• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.45-64
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• 2022

Purpose - This paper examines South Korea's potential status as a carbon leakage country, and the level of risk posed by the Korean emissions trading scheme (ETS) for Korean industries. The economic effects of border carbon adjustments (BCAs) to protect energy-intensive Korean industries in the process of achieving the carbon reduction target by 2030 through the Korean ETS are also analyzed. Design/methodology - First, using the Korean Input-Output (IO) table, this paper calculates the balance of emissions embodied in trade (BEET) and the pollution terms of trade (PTT) to determine Korean industries' carbon leakage status. Analyses of the risk level posed by carbon reduction policy implementation in international trade are conducted for some sectors by applying the EU criteria. Second, using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, three BCA scenarios, exemption regulations (EXE), reimbursement (REB), and tariff reduction (TAR) to protect the energy-intensive industries under the Korean ETS are addressed. Compared to the baseline scenario of achieving carbon reduction targets by 2030, the effects of BCAs on welfare, carbon leakage, outputs, and trading are analyzed. Findings - As Korea's industrial structure has been transitioning from a carbon importing to a carbon leaking country. The results indicate that some industrial sectors could face the risk of losing international competitiveness due to the Korean ETS. South Korea's industries are basically exposed to risk of carbon leakage because most industries have a trade intensity higher than 30%. This could be interpreted as disproving vulnerability to carbon leakage. Although the petroleum and coal sector is not in carbon leakage, according to BEET and PTT, the Korean ETS exposes this sector to a high risk of carbon leakage. Non-metallic minerals and iron and steel sectors are also exposed to a high risk of carbon leakage due to the increased burden of carbon reduction costs embodied in the Korean ETS, despite relatively low levels of trade intensity. BCAs are demonstrated to have an influential role in protecting energy-intensive industries while achieving the carbon reduction target by 2030. The EXE scenario has the greatest impact on mitigation of welfare losses and carbon leakage, and the TAF scenario causes a disturbance in the international trade market because of the pricing adjustment system. In reality, the EXE scenario, which implies completely exempting energy-intensive industries, could be difficult to implement due to various practical constraints, such as equity and reduction targets and other industries; therefore, the REB scenario presents the most realistic approach and appears to have an effect that could compensate for the burden of economic activities and emissions regulations in these industries. Originality/value - This paper confirms the vulnerability of the Korean industrial the risk of carbon leakage, demonstrating that some industrial sectors could be exposed to losing international competitiveness by implementing carbon reduction policies such as the Korean ETS. The contribution of this paper is the identification of proposed approaches to protect Korean industries in the process of achieving the 2030 reduction target by analyzing the effects of BCA scenarios using a CGE model.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.785-815
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• 2013

This paper analyzes the three issues related to the effect of environmental regulations on the Korean trades with gravity equation model: the effect on the Korean exports, the bilateral trade flows between the Korea and the trade partners, and the Korean international competitiveness. For all three issues we carried the empirical tests with fixed effect estimation methods for total industries, non-pollution industries, pollution industries, and also 16 individual pollution industries. We use industry panel data for the 120 largest trading countries with Korea for the years 2000-2010. The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is used as the proxy variable for the environmental regulation. The empirical result shows that while GDPs of both Korea and its trading partners are very important factors affecting positively the Korean trades for all industries, the environmental regulation of the importing country would be a definite trade barrier to the Korean pollution industries, but not a definite one for the non-pollution industries. In addition, the stricter environmental regulations of Korea's trade partners would weaken the Korean international competitiveness of Korean pollution industries. In this regard, the Porter Hypothesis would have not appeared in the Korean trades of pollution industries during the period observed in this study.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.149-156
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• 2018

