• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.78-86
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• 2020

Purposes: This study purposed to identify factors influencing the composite quality score from the quality assessment program for long-term care hospitals Methodology: The study variables was obtained from HIRA(Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service): the composite quality scores and hospital variables such as number of doctors, nurses, beds, medical technicians, medical equipments, administrative region, ownerships from 3rd (2010) to 7th (2018) quality assessment program. National Statistical Portal(www.kosis.go.kr) provided the number of senior citizens aged over 65 in city·county·district area. SAS 9.4 was used for the data processing and used to analyze the data. Findings: The results showed that composite quality score increased past 9 years. Hospital variables such as number of doctor, nurse, medical technicians, bed and public hospitals had significant positive relationship with the composite quality score. Administrative region(district) showed higher scores compare to that of city. Compare to the score of quality assessment year(2010), as the assessment year move to 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, results showed higher significant positive coefficients. Practical Implication: Continuously improve the performance of long-term care hospitals, current quality assessment program are needed to update their system such as adopting indicators measuring the service process, or compensating the cost for quality assessment program. It will enable to provide more reasonable and accurate performance assessment scores.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.63 no.5
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• pp.1064-1075
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• 2021

Recently, a high level of dietary crude protein (CP) has become of interest as a possible practice to improve the carcass quality of beef cattle, and its level has been increasing in the field. However, there is little scientific evidence that supports this. This study was conducted to test whether a high dietary CP level would improve growth performance, body metabolism, and carcass traits in Hanwoo beef cattle. A total of 32 Hanwoo finishing beef cattle (18 multiparous cows, six heifers, and eight steers) participated in a 12-weeks feeding trial. Two kinds of total mixed rations were prepared to contain two different CP; 156 g/kg for the control (CON) and 173 g/kg of CP for the treatment (HCP), while maintaining a similar level of metabolizable energy. The experiment was ended when more than half of the steers reached the target body weight (730 kg). Blood was collected at the end of the experiment. After harvesting, the carcass trait was evaluated at the slaughterhouse according to Korean standards. The carcass yield score and grade were also calculated based on revised criteria. Overall, dry matter intake, average daily gain, blood metabolites concentration, and the carcass traits, except for backfat thickness and the yield score, did not differ between the treatments. The HCP had lower backfat thickness than those of CON. There was no difference in the carcass yield grade, but the yield score was higher in the HCP treatment. According to the newly revised carcass grading criteria, both yield score and grade were higher in HCP than in CON. Increasing CP supply decreased the carcass's backfat thickness without altering growth performance and body metabolism, resulting in improved yield score and grade. Therefore, feeding a high CP diet may be beneficial in the farm income, although it may also increase feed cost and nitrogen excretion to the environment.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.1580-1591
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• 2000

This study was conducted to assess the amount of nursing services for psychiatric inpatients and to estimate psychiatric nursing costs by using the RBRVS. Full details of medical services, including physician and nursing services, for psychiatric inpatients were surveyed and data of general characteristics of hospitals and patients were also collected. The cost of nursing activities was estimated by the multiple conversion factor which was drawn from the Korean RBRVS Development Project to the RBRVS score of each nursing activities, which was drawn from the results of Korean Nurses Association (KNA)'s projects about nursing RBRVS development and cost of nursing activities. The data about 89 inpatients from 3 general hospitals with psychiatric departments were analyzed. The total cost of nursing activities for each patient per admission day was from KRW 22,185 to KRW 27,954 by hospital, and KRW 25,220 in average. The percent of nursing cost to the total cost of medical services was from 36% to 48% by characteristics of patients and 41.4% in average. The cost of nursing activities estimated in this study was between the existing NHI fee schedule and the one suggested by KNA. It is considered as appropriate and acceptable level compared to the total amount of medical services. In the process of KNA's activities to get nursing fee in NHI fee schedule, results of additional studies to estimate the cost of nursing activities balanced with total cost of medical services in every departments should be found and utilized.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.145-155
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• 2020

