• 한국노년학
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.759-776
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• 2012

This study analysed the income-related health inequality of the aged in Korea applied to EQ-5D. Two decompositions were used in analysis. One was the decomposition of income-related health inequality into six different dimensions of EQ-5D, and the other was to decompose it by sub-group such as sex, region, existence of spouse. The results are summarized as follows. First, the health concentration index(CI) of the aged was .0254, which meant that there were pro-rich inequality in elderly people's health levels. The same patterns were also seen in the analysis of different dimensions of EQ-5D such as mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression. Second, mobility accounted for 35.8% of total EQ-5D score, most contributing to CI of the dimensions of EQ-5D. The CIs by the dimensions ranged from .0091 for mobility to .0013 for self-care. Third, The decompositions by sub-groups showed that the contributions of sex, region, and existence of spouse to health inequality was similar to each other, all of three sub-groups accounted for 10 % of inequality respectively. Fourth, the inequality within group was higher in female group, rural area, and the aged without spouse. The average health level of these groups was lower than that of the other ones, too. These facts indicated that old women, the aged without spouse, and the elderly in rural area were the most vulnerable groups in health problems. Therefore, it is necessary to pay more attention to health problems of these groups in the policy making of health security and social welfare services.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.90-95
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• 2017

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the physical therapists' perception of the use of gait measures, the frequency of the gait measures used, and also to identify the barriers that limit the use of these assessment tools. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Physical therapists from the Seoul, Gyeonggi area from March to July 2016 were included in the study. Over the course of 18 weeks, a cross-sectional study was conducted with a self-report questionnaire. A total of 700 questionnaires were distributed and 350 questionnaires (50%) were collected, however with the exclusion of 140 questionnaires due to non-consent, a total of 210 questionnaires (30%) were analysed. Results: Out of the 10 standardized assessment tools, the therapists showed the highest perception for the timed up and go test (TUG [n=153, 72.9%]) and they also had high perception for the 10 meters walk test (10MWT [n=149, 71.0%]), and 6-minute walk test (6MWT [n=123, 58.6%]). The respondents answered that the TUG (n=116, 55.2%), 10MWT (n=100, 47.6%), and 6MWT (n=51, 24.3%) was used the most often. On the contrary, only four (1.9%) therapists have used the Chedoke-McMaster stroke assessment and the Rivermead Mobility Index. The lack of time was considered as the most important barrier to the use of assessment tools in clinical practice. Conclusions: Through this study, it has been shown that the domestic physical therapists used the TUG and the 10MWT mainly due to high recognition and evaluation status; however, the lack of time was the greatest impediment to the clinical application of the gait assessment tools.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.53
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• pp.193-218
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• 2018

In this essay, I examine the interactions of chronotopes in the narrative of Gangnam Blues, a film written and directed by Yu Ha and released in 2015. Bakhtin's chronotope, the connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships in literary narratives, provides the background for the representability of events and becomes the organizing center for the events. Each chronotope offers a different way of acting, interacting and understanding experience, and chronotopes can interact with each other in a single text or between the reader and the represented world. Gangnam Blues is a gangster movie, first of all, showing an individual's illusion of an unlimited possibility for achieving wealth and power. At the same time, the film describes the government's project to transform Gangam, a rural area in the south of the Han, into a new downtown and residential area for Seoul. As the world in the narrative and the world of the author or the reader are all chronotopic, we can see the interactions of chronotopes between the narrative of an individual and the historical narrative, as well as between the narrative about the beginning of Gangnam and the audience's perception of the present Gangnam. In this film, the main character's ambition is shown as part of the social desire for rapid economic achievements in the 1970s, along with high social mobility. The social desire can be explained as envy, as it is fueled by social comparisons and competitions. The main character's pursuit of money and power through the possession of Gangnam land overlaps with the envious desire for the present Gangnam shared by many. The individual's exceptional ambition and violence are not fully examined in this text. Moreover, the film's dependence on the feelings of envy to represent the individual's choice and violence can be a symptom of the lack of critical distance from social desire and envy.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.145-153
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• 2006