Traditional medicines (TM) in Korea, China, and Japan share most of the theories and therapeutic tools, but there are also differences due to their unique histories and cultures. Here, we aim to identify the differences in the utilization of TM theory between three countries by analyzing herb usage data in terms of the related traditional theories. Herb usage data of each country was collected from "Investigation of Korean medicine use and herbal medicine consumption survey" (Korea), "Analytical report on circulation of key Chinese medicinal materials" (China), and "Survey report on raw material crude drug usage" (Japan). Fifty five herbs with sixty features belonging to five theoretical categories (four properties, five tastes, targeting meridians, treatment strategies, and herbal parts) were selected and analyzed. Weight Sum Model (WSM) and Network-Based Group Features (NBGF) were used to compare the theoretical characteristics of TM between three countries. For the statistical evaluation, we developed and applied Herb Set Enrichment Analysis (HSEA) for WSM and NBGF results. HSEA for WSM results revealed the kidney meridian were targeted more in Korea than Japan, while the spleen meridian were targeted more in Japan than Korea. Herbs with sour taste were used more in Japan than China. HSEA for NBGF results found that NBGF including warm, neutral, sweet, and tonifying features were more dominant in Korea and than Japan, while NBGF including cold, bitter, heat-clearing features were more dominant in Japan than the others. These results suggest that TM in Korea, China, and Japan have unique aspects of practice patterns and theoretical utilization.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.23-43
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• 2005

Industrial clusters are geographical concentrations of interconnected companies, specialised suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, and associated institutions (for example, universities, standard agencies, and trade associations) that combine to create new products and/or services in specific lines of business. At present, the concept of industrial cluster becomes very popular worldwide, policy makers at national, regional and local levels and business people in both forerunner and latecomer countries are keen to implement the cluster concept as an economic development model. Though understanding of clusters and related promoting policies varies from one place to another, the underlying benefits of clusters from collective learning and knowledge spillovers between participating actors strongly attract the attention of these people. In Thailand, a latecomer country in terms of technological catching up, the cluster concept has been used as a means to rectify weakness and fragmentation of its innovation systems. The present Thai government aspires to apply the concept to promote both high-tech manufacturing clusters, services clusters and community-based clusters at the grass-root level. This paper analyses three very different clusters in terms of technological sophistication and business objectives, i.e., hard disk drive, software and chili paste. It portrays their significant actors, the extent of interaction among them and the evolution of the clusters. Though are very dissimilar, common characteristics attributed to qualified success are found. Main driving forces of the three clusters are cluster intermediaries. Forms of these organizations are different from a government research and technology organization (RTO), an industrial association, to a self-organised community-based organization. However, they perform similar functions of stimulating information and knowledge sharing, and building trust among participating firms/individuals in the clusters. Literature in the cluster studies argues that government policies need to be cluster specific. In this case, the best way to design and implement cluster-specific policies is through working closely with intermediaries and strengthening their institutional especially in linking member firms/individuals to other actors in clusters such as universities, government R&D institutes, and financial institutions.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.81-88
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• 2009

Objectives: With more and more health economic evaluations being performed in many countries, the question of whether the results from the foreign studies can be transferred to other country is becoming important. The objective of this study was to conduct a case study using three transferability diagnosis tools for economic evaluation on rheumatoid arthritis. Methods: Three diagnosis tools were used to assess transferability: Welte's tool, Boulenger's and Urdahl's. Five researchers who have experience on economic evaluation made consensus on the evaluation through the semi-delphi method. Results: With Welte's tool, absolute and relative prices in healthcare, practice variation, health-status preference, productivity and work-loss time were evaluated as biased. The transferability information score by Boulenger's was 85.9%, which means qood quality reporting. In case of Urdahl's, research questions were well defined and reporting was transparent and explicitly stated. However, both the relevance of data inputs to Korea and robustness of model were relatively low. In conclusion the UK study on rheumatoid arthritis could be partially transferable to Korea, and will need modeling-based adjustments.

