• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.39-57
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• 2012

The unabated influx of micro businesses has turned the Korean retailing market to a rat race, which causes severe financial distress for micro business owners due to heavy competition. The woes of these micro business owner's are exacerbated by the presence of large scale distributors such as Super Supermarket(SSM) and large discount stores. In summary, the Korean retail market is overburdened an uneconomically viable. Retailing has low barriers to entry which attracts unskilled labor or those with little capital. These start-ups have low opportunity costs since they would make low wages elsewhere in the economy. Thus, these owners are content with relatively low returns on their investment. These 'subsistence ventures' are maintained for economical viability rather than economic growth. These 'subsistence ventures' intensifies competition among small-scale businesses. The presence of large retail corporations also aggravates the situation. The recent stagnation of the economy has worsened the retail market in Korea. The overwhelming competition solidifies the coarse structural system and the prolonged economic sluggishness has increased the risk of insolvency for micro business owners. As the economy continues to stagnate, the imminent risk in retailing market will rise up to surface threatening economic stability. More systematic inflows and outflows of retailers are required in order to redress this structural problem. It has been empirically shown that the self-employment rate is high in Korea compared to other OECD countries. To draw the comparison of self-employment rate by industry, Korea shows high rates among transportation, whole sale, retail, education, lodging, and restaurants. In the case of the transportation and education service sectors, this high rate can be explained by the idiosyncratic nature of Korean culture. In the transportation sector, political policies favor private cap service and private freight carriers. In the education service sector, Koreans put particular emphasis on education that leads to many private institutions that outnumber other OECD countries. For these singular reasons, Korea maintains high micro business, self-employed rates particularly in retailing. A comparable nation is Japan, with its similar social, economic, cultural environment among OECD countries. Unlike Korea, Japan has much lower rates of micro business which continues to decrease. Also Korean retailers are much more destitute than Japanese. The fundamental problem of Korean retailing is the involuntary exit of these 'subsistence ventures,' micro businesses with low margins, in which a small drop in demand can lead to financial difficulties for the owner. This problem will be exacerbated when Korean babyboomers retire and join the micro business ventures. The first priority in order to cope with the severity of oversupply in retailing is to provide better opportunities for the potential self-employers. There should be viable alternatives to subsistent ventures. Strengthening the retirement program, scrutiny of exit process, reconfiguration of policy funds are the recommendations.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• no.17
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• pp.73-79
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• 1998

This study aims to show the present status of the expressions in the contemporary architecture in Kore under its pluralistic and equivocal situation. Non-residential buildings constructed since 1960 till 1997 have been analyzed focused on the rationality romantic property and koreanity which are the expressional aspects and its expressional characteristics in contermporary architecture in Korea such as the properties of the quasi-thematic approach limitary subsistence unexisting common ownership mixed copy and normative diversity have been grasped. These results prove that the common features after Modernism such as the restoration of humanity search for the architectural forms of plural meaning the pursuit for the regionality are also applied for the expressions of the contemporary architecture in Korea, Also this study can be the attempt to clarity the identity of the contemporary architecture in Korea and where it is now.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.39-54
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• 2016

The present study analyzes the diversity and usage of NTFPs and evaluates their importance in the day to day life of the people of rural Meghalaya. People use 172 NTFPs belonging to 139 plant species mainly for food, medicine and fuelwood and to a lesser extent for construction, handicrafts and ornamental purpose. These 139 plants belonged to 117 genera and 70 families with Rosaceae, Poaceae and Fagaceae families as the dominant NTFP yielding families. Fruits from shrubs and trees are most commonly harvested by people. Collection and availability of NTFPs for use as food are more during the summer season, which is also the period with least availability of job. NTFPs for subsistence use are greater in number than those having commercial value. The most commonly harvested plant parts are fruits and leaves. Roots, rhizomes and whole plants are extracted in lesser quantity which is a positive approach from sustainability point of view. NTFPs and other forest products also form a vital part of the rural household's income generation activities.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.399-405
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• 2016

Poor subsistence farmers who live in a semi-arid area of northern Ethiopia build irrigation systems to overcome water shortages. However, there is a high risk of malaria transmission when increased standing water provides more favorable habitats for mosquito breeding. This is a serious problem because there are many barriers to malaria control measures and health care systems in the area. Using a causal loop diagram and computer simulations, the author attempted to visually illustrate positive and negative feedbacks between mosquito and human populations in the context of Simret, which is a small village located in northern Ethiopia and is generally considered a malaria-free area. The simulation results show that the number of infectious mosquitos increases to 17,215 at its peak, accounting for 3.5% of potentially dangerous mosquitos. At the same time, the number of sick people increases to 574 at its peak, accounting for 15% of local population. The malaria outbreak is controlled largely because of a fixed number of vulnerable people or local population that acts as an intermediate host.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.181-191
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• 1988

This paper aims to identify the farmers decision making under uncertainty. Qiuite a few studies have been done on the farmers decision making without uncertainty, but few studies have been made to see farmers decision making under uncertainty in Korea. There are many ways to avoid risks or uncertainty, Wald, Savage, Hurwicz, Laplace, Agrawl-Heady etc. are studied in this field. Fourty farmers were selected as samples. Among those half are the suburbs, and the other half are rural farmers. The results of this study are summarized as follows; First, the suburb farmers are more profit pursuit farmers. Second, not only the rural farmers but the suburb farmers are concerned more safety rather than output maximization. Third, the subsistence farmers and semi-commercial farmers are decided by Wald criterion, but the commercial farmers are decided by Savage or Laplace criterion. Fourth, information is very important in farmers decision making, but the creditability is far from satisfactory to the farmers.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.215-221
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• 1996

