• Title/Summary/Keyword: item improvement

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A Study on Difficulty Factors of Youth Startups for Activating Local Startups (지역창업 활성화를 위한 청년창업 애로 요인에 관한 연구)

  • Ahn, Tae-Uk;Kang, Tae-Won
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.15 no.2
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    • pp.67-80
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    • 2020
  • This study has been conducted at a time when Korean government continues to extend support for youth startups as part of its policy to create jobs and the focus moves from career and employment to youth startups with a growing interest in the field of youth startups. Against this background, this study aims to identify difficulty factors of youth startups in areas besides the Seoul Metropolitan Area, seek ways to overcome difficulty factors, and propose policy implications. To this end, this study set five criteria and 25 sub-criteria to evaluate the difficulties of youth startups by reviewing previous studies and conducting literature review, and performing brainstorming method. The empirical analysis of the evaluation criteria was performed, using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, on youths aged 19 to 39 in Gunsan area. The analysis results showed that the largest difficulty factors facing local youths include business model establishment, business administration and management, and startup funding in the criteria. As for sub-criteria, the largest difficulty factors are market information acquisition, technology commercialization, project feasibility, technology development, and new market pioneering in descending order. Local youths have much difficulty about the process of turning a business item into a product and commercializing it. According to a comparative analysis by gender, men were a relatively high difficulty in commercializing business models than women. men were a relatively high difficulty in commercializing business models than women. On the other hand, women were higher than men in all factors (management management, entrepreneurship, improvement of entrepreneurship system, and improvement of entrepreneurship awareness) except for factors affecting business model. In addition, the factors of entrepreneurship were found to be relatively different among young people (college students, prospective entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs). In conclusion, it was suggested that in order to revitalize youth entrepreneurship in the region, it is necessary to actively resolve the difficulties of business model commercialization rather than entrepreneurship funds. In addition, it is necessary to strategically support customized entrepreneurship support and situational administrative services because gender and hierarchical difficulties are different than general solutions. This study presented practical priorities and derivation methods for the entrepreneurship difficulties faced by local youth, and suggested measures and improvements for vitalizing local youth entrepreneurship in the future.

Middle School Students' Perception of Body Image and Allowance for Plastic Surgery (중학생의 신체상 지각수준과 성형수술 허용도)