• Strategy21
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• s.43
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• pp.175-199
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• 2018

Recent marine territorial disputes in the East China Sea and the South China Sea have come to us as a great threat. China, which has recently established the China Coast Guard and has rapidly developed maritime security forces, is trying to overcome the various conflict countries with its power. Japan is also strengthening intensively its maritime security forces. Since Korea, China, and Japan are geographically neighboring and sharing maritime space in Northeast Asia, there is no conflict between maritime jurisdiction and territorial rights among the countries. The struggle for initiative in the ocean is fierce among the three coastal nations in Northeast Asia. therefore, Korea needs more thorough preparation and response to protect the marine sovereignty. As the superpowers of China and Japan are confronted and the United States is involved in the balance of power in strategic purposes, the East Asian sea area is a place where tension and conflict environment exist. China's illegal fishing boats are constantly invading our waters, and they even threaten the lives of our police officers. The issue of delimiting maritime boundaries between Korea and China has yet to be solved, and is underway in both countries, and there is a possibility that the exploration activities of the continental shelf resources may collide as the agreement on the continental shelf will expire between Korea and Japan. On the other hand, conflicts in the maritime jurisdictions of the three countries in Korea, China and Japan are leading to the enhancement of maritime security forces to secure deterrence rather than military confrontation. In the situation where the unresolved sovereignty and jurisdiction conflicts of Korea, China and Japan continue, and the competition for the strengthening of the maritime powers of China and Japan becomes fierce, there is a urgent need for stabilization and enhancement of the maritime forces in our country. It is necessary to establish a new long-term strategy for enhancing the maritime security force and to carry out it. It is expected that the Korean Coast Guard, which once said that it was a model for the establishment of China's Coast Guard as a powerful force for the enforcement of the maritime law, firmly establishes itself as a key force to protect our oceans with the Navy and keeps our maritime sovereignty firmly.

• Survey Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-26
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• 2011

Mortality for oldest-old age (aged 80 or over) in Korea has never been studied mainly due to lack of data leaving its quality aside. The rapid aging recently occurring in Korea, which no other country has never experienced, must introduce a drastic change in the structure of future population pyramid, requring a careful investigation on mortality level, pattern, and trend for the oldest-old age in Korea. For mortality trend, we need to extend the past mortality data, which has provided only an open-ended age interval 80 or 85 years and over, to age-specific mortality up to 115 years old. A prerequisite for such an extension is constructing a Korean standard mortality by which one can figure out the mortality level and pattern of the oldest-old age. A Korean standard mortality is proposed by applying one relational model and eleven functions from which we select best models for each sex in terms of three measures of fits and three consistencies of mortality. Then we extend the mortality of the open-ended age intervals by providing a method to avoid the longitudinal consistency of mortality.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.167-189
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• 2023

Korea has become the highest nitrogen balance (228 kg/ha) among 34 OECD member countries, and has the stigma of being a 'Nutrient overload country' as of 2019. Accordingly, research on the derivation and utilization of nutrient balance indicators and the 'regional nutrient management system' are being promoted to improve Korea's nutrient balance. It is necessary to support these policies and studies, form a public consensus on improving the nutrient balance, and evaluate the function of the public benefit. This paper aims to estimate the public benefit value of improving the nutrient balance based on an analysis of consumers' willingness to pay and recognition of Korea's nutrient excess for 600 consumers nationwide. As results, 21.2% of the respondents said they were aware of excessive nutrients in Korea, and 76.7% of the respondents said they were aware of the need for nutrient management. The average amount of intention to pay for the improvement of three pollution (soil, water quality, and air) that can occur due to a nutrient overload was ￦2,321.1 for soil pollution improvement, ￦2,391.2 for water pollution improvement, and ￦2,377.9 for air pollution improvement. The average willingness to pay for the three pollution reduction was ￦6,002.3. These results are expected to be used to form a public consensus on the balance of payments and to establish measures to enhance public interest values in the future.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.113-145
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• 2009

