• Title/Summary/Keyword: Social costs

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Development of a Portable Automatic Auditory Response Tester for Hearing Loss Screening (난청감별을 위한 휴대용 자동 청성반응 검사기의 개발)

  • Kim, Soo-Chan
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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    • v.49 no.2
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    • pp.38-45
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    • 2012
  • If an infant with congenital hearing loss is diagnosed in good time and get proper treatment as soon as possible, treatment effect could be maximized and the social costs could be considerably reduced. For these reasons, the medical equipment to screen hearing impairment objectively is needed. The ABR(auditory brainstem response) is typical diagnostic tools for this purpose but there are drawbacks in sense that it does not have frequency specificity and shows hearing information of usually high frequency band. The ASSR(auditory steady-state response) is excellent in frequency specificity, but the rate of wrong diagnosis is slightly high. In this study, we proposed the system which can measure both the ABR and the ASSR, and can show the objective and quantitative indices(Fsp and F-test). It was designed to allow various tests without hardware modification by minimizing hardware components and by increasing software roles. The objective assessment of the developed system was evaluated by experiments with 10 normal persons.

Design and Implementation of an IoT Device for the Effective Screening of Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment

  • Kim, Hansoo
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.24 no.12
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    • pp.119-126
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    • 2019
  • Korea is rapidly becoming an aging society due to lower birth rate and longer life expectancy. As elderly diseases are of a serious concern, the number of patients with dementia has been increasing significantly. For now, it has become a nationwide problem, as dementia is difficult to manage and requires a lot of social costs. To solve this, an IoT device has been devised that efficiently screens Mild Cognitive Impairment(MCI), the early stage of dementia. To design and implement the device, the latest IoT technology is introduced, the optimized Korean Version of Hasegawa Dementia Scale Revised(K-HDS) is utilized, and convenient service scenario with user-friendly design is applied. As a result, the symptoms of MCI have been screened quickly with convenient operation, which lead to the healthier society by the prevention of dementia.

Changes in financial burden of health expenditures by income level (소득 계층별 의료비 부담의 추이와 정책과제)

  • Kim, Tae-Il;Huh, Soon-Im
    • Health Policy and Management
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.23-48
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    • 2008
  • Although the universal health insurance, National Health Insurance (NHI), have improved access to health care and financial burden of health care costs for Koreans, limited coverage of the NHI leads to high out-of-pocket payment for health care. This study examines financial burden of household health expenditures by income level. Data from the Urban Household Expenditure Survey from 1985 through 2005 is analyzed and household expenditure is used as a proxy measure for income. Health expenditures include spending for inpatient care, ambulatory care and pharmaceuticals. If a household spends health expenditure above 40% of household consumption except for foods, that is defined as catastrophic health expenditure. Access to health care for the lowest income group had been improved for two decades relative to other income groups as well as in absolute term. However, both financial burden of health expenditures and the proportion of households that experienced catastrophic health expenditure had been increased in the lowest income group. Study findings have several policy implications. First, in terms of financial burden of health expenditures. the differences among income groups decreased until 2000 but it was worsen in 2005. This suggests that recent policies for extending NHI coverage are not enough to improve the disparity by income level. Second, a differential catastrophic coverage by income level would be an effective strategy that relieves financial burden for low income group. Third, since the catastrophic coverage is applied to only covered services by the NHI, additional strategy for uncovered services should be considered.

The Outcomes and Tasks of Act on Medical Dispute Mediation (의료분쟁조정법 시행에 따른 성과와 과제)

  • Hyun, Doo-Yoon
    • The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.117-144
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    • 2013
  • After several bills for the reasonable medical dispute resolution had been proposed for over twenty years, "Act on Remedy for Damage from Medical Accident and Medical Dispute Mediation" was eventually enacted on April 7, 2011 and came into effect from April 8, 2012. This study evaluates the achievements and results of the past year, suggesting the future improvements or tasks. The main issue of Act on Medical Dispute Mediation is Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency. Therefore, the success of the Act depends on the outcomes of Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency. Although the Act has been enforced for only one year, this paper examines the outcomes of the Agency with limited materials for its development. Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency was established for rapid, fair, and effective medical dispute resolution. Thus, the evaluation of the performances of the Agency is based on the 1) rapidness, 2) fairness, and 3) effectiveness of the dispute resolution. To sum up, the system earned positive evaluations as for the rapidness and fairness, but some problems were indicated with regard to the effectiveness. As the system of medical dispute mediation and arbitration in Korea has no parallel in the world, other countries show many interests in it. The rapid and fair medical dispute resolution is of benefit in both patients and medical institutes and decreases social costs. As the Act had a difficult passage through Parliament, it should be maintained and improved continuously.