  • Bae, Jin-Ju;Park, Young-Soo
    • The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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    • v.5
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    • pp.25-42
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    • 2004
  • This study set out to investigate the relations between middle school students' perception of body image and their allowance for plastic surgery, to understand their perception of body image and desire for plastic surgery, and provide some data needed to warn against reckless plastic surgery and guide the students effectively. For those purposes, an examination was conducted of the relationships between the individual characteristics and perception levels of body image, the individual characteristics and allowance for plastic surgery, and perception levels of body image and allowance for plastic surgery. The subjects were drawn from sour middle schools located in two regions of Gyeonggi Province. Total 922 boys and girls were surveyed on a questionnaire, which was developed based on the pretest of previous literature, reviewed for appropriateness, and tested for reliability and reasonableness. The body image on the five scale was greater as the perception level was higher. The allowance for plastic surgery was also greater as the scores were more. The findings were as follows: First, the relationships between individual characteristics and perception levels of body image were examined. The third graders showed the highest perception level, being followed by the first and second graders. The girls were more perceptive than the boys, and those who were extrovert were more perceptive than those who were introvert. Those students whose parents earned 2 million won or more a month and who adapted themselves to the environmental changes had a higher perception level. In a word, the girls from the middle class that were well adapted, felt happy, and were extrovert had a higher perception level of body image. Second, the connections between individual characteristics and allowance for plastic surgery were investigated. The third graders were the most admissive of plastic surgery, followed by the second and first graders. That is, the upper graders were more admissive of plastic surgery. In addition, the girls were more admissive than the boys, and those who were extrovert were more than those who were introvert. There were no significant differences according to the monthly income of the parents, grades, adaptability to surroundings, and happiness, which results almost resembled the findings of a study conducted on adults. Third, there were negative correlations found between the perception levels of body image and the allowance for plastic surgery. To elaborate, the higher the perception levels were, the lower the allowance was, and vice versa. As for the items, the subjects showed more allowance for plastic surgery when they scored less in the item of caring about appearance, importance of looking pretty to others, and efforts to improve appearance. When they had a low value of body and easily felt tired, they were highly acceptive of plastic surgery. The allowance for plastic surgery was also great when their perception was much of how healthy they felt, how important they felt about their bodies, how they were satisfied with their current appearances, how they evaluated the appearance of others, how much they were satisfied physically, and how much demanding they were for physical changes. Meanwhile, there were no correlations between the allowance and physical attraction, the degree for one's activities to be hindered, and sickness. In short, the demand for plastic surgery was 41% for the girls and 20.2% for the boys. Just as the study on adults reported, those who had a low or negative perception of body image were more acceptive of plastic surgery. The middle school students were generally positive about their bodies with the lowest perception level at 2.91 and the highest at 3.21. Their individual allowance for plastic surgery was related to their individual body images, which were in turn affected by the mass communication, surrounding environments, and social values. Thus it's necessary for the entire society to try to improve or change the overall perception. Helping measures should be taken so that the students can form right sense of values about their bodies, avoid the obsession with appearance and appearance-based evaluation, and exercise righteous criteria against humans beings and things. In conclusions, the following suggestions were made: they need to develop such questionnaires or tools as can measure the body image of teens and fit the reality. Moreover, body image improvement programs should be more diverse and more applicable to teens. Despite the consistent reports that prove the correlations between body image and plastic surgery, there has been little effort to apply such factors as experience of the life of the disabled, volunteer activities for the disabled and at the hospitals, and others that can induce changes to body image to the body image improvement programs. In the future, comparative research should be carried out on body image and plastic surgery.

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Relationship between Science Education Researchers' Views on Science Educational Theories for Pre-service Science Teachers and the Examination for Appointing Secondary School Science Teachers (예비과학교사에게 필요한 과학교육학 이론에 대한 과학교육 연구자들의 의견과 중등과학교사임용시험의 연관성)

  • Lee, Bongwoo;Shim, Kew-Cheol;Shin, Myeong-Kyeong;Kim, Jonghee;Choi, Jaehyeok;Park, Eunmi;Yoon, Jihyun;Kwon, Yongju;Kim, Yong-Jin
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.33 no.4
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    • pp.826-839
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    • 2013
  • The purpose of this study is to examine science education researchers' views on what and how much science educational theories would be needed for pre-service science teachers, and to investigate the relationship between their views and the Examination for Appointing Secondary School Science Teachers(EASST). For this study, the views of science education professors on science education theories have been analyzed in terms of their priorities for contributing to the improvement of science teacher competency and literacy. Their views have been compared with proportions of questions related to science education theories of the EASST in terms of what kinds of science education theories have been used for solving each item. As results of this study show, they have perceived that more essential things are needed for the improvement of science teacher competency and literacy including science inquiry process, methods of experimental equipments and tools, laboratory safety, misconception of students, discussion, writing, evaluation of scientific knowledges, and evaluation of scientific inquiry ability other than science philosophy, changes of science curricula, science curricula of foreign countries, Bruner's instructional theory, Karplus's Learning Cycle model, generative learning model, discovery learning model, and Klopfer's taxonomy of educational objectives. There is a higher proportion of questions related to science curriculum and Ausubel's learning theory in the EASST. They are hardly correlated with science education professors' selections of science educational theories for EASST questions. This study advocates the needs of exploring a new method of narrowing down the gap between science educators' opinions and questions of ESSAT in terms of science educaiton theories.

