• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.406-414
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• 2023

Background: This study examined age-group differences in the rate, severity, and cost of injuries among construction workers to support evidence-based worker safety and health interventions in the construction industry. Methods: Ohio workers' compensation claims for construction workers were used to estimate claim rates and costs by age group. We analyzed claims data auto-coded into five event/exposure categories: transportation incidents; slips, trips, and falls (STFs); exposure to harmful substances and environments; contact with objects and equipment (COB); overexertion and bodily reaction. American Community Survey data were used to determine the percentage of workers in each age group. Results: From 2007-2017, among 72,416 accepted injury claims for ~166,000 construction full-time equivalent (FTE) per year, nearly half were caused by COB, followed by STFs (20%) and overexertion (20%). Claim rates related to COB and exposure to harmful substances and environments were highest among those 18-24 years old, with claim rates of 313.5 and 25.9 per 10,000 FTE, respectively. STFs increased with age, with the highest claim rates for those 55-64 years old (94.2 claims per 10,000 FTE). Overexertion claim rates increased and then declined with age, with the highest claim rate for those 35-44 years old (87.3 per 10,000 FTE). While younger workers had higher injury rates, older workers had higher proportions of lost-time claims and higher costs per claim. The total cost per FTE was highest for those 45-54 years old ($1,122 per FTE). Conclusion: The variation in rates of injury types by age suggests that age-specific prevention strategies may be useful.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.21-39
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• 1999

An increasing number of hospitals are seeking for new or mixed compensation strategies to improve the productivity of their medical staff in the struggle to provide high quality medical services at low costs amid the economic hardship. To motivate physicians toward the right direction, it is necessary to effectively evaluate their performance that provides a basis for compensation. However, productivity has been historically difficult to measure, particularly for physicians in academic medical centers who are expected to engage in research, education, and patient care simultaneously. The objectives of this study were to define performance measures of physicians and clinical departments in academic medical centers. to examine correlations between the measures. and to investigate factors affecting the measures. The performance data of 212 faculty physicians in 17 clinical departments in two university teaching hospitals affiliated to one medical school during the fiscal year 1994 was used for analyses. Patient care revenue, net profit. and adjusted number of patients were defined to measure the performance in patient care. and number of articles published in academic journals and research grant were defined for research activities. Both individual physicians' performance measures and per physician measures of clinical departments were analyzed. All measures defined to evaluate individual physicians' performance were positively related to each other. Clinical department and rank of faculty position were statistically significant predictors of revenue. and hospital. clinical department. and rank were significant predictors of net profit. journal publication. and research grant. Patient care measures defined to evaluate clinical departments were related to each other. so were research measures. and no significant correlations were found between patient care measures and research measures. Also found were large differences in department. ranks when clinical departments were evaluated by absolute per physician performance measures and evaluated by annual rate of changes in performance measures. These findings suggest that departmental performance measures opposed to individual performance measures are relatively free from problems of factors affecting the performance measures that are not in control of clinical departments or individual physicians. Results from the correlation analysis of departmental performance measures indicates that measures of research performance should be included in the evaluation to promote research activities in academic medical centers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.91-100
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• 2018

The setting of values on door hinge mounting compensation for door assembly tolerance is a constant quality issue in vehicle production. Generally, heuristic methods are used in satisfying appropriate door gap and level difference, flushness to improve quality. However, these methods are influenced by the engineer's skills and working environment and result an increasement of development costs. In order to solve these problems, the system which suggests hinge mounting compensation value using CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) analysis is proposed in this study. A structural analysis model was constructed to predict the door gap and level difference, flushness through CAE based on CAD (Computer Aided Design) data. The deformations of 6-degrees of freedom which can occur in real vehicle doors was considered using a stiffness model which utilize an analysis model. The analysis model was verified using 3D scanning of real vehicle door hinge deformation. Then, system model which applying the structural analysis model suggested the final adjustment amount of the hinge mounting to obtain the target door gap and the level difference by inputting the measured value. The proposed system was validated using the simulation and showed a reliability in vehicle hinge mounting compensation process. This study suggests the possibility of using the CAE analysis for setting values of hinge mounting compensation in actual vehicle production.

• The Journal of KAIRB
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2021

In 2004, India began investing in the clinical trial industry; the country now boasts a 20% market share with the help of a valuable resource - the world's second largest population. The Contract Research Organization has been able to generate profits efficiently conducting clinical trials via a large pool of participants, skilled researchers, and reduced developmental costs. As the demand and sheer number of global clinical trials increased, the International Council of Harmonization-Good Clinical Practice was introduced, and the need for the Institutional Review Board increased. While the clinical trial industry in India boomed, it came at the expense of the participants' civil rights. The increased media attention regarding the ethical issues forced the Indian Supreme Court to take action. Consequently, India is the only country, by law, that specifically compensates participants suffering from injury directly resulting from participation in clinical trials. This research paper will describe and compare the relevant laws of India and Korea including compensation criteria. In addition, the ethical issues and aspects of indemnity in clinical trials will be discussed. While the clear advantage of the compensation is one of the protected rights of a clinical subject, the current system is not perfect. Furthermore, laws created to redeem ethical issues can have unintended, negative consequences.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.308-318
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• 2024

