• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2023

With the restriction of foreigners' entry into Korea due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fishery industry faced significant challenges in supplying migrant workers. In response to this, there is growing interest in methods that could facilitate the stable employment of migrant workers. This paper investigates whether the current system used for the employment of migrant workers in the fishery industry, which is highly dependent on them, adequately performs its function of providing a stable and skilled workforce amid the intensified labor shortage resulting from decreasing numbers of households with employment in the fishery and the aging Korean fishermen. To this end, past studies and government documents pertaining to the current system were analyzed, and a survey targeting the owners of offshore fishing boats that employ migrant workers was conducted. A total of 147 owners of fishing boats responded to the survey, and the data of 499 migrant workers employed by them were used for the analysis. The analysis indicated that the migrant fishermen had difficulty in acquiring minimum scores for the change of visa status according to the criteria for the Skilled Worker Points System. Furthermore, distinct differences were found between the characteristics and working conditions of migrant workers employed through the Employment Permit System (EPS) and the Foreign Seamen System. Based on this result, this paper suggests the reorganization of the skilled migrant worker system in the fishery industry and the expansion of the regional specialized visa pilot project.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 2023

The sustainability of fishing villages is threatened by manpower shortages due to population aging and poor settlement conditions. In the reality of poor fishing villages, the importance of women's labor is more emphasized than that of the past because female workers are key workers in fishing labor, processing and sales of marine products. However, policy support for female fishermen is not sufficient. The reason for this is that policy makers did not properly recognize the labor value of female fishermen. In fact, fishing villages have emphasized the importance of female workforce as a slogan, but there has been no attempt to estimate the labor value. There was not even a review of the methodology for estimating the value of labor that was attempted in similar fields. As a result, the policy importance of female fishermen was underestimated for there was no attempt to evaluate their value even though women had been continuously participating in the fishery from the past. Female fishermen's labor is under the dual labor structure of housework and fishing labor. Therefore, in this study, housework and fishing labor were estimated separately and the total labor value was calculated. The basic data necessary for estimating the labor value of female fishermen were obtained through a survey. The method of estimating the labor value of female fishermen was used in combination with the present income method and the total replacement cost method. As a result of the study, the total labor value of female fishermen was about 4.4 trillion won, which is about half of the total fishery production of 9 trillion won in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.229-237
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• 2024

The logistics industry is converging with digital technology and growing into various logistics automation systems. However, inspection and loading/unloading, which are mainly performed in logistics work, depend on human resources, and the workforce is shrinking due to the decline in the productive population due to the low birth rate and aging. Although much research is being conducted on the development of automated logistics systems to solve these problems, there is a lack of research and development on load stacking stability, which has the potential to cause significant accidents. In this study, loading boxes with various sizes and positions of the center of gravity were set up, and a method for stacking that with high stability is presented. The size of the loading box is measured using a depth camera. The loading box's weight and center of gravity are measured and estimated by a developed device with four loadcells. The measurement error is measured through various repeated experiments and is corrected using the least squares method. The robot arm performs load stacking by determining the target position so that the centers of gravity of the loading boxes with unbalanced masses with a random sequence are transported in alignment. All processes were automated, and the results were verified by experimentally confirming load stacking stability.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.53-64
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• 2024

Global population growth has resulted in an increased demand for food production. Simultaneously, aging rural communities have led to a decrease in the workforce, thereby increasing the demand for automation in agriculture. Drones are particularly useful for unmanned pest control fields. However, the current method of uniform spraying leads to environmental damage due to overuse of pesticides and drift by wind. To address this issue, it is necessary to enhance spraying performance through precise performance evaluation. Therefore, as a foundational study aimed at optimizing drone-based pest control technologies, this research evaluated water-sensitive paper (WSP) via density map estimation using convolutional neural networks (CNN) with a encoder-decoder structure. To achieve more accurate estimation, this study implemented multi-task learning, incorporating an additional classifier for image segmentation alongside the density map estimation classifier. The proposed model in this study resulted in a R-squared (R²) of 0.976 for coverage area in the evaluation data set, demonstrating satisfactory performance in evaluating WSP at various density levels. Further research is needed to improve the accuracy of spray result estimations and develop a real-time assessment technology in the field.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.158-163
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• 2024

Objectives: The present paper aimed to examine whether an aging workforce is associated with an increase in work-related fatal injuries and to explore the underlying reasons for this potential increase. Material and methods: Aged workers were defined as those who were at least 55 years old. Work-related fatalities were assessed in aged and young workers who were registered with the workers' compensation system in 2021 in the Republic of Korea. Total waged workers, based on raw data from the Local Area Labor Force Survey in 2021, were used as the denominator to estimate the work-related fatality rates. Results: Most work-related fatalities in the aged workers occurred among individuals working in the "construction sector" (58.9%), those with "elementary occupations (unskilled workers)" (46.1%), and those with the employment status of "daily worker" (60.8%). The estimated incidence (0.973/10,000) of work-related fatalities among aged workers was about four times higher than that (0.239/10,000) among younger workers. "Falling," "collision," "struck by an object," and "trip and slip" were more frequent types of work-related fatalities among aged workers relative to young workers. The category of "buildings, structures, and surfaces" was a more frequent cause of work-related fatalities among aged workers than among young workers. Conclusions: Aged workers had a higher incidence of work-related fatalities than young workers. Frequent engagement in precarious employment and jobs, coupled with the greater physical vulnerability of aged workers, were likely causes of their higher level of work-related fatal injuries.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.533-542
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• 2010