A Study on Measures to Strengthen National Authorized Qualification (국가공인 민간자격 활용성 강화 방안 연구)

  • Kim, Sang-Jin;Park, Jong-Sung;Jung, Hyang-Jin
    • Journal of Engineering Education Research
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    • v.12 no.1
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    • pp.3-16
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    • 2009
  • The purpose of this study is to prepare diverse measures to enhance the utilization of national authorized qualification. The detail objectives of this study are first, to re-establish the utilization scope and range of national authorized qualification through analysis of advance research and theory in various fields of learning on the function of qualification; and second, to set the direction to strengthen the utilization of national authorized qualification. Based on discussions on the various fields of learning on the function of qualification, this study divided the utilization scope of qualification into personal utilization for the benefit of the qualification acquirer him or herself and public utilization for the social and economic benefits. And according to this distinction, we prepared measures to strengthen the utilization of national authorized qualification. First of all, as a way to strengthen personal utilization of the national authorized qualification, we prepared measures to enhance accessibility and facilitate further improvement. As a means to enhance accessibility, we proposed restriction on setting the application condition, diversification of qualification authorization method, facilitation of partial qualification system and minimization of expense required to acquire qualification. Also for the further improvement, we proposed creation of job-level centered grade system and development of job-level centered qualification item by stage. For strengthening the public utilization of national authorized qualification, we come up with ways of strengthening flexibility, transparency, public trust and compatibility. As a way to strengthen flexibility, we proposed establishment of qualification demand monitoring system, expansion of direct participation of users on qualification management, establishment of qualification expiration period and its renewal. For the strengthening of transparency, we proposed to build general qualification information system and to utilize qualification recommendation system. To strengthen public trust, we proposed to strengthen the management of qualification management regulation, secure independency, establish internal audit system and strengthen post management of national authorized qualification. And lastly, we suggested that compatibility comparison standard between qualification and qualification level standard be developed for the strengthening of compatibility.

A Study on 21st Century Fashion Market in Korea (21세기 한국패션시장에 대한 연구)

  • Kim, Hye-Young
    • The Journal of Natural Sciences
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.209-216
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    • 1998
  • The results of the study of diving the 21st century's Korea fashion market into consumer market, fashion market, and a new marketing strategy are as follows. The 21st consumer market is First, a fashion democracy phenomenon. As many people try to leave unconditional fashion following, consumer show a phenomenon to choose and create their own fashion by subjective judgements. Second, a phenomenon of total fashion pursuit. Consumer in the future are likely to put their goals not in differentiating small item products, but considering various fashion elements based on their individuality and sense of value. Third, world quality-oriented. With the improvement of life level, it accomplishes to emphasize consumers' fashion mind on the world wide popular use of materials, quality, design and brand image. Fourth, with the entrance of neo-rationalism, consumers show increasing trends to emphasize wisdom, solidity in goods strategy pursuing high quality fashion and to demand resonable prices. Fifth, concept-oriented. Consumers are changing into pursuing concept appropriate to individual life scene. Prospecting the composition of the 21st century's fashion market, First, sportive casual zone will draw attention more than any other zone. This is because interest in sports will grow according to the increase of leisure time and the expasion of time and space in the 21st century, and also ecology will become the important issue of sports sense because of human beings's natural habit toward nature. Second, the down aging phenomenon will accelerate its speed as a big trend. Third, a retro phenomenon, a concept contrary to digital and high-tech, will become another big trend for its remake, antique, and classic concept in fashion market with ecology trend. New marketing strategy to cope with changing fashion market is as follows. First, with the trend of borderless concept, borders between apparels are becoming vague, for example, they offer custom-made products to consumers. Second, as more enterprises take the way of gorilla and guerrilla where guerrillas who aim at niche market show up will develop. Basically, they think highly of individual creative study, and pursue the scene adherence with high sensitiveness. However this polarization becomes mutually-supplementing relationship showing gorilla's guerilla movement, and guerilla's gorilla high-tech. Third with the development of value retailing, enterprises pursuing mass merchandising of groups called category killers are expanded and amplified to new product fields, and expand business' share. Fourth, using outsourcing, the trend to use exterior function leaving each enterprise's strength by inspecting its own work is gradually strong. Fifth, with the expansion of none store sale, the entrance of the internet and the CD-ROM sales added to communication sales such as catalogues are specified. An eminent American think tank expect that 5-5% of the total sale of clothes and home goods in 2010 will be done by none store sale. Accordingly, to overcome the problems, First international, global level marketing, Second, the improvement of technology, Third, knowledge-creating marketing are needed.