In the marginal upland areas of East Java, Indonesia, ruminants provide farming households with tradable assets in addition to manure and draught power. Households are interested in acquiring ruminants at an early stage of household development. This paper discusses farmers' access to cattle via sharing arrangements. In these arrangements owners lend animals to other farmers in retum for a share of the offspring or the profits. Livestock owners only entrust cattle to households with prior experience in livestock keeping and sufficient labour. Details of the sharing contracts differ between villages. Changes in cattle numbers and ownership over time are attributed to patterns of the development of village agriculture and the economic development of farming households. Feed shortages in the dry season bring about short-term changes; cattle numbers decline and the proportion of households rearing shared cattle increases. The institution of sharing plays a major role in replenishing herds after periods of severe drought.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.409-416
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• 2009

A lot of valuable-piece of information are acquisited through ubiquitous sensor network(USN) system composed of man-made sensors. The telemetry system used for communicating to access informations between nature and human-beings monitors and estimates the status of infrastructure, utilities and natural environments to prevent hidden disasters, improving quality of life and productivity in multi-directional views. That would be the reason of USN subsistence. This paper will be a review on how to build long-term USN system. Therefore, this paper focuses on reviewing the sensor interface and the sensor network interface and its significance as the foundation stone for varying USN service profiles and showing its development example, and finally proposing a few of things to set up future-oriented USN open system.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.137-150
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• 2010

Traditionally, like many people in mountain region of the Himalaya, the Lwang communities depend on mix of subsistence agriculture, animal husbandry, and seasonal migrant labor for their livelihoods. These traditional systems are characterized by low productivity, diverse use of available natural resources (largely for home consumption), limited markets, and some aversion for innovation. The potential to generate wealth through commerce has largely been untapped by these mountain residents and thus is undervalued in local and national economies. Introduction of organic tea farming is a part of Lwang community's several initiatives to break the vicious poverty cycle Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) played facilitating roles in all their efforts since beginning. In five years, the tea plantation emerged as a new means for secured a livelihood. This study aims to analyze the current practices in tea farming both in terms of farm management and soil nutrient status(technical) and the prosperity of the tea farmers (social). The technical aspect covers the soil and tea leaf analysis of various nutrients contents in the soil and tea leaf. Originally, the technical aspect of the study was not planned but later during the consultation with the advisor it was taken into consideration which added value to the research study. The sample were collected from different locations and analyzed on the field itself. The other part of the study i.e. the social aspect was done through questionnaire survey and focus group discussion. the tea farming provided them not only a new opportunity but also earned an identity in the region. This initiative was undertaken as a piloting measure. Now that the tea is in production with processing unit established locally, more serious consideration has to be given for better yield and economic prosperity. This research finding will help the community to analyze their efforts and make correction measures in tea garden management and application of fertilizer. It is also expected to fill up the gaps of knowledge and information required to reduce economic stresses and enhance capacity of farmers to make the tea farming a sustainable and beneficial business. The findings are expected to Sustainability of organic tea farming has direct impacts on biodiversity conservation compared to the other traditional farming practices that are more resource intensive. The study will also contribute to identify key action points required for reducing poverty while conserving environment and enhancing livelihoods

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.347-360
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• 1993

The project was undertaken to provide information on the present system of traditional pig farming in the South Pacific region, to identify the problems currently limiting productivity of such pigs and to offer practical strategies which could be used for increasing productivity of the animals. The problems were identified by surveying some 220 subsistence pig farms in eleven island countries in the South Pacific region using a prepared questionnaire. The units were found to be generally small, consisting of about 2-4 sows per herd. The productivity of the units as assessed in terms of sow reproductive efficiency was rather low, being only about 7.5. Feed, housing, breeding, disease, marketing, lack of capital, technical know-how and existing social traditions were identified as current constraints. Based on three of the most limiting factors identified namely feed, housing and breeding, strategies for improvement were developed on the basis of better and more effective use of locally available feed resources, better housing and genetic improvement through crossbreeding programmes. These improvement strategies were tested as a package model on some ten farms in two of the island countries. The results of these on-farm trials indicated that using the improvement strategies increased sow reproductive efficiency by approximately 60 percent, to nearly 12. The significance of these findings in the overall management of traditionally raised pigs in the South Pacific region is discussed.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.85-91
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• 2009

About 83% of the total population of Lao PDR lives in rural areas. People living near forest are highly dependent on the forest resources closed to their villages. Especially non-timber forest products (NTFPs) provide a wide range of subsistence needs and are the main source of their cash income. They also make a significant contribution to the country economy. The annual export value of NTFPs is considerably high. 708 edible NTFP species (238 edible plants and 470 animals) have been recorded so far, and about 400 plants have been reported and used as medicinal plants by Lao people. One hundred NTFP species are considered as commercial forest products. The striking trend in NTFP resources is the decline of some commercial species due to increased demand on them for commercialization, and the loss of forest by rapid population growth. To sustainablely manage the NTFPs resources, a number of new management systems are under development and support in progress by the government.