• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1667-1673
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• 2017

Antibiotics have long been of great benefit for people, both in the medical treatment of human disease and in animal food where they improve the growth performance and feed utilization during animal production. Antibiotics as in-feed supplements affect all stages of pork production, including the gestation, nursing, growing, and finishing stages, although the effects show stage-dependent differences. However, the use of antibiotics in animal feed has become a worldwide concern. This review describes why sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotic additives in animal feed have become an integral part of animal feeding programs for more than 70 years, particularly in pork production. It also discusses the threat of the long-term use of sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics in pork production. In recent years, the effectiveness of in-feed antibiotics has tended to decrease. This review analyzes this change from various perspectives. First, the equipment used at pig farms has improved dramatically and is more sanitary. Worldwide, more pig farms use pig farrowing crates, gestation crates, piglet nursery crates, flooring devices, piggery ventilation and cooler systems, automatic pig feeders, piggery heating equipment, and artificial insemination systems. In addition, scientists have replaced the use of antibiotics with organic acids, fermented mash, probiotics, prebiotics, minerals, oligosaccharides, enzymes, herbs/flavors, and protein/amino acids, and have improved management and husbandry techniques. In addition, animal welfare legislation has been aimed at improving the quality of the floors and living space, ensuring that animals have permanent access to fresh water, and setting a minimum weaning age. Finally, the prospects and the possibility of replacing antibiotics in pork production are described, in line with recent research results.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.1893-1900
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• 2015

The government has the responsibility to prevent abuses of monopoly and promote competition in order to maximize consumer welfare. The government should address the asymmetry in the information as much as possible and ensure consumer choice. The subsidy seems to reduce the burden on the consumer service charges and handset prices but it actually distorts the market through price discrimination. The government caused the principal-agent problem by neglecting their appropriate role to prevent distortion of the mobile telecom market. The money used as subsidy is part of excess profit and could be transferred to down the price of mobile phone and charges and it would become a benefit to consumers. Separate announcement of subsidies by Mobile Communications Terminal Distribution Structure Improvement Act is a little developed policy but it was not actually realized. The market price close to that from perfect competition structure is plausible, ultimately.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.69-118
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• 2007

In providing general medical treatments, the medical service contract between the patient and the doctor is the mutually responsible onerous contract. However, the nature of the mutually assumed contract standings of the patient and the doctor has been changing since the implementation of the national health insurance program. For instance, besides the cases of beyond excessive medical charges and medical negligence, if the doctor charged for his/her medical treatments violating the post-treatment/nursing cover criteria, the overpaid medical charge, regardless of being collected with the patient's consent, has to be refunded back to the patient. Medically needed aspects, treatment results, and unfair benefits favoring the patient are not at all taken into consideration in the health insurance scheme. This makes it easier for patients to get refunds for their share of the medical payments by involving the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service or the National Health Insurance Corporation, without engaging in civil law suits (for reimbursement claim) against doctors. In other words, the doctor's responsibility to provide medical treatments and the patient's responsibility to pay for the medical treatment provided within the contractual realm are being demolished by the administrational arbitration of the National Health Insurance system. The basic rights of medical service providers, and the patient's right to choose are as important constitutional rights, as the National Health Insurance program, which is essential in the social welfare system. Furthermore, the development of the medical fields should not be prevented by the National Health Insurance system. If the medical treatment services can be divided into necessary treatments, general treatments, and high quality treatments, the National Health Insurance is supposed to guarantee the necessary and general treatments to provide medical treatments equally to all the insured with limited financial resources. However, for the high quality treatments, it is recommended that they should not be interfered by the National Health Insurance system, and that they should be left to the private contract between the patient and the doctor.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2005

Objectives : To analyze medical expenses by cancer site and survival time among cancer patients in their last year of life. Method : The study subjects were 45,394 people that had died of cancers in 2002, were registered by the Korea Central Cancer Registry and received National Health Insurance benefit in the last year (360 days) of life. Personal identification data, general characteristics, dates of death and cancer incidence, and site of cancer were collected from the National Statistical Office and the Korea Central Cancer Registry, and merged with the data of the individual medical expenses of the Health Insurance Review Agency. Results : Average monthly cost curves were U-shaped with high costs near the time of diagnosis and death, and lower costs in between. Medical expenses in the last year of life were around 30.3, 16.7, 13.0, and 12.1 million won among leukemia, lymphoma, ovarian cancer, and breast cancer patients, respectively. Digestive organ cancers including stomach, esophagus, liver, pancreas, and colorectal cancers had relatively low medical expenses. Medical expenses in the last year of life were inverse U-shaped with high expenses near one year of survival. Average monthly cost in the 12 months before death among the patients who had survived $10{\sim}15$ years were more than two-fold greater than the cost before diagnosis among those who had survived for less than one year. Conclusions : Leukemia was the most expensive cancer. It is possible that once diagnosed as cancer, medical expenses do not return to the level before diagnosis. Further research will be needed to understand the magnitude and change of the medical expenses among cancer patients with long term follow up data.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.715-721
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• 1998

This study was performed to investigate how milk supplementation can benefit the elderly by increasing bone density but possibly harming the iron status concomitantly. Forty one elderly subjects over 65 years of age(male : 9, female : 32) participated. All subjects were apparently healthy, home staying and attending meal service for lunch at the welfare center. They were from low income area of Puchon city. One cup of milk per day was served for 10 months. The mean intake of calcium was significantly increased for females after milk supplementation. Males showed significantly increased means of triceps skinfold thickness, suprailiac skinfold thickness and waist circumference. Females showed significantly increased measurements fo three kinds of skinfold thickness, waist circumference, and hip circumference. There were no significant change in the mean bone density of lumbar spine$(L_2~L_4)$, femoral neck, ward's triangle and torchanter, but the proportion of osteopenia estimated by the T score of lumbar spine bone density was lowered from 50.0% to 34.6% for females. The mean Hb level was significantly for males. The proportion of anemia estimated by Hb(<12g/dl), Hct(<36%) and serum ferritin(<15mg/ml) were increased from 17.2% to 51.7%, from 20.7% to 44.8% and from 10.3% to 17.2%, respectively for females. It looks like milk supplementation can effect the intakes of several nutrients considered to be commonly deficient in the Korean diet fo elderly people, increase some anthropometric measurements, and decrease the proportion of osteopenia. However it can have adverse effects on iron status of females.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.160-172
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• 2018

