• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-43
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• 2012

This paper examines the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU)'s recent legal challenge on patents held by Myriad Genetics on two genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) associated with a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Instead of analyzing the ACLU's objections to the BRCA patents in terms of its legal technicalities and normative ethical principles, this paper seeks to situate this legal case in the broader historical context of the shifting understanding of the relationship between private ownership, economic development, and the public interest in academic sciences. This paper first briefly chronicles a series of scientific developments and key legal decisions involving patenting of life forms, including genetically engineered micro-organisms animals and biological materials of human origins like cell cultures and genes, that led to the US Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO)'s official guidelines on human gene patenting in 2001. At another level, this paper analyzes the expansion of the scope of intellectual property rights in the life sciences in terms of shifting economic and legal assumptions about public knowledge and its role for economic development in the 1970s. I then show how these economic, legal, and ethical ideas that linked private ownership and the public interest have been challenged from the 1990s, calling for revisions in intellectual property laws regarding a wide array of life forms. The tragedy of the anticommons in human gene patenting, according to ACLU, has severely undermined creative scientific activities, medical innovations, access to health care and rights to life among cancer patient groups. ACLU's objection to human gene patenting on several US-constitutional grounds in turn suggests issues regarding intellectual property are critically linked to vital issues pertinent to the creative communities in arts and sciences, such as free exchange of ideas, censorship and monopoly, and free expression and piracy etc.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.127-164
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• 2014

This essay examines the motivations, goals, and assumptions of those who are participating in the appropriate technology movement in contemporary South Korea. In addition to analyzing books, articles, presentation materials, and media reports written by or about the "appropriate technologists," I have interviewed a few of them to hear their thoughts on appropriate technologies as well as inappropriate technologies. They choose to work on appropriate technology out of their good will for people in need, their Christian faith, and their pride in Korea's rapid and successful development. As a result, the appropriate technology movement in Korea does not engage in a critical evaluation of current sociotechnical systems, but instead takes an ethical and paternalistic stance in accepting and improving the given situation. Its apolitical character is effective in drawing a large number of participants, but it also limits their imagination and the movement's potential influence. Moreover, the movement's focus on "the other 90%" leads the participants to frame appropriate technology as something for "them" or "locals" rather than as something for "all of us." This essay concludes by suggesting that the appropriate technology movement in Korea should expand its scope from an ethical pursuit of technology to a political engagement with technology.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.39 no.12 s.173
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• pp.997-1012
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• 2006

We have presented a nonparametric stochastic approach for the SOI(Southern Oscillation Index) series that used nonlinear methodology called Nonlinear AutoRegressive(NAR) based on conditional kernel density function and CAFPE(Corrected Asymptotic Final Prediction Error) lag selection. The fitted linear AR model represents heteroscedasticity, and besides, a BDS(Brock - Dechert - Sheinkman) statistics is rejected. Hence, we applied NAR model to the SOI series. We can identify the lags 1, 2 and 4 are appropriate one, and estimated conditional mean function. There is no autocorrelation of residuals in the Portmanteau Test. However, the null hypothesis of normality and no heteroscedasticity is rejected in the Jarque-Bera Test and ARCH-LM Test, respectively. Moreover, the lag selection for conditional standard deviation function with CAFPE provides lags 3, 8 and 9. As the results of conditional standard deviation analysis, all I.I.D assumptions of the residuals are accepted. Particularly, the BDS statistics is accepted at the 95% and 99% significance level. Finally, we split the SOI set into a sample for estimating themodel and a sample for out-of-sample prediction, that is, we conduct the one-step ahead forecasts for the last 97 values (15%). The NAR model shows a MSEP of 0.5464 that is 7% lower than those of the linear model. Hence, the relevance of the NAR model may be proved in these results, and the nonparametric NAR model is encouraging rather than a linear one to reflect the nonlinearity of SOI series.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.491-501
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• 2008

In order to describe runoff characteristics of urban drainage area, outflow from subbasins divided by considering topography and flow path, is analyzed through stormwater system. In doing so, concentration time and time-area curve change significantly according to basin shape, and runoff characteristics are changed greatly by these attributes. Therefore, in this development study of FFC2Q model by MLTM, we aim to improve the accuracy in analyzing runoff by adding a module that considers basin shape, giving it an advantage over popular urban hydrology models, such as SWMM and ILLUDAS, that can not account for geometric shape of a basin due to their assumptions of unit subbasin as having a simple rectangular form. For subbasin shapes, symmetry types (rectangular, ellipse, lozenge), divergent types (triangle, trapezoid), and convergent types (inverted triangle, inverted trapezoid) have been analyzed in application of time-area curve for surface runoff analysis. As a result, we found that runoff characteristic can be quite different depending on basin shape. For example, when Gunja basin was represented by lozenge shape, the best results for peak flow discharge and overall shape of runoff hydrograph were achieved in comparison to observed data. Additionally, in case of considering subbasin shape, the number of division of drainage basin did not affect peak flow magnitude and gave stable results close to observed data. However, in case of representing the shape of subbasins by traditional rectangular approximation, the division number had sensitive effects on the analysis results.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.1-23
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• 2002

This study examined the influence of the separation of prescribing and dispensing roles(SPD) policy implemented in Korea in July 2000, especially on the change in the net profit of medical institutions. Using the data set from the Korea's National Health Insurance and the previous research, this study elicited the following main results. First, tertiary care institutions was estimated to lose about 631 billion won after the SPD policy. Second, general hospitals and hospitals gained about 557 billion and 564 billion won, respectively. Third, it is shown that clinics also gained 389-659 billion won. Finally, however, the change in net profit of medical institutions after the SPD policy largely depends on different estimation models. Moreover, it also varies from the assumptions on the price differential of a reimbursable drug which worked as cross-subsidy to insufficient physician's fee before the SPD policy. Despite such limitations as lack of data outside of the National Health Insurance's coverage, this study differs from others. This is the first research to explore the effect of the SPD policy on different types of medical institutions and to attempt to purely focus on the SPD policy. In this study, we can draw the policy implication that preparing for a policy change, the government should set up the policy evaluation system to collect the concerned data and develop the methodologies in advance to the policy implementation.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 1990