Ubiquitous space can be described as a combined space of physical space and digital space. Ubiquitous space possesses new possibilities by combining the two. The concept of ubiquitous home will bring new changes in residential space design. First of all, it makes possible for more convenient and secure home. It has to be developed along with city and town level changes as ubiquitous environment. Secondly, concept of extended space as an extension of living space becomes possible by linking with outside spaces. Thirdly, as consumer requirements for residential spaces will become more versatile by social changes, ubiquitous home can be a good means to meet these versatile consumer requirements by accommodating concept of multi-functional space and flexible space. It is quite important to predict user requirements in rapidly changing social environment and versatile personal inclinations. Instead of POE methodology which can analyze and evaluate in exiting types of designs, storytelling methodology can be used to predict and direct for future requirements of living. The methodology makes scenarios of space usage for future living and extracts design requirements for the living. The concept of intelligent space has to be introduced. It is different from digital home that only accomodate digital devices in space. In intelligent space, space itself has to be recognized as an identity that interacts human directly. Intelligent space recognize human requirements and control digital devices as a response. Multi-functional space is closely related with intelligent space that can changes for business, entertainments as well as for rests by user requirements instantly. Flexible space that also intends to meet requirements of mobility and versatility can be attained through the integration of digital technology into current physical mobile systems. Interaction design becomes integral part for ubiquitous space design along with physical design. For the residential space design, digital illiteracy has to be considered for interaction design. Instead of the concept of passive existence, space itself has to be recognized as active subsistence that reacts with human. Intuitive and natural interaction for human will be a key design element for space-human interface design.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.51-67
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• 2008

The study analyzes divorce rates in Korea and makes suggestions for the future research of divorce rates. Based on the data from Korea Statistical Information System (KOSIS) of the National Statistics Organization, trends for divorce rates change and the relations between divorce rates and macro environmental factors are analyzed. Macro environmental factors include socioeconomic factors such as, Korean War, Vietnam War, oil shock, IMP economic crisis and gross national income (GNI), whereas demographical factors include population structure, rates of female labor participation, and geographical location. The principle characteristics of divorce rates are as follows: 1) the Crude divorce rates (CDR) and the number of divorced had been increased from 1970 to 2004, then the trend changed to a decrease; 2) the slope of the change were the highest during 1998 to 2004 after the IMP economic crisis. The relations between socioeconomic factors are as follows: 1) during the war there was a small increase of CDR for a short period of time; 2) the economic crisis of the nation tend to increase the CDR, while the IMP economic crisis had a strong impact on an increase of CDR because of the interaction effect among the population structure, women's sex role changes as well as the level of standard of living. The increase in CDR from 1990 to 2000 can be explained partly by the population of baby Boomers passing through their marriage and divorce process. The number of population residing in the rural area and the middle class households, and the mobility of population also had an impact on the divorce rates changes. The recommendations for the future research were as follows: 1) the need to develop new divorce statistics that are based on a marriage cohort or a birth cohort because family behavior is a mixture of personal, social and political responses, and because CDR is not an accurate measure of divorce rate since it was influenced by population structure; 2) the need to include micro personal factors as well as macro social factors in a model to find an interaction effect between those variables.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.147-153
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• 2013

Objective : Despite the chronic nature and high social costs, individuals with anxiety disorders seldom seek treatment. Thus, education for public awareness and screening for the illness is tremendously important for mental health professionals. This study summaries and presents the results from Anxiety Disorder Screening Program during the Mental Health Exposition held in Seoul in April, 2013. Methods : We analyzed the data from 116 participants who agreed and completed the screening questionnaires during their visits to two-day Anxiety Disorder Screening Program prepared by the Korean Academy of Anxiety Disorder. The questionnaire comprised of modified Mobility inventory for agoraphobia, Contents of worries, Penn State Worry Questionnaire, Life Events Checklist, and Abbreviated Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist. Results : Participants demonstrated high rates of anxiety symptoms and possible anxiety disorders. Experience of panic attack was reported by 45%, lifetime and 16% in the past month by respondents. Phobia was reported by 46%. Participants had an average of 3.3 pathological worries and among those, social or interpersonal content was most common (46%). At least one lifetime traumatic event was reported by 64%. By the cut-off scores in the literature, 46% had possible generalized anxiety disorder and 58% possible posttraumatic stress disorder. Conclusion : Our results suggested that many visitors to Anxiety Disorder Screening Program were in fact treatment seeking after experiencing some forms of anxiety symptoms. Further efforts for delivery of medical information and increasing public awareness for anxiety disorders are needed.

• Asian review of World Histories
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.81-112
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• 2015

