• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.27-51
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• 2005

Todays, computers in business world are potent facilitators that most companies could not without them, while they are only tools. They offer extremely efficient means of communication, particularly when connected to Internet. What I stress in this article is the risks accompanied by e-commerce rather than the advantages of Internet or e-commerce. The management of e-commerce companies, therefore, should keep in mind that the benefit of e-commerce through the Internet are accompanied by enhanced and new risks, cyber risks or e-commerce risks. For example, companies are exposed to computer system breakdown and business interruption risks owing to traditional and physical risks such as theft and fire etc, computer programming errors and defect softwares and outsider's attack such as hacking and virus. E-commerce companies are also exposed to tort liabilities owing to defamation, the infringement of intellectual property such as copyright, trademark and patent right, negligent misrepresent and breach of confidential information or privacy infringement. In this article, I would like to suggest e-commerce insurance or cyber liability insurance as a means of risk management rather than some technical devices, because there is not technically perfect defence against cyber risks. But e-commerce insurance has some gaps between risks confronted by companies and coverage needed by them, because it is at most 6 or 7 years since it has been introduced to market. Nevertheless, in my opinion, e-commerce insurance has offered the most perfect defence against cyber risks to e-commerce companies up to now.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.147-157
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• 2011

Purpose: This study was done to investigate factors affecting perceived financial burden of medical expenditures. Method: The participants were 2,024 inpatients who were enrolled in a survey on the benefit coverage rate of the National Health Insurance in 2006. The collected data were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA-test, Mann-Whitney-test, Kruskal-Wallis-test, Chi-square test and logistic regression. Results: The crucial factors for perceived financial burden were age, job, equivalence scale, ratio of annual family income vs medical expenditure, and private health insurance. Perceived financial burden was higher for people who were older, who were unemployed, whose medical expenditures were high compared to annual family income, whose index of family equalization was low and for those who had no private health insurance. Conclusion: The results of the study indicate a demand for system reform that will enable management of no-pay hospital bills in the National Health Insurance to decrease the medical expense of people in the low-income bracket.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.272-279
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• 2018

Since the introduction of new health technology assessment in 2007, benefit coverage process of health insurance related to new health technology has become an upgraded system through the evidence-based decisions. As a result of enforcing this system for 10 years, however, there have been several rising concerns. It needs to support the insufficient evidence of medical technologies, introduce reassessment system for post management of market entry technologies, and improve evaluation methods and process. In addition, there is the possibility of emerging an unheard-of medical technology, fused various categories like artificial intelligence, robot, information technology, physics and life science in the fourth industrial revolution. Now, new updated system introduced to improve new technology assessment, such as 'limited health technology assessment system,' 'system for postponement of new health technology assessment,' 'one-stop service system,' and 'integrated operation of approval for medical devices and new health technology assessment.' Therefore it needs to prepare the improvement plan for new health technology assessment to be established more advanced system, and we have to resolve concerns by communication with various healthcare experts and patients now and for ever.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.263-271
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• 2018

Health technology assessment (HTA) is defined as multidisciplinary policy analysis to look into the medical, economic, social, and ethical implications of the development, distribution, and use of health technology. Following the recent changes in the social environment, there are increasing needs to improve Korea's healthcare environment by, inter alia, assessing health technologies in an organized, timely manner in accordance with the government's strategies to ensure that citizens' medical expenses are kept at a stable level. Dedicated to HTA and research, the National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency (NECA) analyzes and provides grounds on the clinical safety, efficacy, and economic feasibility of health technologies. HTA offers the most suitable grounds for decision making not only by healthcare professionals but also by policy makers and citizens as seen in a case in 2009 where research revealed that glucosamine lacked preventive and treatment effects for osteoarthritis and glucosamine was subsequently excluded from the National Health Insurance's benefit list to stop the insurance scheme from suffering financial losses and citizens from paying unnecessary medical expenses. For the development of HTA in Korea, the NECA will continue exerting itself to accomplish its mission of providing policy support by health technology reassessment, promoting the establishment and use of big data and HTA platforms for public interest, and developing a new value-based HTA system.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2019