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A Prospective Study on Attitude of Professional Student toward Population Related Issues in Korea (대학전공별(大學專攻別) 전문직학생(專門職學生)들의 인구관련문제(人口關聯問題)에 대한 연차적(年次的) 변화(變化) 연구(硏究))

  • Lee, Kyung-Sik;Kim, Hwa-Joong
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.9 no.1
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    • pp.11-24
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    • 1976
  • This study was a part of large scale of a prospective study on attitudes of professional students in medicine, nursing and teaching toward population related issues in Korea. The study was first conducted in May 1974 and then in May 1975 for the 1974 class cohot using a questionaire consisted of attitude scales and other items developed by Lee. The purpose of stuay was twohold, namely, to determine the difference in students among specializations on one hand and between the first and second years in the 1974 class cohot regarding tile subject matter. A one-way analysis of variance was used for attitude scale, and absolute and relative frequency were computed for the analysis of non-attitude scale items by employing Fishers' Ratio and Duncan's multiple range test at 5% level and chi square test at 5% level as significance tests. The hypothesis 'students in health profession are more likely to have positive attitudes toward population related issues progressively as class year advances than students in teaching profession' was tested and the following results were obtained: 1) Nursing students were more likely to display favarable attitudes toward family planning than medical or teaching students although the class cohot showed slightly negative improvement in the second year. Medical and teaching students apperaed to have slightly improved attitudes in the second year. 2) Respondents in general perceived national family planning program as a means of population control and this tendency was more true among nursing students as the class year advances than two other professional groups of students. Students in teaching profession appeared to perceive it more as a means to improve individual family welfare while health students were likely to see as to improve maternal and child health. This tendency was progressively improved as the class year advanced. 3) The majority of students regardless of their respective specializations believed that family planning program should be directed toward the improvement of individual family welfare. No progressive changes in the class cohot were observed. 4) About the plan to use contraceptives in future, no singnificant differences were observes among different specializations nor in different class years. However, the majority was confirmed to have a plan to use contracepives in future. An increasing proportion of the undecided category was observed, as class year advanced among health students. 5) Students in health profession were found to be more favorable about 'more leisure opportunities' as motive for limiting number of children whereas education students indicated the reasons as 'facilitate ambitions' and 'economic base' The progressive changes toward positive direction in both groups were observed as the class years advanced. 6) Attitudes toward induced abortions of the health students were observed to be positively related to class years while an inverse relationship was found in teaching students who showed much less favor in the subject matter than health students. This phenomenon may be due to the different exposure to learning environments unique to respective specializations. 7) Health students were found to have more favorable attitudes toward population education in general than the teaching students. The teaching students appeared to have changed more to the negative direction when they became the second year while no such development was observed in health students. The teaching students seemed to hold a very conservative position with regard to sex education in schools. 8) About the equality of sexes, the nursing group was found to be most favorable while the reverse was true in the teaching group. A change in the negative direction as the class year advanced was found in the teaching group. 9) About questions related to fertility values-the 10 percent of respondents regardless of specialization indicated that they would maintain their single status in future, however no change was observed in the second year. The desired number of children was found to be two by the majority of students in nursing, medicine and teaching in order of high proportion. No changes in a different class year were observed. The childless marriage was seen by nursing students as a problem more than other students, but a slight change in positive direction was found when the nursing students became the second year. In summing, as data supported in the above, students in health profession demonstrated more favorable attitudes toward population related issues than the teaching students and this tendency became more apparent in the second year. It was noticed that health students were more conscious about the health aspect of population and family planning program while the teaching students gave more attention to the socioeconomic aspect. The sex variable seemed to have operated in the item related to the equality of sexes. In conclusion, as data presented in the above, the hypothesis of this study was accepted except in the few items. It should be noted that the limitation of this study is the short duration of the observation in measuring the possible attitude changes. It should include curriculum analysis for the respective specializations in order to indentify the area of curriculum impact on students in future study.