This study examined the intake status of energy drinks and related factors among university students in Yeungnam region, Korea. A total of 456 students participated in the study by a self-administered questionnaire. About 26% of the respondents never took energy drinks, whereas about 30% took them previously, but do not take them now. Almost 45% answered that they have taken them up to now. The reasons for first intake of energy drinks were 'necessity for myself' followed by 'curiosity', 'recommendation of friends', and 'seeing advertisement', and Chi-square test showed that there was a significant difference according to dwelling status. About half of the respondents took them since high school, and the main reason for energy drink intake was 'to stay awake'. About 45% of the respondents indicated that they increased study hours after taking energy drinks, whereas almost 40% answered that they had little effect on them. Over half of the respondents experienced side effects after energy drink intake. About one-fifth of the respondents mixed the energy drinks with alcoholic beverages to make them taste better. In addition, in the result for the multinomial logistic regression analysis, gender, grade, dwelling status, smoking status, alcohol drinking status, perception of effect of energy drinks on health, and perception of benefit level of caffeine were the predictors for the respondents who never took energy drinks in comparison with the respondents who have taken them up to now. On the other hand, for the respondents who took them previously but do not take them now compared with those of having taken them up to now, the predictors were dwelling status and smoking status. These results imply that dietary education from childhood regarding knowledge and side effects of energy drinks should be offered.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.221-226
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to suggest improvement directions and analysis of assistive technology service linkage on public benefits in local assistive technology center. The service steps and the main program parts of public benefits linkage in local assistive technology center was identified, and the present status of associated repair works and contact suppliers of assistive technology device in local community was investigated. The result showed the most common level of associated status to provide information of assistive technology devices in public benefits. All the centers provided repair service, and it was typically performed to light maintenance. The centers offered with associated professional repair service supplier for high maintenance service. The connection with assistive technology device supplier appeared a lot of regional difference. Henceforth, the centers will be required to distribute more various assistive technology devices, it is necessary upgrading the quality of information and interaction with the public benefits supporting organizations through its expansion, and it is need to ensure based on policy through the analysis of the effectiveness about linkage.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.60-84
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• 2016

What impact does the sharing economy have on existing businesses? This paper empirically examines how Uber transformed the taxi industry in New York City. Using a regression model controlling various potential influencing factors, we find no direct evidence that daily trips or revenue per taxi driver decreased since Uber entered the taxi industry. However, a closer investigation into other dimensions of taxi trips reveals that taxi drivers were forced to change their way of doing businesses to retain existing daily trips and revenue. Since Uber crowded out yellow taxis from the central area of Manhattan, yellow taxis responded by serving customers outside of the Manhattan borough. From enlarging their geographical coverage and serving customers that were previously ignored, yellow taxis were able to retain their previous level of taxi trips and market share. We also find that yellow taxis responded by improving their service quality to better serve customers' needs. Our result suggests that incumbents actively responded to Uber's entry and provided substantial benefit to consumers. Combined with the incumbent's response, the sharing economy transformed the existing market in a welfare-enhancing way. This paper provides managerial and policy implication on how incumbents affected by the disruptions of the sharing economy should respond. Even though it might be yet premature to examine the impact of Uber, results suggest that incumbents have effectively defended against Uber's entry so far. We conclude that the sharing economy and the existing economy can create positive value in our society through well-intentioned competition, complementing each other's weaknesses and strengths.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.21-27
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• 2016

Big Data is gathering all the attention from every business community. Pervasive use of machine-to-machine (M2M) applications and mobile devices bring an explosion of data. By analyzing this data, the private and public sectors can benefit in the areas of cost reduction and productivity. The Korean government is actively pursuing Big Data initiatives to promote its usage. This paper aims to select industries which fit for the development of Big Data with a verification of the experts. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to systematically derive the opinion of more than 50 professionals. Medical / welfare, transportation / warehousing, information and communications / information security, energy, the financial sector have been identified as promising industries. The results can be utilized in developing Big Data best practices thus contributing industrial development.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.275-284
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to provide useful insights into community-level support services for family caregivers in Korea by comparing them with the services in the United States. Similar to most developed countries, life expectancy has led to rapid population aging in Korea over the last several decades. However, despite increased social needs of long-term care for the elderly, many elderly Koreans are still dependent on their family for the long-term care. Yet, existing support programs for family caregivers are very limited. As a result, family caregivers often suffer from a lack of financial resources and emotional support. In this study, we comprehensively review the extensive literature, including relevant studies and documents of community-level support services for family caregivers of the elderly at home in Korea and the United States. One of the most important differences is that compared to Korea, diverse services based on the law of NFCSP to support the family caregivers, such as counseling, organization of support group, and educating have been available in the United States since 2000. Additionally, the legal definition of family caregivers in the United State is broader than that in Korea, where family caregivers are limited to those who are related by blood or marriage. Therefore, more caregivers are eligible for support programs and benefit from the programs in the United States. The findings of the study suggest that policy makers in Korea should legislate for diverse and comprehensive services for family caregivers. Further, it is necessary to define legal terms for family caregivers more broadly to extend beneficiaries of the programs.