• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.240-250
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• 2018

By the end of 2017, in a world of 7.6 billion people, there were inequalities in healthcare indices both within and between nations, and this gap continues to increase. Therefore, this study aims to understand the current status of regional inequalities in healthcare indices and to find an action plan to tackle regional health inequality through a geo-economic review in Korea. Since 2008, there was great inequality in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy by region in not only metropolitan cities but also districts in Korea. While the community health statistics from 2008-2017 show a continuous increase of inequality during the last 10 years in most healthcare indices related to noncommunicable diseases (except for some, like smoking), the inequality has doubled in 254 districts. Furthermore, health inequality intensified as the gap between urban (metropolitan cities) and rural regions (counties) for rates of obesity (self-reported), sufficient walking practices, and healthy lifestyle practices increased from twofold to fivefold. However, regionalism and uneven development are natural consequences of the spatial perspective caused by state-lead developmentalism as Korea has fixed the accumulation strategy as its model for growth with the background of export-led industrialization in the 1960s and heavy and chemical industrialization in the 1970s, although the Constitution of the Republic of Korea recognizes the legal value of balanced development within the regions by specifying "the balanced development of the state" or "ensuring the balanced development of all regions." In addition, the danger of a 30% decline or extinction of local government nationwide is expected by 2040 as we face not only a decline in general and ageing populations but also the era of the demographic cliff. Thus, the government should continuously operate the "Special Committee on Regional Balanced Development" with a government-wide effort until 2030 to prevent disparities in the health conditions of local residents, which is the responsibility of the nation in terms of strengthening governance. To address the regional inequalities of rural and urban regions, it is necessary to re-adjust the basic subsidy and cost-sharing rates with local governments of current national subsidies based mainly on population scale, financial independence of local government, or distribution of healthcare resources and healthcare indices (showing high inequalities) overall.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.53-89
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• 2014

Immigrant farmers work in various social and economic fields of activity, settling in their rural community. In this study, I inquired into the way of acting of immigrant farmers, based on the texts which were made in the precedent studies. The texts were transcriptions that were made by interviews with immigrant farmers. I classified immigrant farmers' activities into 8 groups that were related to; farming, nonfarm business, off-farm business, volunteering, participating in community organization, lifelong learning, leisure and social interaction in everyday life. And, I tried to capture the characteristics and meanings of those activities. The implications from this analysis are as followings: 1) most of immigrant farmers have small family farm so that they need nonfarm or off-farm jobs, 2) pluri-acivities of immigrant farm households can contribute to their community's economic viability, 3) their economic activities should be observed carefully in the perspective of self-help approach in community development as well as farm households' livelihood strategy, 4) immigrant farmers have many difficulties to participate in community, nevertheless community participation will improve the social capital, 5) gender-sensitive policy should be developed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.83-94
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• 2015

The area of domestic urban design and architecture has established its original characteristics as various programs and functions were created in the drastically changing society. Such features have been presented in a certain type of patterns or unique formations, which demand a gradual development of designs in harmony with the functions and roles of the city and thus designers are forced to continue thinking deeply on this matter in their own perspectives. In particular, such demands are outstandingly high in reality in historical cities such as Andong, which this study works on. As the design contest winner is based on the geographical characteristics and locality, Confucianism and seonbi(Korean classical scholar) spirit, which are regarded as a philosophy of value, how the traditional concepts could be reflected in the plan was the focus of the discussion. The conclusions deduced from such a background include the following. First, it is necessary to make an approach on the basis of the concept in traditional architecture at the complex planning level based on the ideology in the implementation plan that requires traditionality for a complex design with contemporary functions. Second, it is important to approach this as an exploration of a solution to globalize Confucian culture in the future based on the cultural characteristics of the region and the environmental characteristics of the surroundings. Third, beginning from a concept that explains the complex to a concept that explains individual buildings, it is necessary to reflect characteristics in which the realization of a traditional space is planned in three dimensions.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.242-264
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• 2016

Tourism is a major sector of the national and regional economy in Southeast Asia endowed with rich natural environment and a variety of cultural and historical heritages. Tourism has been recognized as the industry without chimneys. However, as tourism sector is getting larger and being globally standardized, various problems such as environmental degradation as well as profits leakage from locals have been gradually aggravated. Against negative impacts from massive tourism various efforts have been tried and community-based ecotourism(CBET), seeking environmental conservation and community development at the same time, has emerged as a noteworthy alternative. By comparing the two cases of CBET in Indonesia and Cambodia, this paper aims to review the current status and future challenges of community development through ecotourism in Southeast Asia's rural villages. In the concrete, this paper analyses in-depth on case of JED(the village ecotourism network) in Bali, Indonesia and CBET project in Ramsar wetland reserves of Steung Treng province, Cambodia and founds out the possibility and main obstacles of community developmental strategy through CBET. Both cases have proven the positive outcomes in terms of environmental protection, local people's awareness improvement, and direct/indirect economic gain from CBET project. However, there are significant, but differentiated limitations in management capacities and stabilities of internal governance of two villages. Both villages are still in need of brisk networks with and assistance from the outside. In the conclusion part, this paper suggests CBET development program in Southeast Asia through Korea's social enterprises as one of the possible ODA programs(in tourism sector).

