• Title/Summary/Keyword: cost/benefit

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The optimal balance between sexual and asexual reproduction in variable environments: a systematic review

  • Yang, Yun Young;Kim, Jae Geun
    • Journal of Ecology and Environment
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    • v.40 no.2
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    • pp.89-106
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    • 2016
  • Many plant species have two modes of reproduction: sexual and asexual. Both modes of reproduction have often been viewed as adaptations to temporally or spatially variable environments. The plant should adjust partitioning to match changes in the estimated success of the two reproductive modes. Perennial plants showed that favorable habitats in soil nutrients or water content tend to promote clonal growth over sexual reproduction. In contrast, under high light-quantity conditions, clonal plants tend to allocate more biomass to sexual reproduction and less to clonal propagation. On the other hand, plants with chasmogamous and cleistogamous flowers provides with a greater tendency of the opportunity to ensure some seed set in any stressful environmental conditions such as low light, low soil nutrients, or low soil moisture. It is considered that vegetative reproduction has high competitive ability and is the major means to expand established population of perennial plants, whereas cleistogamous reproduction is insurance to persist in stressful sites due to being strong. Chasmogamous reproduction mainly enhances established and new population. Therefore, the functions of sexual and asexual propagules of perennial or annual plants differ from each other. These traits of propagule thus determine its success at a particular region of any environmental gradients. Eventually, if environmental resources or stress levels change in either space or time, species composition will probably also change. The reason based on which the plants differ with respect to favored reproduction modes in each environmental condition, may be involved in their specific realized niche.

Liberal Environmentalism and Environmental Justice (자유주의적 환경론과 환경정의)

  • Choi Byung-Doo
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.40 no.6 s.111
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    • pp.671-693
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    • 2005
  • This paper is to explore critically environmentalism, especially in terms of environmental justice, suggested or implied in theory of liberalism which has been the ideological foundation of contemporary society. It begins with a brief look at liberal perspective in a broad sense, then interprets in-depth the classical liberalism of J. Locke, libertarianism (esp. R. Nozick) and utilitarianism (including cost-benefit analysis) from the environmental point of view. And finally it considers liberal pluralism and other alternative theories of pluralism, especially communitarianism (esp M. Walzer), postmodern pluralism (esp. I. Young), and cultural pluralism (esp. C. Taylor) in order to overcome limitations of liberal environmentalism and to find out some clues for theory of environmental justice. In conclusion, this paper argues that we need to transfer from liberalism (including liberal pluralism) to critical pluralism in oder to develop a proper understanding of environmental problems and to conceptualize a desirable theory of environmental justice.

Quitline Activity in Rajasthan, India

  • Gupta, Rakesh;Verma, Vinit;Mathur, Pankaj
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.sup2
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    • pp.19-24
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    • 2016
  • Quitline activity in Rajasthan, India is a voluntary activity of Rajasthan Cancer Foundation (RCF) since April 2013. To kick-off, it took the benefit of the State Government- PIRAMAL SWASTHYA (PS)1 collaborative 104 Health Information Helpline that existed already in public-private partnership. It is a reactive quitline that helps callers through the counselors and nursing staff trained specifically through the weekly sessions held by the first author, the RCF resource on quitline. Besides structuring of the scripts for primary intervention and follow-ups after 1 week, 1 month, 6 months and a year, he also monitors calls, advices and coordinates with the supervisors to manage and analyze the data base, and reports to the PS lead at the Jaipur Center on overall performance and to plan strategic communication with the State Government on its outcomes. The quitline has limitations of its informal existence through a voluntary effort of RCF, no specific resource allocation, suboptimal data management, minimal awareness in the masses due to poor IEC (Information, Education and Communication; except its efforts made by RCF in last 1 year through the government-run State TV and City Radio) and staff shortage and its attrition due to lack of plan for career advancement. Despite these challenges in the year 2013, the quit line has registered a quit rate (for complete abstinence) of 19.93% amongst 1525 callers. The quit rate were 58.01% (304/ 524) among the responders at the 3rd follow-up at 18 months (in September 2014)2. In view of an increase in quit rate by 5- 9 times over the prevailing quit rate in the former ever daily users [both smokers and the users of smokeless tobacco (SLT)], efforts are being made by RCF in concurrence with PS to have this cost-effective model established formally with optimal resource allocation in collaboration with willing agencies (the State and Central Governments and the International Quitline Agencies) and its replication in 4 more states where PS is collaborating with the respective state governments similarly (Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Karnataka).