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A study on Satisfactory Degree of Dental Laboratory Heads about Dental Technician Who graduated form Junior college in Seoul and Kyoung Gi ("서울, 경기 지역 치과경기소장의 전문대학 치기공과 출신 치기공사에 대한 만족도 조사")

  • Min, Byoung-Kuk
    • Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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    • v.11 no.1
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    • pp.23-34
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    • 1989
  • The great sudenn change of circle of dental laboratory technology brought mary discord between the new growing environmental group and the old group, In order to know the satisfactory degree of dental laboratory heads about all dental College, This Study was conducted for 49 detal technicians who graduated from junior laboratory heads in Seoul and Kyoung Gi area. The results are abtained as follow- 1. By age The degree of Satisfaction of items about all graduate dental technician were "41$\sim$45 age" group 26.53%), "46$\sim$50 age" group 22.45%, "36$\sim$40 age" group 18.36%, "31$\sim$35 age" group 12.24%, "51$\sim$55 age" group and "56$\sim$60 age" group 8.16% 60$\sim$age group 4.08% in order. 2. By Job Career. The Highest degree item out of Satisfaction about all graduated dental dental technician was 21$\sim$25 years group 28.5%, 16$\sim$20 years 20.4%, 11$\sim$15 years group 12.24%, 26$\sim$20%, 6$\sim$10 years group 4.08%, below 5 years group 2.04% in order. 3. By managing term of respondent's dental laboratory. The Satisfactory degree of items about all gradate technician were 7$\sim$10 years group 36.73% over 15 years group 22.45%, 11$\sim$14 years group 20.41%, 3$\sim$6 years group 14.29% below 2 years group 6.12% in order 4. By dental technician number of respondent's dental laboratory. The satisfactory degree intems about man were as follow; 6$\sim$9 persons group is 42.86 % The Satisfactory degree items about woman were one persons group in 34.69% 5. By born place The dental laboratory heads mean of inters about all dental technician were Seoul group 20.64 %, Kyoung Gi 17.20 %, Jen Nam group 14.99 % Chung Nam 9.5%in order 6. The satisfactory degree of items about all graduate dental technician were neither good nor bad group 32.65%, bad 6.12%, By ability of adaptaton, The satisfactory degree items about man were neither good nor bad group 42.86%, bad group 40.82%. The satisfactory degree of items about woman were neither good nor bad group 40.82% bad group 36.73%. 7. By sincerity. The satisfactory degree of items about man dental technician who graduated from Junior College were neither good nor bad group 52.02%, bad group 4.08, The satisfactory degree about woman dental technician graduated from Junior College were neither good nor bad group 42.86%, bad group 6.12%. 8. By ability of basical of items about man were bad group 40.82 %. The satisfactory degree about woman were 46.94%. 9. By cooperation relation ship. The satisfactory degree of items about man were neither good nor bad group 42.86%, bad group 10.20%. The satisfactory degree about woman were neither good nor bad group 42.86%, bad group 10.20 %. 10. By ability of work. The satisfactory degree of items about man were neither good nor bad group 48.98%, bad group 4.08%. The satisfactory degree about woman were neither good nor bad group 42.86%, bad group 6.12 %. 11. By the curriculum of the dental technician. The satisfactory degree of items about man were neither good nor bad group 67.35%, bad group 2.04%, The satisfactory degree about woman were neither good nor bad group 61.22%, bad group 6.12%. 12. By occupational satisfaction. The satisfactory degree of items about all graduate dental technician were fatisfied group 14.29%. By the out look of employment. The satisfactory degree of items about man greduate dental technician were neither good nor bad group 34.69 %, bad group 10.20%, about woman graduate dental technician were neither good nor bad group 44.90%, bad group 10.20%, Their employment prospect is not so bright or oprimistic due to the glut supply by graduates in the job-seeking market 13. The satisfactory rate on the artificial dental manufacturing world in terms of effects produced by juror College graduate dental technicians shared good group 40.82% bad group 2.04% 14. By cognition of the number of graduate dental technician. The satisfactory degree of dental laboratory heads about man graduate dental technician were too many group 38.78%, few group 6.12% about woman graduated dental technician were neither good nor bad group 30.6% few group 10,20%, The employment opportunities for the artifical dental technicians are getting decreased because of their excessive cumber in supply 15. The opinion regarding the initial salary. ranging from \160,000 to \200,000 for the junior college graduate dental technicians shared 57.14%. The top ratio, while the satisfaction reate on the academic study period of "3-year" group shared 22%, also the top ratio. 16. The improvement policy and prblematic issues presonted by the owner and operatore of atriticial dental manufacturing plants are as shown below First; The viewpoint that they contribute to the improvement of people's oral health in terms of their mission as artificial dental technicians. Second: The cultivation of basic technical ability to cope with clinical practice upon graduation Third; They require guidance in study and research in their filed of profession, that tray may beable to estaclish a from theory.