Background: Many plants compensate for the damage caused by herbivorous insects through tolerance responses. Besides directly causing plant tissue loss and seed production reduction, herbivory causes phenological changes in the host plant. However, little is known about the fitness costs of phenological changes caused by tolerance responses to herbivorous attacks. Results: The girdling beetle Phytoecia rufiventris caused a short-term decrease in the number of flowers of the host plant Erigeron annuus. However, accelerated growth restored the number of flowers, but after a 2-week delay. With an objective to examine whether the tolerance response with such a delay fully compensates the fitness, we experimentally reproduced a 2-week delay in germination under greenhouse and field settings. Under both conditions, intraspecific competition resulted in serious defects in the growth and reproduction of E. annuus plants which of germination was delayed. However, delayed germination (DG) resulted in better growth when competition and herbivory were eliminated from the field. Thus, we showed that the tolerance response to restore reproductive production does not fully compensate for the fitness loss caused by insect attack; rather, the delay in seed production in attacked plants leads to DG and subsequent inferiority in intraspecific competition. Conclusions: Our results imply that compensation for floral production after an herbivore attack does not fully restore offspring fitness in the presence of intraspecific competition and herbivory. Assessing the ecological consequences of defense traits in an appropriate layer of interaction is critical to interpreting adaptive values.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.541-548
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• 2013

During the administration of a construction project, various types of participants are engaged in the project. From the design phase to the maintenance phase, these participants may confront many risks. To avoid these risks, participants should utilize an insurance company or a bond company. The types of risks and liability that a construction manager may face are listed in the construction law or contract. But there are some arguments related to risk transferring and the content of risks. For this reason, construction managers must carefully consider any possible risks in the contract and the construction law. Therefore, for construction managers to deal with risks appropriately, the introduction of a legal requirement to carry professional liability insurance, a defined compensation range for damages, a method of guarantee in the event of defects, a defined compensation claim period for damage, and a method of damage claim were suggested in this study.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.1304-1310
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• 2015

In remote islands, due to expense of existing generation systems, installation of photovoltaic cells (PVs) and wind turbines has a chance of reducing generation costs. However, in island power systems, even short-term power fluctuations change the frequency of grids because of their small inertia constant. In order to compensate power fluctuations, the authors proposed the power consumption control of pumps which send water to tanks. The power control doesn’t affect water users’ convenience as long as tanks hold water. Based on experimental characteristics of a pump system, this paper shows methods to determine reference power consumption of the system with compensation for short-term PV fluctuations while satisfying water demand. One method uses a PI controller and the other method calculates reference power consumption from water flow reference. Simulations with a PV and a pump system are carried out to find optimum parameters and to compare the methods. Results show that both PI control method and water flow calculation method are useful for satisfying the water demand constraint. The water demand constraint has a little impact to suppression of the short-term power fluctuation in this condition.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.2409-2414
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• 2002

The surfaces of prototypes become rough due to the stair-stepping which is the inevitable phenomenon in the Rapid Prototypes are not used only for the verification of feature. The grinding, coating, or the composition of them is a main operation in post-processing in which lots of costs and long build time are needed. The solution is proposed to increase the efficiency of rapid prototyping by minimizing or removing the composition of them is a main operation in post-processing in which lots of costs and long build time are needed. the solution is proposed to increase the efficiency of rapid prototyping by minimizing or removing the regions for post-processing. the factors to cause the surface roughness and their effects are analyzed through the experiments. Software modules are developed to predict the surface roughness of each face in the prototyping with the result. An experimental compensation method is developed to apply the modules to various RP equipments, materials and build styles. The build direction is searched with use of genetic algorithm to maximize the total areas of the surface of which roughness is better than the user-defined value.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.51-57
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• 2016

Purpose - If control-ownership disparity is large, managers will not actively reduce costs; rather, they will maintain unutilized resources or possess surplus resources even when sales decrease with the purpose of increasing personal utility from status, power, compensation, and prestige. These managers' utility maximizing tendencies cause cost stickiness. We examine whether asymmetric behavior related to costs becomes stronger when there is a large disparity between ownership and control rights. Research design, data, and methodology - We construct a regression model to examine the relationship between control-ownership disparity and cost stickiness. STICKY, a dependent variable representing cost stickiness is a value found using the method of Weiss (2010), and Disparity is an interest variable that shows control-ownership disparity. Results - This study is based from the unique situations in Korea, in which high control-ownership disparity is common in firms. Large control-ownership disparity was found to increase cost stickiness of corporations. Conclusions - The results of this study imply that controlling shareholders may be regarded as a threat to the interests of minority shareholders and corporate values especially when controlling shareholders have significant influence over managers or the power to make managerial decisions as owners of a corporation.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers A
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.18-24
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• 2005

Various problems such as the increase of the power loss and the voltage instability may often occur in the case of low load power factor. The demand of reactive power increases continuously with the growth of active power and the restructuring of electric power companies makes the comprehensive management of reactive power a troublesome problem, so that the systematic control of load power factor is required. In this paper, the load power factor sensitivity of the generation cost is derived and it is used for determining the locations of reactive power compensation devices effectively and for enhancing the load power factor appropriately. In addition, the voltage variation penalty cost is introduced and the integrated costs including the voltage variation penalty cost are used for determining the value of the load power factor from the point of view of the economic investment and voltage regulation. It is shown through the application to a large-scale power system that the load power factor can be enhanced effectively and appropriately using the load power factor sensitivity and integrated costs.