• Health Policy and Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.194-220
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• 1992

In recent years there has been a rapid influx of high cost MRI equipment into Korea. This diffusion has raised concerns about the changes it will bring for the health care utilization. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify socio-economic characteristics of MRI uses in Korea. A structured questionnaire was designed for this purpose, and 1, 091 users were surveyed at the 35 MRI units of 33 hospitals during a week, sometimes March 1992. The study reveals that high cost technology such as MRI, CT scanner is so prevalent in Korea. This is particularly the case in metropolitan areas. Among others, Seoul has the highest percentage of MRI equipment, 51.05%, Pusan 12.10% and Kwangju 11.9%. Unfortunately, most high cost technology equipments are foreign products. Thus, hospitals with such a high cost technology have difficulties in maintenance of the equipment. The average performance of MRI equipment has declined from 10.2 cases per day in 1988 to 7.16 cases in March 1992. Due to the rapid increase, the performance of MRI equipment seems to be deterioration. Male usere are dominant in the case of MRI use. The utilization rate has positively increased with the rise of educational level of users. The same is true for the level of income; the MRI utilization rate by income level shows that it is negatively proportional to income, which indicates that the poor have difficulties in the use of high cost technology. Particularly, the cost of MRI is so high that ordinary patients are unable to pay for it. For example, 86.3% of respondents have answered that the cost is too high even though they are insured by health insurance. This is the first empirical study on the use status of MRI. The information obtained in this study is sufficient to maintain that the Korean health insurance programme is urgently in need of improving the insurance benefit schemes. The easiest way to do this is to include provision of high cost technology service into the benefit package.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.5
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• pp.57-68
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• 2019

Rural tourism has been identified as providing opportunities to revitalize the rural economies since early 2000s. During last decade in South Korea, government has enacted many policies aiming to establish tourism support programs as well as instigating activities between rural and nearby urban districts. In particular, the promotion of the rural tourism has been actively sought in various forms of products and services, such as green tourism village, village festival, one-company one-village campaign and etc. However, in order to prepare effective policies, it is very crucial to identify measureable evaluation criteria that can be used to assess socio-economic situations of the rural districts. Such criteria should be objective, timely and provide insights about living conditions of local residents and relevant properties. They can also be used to evaluate if progress is being made after the policies are implemented. While considerable efforts and resources have been invested to aid the tourism programs in South Korea, we still lack such systematic means to quantify and evaluate its impact on rural districts. In this work, we have applied regional deprivation analysis on well-established community experiential and recreational business in rural villages throughout the country based on three criteria (i.e., population, local commerce, and buildings). Surprisingly, the result shows that the implementation of the community experiential and recreational businesses did not bring any noticeable changes to at least one of the evaluation criteria. We concluded that the current government policies on revitalization of rural tourism at the village scale is insufficient for bringing meaningful socio-economic impacts to rural districts, with rare exceptions.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.186-196
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• 2010

According to the rapid changes in our society and lifestyles, the methods of spending leisure time are being diversified and the facilities for leisure activities are growing as multi-purposed complexes. Purpose of this study was to figure out the design changes of lodging facility interiors in resort complexes which had been influenced by socio-economic conditions after the year 2000, and to provide fundamental references for planning pleasant and differentiated resort accommodations. To accomplish this purpose, the recent tendency of making complex resort facilities was examined and the changes in the properties of lodging facility design since the year 2000 was analyzed. The result shows that the surface areas of guestroom units have been enlarged, and the composition of floor plans has been diversified into various types. Also the number of bathrooms and built-in furniture units has been increased. For the design properties, concepts and themes for guestroom design has been diversified by applying unique color schemes and design elements. The characteristics of lodging facility design in domestic resort complex have been developed to reflect social trends and customer needs. Nevertheless, to deal with changing culture of leisure life, continuous study on resort facilities and various types of lodging facility is required.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.237-249
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• 2011

Land-use changes due to the socio-economic environment influence landscape patterns and processes, which affect habitats and biodiversity. This study considers the effects of such land-use changes, particularly on the traditional rural "Maeul" forested landscape, by analyzing landscape structure and vegetation changes. Three study areas were examined that have seen their populations decrease and age over the last few decades. Five types of plant life-forms (Raunkier life-forms) were distinguished to investigate ecosystem function. Principle component analysis was used to understand vegetation dynamics and community characteristics based on a vegetation similarity index. Ordination analysis transformed species-coverage data was introduced to clarify vegetation dynamics. Landscape indices, such as area metrics, edge metrics, and shape metrics, showed that spatial heterogeneity has increased over time in all areas. Pinus densiflora was the main land-use plant type in all study areas but decreased over time, whereas Quercus spp. increased. Over a decade, P. densiflora communities shifted to deciduous oak and plantation. These findings indicate that the impact of human activities on the Maeul landscape is twofold. While forestry activities caused heavy disturbances, the abandonment of traditional human activities has led to natural succession. Furthermore, it can be concluded that the type and intensity of these human impacts on landscape heterogeneity relate differently to vegetation succession. This reflects the cause and consequence of patch dynamics. We discuss an approach for sustainable landscape planning and management of the Maeul landscape based on traditional management.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.212-221
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• 2020