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A Study on Legal and Institutional Improvement Measures for the Effective Implementation of SMS -Focusing on Aircraft Accident Investigation-

  • Yoo, Kyung-In
    • The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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    • v.32 no.2
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    • pp.101-127
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    • 2017
  • Even with the most advanced aviation technology benefits, aircraft accidents are constantly occurring while air passenger transportation volume is expected to double in the next 15 years. Since it is not possible to secure aviation safety only by the post aircraft accident safety action of accident investigations, it has been recognized and consensus has been formed that proactive and predictive prevention measures are necessary. In this sense, the aviation safety management system (SMS) was introduced in 2008 and has been carried out in earnest since 2011. SMS is a proactive and predictive aircraft accident preventive measure, which is a mechanism to eliminate the fundamental risk factors by approaching organizational factors beyond technological factors and human factors related to aviation safety. The methodology is to collect hazards in all the sites required for aircraft operations, to build a database, to analyze the risks, and through managing risks, to keep the risks acceptable or below. Therefore, the improper implementation of SMS indicates that the aircraft accident prevention is insufficient and it is to be directly connected with the aircraft accident. Reports of duty performance related hazards including their own errors are essential and most important in SMS. Under the policy of just culture for voluntary reporting, the guarantee of information providers' anonymity, non-punishment and non-blame should be basically secured, but to this end, under-reporting is stagnant due to lack of trust in their own organizations. It is necessary for the accountable executive(CEO) and senior management to take a leading role to foster the safety culture initiating from just culture with the safety consciousness, balancing between safety and profit for the organization. Though a Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's order, "Guidance on SMS Implementation" states the training required for the accountable executive(CEO) and senior management, it is not legally binding. Thus it is suggested that the SMS training completion certificates of accountable executive(CEO) and senior management be included in SMS approval application form that is legally required by "Korea Aviation Safety Program" in addition to other required documents such as a copy of SMS manual. Also, SMS related items are missing in the aircraft accident investigation, so that organizational factors in association with safety culture and risk management are not being investigated. This hinders from preventing future accidents, as the root cause cannot be identified. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Manuals issued by ICAO contain the SMS investigation wheres it is not included in the final report form of Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. In addition, the US National Transportation Safety Board(NTSB) that has been a substantial example of the aircraft accident investigation for the other accident investigation agencies worldwide does not appear to expand the scope of investigation activities further to SMS. For these reasons, it is believed that investigation agencies conducting their investigations under Annex 13 do not include SMS in the investigation items, and the aircraft accident investigators are hardly exposed to SMS investigation methods or techniques. In this respect, it is necessary to include the SMS investigation in the organization and management information of the final report format of Annex 13. In Korea as well, in the same manner, SMS item should be added to the final report format of the Operating Regulation of the Aircraft and Railway Accident Investigation Board. If such legal and institutional improvement methods are complemented, SMS will serve the purpose of aircraft accident prevention effectively and contribute to the improvement of aviation safety in the future.