The purpose of this study investigates the relationship between business strategy and cost behavior according to the corporate life cycle. To do so, I first examine the relationship between cost behavior and business strategy. And then, I analyze the effect of the business strategy on cost behavior conditional upon corporate life cycle based on listed Korean firms from 2000 to 2019. Specifically, the business strategy index is calculated by using the six continuous financial factors and the Prospector and Defender was defined on the score. Also, the corporate life cycle is distinguished based on the cash flow pattern. I find the evidence that the Prospector firms are likely to strengthen the asymmetry of cost behavior (cost stickiness), and examined that such a relationship was most strongly represented in the Introduction. This study is meaningful in that this is a more comprehensive analysis by examining business strategy and cost strategy according to the corporate life cycle and expand the application of financial information by using financial indicators to distinguish business strategies.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.17B no.2
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• pp.115-124
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• 2010

Stereo matching techniques are categorized in two major schemes, local and global matching techniques. In global matching schemes, several investigations are introduced, where cost accumulation is performed in multiple matching lines. In this paper, we introduce a new multi-line stereo matching techniques which expands a conventional single-line matching scheme to multiple one. Matching cost is based on simple normalized cross correlation. We expand the scan-line optimization technique to a multi-line scan-line optimization technique. The proposed technique first generates a reliability image, which is iteratively updated based on the previous reliability measure. After some number of iterations, the reliability image is completed by a hole-filling algorithm. The hole-filling algorithm introduces a disparity score table which records the disparity score of the current pixel. The disparity of an empty pixel is determined by comparing the scores of the neighboring pixels. The proposed technique is tested using the Middlebury and CMU stereo images. The error analysis shows that the proposed matching technique yields better performance than using conventional global matching algorithm.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.143-161
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• 2015

This study presents a comparative analysis on mackerel distribution process and price formation process, and investigation of price and margin between traditional markets and Large-scale discount store distribution channel. Through this, the study investigated distribution efficiency of each channel, and examined whether a difference of distribution efficiency leads to a difference of performance through the investigation of a difference of function and role between members of a wholesale market and vendor of Large scale discount store. The following are the results of this study. As a consequence of investigating supply and sum by distribution channel of mackerel, it appeared that mackerels shipped from port market are distributed into 9 consumption sites(Wholesale market, Large scale discount store, Institutional Food Service, etc.). In the comparison of distribution efficiency between traditional retail store and Large scale discount store 52.0% margin is formed in traditional retail store distribution channel and 43.1% margin is formed in Large scale discount store, and a distribution cost rate consists of 19.4% cost in a traditional retail store for fishery products and 18.1% cost in a Large-scale discount store. To analyze a difference of performance, the study examine a difference of role and function between vendor and Wholesale market company, wholesaler and middleman. Wholesale market company and middleman of wholesale market for consumer have slightly high or similar score in collection function, sorting function, evaluation function and financial function which are traditional and original. However, it was confirmed that vendor has a better score in other functions, that is, newly-demanded functions(ex : market frontier function, product development function, Integral Distribution Function, etc.).

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.21-28
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• 2017

Improving efficiency of the telecommunication is crucial to the development and growth of Korean economy. Recently, it has become important with the huge development of information technology and its greater potential for extensive impact on the rest of the economy. Hence, it is useful to determine the factors that help enhance efficiency in telecommunication and consider them in improving the evaluation model. This study applies DEA (data envelopment analysis) to evaluate the relative efficiency of 51 branches of a Korean telecommunication company. Using the super-efficiency approach, we tested outliers which may affect the results and ranked the efficient branches. A method of deriving key variables applied to business operation is proposed to identify the key performance indicators for evaluation that takes environmental (non-discretionary) factors into account. We used the extended CCR model proposed by Banker and Morey to investigate the influence of non-discretionary factor. The information provided by the model (slacks, weights) and the sensitivity analysis shows that the most important indicator that affects the branch performance is operating cost. The results of sensitivity analysis show that average efficient score decreases from 0.972 (base case) to 0.863 for CASE2-COST. The average score of the data proves the priority of operating cost over other indicators. The effect of environmental (non-discretionary) variable was found to be significant. The population effect was positive and improved overall efficiency by 0.91% on average. Non-discretionary factor plays a meaningful role explaining the performance of branches. The performance optimization report can help a manager of an inefficient branch to develop branch strategies. Managers can identify the top-performing units, study best practices and adopt the strategy to the organization.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.454-465
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• 1998