The objective of this study is to provide basic information and policy implications needed to balance the supply and demand for dietitian by projecting supply and demand for dietitian. The data from the Ministry of Health Welfare and Family on the number of licensed nutritionist, resident registration data of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and health insurance qualification data of the National Health Insurance Corporation were used to examine the current status of supply. To project the supply of nutritionist workforce, the in-out moves method and demographic method were used. The ratios of nutritionist to population and GDP, and that of other countries were applied as the demand projection method. According to the study results, the projection on the imbalance of supply and demand for dietitian by year 2021 differs depending on the method used. First, according to the results based on age-adjusted population ratio, there is an oversupply of 1,643 dietitians in year 2010, and 2,076 dietitians in year 2020. Second, although the projection on the imbalance of the supply and demand for dietitian differs depending on whether the GDD is calculated in won(￦) or dollar($). it is expected that there will be an oversupply in general. Third, as to the scenario using the nutritionist ratio in foreign countries, the oversupply of dietitian is likely in Korea, under any scenario, when comparing the nutritionist supply projection with the demand projection based on the nutritionist ratio in the United States. However, the projection of the supply and demand varies in each scenario when the European nutritionist ratio is applied. Under European 'scenario 1', an oversupply is expected, whereas under 'scenario 2', a shortage of supply is expected. A careful approach is required in interpreting the supply and demand projection using criteria of other countries, because dietitian assumes different roles and functions in each country. Although a slight oversupply of nutritionist workforce is projected, it does not cause a major problem as the demand for diet therapy is expected to rise due to aging and the increase of chronic diseases, and as the demand for clinical dietitians in hospitals increases. Accordingly, the demand for dietitians will rise and, in this context, the oversupply of nutritionist will not incur much problem. However, the nutritionist qualification is much too open in Korea, and this has a negative effect on the quality of the nutritionist workforce. Therefore, it is important that the nutritionist qualifications and requirements are reinforced in the future, enhance the quality level of the nutritionist supply, and maintain the balance between the supply and demand.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.1-29
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• 2019

This study estimates how changes in the female (aged 25 to 54) labor force participation rate (LFPR) following the historical experiences of the US and Japan would alter the future trend of the female economically active population by 2065, compared to the case in which the LFPR as of 2018 will remain unchanged. According to the results, the female labor force aged 25 to 54 will increase by 14% (about 797,000) and 15% (about 831,000), respectively, by 2042 if the female LFPR should change following the past trends of the US and Japan. In particular, the increase in the labor force is expected to be pronounced among females aged 30 to 44 who currently suffer high rates of job severance. The results of this study strengthen the prediction that the on-going population changes will not reduce much the overall economically active population in the near future. The result of a simulation based on the historical experiences of Japan suggests that, as least in the near future, policy efforts to encourage female labor supply will be more effective in alleviating the potential labor-market impacts of population changes, compared to policies aiming at increasing old-age employment.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.138-147
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• 2020

The construction field is one of the most representative job creation businesses, but it has been pointed out that the overall quality of the jobs is low because of the nature of the order-made production industry, such as unstable employment structure, aging workforce, etc.. Accordingly, the government plans to implement the "prevailing wage system" that guarantees a minimum wage for construction site workers. In reality, however, only a market wage could be used for a construction cost estimation because there was no standard for the prevailing wage. A comparative analysis of the prevailing wage and market wage was performed. This paper proposes a framework for estimating the reasonable prevailing wage in the construction industry. The results showed that the prevailing wage was estimated to be 4.7% lower than the market wage when the proposed framework is applied to the carpenters' case. This suggests that the proposed model could be used as an alternative for market wage considering the original purpose of the prevailing wage. This study will construct the basic data for scientific analysis on the wage, and finally, help estimate the reliable prevailing wage in the future.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.151-158
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• 2019

Patients with disabilities from various reasons such as disasters, injuries or chronic illness or elderly with limited body motion range due to aging are recommended to participate in rehabilitation programs at hospitals. But typically, it's not as simple for them to commute without help as they have limited access outside of the home. Also, regarding the perspectives of hospitals, having to maintain the workforce and have them take care of the rehabilitation sessions leads them to more expenses in cost aspects. For those reasons, in this paper, a home-based remote rehabilitation system using motion recognition is developed without needing help from others. This system can be executed by a personal computer and a stereo camera at home, the real-time user motion status is monitored using motion recognition feature. The system tracks the joint range of motion(Joint ROM) of particular body parts of users to check the body function improvement. For demonstration, total of 4 subjects with various ages and health conditions participated in this project. Their motion data were collected during all 3 exercise sessions, and each session was repeated 9 times per person and was compared in the results.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.41-51
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• 2019

With the aging of the population and the slowdown of the job market, elderly workers make up a large portion of the construction workforce. Also, due to the nature of the construction industry, where outdoor work is frequent, the weather has a more sensitive impact on elderly workers than on younger ones. The study aims to analyze the degree of weather risks exposed to elderly workers in the construction industry using the measure of work loss days. To that end, construction accidents that affected 28,514 elderly workers in seven cities from 2012 to 2016 (a total of 12,789 days) were analyzed to calculate work loss days per different weather factors. The results show that the elderly workers were seriously affected when the temperature was between $-12^{\circ}C$ and $-10^{\circ}C$, humidity between 55% and 60%, precipitation between 128mm and 181mm, and wind speed between 5.5m/s and 6.5m/s, with the highest work loss days. The combined effects between the weather factors were also analyzed to identify the conditiosn that leaded to high work loss days of elderly workers. This study contributes to effective safety management and pleasant working environment between weather factors and shedding light on the relationship between weather factors and work loss days of elderly workers.