• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.39-50
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• 2021

We investigate competition and its impact on borrowers' indebtedness (BI) in South Asian microfinance. Our empirical investigations are based on a comprehensive panel dataset of 355 MFIs located in seven countries in South Asia. The empirical results revealed that microfinance in South Asia is imperfectly competitive and the existing industry shows a monopolistic competition during the period under consideration. Also, the competition increased after the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2007-08 which implies that microfinance uses hostile lending behavior through the adverse selection that is highly risky and it can induce repayment crisis. The empirical findings also show that increased competition has significant negative effects on borrowers' indebtedness, particularly in large-scale and regulated microfinance organizations (MFIs). Instead of using equity financing, debt financing could be a better option. Finally, we find that while competition seems to have some positive effects in economic discourse by channeling technological improvements in products and services, its negative effects in microfinance outweigh the benefits over costs, particularly in poverty-stricken nations. The findings are helpful for the policymakers, microfinance industry, investors, borrowers, and Central Bank of South Asian markets.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.459-475
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• 2020

This study analyzes weather derivatives as an alternative risk management tool to stabilize farm revenue to complement the existing crop insurance program which suffers from asymmetric information problems such as adverse selection, moral hazard, and verifiability. We estimated apple yield functions to observe the relationship between yields and weather indices such as temperature and precipitation. Based on the estimated yield functions we designed weather futures and options products underlying temperature and precipitation, and calculated the prices of futures and options by two different approaches, historical distribution and Monte Carlo simulation. We found that weather futures and options stabilize farm revenue based on the estimated four risk indicators: Coefficient of Variation, Value at Risk, Certainty Equivalence, and Risk Premium. As a result, weather derivatives could be considered as a potential farm risk management tool through studying more in legal and institutional strategies and developing various derivatives products.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.194-207
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• 2022

In the last decade, substantial progress has been achieved in intelligent traffic control technologies to overcome consistent difficulties of traffic congestion and its adverse effect on smart cities. Edge computing is one such advanced progress facilitating real-time data transmission among vehicles and roadside units to mitigate congestion. An edge computing-based deep reinforcement learning system is demonstrated in this study that appropriately designs a multiobjective reward function for optimizing different objectives. The system seeks to overcome the challenge of evaluating actions with a simple numerical reward. The selection of reward functions has a significant impact on agents' ability to acquire the ideal behavior for managing multiple traffic signals in a large-scale road network. To ascertain effective reward functions, the agent is trained withusing the proximal policy optimization method in several deep neural network models, including the state-of-the-art transformer network. The system is verified using both hypothetical scenarios and real-world traffic maps. The comprehensive simulation outcomes demonstrate the potency of the suggested reward functions.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.55-63
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• 2023

In 2021, a new chapter on the general management of glomerulonephritis (GN) was added to the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO). It emphasizes the importance of early general management of GN for improving long-term kidney outcomes and prognosis. The chapter introduces the management of glomerular diseases in 18 subchapters. Here, kidney biopsy for the diagnosis and evaluation of kidney function and the management of complications, such as hypertension, infection, and thrombosis, are presented. Moreover, the adverse effects of glucocorticoids and immunosuppressive therapy, which are commonly used drugs for glomerular disease, are mentioned, and a guideline for drug selection is presented. Each subtheme focused on items reflecting the interpretation of the "practice points" of the expert working group are introduced. In this review of the general treatment for GN in the KDIGO guidelines, excluding pregnancy and reproductive health, we focused on and compared various references pertaining to pediatric GN management.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.27-69
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• 2009

This paper studies the logic of fiscal constraints and fiscal autonomy in a political agency model with both moral hazard and adverse selection. The electoral process not only disciplines incumbents who may act against the public interest but also opts in politicians who are most likely to act along voters' interests. We characterize perfect Bayesian equilibria under shared tax system and fiscal autonomy with fiscal constraints for local public good provision. It is shown that the local voters' expected welfare under fiscal autonomy is higher than under shared tax system if the same fiscal constraints are applied. In order to examine the effects of party's candidate selection processes on the behavior of local politician and national politician, we extend the model to an environment where local politician can compete for the candidacy of national assembly with incumbent national politician. If local politician wins majority of votes against incumbent national politician, then he can move on to serve as a national politician. Otherwise, his political career will end as a local politician. It is the gist of this primary system portrayed by this setup that local politician and national politician compete to garner more votes. Therefore, primary system as a candidate selection mechanism enhances local residents' welfare compared to top-down candidate selection processes.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.177-192
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• 2011

The arguments exist that private health insurance(PHI) policy holders tend to use the health care services more than non-policy holders due to their little out-of-pocket spending, resulting in the adverse effects on the finances of National Health Insurance. This study aims to increase the objective understanding of the issue and to draw a direction of further research, by reviewing the articles, reports and statistics which examined the effects of purchasing PHI policies on health care utilization. Significant differences in healthcare utilization, except for the very partial increase of utilization in outpatient settings, have been not found. The similar trends of the results have existed in a few previous studies which tried to control the endogeneity of medical use and health insurance with latent variables which affect the decision on medical use and health insurance. However, we can not exclude the potential change of healthcare utilization patterns because the portion of the insured of indemnity PHI is becoming rapidly larger in the market. For further research, we should try to obtain the objective information of subjects' past medical history, health status, health related behavior, and income affecting purchase of PHI and utilization of healthcare services. And the efforts of controlling the endogeneity of medical use and health insurance with latent variables which affect the decision on medical use and health insurance, are very considerable.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.201-211
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• 2008