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Planning Health Promotion Program in Workplace (산업장 건강증진 프로그램 개발에 관한 연구 -건강행위의 변화의도 예측요인 및 대상의 유형 분류를 중심으로-)

  • Coon, Kyeong-Ja;Kim, Hwa-Joong
    • Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.5-29
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    • 1994
  • In recent years, interests in health promotion have been stimulated by the epidemiological transition from infectious to chronic diseases as lead ing causes of death, the aging of the population, rapidly escalating health care costs, and epidemiologic findings linking individual risk to morbidity and mortality. It is not surprising that the workplace has been targeted as a promising setting for health promotion. In Korea, national attention to the opportunities for workplace health promotion began in the first 1990s. But there is no in depth study to identify the relating factors to the health promotion program in the workplace. The objective of this study is behavioral and physical characteristics to find that in crease the person's risk for a range of health problems and to analysis other characteristics to influence the degree of his/her intention to change health behavior. In addition, this study is purposed to present the process of planning health promotion program in the workplace. To accomplish these objectives, one workplaces was selected. And 363 employees in those workplaces were served as subjects for the study. Major findings in this study are as follows. (1) They have many risk factors such as smoking, drinking, lack of sleep, law rate of regular exercise, irregular eating, stress. (2) Some of the health risk factors such as smoking, drinking, and stress have the negative correlation to the intention to change. (3) Among cognitive and socio-environmental factors, significant predictors to the intention are attitude and social support. (4) In the cluster analysis to segment the target population in to homogeneous unit, three clusters of lifestyle are specified. (5) Smoking cessation and exercise program are planned for the risk group to change their behavior.

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A Design Study of Standard Indicators for Evaluating the Technical Performance of an NCS Core Vocational Competence System (직업기초능력 평가시스템의 기술성능 평가를 위한 표준지표 설계 연구)

  • Kim, Seung-Hee;Chang, Young-Hyeon
    • The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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    • v.17 no.5
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    • pp.111-117
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    • 2017
  • The National Competency Standards (NCS) was designed to implement a competence-based society and solve the problem of inconsistency between the industrial field and education, training, and certification system. This study designed and developed the Korean NCS core vocational competence system, in accordance with the NCS, as an infrastructure to solve fundamental problems such as re-education and the social costs that are incurred in the workplace. Further, this study designed and developed standard indicators to evaluate the technical performance of the system for the global advancement of the Korean NCS core vocational competence system. The NCS core vocational competence system has been developed as an appropriate response type for multiple devices such as computers, tablet PCs, and cellular phones. For the global advancement of the Korean NCS core vocational competence system, this study designed and developed 10 performance evaluation indicators in accordance with 10 global standards, such as linkage-target operating system, interface protocol, packet format, encryption, class component, simultaneous access number, supervisor-to-testtaker response speed, server-to-admin response speed, auto-recovery speed for test answers, and real-time answer transmission speed.

Evaluation and Challenges of the 'Verified Report System' to reduce False Alarm (오경보 감소를 위한 '선별신고제도'의 평가와 과제)

  • Lee, Sanghun
    • Convergence Security Journal
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.27-36
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    • 2015
  • A discussion on false alarm is a series of problems about a waste of police resources. The the false alarm primarily increase machine the cost of security firm but ultimately increase the costs of national and social management. Verified Report System has been in operation since July 1, 2013, We could analyze the actual operation of 112 report on false alarm rate was 82.4% before this system launched, but after implementation of the Verified Report System, this rate level downs below 69.7% records. So 12.7% is declined at the rate of false alarm. However, the actual alarm rate of Electronic Security itself is just only 0.3 % in the total number of cases responding in contrast to Police is considerable. It is more urgent to evolve the Verified Report System, so penalty system against the false alarm, Police registration system of sensors, and strengthening of the task of the company for installation and management of detection equipment are urgently needed.

