• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2010

Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.5816-5825
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• 2012

As the society has been ageing, senile dementia increase rapidly. Thus social costs of dementia treatment and management increase exceedingly. There is a desperate need of finding out improvements.. For example, foreign countries come with the solutions about this issue by establishing national strategy about Dementia, setting effective Dementia Management in national level and preparing legal systems. Older Welfare Act, Long Term Care Insurance Act for the Aged and Dementia Management Act exist as legal system of improvements. Improvement about this issue is needed due to more effective Dementia management and pushing ahead policies. First of all, the government needs to include dementia checkup into the list of national health insurance checkup toward senior citizen of older than 65-year-old. Secondly, as one of the characteristics of dementia, when more symptoms of dementia appear, there is less effect of treatment. Therefore, in order to reduce the social costs of Dementia, the government needs to promote Dementia prevention industry and early checkups. Thirdly, there is a need of setting a class judgement standard appeasement policy and expansion of using target. The reason of processing this statement is that there are difficulties of satisfying the needs of senior citizens due to current conformity of long-term pay recuperation according to laws of welfare.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.1289-1298
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• 2014

Pavement crack sealing method, which is one of the methods to maintain and repair the road, prevents the extending of cracks by repairing cracks in its early occurrence and has already been applied to many roadworks in advanced foreign country for a long time. But in the conventional crack sealing method, traffic accidents occur frequently during the repair because it's commonly performed on the heavy traffic road or highway. It also has some difficulties in securing the safety of workers from the risk of burns caused by heated sealant. In an effort to solve these problems, automated pavement crack sealing machines such as ARMM, OCCSM, TTLS have been developed in advanced foreign country since early 1990s. Also APCS in 2004 and ACSTM in 2013 were already developed domestically. However, since these automated crack sealers developed from a number of research institutions have different test-bed conditions and productivity measurement models, it's difficult to compare and evaluate them objectively. In this study, the image processing time of the respective machines and the movement time of each motion on the work process were estimated by using fully autonomous mapping and semi-automatic mapping in order to measure the productivity in the same environmental conditions. In addition, the productivity measurement test-bed reflected domestic road characteristics was designed to estimate and compare the productivity of the automated crack sealing machines.

• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.304-310
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• 2018

Beta glucan was purified from Phellinus baumii and tested for its effect on the group performance of ants, a principal model of eusociality and of superorganisms. Japanese carpenter ants (Camponotus japonicus) were reared on diets containing beta glucans to characterize their effects on eusociality. Culturing structures for ants were assembled by implanting autoclaved soil into polyethylene terephthalate bottles. Three different eusocial strength indices were used to study the effect of beta glucan extract (BGE) on eusocial activities - the number of residence chambers, cooperative defense index (CDI), and group size and composition. Control, low- BGE, and high-BGE diets were prepared with the following three levels of BGE supplements in sucrose powder: 0, 20, and 50% (g/g). More residence chambers were observed in the BGE-fed groups than in the control. The CDI against a foreign queen ant was calculated according to the time taken to subdue the foreign queen. The high-BGE group took less time to complete their defense formation than the other groups. Differences were evident between control and BGE-fed groups in the total numbers of ants and eggs. The BGE-fed groups showed a significant increase in both the number of workers and the number of eggs. When fed with BGE, ants responded positively for all three eusocial strength indices. These results show that BGE exerts beneficial effects on the eusociality of ants as a superorganism.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.10 no.9
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• pp.91-98
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• 2019

The research focused on plastic surgery clinics in Seoul, which recently responded to foreign patients who wanted to get plastic surgery, to recognize the need for the use of mobile healthcare applications to promote medical tourism and to see the expected effects in the future. For the analysis of data, SPSS 21.0 was used. Based on personal characteristics and medical institution characteristics, the future expected effects of using mobile healthcare applications were analyzed to find ways to help vitalize medical tourism. The result showed that the more mobile applications they wants to use in the future and the higher the number of foreign patients of the medical institutions, the more positive the expectation on the use of mobile healthcare application in the future. Also, the higher evaluation on the need for mobile healthcare application, the more helpful in vitalizing the medical tourism in the future, and the higher the positive awareness. I hope that this research will provide an IT foundation for the and expansion of mobile service app on demand analysis and service utilization of medical workers in order to promote medical tourism.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.314-323
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to analyze the status of medical service use of foreigners living in Korea by their nationality and types of national health insurance. As of 2018, 1,058,886 people were extracted from the qualification DB, excluding people whose insurance premium is missing. The data analysis showed that nearly 78% of foreigners with national health insurance used medical services and the countries with the largest number of users were China, Vietnam, and the United States. The total cost of treatment per capita was highest in the United States regardless of hospitalization and outpatient. The number of medical treatments per person, and the medical expenses of outpatients & inpatients services were highest among the regionally-insured and the length of stay per person was highest among the workers' dependents. Lastly, it was found that Chinese and regionally-insured received much more benefits than other groups compared to the premium they pay. After July 2019, foreign nationals residing in Korea for six months or longer are obligated to enroll in the national health insurance program. Since the latest data was in 2018, the result did not properly reflect the current situation, but it is meaningful that it made basic data for future comparative analysis.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.83-93
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• 2021