In most of studies on market efficiency, the stability of risk measures and the normality of residuals unexplained by the pricing model are presumed. This paper re-examines stock splits, taking the possible violation of two assumptions into accounts. The results does not change the previous studies. But, the size of excess returns during the 2-week period before announcements decreases by 43%. The results also support that betas change around announcements and the serial autocorrelation of residuals is caused by events. Based on the results, the existing excess returns are most likely explained as a compensation to old shareholders for unwanted risk increases in their portfolio, or by uses of incorrect betas in testing models. In addition, the model suggested in the paper provides a measure for the speed of adjustment of the market to the new information arrival and the intensity of information contents.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.121-134
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• 1990

This paper examines the redistributive potential of capital taxations within the two-class overlapping generations model, where only capitalists are intergenerationally linked through heritable capital stocks. In particular, the dynamic welfare incidence of two different capital taxations is examined; first a capital income tax levied uniformly on interest earnings, and second, an estate tax levied on the intergenerational transfers of capital stock within the capitalists' families. Redistributive effects are measured by examining how the permanent and unanticipated changes in proportional capital income tax and estate tax rates affect workers' welfare when the proceeds in each period are distributed, in a lump-sum fashion, among young workers. It is shown that, except for in the short run, both the capital taxes are ineffective and may actually lower the workers' steady state welfare through the shifting of tax burden toward workers from capitalists. Differential incidence analysis shows that redistributive potential is diminished further when the lump-sum transfers are financed by the estate tax rather than by the capital income tax. Although the model examined in this paper is based on simple and strong assumptions, this study suggests that redistributive policy using the capital taxations may only have distortionary effects in the long run, without improving workers' welfare, by incurring dead-weight loss unless additional fiscal measures are implemented to increase the investment incentives.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.17-43
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• 2010

This research considers the role of knowledge as marketing message, designs and analyses the personal experience management (PEM) business model using Human-Reader system. It is difficult to save and manage person's daily experience and relevant contents due to the lack of proper infrastructure and system. On the contrary, using Human-Reader infrastructure, person's experience and various relevant contents can be easily saved and managed because seamlessness between offline and online and the various devices that person can always carry along in ubiquitous environment. Since person can store and manage information, contents and advertisements through Human-Reader system and u-PEMS, marketing messages and advertisements do not have to be repetitive and stimulating. Instead, marketing messages and advertisements in Human-Reader environment should be granting values that can be saved and managed. We propose various scenarios, processes and its issues. And we analyze the expected value of RFID tag used on the proposed business model by so-called 'Tag Evaluation Model' and assess the assumptions that are basis of the proposed business model for evaluate the feasibility of the u-PEM business model.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.495-520
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• 2018

Because of structural changes in the international oil market and the economy, it is widely recognized that the impact of oil shocks on the economy has weaken since the mid-1980s. This study tries to examine the validity of the recent perception about the relationship between oils shocks and the economy, estimating the time-varying effects of oil shocks on the Korean economy. The results show that the dynamic effects of oil shocks normalized to a one standard deviation has been relatively constant, in contrast to the recent perception and a number of existing studies. In addition, because the shape of impulse response functions at each point in time spanning from 1984:II to 2017:IV has not been changed significantly, it seems that the propagation mechanism of oil shocks also has not been substantially altered. These findings indicate that even though structural changes of the economy, such as the reduction in the share of oil consumption and the spread of high-efficiency energy technologies, have been rapidly progressed, it is not still enough to offset the negative effects of oil shocks. Rather, it seems that the recent perception about the shrinking effects of oil shocks is mainly due to the assumptions that do not reflect changes in the size of oil shocks. In particular, this problem appears more pronounced in the case of the typical a one standard deviation increase oil shock under homoskedasticity assumption, which is widely adopted in the most VAR analyses. Therefore, in estimating the effects of oil shocks on the economy, it is important to specify the correct model and normalization method, to reflect changes in the size of oil shocks.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.60-70
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• 2011

The sediment removal index derived from the chemical contaminants, $CI_{HC}$, is currently in use to identify and define the spatial extent of the contaminated sediments in the sea. In order to analyze the sensitivity of the ecological and human risk associated with contaminated sediment, we evaluated five hypothetical contaminated sediments, whose $CI_{HC}$ values are identical but consisted of different contaminant contents, using $TrophicTrace^{(R)}$ model dedicated to evaluate sediment risk, against the resident greenling (Hexagrammos otakii) and humans by calculating No-Observed-Adverse-Effect-Level based Toxicity Quotient (NOAEL TQ) and Lowest-Observed-Adverse-Effect-Level based Toxicity Quotient (LOAEL TQ), and cancer risks and hazard indices (HI), respectively, based on the site conceptual model and exposure assumptions of fish ingestion to human receptor populations. NOAEL and LOAEL TQ values varied as much as a factor of 2 among 5 hypothetical sediments. Chemical element specific contribution to the carcinogenic risk and HI varied also greatly in these sediments. The reason for this significant dissimilarity in ecological and human risk stems from the different risk of each contaminant to the resident fish and human receptor. When the conceptual food web model is constructed for the target biological species for a given site, the ecological and human risk analysis considering trophic transfer of contaminants will add a ecosystem based tool for the management of contaminated sediments.