents influenced perceived quality and variables affecting customer loyalty, this study proposed a research model based on causal relations verified in prior researches and set 16 hypotheses about relations among 9 theoretical variables. Data was collected from 400 adult customers residing in Seoul and the Metropolitan area and using large scale discount stores, among them, 375 copies were analyzed using SPSS 15.0 and Amos 7.0. The findings of the present study followed as; We ascertained that the higher company reputation, brand reputation, product experience and brand familiarity, the higher perceived quality. The study also examined the higher perceived quality, the higher customer satisfaction, customer trust and customer loyalty. The findings showed that the higher customer satisfaction and customer trust, the higher customer loyalty. As for moderating effects between PB and NB in terms of influences of perceived quality factors on perceived quality, we can ascertain that PB was higher than NB in the influences of company reputation on perceived quality while NB was higher than PB in the influences of brand reputation and brand familiarity on perceived quality. These results of empirical analysis will be useful for those concerned to do marketing activities based on a clearer understanding of antecedents and consecutive factors influenced perceived quality. At last, discussions about academical and managerial implications in these results, we suggested the limitations of this study and the future research directions. Research Model and Hypotheses Test After analyzing if antecedent variables having influence on perceived quality shows any difference between PB and NB in terms of their influences on them, the relation between variables that have influence on customer loyalty was determined as Figure 1. We established 16 hypotheses to test and hypotheses are as follows; H1-1: Perceived price has a positive effect on perceived quality. H1-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of perceived price on perceived quality. H2-1: Company reputation has a positive effect on perceived quality. H2-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of company reputation on perceived quality. H3-1: Brand reputation has a positive effect on perceived quality. H3-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of brand reputation on perceived quality. H4-1: Product experience has a positive effect on perceived quality. H4-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of product experience on perceived quality. H5-1: Brand familiarity has a positive effect on perceived quality. H5-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of brand familiarity on perceived quality. H6: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. H7: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer trust. H8: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer loyalty. H9: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer trust. H10: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer loyalty. H11: Customer trust has a positive effect on customer loyalty. Results from analyzing main effects of research model is shown as