An Integrated Epidemiological and Economic Analysis of Vaccination against Highly Pathogenic Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam

  • Zhang, Haifeng;Kono, Hiroichi;Kubota, Satoko
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.27 no.10
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    • pp.1499-1512
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    • 2014
  • The purposes of this study are to assess pig farmers' preference for highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) vaccine, and estimate the cost and benefit of PRRS vaccination in Vietnam. This study employed an integrated epidemiological and economic analysis which combined susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) model, choice experiment (CE) and cost-benefit analysis (CBA) together. The result of SIR model showed the basic reproduction number ($R_0$) of PRRS transmission in this study is 1.3, consequently, the optimal vaccination percentage is 26%. The results of CE in this study indicate that Vietnam pig farmers are showing a high preference for the PRRS vaccine. However, their mean willingness to pay is lower than the potential cost of PRRS vaccine. It can be considered to be one of the reasons that the PRRS vaccination ratio is still low in Vietnam. The results of CBA specified from the whole society's point of view (Social perspective), the benefits of PRRS vaccination are 2.3 to 4.5 times larger than the costs. To support policy making for increasing the PRRS vaccination proportion, this study indicates two ways to increase the vaccination proportion: i) decrease vaccine price by providing a subsidy, ii) provide compensation of culling only for PRRS vaccinated pigs.

Availability evaluation of automatic inspection equipment using line scan camera for concrete lining (라인스캔 카메라를 이용한 콘크리트 라이닝 자동점검진단 장비 활용성 평가)

  • Lee, Gyu-Phil;Lim, Hyung-Joon;Kim, Jeong-Heum
    • Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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    • v.22 no.6
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    • pp.643-653
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    • 2020
  • The concrete lining inspection by inspector after traffic control poses various problems such as congestion caused by traffic control and social loss costs resulting from it, and risks of traffic accidents and safety accidents for inspectors et al. To solve the problems, the concrete lining inspection has been carried out using automatic inspection equipment and image analysis that can be objectively and quantitatively investigated in overseas. In this study, to solve the problems of concrete lining inspection by inspector and to review improvement plan for inspection, inspection was carried out using automatic inspection equipment for ◯◯ tunnel that precision safety diagnosis has been conducted in 2019. Analysis was carried out for both inspection results. Automatic inspection equipment investigated defects in concrete lining such as cracks more accurately than precision safety diagnosis.

Estimating the Economic Burden of Premature Mortality Caused by Cancer in Iran: 2006-2010

  • Karami-Matin, Behzad;Najafi, Farid;Rezaei, Satar;Khosravi, Ardashir;Soofi, Moslem
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.2131-2136
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    • 2016
  • Background: Cancer is currently one of the main public health problems all over the world and its economic burden is substantial both for health systems and for society as a whole. To inform priorities for cancer control, we here estimated years of potential life lost (YPLL) and productivity losses due to cancer-related premature mortality in Iran from 2006 to 2010. Materials and Methods: The number of cancer deaths by sex and age groups for top ten leading cancers in Iran were obtained from the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. To estimate the YPLL and the cost of productivity loss due to cancer-related premature mortality, the life expectancy method and the human capital approach were used, respectively. Results: There were 138,228 cancer-related deaths in Iran (without Tehran province) of which 76 % (106,954) were attributable to the top 10 ranked cancers. Some 63 % of total cancer-related deaths were of males. The top 10 ranked cancers resulted in 106,766,942 YPLL in total, 64,171,529 (60 %) in males and 42,595,412 (40%) in females. The estimated YPPLL due to top 10 ranked cancers was 58,581,737 during the period studied of which 32,214,524 (54%) was accounted for in males. The total cost of lost productivity caused by premature deaths because of top 10 cancers was 1.68 billion dollars (US$) from 2006 to 2010, ranging from 251 million dollars in 2006 to 283 million dollars in 2010. Conclusions: This study showed that the economic burden of premature mortality attributable to cancer is significant for Iranian society. The findings provide useful information about the economic impact of cancer for health system policy/decision makers and should facilitate planning of preventive intervention and effective resource allocation.