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.4661-4664
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• 2012

Mammographic breast density is a known risk factor for breast cancer. To conduct a survey to estimate the distribution of mammographic breast density in Korean women, appropriate sampling strategies for representative and efficient sampling design were evaluated through simulation. Using the target population from the National Cancer Screening Programme (NCSP) for breast cancer in 2009, we verified the distribution estimate by repeating the simulation 1,000 times using stratified random sampling to investigate the distribution of breast density of 1,340,362 women. According to the simulation results, using a sampling design stratifying the nation into three groups (metropolitan, urban, and rural), with a total sample size of 4,000, we estimated the distribution of breast density in Korean women at a level of 0.01% tolerance. Based on the results of our study, a nationwide survey for estimating the distribution of mammographic breast density among Korean women can be conducted efficiently.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2009

In recent years, reductions in infant mortality have mainly been accomplished by improving the survival of premature and low birth weight infants, however premature infants still remain at great risk. The purpose of this study was to review the maternal child health service related to premature infants and to provide a future direction for improving maternal child health (MCH) in Korea. We reviewed two MCH services which are directly related to premature infants: 1) a registry and financial support program for families with a premature infant, and 2) financial support to build neonatal intensive care units in rural public hospitals. Suggestions are made for the development of a national vital signs record system to identify high risk infants and to monitor the trends in infant mortality due to prematurity. Prevention efforts and preconception care for childbearing women is also an important strategy to reduce the rate of preterm births. Finally, we need consider long-term follow-up plans for premature infants for a successful transit to the special education system. Developing MCH policy related to premature infants that decreases the occurrence of premature may decrease infant mortality, and also improve maternal and child health services.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.305-317
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• 2001

Effects on increased noise influenced residents on the urban areas as well as the rural areas because of rapidly increasing traffic volume and newly-constructed road. The object of this study is to better establish environmental policy for the year 2000s through analyzing current environment administration system in the field of noise and vibration. Noise and vibration administration system in Korea is composed of various standards in areas of noise environment, traffic noise regulation, living noise regulation, factory noise and vibration regulation, and aircraft noise regulation. Furthermore, there exists environment noise and vibration monitoring networking system. This study is to improve noise and vibration administration system through analyzing present condition and problems. This study suggests improved noise and vibration administration system by achieving four steps ; 1) goal establishment in noise and vibration administration system; 2) development of reduction mitigation method; 3) estimation of reduction mitigation method; 4) establishment of enforcement method. Proposed "Noise and Vibration Policy Committee" should be established to harmonize noise and vibration policy on scientific basis for the $21^{st}$ century.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.91-119
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• 2014

This study explored feasibility of social cooperatives as a strategy of struggle to social exclusion in the social services area based on the relationships between people. Is social cooperatives on the Fundamental Act on Cooperatives a new type of social welfare service providers comparing the social welfare foundations and social enterprises? Would be expected as social inclusion processes effects arising from the properties of cooperative in social welfare sector? If social welfare institutions function as an intermediate medium between government and users, social cooperatives can be performed function in the community in a variety of cooperative relationships with Multiple stakeholders, e.g. various service providers, care-givers, social workers, and users, etc., conflicting the interests. In this perspective, looked the possibility of social cooperatives as community welfare practice model.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.77-85
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• 2013

The efficient operation and management strategies of reservoirs in irrigation periods of drought events are an essential element for drought planning and countermeasure. Korea Rural Community Corporation has developed the real-time water level observation system of agricultural reservoirs to efficiently operate reservoirs, however, it is not possible to predict drought conditions, and only provides information of current situation. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate accurate irrigation vulnerability and efficiently reservoir operation rules using current water level. In this paper, the improvement methods of reservoir operation planning were developed with water supply vulnerability characteristic curves comparing to automatic water gauge at agricultural reservoirs. The 11 reservoirs were simulated applying the reservoir operation rules which was determined by irrigation vulnerability characteristic curves criteria and real time water level, and evaluated water supply situation in 2012 year. The analysis of results can be identified probabilistic possibility of water supply failures compared with the existing reservoir operation criteria. These results of efficient reservoir operation rules can be achieved enable irrigation planners to optimally manage available water resources for decision making, and contributed to maintain the water supply according to demand strategy for agricultural reservoirs management.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.47-64
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• 2020

For the past few years, the Korean government has been consistently expanding its national research & development budget to accelerate economic growth through technology innovation and the enhancement of international competitiveness in global markets. The objective of this paper is to define the concept and analyze the current status of national R&D programs by measuring R&D efficiencies. We determine R&D efficiency by reflecting inputs and outcomes of the five main agricultural R&D programs between 2010 to 2015, and by categorizing and regrouping figures that may affect R&D performance. Among 1,128 targeted projects, 832 projects with patents and thesis were selected for analysis in terms of measuring technology efficiency, pure technology efficiency, and efficiency of scale. Also, the Kruskal-Wallis test was also utilized as well. As a result of empirical analysis, figures that affected the efficiency level of national R&D programs included differences in research resources, research management levels and skills, and research field. This study can be utilized as a reference for re-establishing national agricultural R&D policies, such as enhancement of national technology competitiveness in the global market environment, improving and adapting to new agricultural conditions, market expansion, national agricultural R&D efficiency, aging rural population, agricultural management cost increase, and climate change mitigation.