During the Obama administration, America made a shift in its foreign policies to re-focus on Asia. The strategy, known as 'Pivot to Asia', was used to contain a rising China. In this editorial note, I appropriate the geopolitical term to call for a scholarly refocus on Asia (and the broader Asia Pacific region). JCEA started as an area journal. While it has become more technology-focused and less geographically-bounded in its coverage of topics, the journal recognizes the centrality of the region's political economy and technological forces in setting (and upsetting) global norms and rules. The Asia Pacific contains the world's freest economies as well as the most oppressive regimes. It breeds both technology giants and laggards. As new geopolitical tensions loom, it is where the digital iron curtain is drawn, and where the vice and virtue of innovations debated. Social scientists in the English world, who lend extensively on European and American cases, can benefit from studying the Asia Pacific by testing whether and how local experience conforms to or confronts with universal theories. Very likely, western-centric norms and models become morphed and entangled in the grounded local particularity, reflecting many shades of this diverse place. In my arguments below, I highlight the Asia Pacific as a site of contradiction, as well as a site of contention and negotiation. My emphasis is that regional particularity holds the key to answer concurrent debates in the West concerning governance and accountability in the digital age.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2017.10a
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• pp.42-51
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• 2017

Due to the high degree of mechanization and the good environmental benefits, the prefabricated buildings are being promoted in China. The construction site layout of the prefabricated buildings has important influence on its safety benefit. However, few scholars have studied the safety problem on it. Firstly, in order to give a follow-up study foreshadowing the characteristics of prefabricated buildings are analyzed, the research assumptions are given and three types of safety buffers are established. And then a mult-objective model for the prefabricated buildings site layout is presented: taking into account the limits of noise, the coverage of the tower crane and the possibility of exceeding boundaries and overlapping, the constraints are and designed established respectively; Based on the improved System Layout Planning (SLP) method, the efficiency\cost\safety interaction matrices among the facilities are also founded for objective function. For the sake of convenience, a hypothetical facility layout case of the prefabricated building is used, the optimal solution of that is obtained in MATLAB with particle swarm algorithm (PSO), which proves the effectiveness of the model presented in this paper.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2002

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a nuclear medicine imaging modality that consists of systemic administration to a subject of a radiopharmaceutical labeled with a positron-emitting radionuclide. Following administration, its distribution in the organ or structure under study can be assessed as a function of time and space by (1) defecting the annihilation radiation resulting from the interaction of the positrons with matter, and (2) reconstructing the distribution of the radioactivity from a series of that used in computed tomography (CT). The nuclides most generally exhibit chemical properties that render them particularly desirable in physiological studies. The radionuclides most widely used in PET are F-18, C-11, O-15 and N-13. Regarding to the number of the current PET Centers worldwide (based on ICP data), more than 300 PET Centers were in operation in 2000. The use of PET technology grew rapidly compared to that in 1992 and 1996, particularly in the USA, which demonstrates a three-fold rise in PET installations. In 2001, 194 PET Centers were operating in the USA. In 1994, two clinical and research-oriented PET Centers at Seoul National University Hospital and Samsung Medical Center, was established as the first dedicated PET and Cyclotron machines in Korea, followed by two more PET facilities at the Korea Cancer Center Hospital, Ajou Medical Center, Yonsei University Medical Center, National Cancer Center and established their PET Center. Catholic Medical School and Pusan National University Hospital have finalized a plan to install PET machine in 2002, which results in total of nine PET Centers in Korea. Considering annual trends of PET application in four major PET centers in Korea in Asan Medical Center recent six years (from 1995 to 2000), a total of 11,564 patients have been studied every year and the number of PET studies has shown steep growth year upon year. We had 1,020 PET patients in 1995. This number increased to 1,196, 1,756, 2,379, 3,015 and 4,414 in 1996,1997,1998,1999 and 2000, respectively. The application in cardiac disorders is minimal, and among various neuropsychiatric diseases, patients with epilepsy or dementia can benefit from PET studios. Recently, we investigated brain mapping and neuroreceptor works. PET is not a key application for evaluation of the cardiac patients in Korea because of the relatively low incidence of cardiac disease and less costly procedures such as SPECT can now be performed. The changes in the application of PET studios indicate that, initially, brain PET occupied almost 60% in 1995, followed by a gradual decrease in brain application. However, overall PET use in the diagnosis and management of patients with cancer was up to 63% in 2000. The current medicare coverage policy in the USA is very important because reimbursement policy is critical for the promotion of PET. In May 1995, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) began covering the PET perfusion study using Rubidium-82, evaluation of a solitary pulmonary nodule and pathologically proven non-small cell lung cancer. As of July 1999, Medicare's coverage policy expanded to include additional indications: evaluation of recurrent colorectal cancer with a rising CEA level, staging of lymphoma and detection of recurrent or metastatic melanoma. In December of 2001, National Coverage decided to expand Medicare reimbursement for broad use in 6 cancers: lung, colorecctal, lymphoma, melanoma, head and neck, and esophageal cancers; for determining revascularization in heart diseases; and for identifying epilepsy patients. In addition, PET coverage is expected to further expand to diseases affecting women, such as breast, ovarian, uterine and vaginal cancers as well as diseases like prostate cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.59-73
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• 2007