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Resolving the 'Gray sheep' Problem Using Social Network Analysis (SNA) in Collaborative Filtering (CF) Recommender Systems (소셜 네트워크 분석 기법을 활용한 협업필터링의 특이취향 사용자(Gray Sheep) 문제 해결)

  • Kim, Minsung;Im, Il
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.137-148
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    • 2014
  • Recommender system has become one of the most important technologies in e-commerce in these days. The ultimate reason to shop online, for many consumers, is to reduce the efforts for information search and purchase. Recommender system is a key technology to serve these needs. Many of the past studies about recommender systems have been devoted to developing and improving recommendation algorithms and collaborative filtering (CF) is known to be the most successful one. Despite its success, however, CF has several shortcomings such as cold-start, sparsity, gray sheep problems. In order to be able to generate recommendations, ordinary CF algorithms require evaluations or preference information directly from users. For new users who do not have any evaluations or preference information, therefore, CF cannot come up with recommendations (Cold-star problem). As the numbers of products and customers increase, the scale of the data increases exponentially and most of the data cells are empty. This sparse dataset makes computation for recommendation extremely hard (Sparsity problem). Since CF is based on the assumption that there are groups of users sharing common preferences or tastes, CF becomes inaccurate if there are many users with rare and unique tastes (Gray sheep problem). This study proposes a new algorithm that utilizes Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques to resolve the gray sheep problem. We utilize 'degree centrality' in SNA to identify users with unique preferences (gray sheep). Degree centrality in SNA refers to the number of direct links to and from a node. In a network of users who are connected through common preferences or tastes, those with unique tastes have fewer links to other users (nodes) and they are isolated from other users. Therefore, gray sheep can be identified by calculating degree centrality of each node. We divide the dataset into two, gray sheep and others, based on the degree centrality of the users. Then, different similarity measures and recommendation methods are applied to these two datasets. More detail algorithm is as follows: Step 1: Convert the initial data which is a two-mode network (user to item) into an one-mode network (user to user). Step 2: Calculate degree centrality of each node and separate those nodes having degree centrality values lower than the pre-set threshold. The threshold value is determined by simulations such that the accuracy of CF for the remaining dataset is maximized. Step 3: Ordinary CF algorithm is applied to the remaining dataset. Step 4: Since the separated dataset consist of users with unique tastes, an ordinary CF algorithm cannot generate recommendations for them. A 'popular item' method is used to generate recommendations for these users. The F measures of the two datasets are weighted by the numbers of nodes and summed to be used as the final performance metric. In order to test performance improvement by this new algorithm, an empirical study was conducted using a publically available dataset - the MovieLens data by GroupLens research team. We used 100,000 evaluations by 943 users on 1,682 movies. The proposed algorithm was compared with an ordinary CF algorithm utilizing 'Best-N-neighbors' and 'Cosine' similarity method. The empirical results show that F measure was improved about 11% on average when the proposed algorithm was used

    . Past studies to improve CF performance typically used additional information other than users' evaluations such as demographic data. Some studies applied SNA techniques as a new similarity metric. This study is novel in that it used SNA to separate dataset. This study shows that performance of CF can be improved, without any additional information, when SNA techniques are used as proposed. This study has several theoretical and practical implications. This study empirically shows that the characteristics of dataset can affect the performance of CF recommender systems. This helps researchers understand factors affecting performance of CF. This study also opens a door for future studies in the area of applying SNA to CF to analyze characteristics of dataset. In practice, this study provides guidelines to improve performance of CF recommender systems with a simple modification.