Influence of Payer Source on Treatment and Outcomes in Colorectal Cancer Patients in a University Hospital in Thailand

  • Sermsri, Nattapoom;Boonpipattanapong, Teeranut;Prechawittayakul, Paradee;Sangkhathat, Surasak
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.20
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    • pp.9015-9019
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    • 2014
  • The study aimed to compare the 2 main types of insurance used by colorectal cancer (CRC) patients in a university hospital in Thailand: universal coverage (UC) and 'Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme' (CSMBS) in terms of hospital expenditure and survival outcomes. CRC cases in stages I-IV who were operated on and had completed their adjuvant therapy in Songklanagarind Hospital from 2004 through 2013 were retrospectively reviewed regarding their hospital expenditure, focusing on surgical and chemotherapy costs. Of 1,013 cases analyzed, 524 (51.7%) were in the UC group while 489 (48.3%) belonged to the CSMBS group. Cases with stage IV disease were significantly more frequent in the UC group. Average total treatment expenditure (TTE) was 143,780 Thai Baht (THB) (1 US$ =~ 30 THB). The TTE increased with tumor stage and the chemotherapy cost contributed the most to the TTE increment. TTE in the CSMBS group was significantly higher than in the UC group for stage II-III CRCs. The majority of cases in the UC group (65.5%) used deGramont or Mayo as their first line regimen, and the proportion of cases who started with a capecitabine-based regimen (XELOX or $Xeloda^{(R)}$) was significantly higher in the CSMBS group (61.0% compared to 24.5% in the UC group, p-value < 0.01). On survival analysis, overall survival (OS) and progress free survival in the CSMBS group were significantly better than in the UC group. The 5-year OS in the CSMBS and UC groups were 84.3% and 74.6%, respectively (p-value < 0.01). In conclusion, the study indicates that in Thailand, the type of insurance influences resource utilization, especially the choice of chemotherapy, in CRC cases. This disparity in treatment, in turn, results in a gap in treatment outcomes.

Analysis for Chloride Penetration in Concrete under Deicing Agent using Multi Layer Diffusion (다층구조확산을 고려한 제설제에 노출된 콘크리트의 염화물 해석)

  • Seo, Ji-Seok;Kwon, Seung-Jun
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.114-122
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    • 2016
  • Concrete is cost-benefit and high-durable construction material, however durability problem can be caused due to steel corrosion under chloride attack. Recently deicing salt has been widely spread in snowing season, which accelerates micro-cracks and scaling in surface concrete and the melted deicing salt causes corrosion in embedded steel. The previous governing equation of Fick's 2nd Law cannot evaluate the deteriorated surface concrete so that another technique is needed for the surface effect. This paper presents chloride penetration analysis technique for concrete subjected to deicing salt utilizing multi-layer diffusion model and time-dependent diffusion behavior. For the work, field investigation results of concrete pavement exposed deicing salt for 18 years are adopted. Through reverse analysis, deteriorated depth and increased diffusion coefficient in the depth are evaluated, which shows 12.5~15.0mm of deteriorated depth and increased diffusion coefficient by 2.0 times. The proposed technique can be effectively applied to concrete with two different diffusion coefficients considering enhanced or deteriorated surface conditions.

Design of Health Warning Model on the Basis of CRM by use of Health Big Data (의료 빅데이터를 활용한 CRM 기반 건강예보모형 설계)

  • Lee, Sangwon;Shin, Seong-Yoon
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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    • v.20 no.8
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    • pp.1460-1465
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    • 2016
  • Lots of costs threaten the sustainability of the national health-guarantee system. Despite research by the national center for disease control and prevention on health care dynamics with its auditing systems, there are still restrictions of time limitation, sample limitation, and, target diseases limitation. Against this backdrop, using huge volume of total data, many technologies could be fully adopted to the preliminary forecasting and its target-disease expanding of health. With structured data from the national health insurance and unstructured data from the social network service, we attempted to design a model to predict disease. The model can enhance national health and maximize social benefit by providing a health warning service. Also, the model can reduce the advent increase of national health cost and predict timely disease occurrence based on Big Data analysis. We researched related medical prediction cases and performed an experiment with a pilot project so as to verify the proposed model.