All pharmacists must provide the drug consultation whenever dispense drugs to patients by the Korean Pharmacy Law. Drug consultation is very important procedure for increasing pharmacotherapy. Because it maximizes the therapeutic effects or/and minimizes adverse drug reaction during the drug therapy. However, it is not easy to do because of the dynamic and hectic pharmacy environment. Especially, if someone has a disabling body function, they required more time and efforts to perform consultation by pharmacist. Currently several auxiliary labels for helping drug consultation are using in pharmacy practice but not for disabling patients. Therefore we developed the total 53 auxiliary labels with size of 0.7 cm (width) and 1 cm (length) by Braillewriter letters for blind patients. This research has been performed for total 12 months (Mar. 15ts, 2007$\sim$Feb. 25th, 2008) and the developing methods are consisted of 4 steps: 1) selection of essential informations, 2) simplification of information, 3) changing for Braillewriter letters, 4) application and revising by blindness patients. Also the labels are consisted of 12 for adverse reactions and precautions, 8 for directions, 2 for storages, 9 for duration, 9 for dosage forms, and 12 for common names. After developed those labels, we revised those labels by discussion with 2 blind people. In conclusion, the new auxiliary labels for blind patients can increase therapeutic effects and decrease risks from pharmacotherapy besides decreasing of pharmacist's work load in the future.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.37-68
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• 2024

Objectives: This study aimed to systematically review thread-embedding treatment studies for depression, anxiety, and dementia and examine the effectiveness and safety of thread-embedding treatment. Methods: Ten domestic and international search databases were used for study selection, including CNKI, PubMed, CENTRAL, EMBASE, CINAHL, AMED, PsycArticles, RISS, OASIS, and KCI. We included studies that presented diagnostic or appropriate criteria for depression, anxiety, and dementia, and randomized control studies using thread-embedding therapy. We searched papers published until October 10, 2023. Results: Twenty-one studies were selected, of which 11 studies were conducted on depression, nine on dementia, and one on anxiety disorders. The most commonly used acupoint for depression was Gansu (BL18), whereas zusanli (ST36) and fenglong (ST40) were used for dementia. The most commonly used type of thread was 1-0 United States pharmacopeia (USP) and 1 cm for depression and 2-0 USP and 1 cm for dementia. The treatment period for most of the studies was once every 2 weeks and for 8 weeks. Among the included studies, 17 showed significant improvements in depression scales, such as Hamilton depression rating scale and Self rating depression scale, activities of daily living scales, and cognitive function scales, such as Hasegawa dementia scale and Mini-mental state examination. Six studies reported adverse events, and no studies reported significant adverse events. Two studies reported follow-ups. Conclusions: This study presents limited evidence for the effectiveness and safety of thread-embedding therapy for depression, anxiety, and dementia. Well-designed studies are needed to review the clinical efficacy and safety of thread-embedding therapy in the future.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.827-837
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• 2023

Objective: To investigate the predictive value of radiomics features based on cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) cine images for left ventricular adverse remodeling (LVAR) after acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective, single-center, cohort study involving 244 patients (random-split into 170 and 74 for training and testing, respectively) having an acute STEMI (88.5% males, 57.0 ± 10.3 years of age) who underwent CMR examination at one week and six months after percutaneous coronary intervention. LVAR was defined as a 20% increase in left ventricular end-diastolic volume 6 months after acute STEMI. Radiomics features were extracted from the oneweek CMR cine images using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression (LASSO) analysis. The predictive performance of the selected features was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and the area under the curve (AUC). Results: Nine radiomics features with non-zero coefficients were included in the LASSO regression of the radiomics score (RAD score). Infarct size (odds ratio [OR]: 1.04 (1.00-1.07); P = 0.031) and RAD score (OR: 3.43 (2.34-5.28); P < 0.001) were independent predictors of LVAR. The RAD score predicted LVAR, with an AUC (95% confidence interval [CI]) of 0.82 (0.75-0.89) in the training set and 0.75 (0.62-0.89) in the testing set. Combining the RAD score with infarct size yielded favorable performance in predicting LVAR, with an AUC of 0.84 (0.72-0.95). Moreover, the addition of the RAD score to the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) significantly increased the AUC from 0.68 (0.52-0.84) to 0.82 (0.70-0.93) (P = 0.018), which was also comparable to the prediction provided by the combined microvascular obstruction, infarct size, and LVEF with an AUC of 0.79 (0.65-0.94) (P = 0.727). Conclusion: Radiomics analysis using non-contrast cine CMR can predict LVAR after STEMI independently and incrementally to LVEF and may provide an alternative to traditional CMR parameters.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.134-140
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• 2018

Clinical crown lengthening procedure would be an effective method for overcoming adverse clinical condition such as short abutment length. There are three kinds of methods in clinical crown lengthening, those are, surgical crown lengthening, orthodontic extrusion and surgical extrusion. Clinicians have to try their best to choose a proper method among those for favorable results. This report aims to review the considerations in each method with various cases and to suggest a decision flow for appropriate selection.