Objectives: 'Confined space' was only defined in the Safety and Health Regulations as a place where oxygen deficiency and hydrogen sulfide must be dealt with at the time of the initial enactment (1982). The danger of fire and explosion were added in 2003. We will compare and review the regulations related to confined space work under the current safety and health rules alongside regulations in other countries and prepare a plan to improve the system through enhanced clarity and execution. Methods: In a comparison of systems for the prevention of suffocation in confined spaces in major countries (Germany, United States, Japan) different concepts of the definition of confined spaces in different countries apparently due to differences in each country's legal implementation system, accident analysis methods, the status of safety and health implementation in workplaces, the precautions against actual confined space work, and the definition of confined spaces were found to be not much different between Korea and the other foreign countries. Results: In the case of Germany and the United States, a confined space is defined as a contextual concept rather than a place, so more careful attention is needed from operators or enclosed space managers as it is often necessary to judge the actual workplace. In the case of Korea and Japan, the interior of the place is mainly defined as a place, especially in the case of Japan, which concentrates on oxygen deficiency and hydrogen sulfide poisoning. Conclusions: For measures to improve regulations on the prevention of suffocation accidents in Korea, I would like to propose three major measures to improve the system in the rules on domestic industrial safety and health standards. It is necessary to prepare and provide a guide to ensure that the 18 types of confined spaces currently defined as confined spaces are clearly understood by field management supervisors or workers.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.159-212
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• 2018

This paper is focused on analyzing the social environment of a rapidly changing on Vietnamese company. The key analysis of this study is on the change of perception in Vietnam and the regional difference of CSR acception. The social acceptance research of CSR is centered on the comparative analysis of Korean, Japanese and Chinese companies Social Activities in Vietnam. In addition, This paper seek to way of contribute to the sustainable development of Korean companies, and its harmonious cooperation with Vietnamese society through reviewing the CSR activities and direction of their CSR expectation. In the paper, linkage analysis was conducted with the results of the study on CSR value development process in Vietnam society and analysis of social responsibility values obtained from empirical studies. Through this, finally, we trying to search the value of social responsibility in Vietnam and its future directions. When we understand Vietnam's CSR, based on 'locality' of Vietnam, Northern and Southern can be understand on its different backgrounds. And it can be analyzed by their CSR characteristics of acception. As the result of this research, In the North, Foreign companies' CSR is understanded to be viewed from the corporate economic income and distribution. In the South, there is a strong tendency to understand CSR activities of foreign companies as marketing activities. On the whole, In northern Hanoi, there was a strong expectation in terms of 'employment improvement' and 'workers' working conditions'. In the South, there was a greater interest in improving the 'quality of life of residents' and 'consumer protection'. This is due to the influence of the economic system experienced during the process of different colonization, modernization and communization between the two regions. Since the Reform and Opening of Vietnam, Social Awareness of CSR seems that the regional differences were formed by the pace of economic development and the economic environment has played a role. In particular, the social acceptance of CSR values showed a slight difference in recognition between the North and South regions, but as both regions showed common hope for 'intervention in the role of government'. Therefore, Social Awareness of Vietnam's CSR is based on relation of 'government-society' formed from the 'Communitarianism'. As foreign investment flows more, CSR awareness and expectations in Vietnam's society will increase further. And the CSR expectations of local governments and stakeholder will be more complicated. It is time to check the needs of Vietnamese society in relation to locality of the social responsibility activities.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.24-31
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• 2020

The duty of construction clients in WSH (Workplace Safety and Health) system was included in the amendment of Occupational Safety and Health Act (enforced on 16 January 2020), which was estimated the shift of paradigm in the prevention of construction accidents. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the analysis results of construction clients' role in the construction project, which were performed by authors over the recent years in order to impose the duty on construction clients, and to suggest their role according the plan, design, and construction stage. Utilizing the systematic literature review process based on Meta analysis, the related papers were selected. For the selected papers, related domestic and foreign regulations, and other prominent report, the construction clients' role was analyzed by reflecting the experts' advice. Results show that the construction clients should control the designer and contractor for implementing the WHS system during the whole process of the construction project. They should supply sufficient source and time to ensure the workers' safety. In the plan stage, the key role of construction clients is to identify intensively controlled hazard and risk reduction plan and to transfer the results. In the design stage, their key role is to select the designer with the capacity in WSH and to assist the designer for the safety design. The main key role of construction clients in the costruction stage is to select the contractor with specialty in WSH including a contract reflecting the WSH requirement and to check implementation of WSH plan, WSH cost, WSH education, and accident report. In addition, it is thought that the construction clients' participations in the site WSH activity and adjustment of safety and health problem among contractors can be effect in the prevention of construction accidents.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.111-130
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• 2002

Major purposes of this stud? are to analyze Korean firms'innovation networks and sources of knowledge for innovation and to understand their spatial dimensions. In the innovation networks, parent firms are most important for subcontracting firms, while suppliers, customers and competitors are relatively important for independent firms. However, in the future innovation networks, it is expected that government-sponsored research institutions and university wilt become more important on the one hand, networks with foreign firms will become more important on the other hand. Regarding the process of innovation, distance does not matter for the acquisition of codified knowledge. Spatial proximity is, however, critical for the acquisition of tacit knowledge because discussions and researches in a research division within a firm, personal networks of CEO and workers who are responsible for innovation activity, and inter-firm relations with suppliers and customer in a region are regarded important as sources of tacit knowledge. Overall, the innovation networks are different between the Capital Region and non-Capital Region as well as between the industrial complex and non-industrial complex, suggesting that different regional innovation strategies and policies should be established and implemented by considering such regional specificities. Finally, based on the results of this study several policy implications are suggested.