The compensation system in industrial accident insurance is systemized with "either receiving all or no benefits at all" according to "admited or denied as an industrial accident". Therefore, they are centered on the decision as "industrial accident" or "non-industrial accident", but judging between the two is very complicated, and has inherent conflicting factors. In the early stage of industrialization, industrial accident compensation was based on the indemnity liability for employer's faults. In order to be compensated any damage, the injured worker should prove that the accident was not due to his or her faults. However it was very difficult for injured worker or his or her family to prove the employer's faults, so it was almost impossible to get compensation. Thereafter industrialization progress and improvement of workers' political status lead to conversion from principle of liability with employer's faults to principle of liability without employer's faults. In addition to that, coverage of industrial accident compensation was also expanded. This improvement strengthened the benefit payment principle of "All or Nothing". Even though the "All or Nothing" principle provokes tremendous criticism, the reason why it's difficult for industrialized countries to adopt partial compensation system, is that partial compensation system worsens the administrative hardship, therefore industrialized countries overcome the restrictions of the "All or Nothing" principle with making balance in provisions for any risk to some extent. However, in Korea because the general compensation system for covering medical cost and income loss from accidents, is not equipped, it could be possible to cause acute conflicts with regard to coverage of industrial accidents. Therefore it is required to improve the industrial accident insurance with the acceptance of the significance and logic of discriminated compensation, and create the integrated compensation system in the long run.

• Archives of Reconstructive Microsurgery
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.62-66
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• 2009

Purpose: Despite the free tissue transfer using microsurgical technique being the current trend of soft tissue reconstruction of the hand, the pedicled groin flap has the advantage to provide coverage for the mangled hand without necessitating the use of a damaged arterial system and also providing the benefit of saving the arterial system for later free tissue transfer. This report presents the author's experience using pedicled groin flap in four cases of mangled hands with massive bone and soft tissue defects requiring later thumb reconstruction with the free wrap around flap. Materials and methods: The patients' age ranged from 30 to 51 years; three patients were male and one was female. The causes of mangled hand included two machinery crush injuries, one laboratory explosion and one motor vehicle accident. While evaluating the post-operative results, factors like flap survival, complications, stability in opposition, pinch power and 2 point discrimination were taken into account. Results: All massive soft tissue defects of the hands were completely covered with pedicled groin flap successfully. The reconstructed thumb using free wrap around flap did not have any limitation in opposition. There was no occurrence of post-operative infection and all the flaps survived completely. The average pinch power was 70% of the contralateral intact thumb and average 2 point discrimination was 10 mm. Conclusion: The pedicled groin flap for the reconstruction of the massive soft tissue defects of the hand with subsequent reconstruction of the thumb with a wrap around flap is a very useful procedure. The combined use of pedicled groin flap and wrap around flap allows adequate coverage of sizable soft tissue defects and functional thumb opposition in cases of reconstruction of the mangled hands.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.191-202
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• 1985

As the result of a significant improvement in the economic situation and development of scientific techniques in Korea during the last 20 years, the life expectancy of the Korean people has lengthened considerably and as a result the number of old aged people has markedly increased. Such an increase of the number of aged people brought about many problems. Authors would like to take a medical look at the "Problem of old aged people" presently facing us in Korea. Currently the number of people over 65 has increased rapidly and is 1,620,000, 4% of total population. But it is still much lower than 8.9% in Japan, 10.7% in U.S.A., and 14.9% in the United Kingdom. Over 25% of these aged people were found to have at least more than one disease which requires medical care. Diseases occur in the circulatory system, 30.9%, respiratory system, 17.1%, digestive system 8.6%, mental disorders, 8.4%, malignant neoplasms, 7.0%. About 51% of the aged over 65 are under medical security benefit, mostly with partial coverage plan. Their clinic visit rate was very low (2.0% in 1981), which might be due to financial reasons. Since diseases affecting the aged progress chronically, early detection and long term care are utter most important. However there is almost no special facility, long term care center or geriatric specialist. For proper management of medical problems in the growing population of the Korean eldery expansion of medical security coverage, greater number of specialized facilities, education of geriatric special manpower and efficient operating system should be established.