Construction and Applications of the Virtual Automotive Plant for a Victual Manufacturing (가상생산기술 적용을 위한 자동차 가상플랜트 구축 및 활용)

  • No, Sang-Do;Lee, Gyo-Il;Son, Chang-Yeong;Han, Hyeong-Sang;Park, Yeong-Jin
    • Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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    • v.25 no.10
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    • pp.1627-1635
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    • 2001
  • Virtual manufacturing is a technology facilitating effective development and agile manufacturing of products via sophisticated computer models representing physical and logical schema and behavior of real manufacturing systems including manufacturing resources, environments, and products. For the successful application of this technology, a virtual plant as a well-designed and integrated environment is essential fur sharing information and engineering collaboration among diverse engineering activities. The systematic approaches and effective methods for construction and application of a virtual plant are proposed in this paper, such as a 3-D CAD modeling, cell and line simulations, databases and some information technologies. Measuring and 3-D CAD modeling technologies of many equipments, facilities and structures of the building are developed, and effective information management system managing CAD models, related files and data is implemented in WWW environments. Finally, precise simulations of unit cell lines and the whole plant are performed. For the beginning of implementing a Virtual Automotive Plant, the Virtual Plant fur the Body Shop of a Korean automotive company is constructed and implemented. We could obtain the benefit of savings in time and cost in many manufacturing preparation activities in the new car development processes.

A Study on Process Improvement by Incorporating the Concept of Six-Sigma into Quality Circle Activity (품질분임조와 6시그마 결합을 통한 공정개선 - 제조업 사례를 중심으로 -)

  • Kim, Jae-Hee;Doo, Hee-Yong
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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    • v.8 no.3
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    • pp.673-681
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    • 2007
  • The integration of Quality Circles and Six-Sigma has gained attentions for the attainment of enhanced customer satisfaction, costs reduction, and improved business performance. The purpose of this paper is to verify the benefit from the integration of Quality Circles and Six-Sigma by applying the integrated process for an alcohol manufacturing line. In the integrated process, we used the first three steps of Six-Sigma of Define, Measure, and Analyze(D-M-A) and then applied the concept of Quality Circle, which has good performance in the Improvement and Control(I-C) process. For the selection of the theme of quality circles, Analytic Hierarch Process(AHP) is used, and we also employed the experimental design, which is designed to find an optimal operating condition. Furthermore, the results of the economic analysis confirm that the integration process would be successful in reducing the incidence of defects and the quality cost.

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Design and Performance Analysis of Caching Algorithms for Distributed Non-uniform Objects (분산 이질형 객체 환경에서 캐슁 알고리즘의 설계 및 성능 분석)

  • Bahn, Hyo-Kyung;Noh, Sam-Hyeok;Min, Sang-Lyul;Koh, Kern
    • Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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    • v.27 no.6
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    • pp.583-591
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    • 2000
  • Caching mechanisms have been studied extensively to buffer the speed gap of hierarchical storages in the context of cache memory, paging system, and buffer management system. As the wide-area distributed environments such as the WWW extend broadly, caching of remote objects becomes more and more important. In the wide-area distributed environments, the cost and the benefit of caching an object is not uniform due to the location of the object; which should be considered in the cache replacement algorithms. For online operation, the time complexity of the replacement algorithm should not be excessive. To date, most replacement algorithms for the wide-area distributed environments do not meet both the non-uniformity of objects and the time complexity constraint. This paper proposes a replacement algorithm which considers the non-uniformity of objects properly; it also allows for an efficient implementation. Trace-driven simulations show that proposed algorithm outperforms existing replacement algorithms.

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A Practical Method to Transform Component-based Design to Service-Oriented Design (컴포넌트 기반 개발 (CBD) 설계의 서비스 지향 아키텍처 (SOA) 설계로의 실용적인 변환 기법)

  • Cheun, Du-Wan;Jo, Sung-Hyun;Kim, Soo-Dong
    • The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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    • v.18D no.6
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    • pp.461-480
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    • 2011
  • Component-Based Development (CBD) focuses on developing reusable components and assembling them into target applications. Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) is a relatively new paradigm where reusable services are developed, published, and composed into target service applications. Due to the popularity of CBD, many organizations already have CBD models for their applications. Hence, it is feasible and appealing to develop SOC applications economically by transforming existing CBD models, rather than developing SOC applications from the scratch. Our research is to develop a methodology for transforming existing CBD design into Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) design. In this paper, we first compare the two paradigms and their key elements for the design; CBD design and SOA design. Then, we define mapping relationships of the transformation. For each transformation mapping, we present step-wise instructions. The benefit of applying this transformation is to increase reusability of existing design assets, to maintain the consistency between existing CBD and SOC models, and reduced cost for deploying service-oriented applications.