Recently, due to the globalization of the IT(Information Technology) market, devices and systems designed in one country are used in other countries as well. This phenomenon is becoming the key factor for increased interest on cross-cultural, or cross-national, research within the IT area. However, as the IT market is becoming bigger and more globalized, a great number of IT practitioners are having difficulty in designing and developing devices or systems which can provide optimal experience. This is because not only tangible factors such as language and a country's economic or industrial power affect the user experience of a certain device or system but also invisible and intangible factors as well. Among such invisible and intangible factors, the cultural characteristics of users from different countries may affect the user experience of certain devices or systems because cultural characteristics affect how they understand and interpret the devices or systems. In other words, when users evaluate the quality of overall user experience, the cultural characteristics of each user act as a perceptual lens that leads the user to focus on a certain elements of experience. Therefore, there is a need within the IT field to consider cultural characteristics when designing or developing certain devices or systems and plan a strategy for localization. In such an environment, existing IS studies identify the culture with the country, emphasize the importance of culture in a national level perspective, and hypothesize that users within the same country have same cultural characteristics. Under such assumptions, these studies focus on the moderating effects of cultural characteristics on a national level within a certain theoretical framework. This has already been suggested by cross-cultural studies conducted by scholars such as Hofstede(1980) in providing numerical research results and measurement items for cultural characteristics and using such results or items as they increase the efficiency of studies. However, such national level culture has its limitations in forecasting and explaining individual-level behaviors such as voluntary device or system usage. This is because individual cultural characteristics are the outcome of not only the national culture but also the culture of a race, company, local area, family, and other groups that are formulated through interaction within the group. Therefore, national or nationally dominant cultural characteristics may have its limitations in forecasting and explaining the cultural characteristics of an individual. Moreover, past studies in psychology suggest a possibility that there exist different cultural characteristics within a single individual depending on the subject being measured or its context. For example, in relation to individual vs. collective characteristics, which is one of the major cultural characteristics, an individual may show collectivistic characteristics when he or she is with family or friends but show individualistic characteristics in his or her workplace. Therefore, this study acknowledged such limitations of past studies and conducted a research within the framework of 'theoretically integrated model of user satisfaction and emotional attachment', which was developed through a former study, on how the effects of different experience elements on emotional attachment or user satisfaction are differentiated depending on the individual cultural characteristics related to a system or device usage. In order to do this, this study hypothesized the moderating effects of four cultural dimensions (uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs, collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, and power distance) as suggested by Hofstede(1980) within the theoretically integrated model of emotional attachment and user satisfaction. Statistical tests were then implemented on these moderating effects through conducting surveys with users of four digital devices (mobile phone, MP3 player, LCD TV, and refrigerator) in three countries (US, Germany, and Russia). In order to explain and forecast the behavior of personal device or system users, individual cultural characteristics must be measured, and depending on the target device or system, measurements must be measured independently. Through this suggestion, this study hopes to provide new and useful perspectives for future IS research.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.18
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• pp.8327-8333
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• 2016

Background: The recent epidemiologic transition in Thailand, with decreasing incidence of infectious diseases along with increasing rates of chronic conditions, including cancer, is a serious problem for the country. Breast cancer has the highest incidence rates among females throughout Thailand. Lampang is a province in the upper part of Northern Thailand. A study was needed to identify the current burden, and the future trends of breast cancer in upper Northern Thai women. Materials and Methods: Here we used cancer incidence data from the Lampang Cancer Registry to characterize and analyze the local incidence of breast cancer. Joinpoint analysis, age period cohort model and Nordpred package were used to investigate the incidences of breast cancer in the province from 1993 to 2012 and to project future trends from 2013 to 2030. Results: Age-standardized incidence rates (world) of breast cancer in the upper parts of Northern Thailand increased from 16.7 to 26.3 cases per 100,000 female population which is equivalent to an annual percentage change of 2.0-2.8%, according to the method used. Linear drift effects played a role in shaping the increase of incidence. The three projection method suggested that incidence rates would continue to increase in the future with incidence for women aged 50 and above, increasing at a higher rate than for women below the age of 50. Conclusions: The current early detection measures increase detection rates of early disease. Preparation of a budget for treatment facilities and human resources, both in surgical and medical oncology, is essential.