This essay interrogates the category of the 'global' in the emerging domain of 'global intellectual history'. Through a case study of the Indian social-religious reformer Rammohun Roy (1772/4-1833), I argue that notions of global selfhood and rights-consciousness (which have been preoccupying concerns of recent debates in intellectual history) have multiple conceptual and practical points of origin. Thus in early colonial India a person like Rammohun Roy could invoke centuries-old Indic terms of globality (vishva, jagat, sarva, sarvabhuta, etc.), selfhood (atman/brahman), and notions of right (adhikara) to liberation/salvation (mukti/moksha) as well as late precolonial discourses on 'worldly' rights consciousness (to life, property, religious toleration) and models of participatory governance present in an Indo-Islamic society, and hybridize these with Western-origin notions of rights and liberties. Thereby Rammohun could challenge the racial and confessional assumptions of colonial authority and produce a more deterritorialized and non-sectarian idea of selfhood and governance. However, Rammohun's comparativist world-historical notions excluded other models of selfhood and globality, such as those produced by devotional Vaishnava, Shaiva, and Shakta-Tantric discourses under the influence of non-Brahmanical communities and women. Rammohun's puritan condemnation of non-Brahmanical sexual and gender relations created a homogenized and hierarchical model of globality, obscuring alternate subaltern-inflected notions of selfhood. Class, caste, and gender biases rendered Rammohun supportive of British colonial rule and distanced him from popular anti-colonial revolts and social mobility movements in India. This article argues that today's intellectual historians run the risk of repeating Rammohun's biases (or those of Hegel's Weltgeschichte) if they privilege the historicity and value of certain models of global selfhood and rights-consciousness (such as those derived from a constructed notion of the 'West' or from constructed notions of various 'elite' classicized 'cultures'), to the exclusion of models produced by disenfranchised actors across the world. Instead of operating through hierarchical assumptions about local/global polarity, intellectual historians should remain sensitive to and learn from the universalizable models of selfhood, rights, and justice produced by actors in different spatio-temporal locations and intersections.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.423-435
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• 2010

Objectives: The low benefit coverage rate of South Korea's health security system has been continually pointed out. A low benefit coverage rate inevitably causes catastrophic health expenditure, which can be the cause of the transition to poverty and the persistence of poverty. This study was conducted to ascertain the effect of catastrophic health expenditure on the transition to poverty and the persistence of poverty in South Korea. Methods: To determine the degree of social mobility, this study was conducted among the 6311 households that participated in the South Korea Welfare Panel Study in both 2006 and 2008. The effect of catastrophic health expenditure on the transition to poverty and the persistence of poverty in South Korea was assessed via multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: The poverty rate in South Korea was 21.6% in 2006 and 20.0% in 2008. 25.1 - 7.3% of the households are facing catastrophic health expenditure. Catastrophic health expenditure was found to affect the transition to poverty even after adjusting for the characteristics of the household and the head of the household, at the threshold of 28% or above. Conclusions: 25.1% of the households in this study were found to be currently facing catastrophic health expenditure, and it was determined that catastrophic health expenditure is a cause of transition to poverty. This result shows that South Korea's health security system is not an effective social safety net. As such, to prevent catastrophic health expenditure and transition to poverty, the benefit coverage of South Korea's health security system needs to the strengthened.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.143-152
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• 2017

PURPOSES : This study intends to estimate the tangible benefits derived from the integration of operations of an Express Intercity Bus Terminal and a Highway Service Area. METHODS: For the study, a highway service area was chosen to function as a bus terminal, integrating its services with that of a nearby bus terminal plagued by operating losses. The exercise also helped improve mobility owing to the introduction of local buses between the terminals and utilization of the existing infrastructure such as rest areas. Thus, a terminal that was not being utilized for its intended functionality was integrated with an existing facility to improve the utilization of both and subsequently aid local development. The impact of the exercise was then measured by evaluating the variation in utilization efficiency, operating costs, travel time between two regions (Seoul-Jeomchon and Seoul-Geumsan), and the social costs before and after the integration of the two facilities. RESULTS :The impact of the integration was an increase in utilization efficiency, a decrease in operating cost, a decrease in travel time, and a decrease in social cost in both the regions. The benefits of improved utilization and cost saving can be passed on to the citizens in the form of discounts. A local power generation facility will eventually replace the bus terminal, which can revitalize the local economy. CONCLUSIONS :The integration of the highway service area with the bus terminal is expected to have a win-win effect on the passengers as well as the operators. The study also proposes a sustainable strategic plan for existing terminals and rest areas to implement a method to compete with KTX transportation.

• Journal of The Korean Digital Architecture Interior Association
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.49-58
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• 2012

In Regarding urban geo-spatial information visualization in this study, visualization of physical attribute information is mostly related to the representation of spatial domain and physical objects, and visualization of non-physical attribute information has to do with visualizing citizens and their activity information in the physical environment. In particular, a citizen, one of the non-physical information attributes, is characterized by a constant mobility in the physical environment, and thus visualization of his/her activity information is vital in conveying information because this information may not be depicted with any given, fixed figures. In consideration of this difficulty, this study integrates interrelationship among urban space, human needs, social relations, and lifestyles into a 'high-tech' service where experience in time and space is possible. To analyze the web-service and visualization cases, the study has selected visualization indicators consisting of information representation objective, information representation means, and information representation result. The results of the case analysis through specific indicators set a range in information representation objective, means, and result, thereby forming a user-friendly environment in which representational results are readily available to users, and ultimately expanding the users' selection range coming with a variety of options. This study also assumes that a wide range of service provision is needed to reflect users' needs in developing urban geo-spatial service model, and the display of its results should visualize users' satisfaction to construct the best information needed to users.