Background: Rapid industrialization has caused various impacts on nature, including heavy metal pollution. However, the impacts of industrialization vary depending on the types of industrializing activity and surrounding environment. South Korea is a proper region because the rapid socio-economical changes have been occurred since the late nineteenth century. Therefore, in this study, we estimate the anthropogenic impacts on an ecosystem from a sediment core of Yonghwasil-mot, an irrigation reservoir on the western coast of Korea, in terms of heavy metal concentrations, nutrient influx, and pollen composition. Results: The sediment accumulation rate (SAR) determined by 210Pb geochronology showed two abrupt peaks in the 1930s and 1950s, presumably because of smelting activity and the Korean War, respectively. The following gradual increase in SAR may reflect the urbanization of recent decades. The average concentrations of arsenic (As), copper (Cu), and lead (Pb) during the twentieth century were > 48% compared to those before the nineteenth century, supporting the influence of smelting activity. However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the As, Cu, and Pb concentrations decreased by 19% compared to levels in the twentieth century, which is coincident with the closure of the smelter in 1989 and government policy banning leaded gasoline since 1993. The pollen assemblage and nutrient input records exhibit changes in vegetation cover and water level of the reservoir corresponding to anthropogenic deforestation and reforestation, as well as to land-use alteration. Conclusions: Our results show that the rapid socio-economic development since the twentieth century clearly affected the vegetation cover, land use, and metal pollutions.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-25
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• 2012

This paper is the first paper of two linked papers about the FDI of the economic infrastructure-related public companies. This paper analyzes overseas investments of infrastructure public companies which is characterized by state control and support of socio-economic facilities and services. In theoretical consideration the genealogy and characteristics of FDI are examined, and then global FDI trends since 1970, institutional changes and FDI trends in Korea are analyzed. This analysis shows that the globalization of large state-owned enterprises or public companies from developing and transition economies constitutes an important component of FDI and new emerging source of FDI. Finally the objects and strategies of large 10 infrastructure public companies are analyzed in perspectives of features having both advanced and developing economies type.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.70-76
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• 1999

Rice farming is not only the most important income resources of Korean farmers but also the roots of Korean traditional culture. Paddy fields have acted as an food supply base but also have contributed to the public multi-functions such as flood control, water conservation, controlling soil erosion, providing recreational and resting spaces, water purification, air cleaning, oxygen supply and air cooling and so on. The public multi-functions of paddy except rice production have not been evaluated before UR negotiation and starting WTO system. Under the drastic changes of rice economic settings as price decrease of rice and downward decrease of farm income, Korean and Japanese farmers might have lost their intention to grow rice in paddy fields without the direct payment system to compensate rice income decrease. To adapt the direct payment system, the total public value of multi-function of paddy should be identified in terms of money. According to the research results, the total value of multi-functional value of paddy in Korea were estimated 21,596thousand won which is higher than rice production value by 2.1 times. On the other hand the total value of Japanese paddy were amounted to 21,390 Yen which is more than that of Korea by 10times outstandingly. Likewise Japanese have evaluated the paddy field very important enterprise from the view point of food security and multi -functions of paddy to their socio-economic life and environmental sustainability in Japan.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.284-292
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• 2021

The food service industry has grown larger with changes in the economic and socio-cultural environment. In this saturated food service industry, generation X and MZ are the main consumer forces that demand attention. That is because a generation is the main psychographic factor that reflects personal values and lifestyle based on one's life cycle. From such a perspective, a generation in marketing has been used as a variable to predict a market by supplementing demographic factors. Accordingly, this study classified generations into generation X and generation MZ with the use of the 2019 consumer behavior survey for food by Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) and then investigated the factors influencing group and personal dining-out expenses. The analysis was carried out applying the Tobit model using SPSS and R. The positively influential variables on generation X's personal dining-out expenditure were male, single person, high income and simple lifestyle, whereas housewives, personal ethical consciousness, behavioral ethical consciousness, and safe dietary life were negatively influential variables. The positively influential variables on generation MZ's personal dining-out expenditures were male, dual-income, high education level, corporate and governmental ethical consciousness, while the number of family members and safe dietary life were negatively influential variables.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.167-184
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• 2000

This study has investigated the degree of similarities and/or differences of consumption expenditure styles among the households with different occupation. Two types of analysis were performed. One was comparative analysis which used to identify the changes of consumption expenditure styles among different occupation classes using time-series data of 1977-1996 Korean Urban Household Expenditure Survey and Rural Household Economy Survey. The other was multivariate analysis to investigate the effects of occupation on consumption expenditure styles with 1551 sample household data from 1996 Korean Urban Household Expenditure Survey. The results showed that the differences in consumption styles among different occupation classes including farmers are diminished during last two decades while there still exist some degree of differences in consumption styles. After controlling other socio-economic factors it is found that occupation is a determinant of consumption patterns of urban w ge earners especially consumption for clothing and health items.

• Proceeding of Spring/Autumn Annual Conference of KHA
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.251-257
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• 2003

The purpose of this research is to analyse the relationship between the types of supplied apartment plans and the dweller's remodelling of their housework space. Major findings of this research are as fellows: 1. The concept of house wort space has been greatly changed according to the evolution of socio-economic situation. 2. Increasing trend of remodelling activities for house work space is closely related with the housewife's changing attitude on the concept of house work, that is, the change from hard labor to enjoyable object. 3. The concern for house work space remodelling has been increased since 1980's, which is closely related with the appearance of consumer oriented housing market environment.