  • A Study on the Establishment of Acceptable Range for Internal Quality Control of Radioimmunoassay (핵의학 검체검사 내부정도관리 허용범위 설정에 관한 고찰)

    • Young Ji, LEE;So Young, LEE;Sun Ho, LEE
      • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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      • v.26 no.2
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      • pp.43-47
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      • 2022
    • Purpose Radioimmunoassay implement quality control by systematizing the internal quality control system for quality assurance of test results. This study aims to contribute to the quality assurance of radioimmunoassay results and to implement systematic quality control by measuring the average CV of internal quality control and external quality control by plenty of institutions for reference when setting the laboratory's own acceptable range. Materials and Methods We measured the average CV of internal quality control and the bounce rate of more than 10.0% for a total of 42 items from October 2020 to December 2021. According to the CV result, we classified and compared the upper group (5.0% or less), the middle group (5.0~10.0%) and the lower group (10.0% or more). The bounce rate of 10.0% or more was compared by classifying the item of five or more institutions into tumor markers, thyroid hormones and other hormones. The average CV was measured by the overall average and standard deviation of the external quality control results for 28 items from the first quarter to the fourth quarter of 2021. In addition, the average CV was measured by the overall average and standard deviation of the proficiency results between institutions for 13 items in the first half and the second half of 2021. The average CV of internal quality control and external quality control was compared by item so we compared and analyzed the items that implement well to quality control and the items that require attention to quality control. Results As a result of measuring the precision average of internal quality control for 42 items of six institutions, the top group (5.0% or less) are Ferritin, HGH, SHBG, and 25-OH-VitD, while the bottom group (≤10.0%) are cortisol, ATA, AMA, renin, and estradiol. When comparing more than 10.0% bounce rate of CV for tumor markers, CA-125 (6.7%), CA-19-9 (9.8%) implemented well, while SCC-Ag (24.3%), CA-15-3 (26.7%) were among the items that require attention to control. As a result of comparing the bounce rate of more than 10.0% of CV for thyroid hormones examination, free T4 (2.1%), T3 (9.3%) showed excellent performance and AMA (39.6%), ATA (51.6%) required attention to control. When comparing the bounce rate of 10.0% or more of CV for other hormones, IGF-1 (8.8%), FSH (9.1%), prolactin (9.2%) showed excellent performance, however estradiol (37.3%), testosterone (37.7%), cortisol (44.4%) required attention to control. As a result of measuring the average CV of the whole institutions participating at external quality control for 28 items, HGH and SCC-Ag were included in the top group (≤10.0%), however ATA, estradiol, TSI, and thyroglobulin included in bottom group (≥30.0%). Conclusion As a result of evaluating 42 items of six institutions, the average CV was 3.7~12.2% showing a 3.3 times difference between the upper group and the lower group. Cortisol, ATA, AMA, Renin and estradiol tests with high CV will require continuous improvement activities to improve precision. In addition, we measured and compared the overall average CV of the internal quality control, the external quality control and the proficiency between institutions participating of six institutions for 41 items excluding HBs-Ab. As a result, ATA, AMA, Renin and estradiol belong to the same subgroup so we require attention to control and consider setting a higher acceptable range. It is recommended to set and control the acceptable range standard of internal quality control CV in consideration of many things in the laboratory due to the different reagents and instruments, and the results vary depending on the test's proficiency and quality control materials. It is thought that the accuracy and reliability of radioimmunoassay results can be improved if systematic quality control is implemented based on the set acceptable range.


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