This study was to investigate the recognition level of food contamination with residual pesticides and hazardous heavy metals from 365 male and female adults in Taejon area using questionnaires. Among the recognizing level of residual pesticides in overall foods, 69.1% were 'serious', 25.6% were 'average' and 5.3% were 'not serious'. Over 94.7% of the subjects recognized residual pesticides pollution infoods. for hazardous heavy metals in food, 47.8% responsed as 'serious', 40.5% as 'average' and 11.8 as ' not serious' . Over 88.3% of the subjects recognized contaminated pesticides seriously in fruits, 72.1% in vegetables and 51.7% in cereals, whereas 55.7% of the subjects recognized hazardous heavy metal contamination seriously in fruits, 53.4% in vegetables, 40.8% in fishes and shellfishes and 35.0% in seaweeds. The subjects recognized residual pesticides contamination more seriously in overall foods, cereal, potatoes and starches, bean, vegetables and fruits, whereas hazardous heavy metal contamination was recognized more seriously in fishes and shellfishes, and seaweeds food groups. Comparisons were shown based on individuial's occupation. Farmer, forester, iner and fisher showed the lowest recognizing level of food contamination in most food groups. The mean score of the dietary effect by mass media's information on food contamination from residual pesticides and hazardous heavy metals were 3.51±0.96 out of 5 points. By Duncan's multiple range test, sex, age, marriage, food cost per month, concerns about health and nutrition knowledge showed significant differences in the mean effect score at p<0.05. According to a pesticides contamination in several food groups were affected by food cost per month, mass media's information on food contamination, health status, and concerns about health, But a recognition level of hazardous heavy metals in food were affected by income and, food cost per month mass media's information on food contamination, health status, concern about health and nutrition knowledge. People who need to take extreme precautions of food contamination were in order of producers, government officials, homemakers, the consumer's association and consumers.

• Clinics in Shoulder and Elbow
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.209-214
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• 2021

Background: The treatment for acromioclavicular joint injuries (ACJI) ranges from a conservative approach to extensive surgical reconstruction, and the decision on how to manage these injuries depends on the grade of acromioclavicular (AC) joint separation, resources, and skill availability. After a thorough review of the literature, the researchers adopted a simple cost-effective technique of AC joint reconstruction for acute ACJI requiring surgery. Methods: This was a prospective single-center study conducted between April 2017 and April 2018. For patients with acute ACJI more than Rockwood grade 3, the researchers performed open coracoclavicular ligament reconstruction using synthetic sutures along with an Endobutton and a figure of 8 button plate. This was followed by AC ligament repair augmenting it with temporary percutaneous AC K-wires. Clinical outcomes were evaluated using the Constant Murley shoulder score. Results: Seventeen patients underwent surgery. The immediate postoperative radiograph showed an anatomical reduction of the AC joint dislocation in all patients. During follow-up, one patient developed subluxation but was asymptomatic. The mean follow-up period was 30 months (range, 24-35 months). The mean Constant score at 24 months was 95. No AC joint degeneration was noted in follow-up X-rays. The follow-up X-rays showed significant infra-clavicular calcification in 11 of the 17 patients, which was an evidence of a healed coracoclavicular ligament post-surgery. Conclusions: This study presents a simple cost-effective technique with a short learning curve for anatomic reconstruction of acute ACJI. The preliminary results have been very encouraging.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.199-214
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• 2010

Objective : Atopic dermatitis (AD) may profoundly affect patient's quality of life (QOL), and also cause economic impact. The aim of our study was to evaluate the quality of life and the economic impact of adult atopic dermatitis patient in Seoul. We also evaluate the relationship of QOL and economic impact with severity of AD. Methods : 30 adult atopic dermatitis patient were included and evaluated by using the SCORAD Index and EASI. Patients were asked to fill in the questionnaires about their quality of life and financial costs during the past year by AD. Data about sleep disturbance and pruritus were also obtained. Pearson's correlation were used for statistical analysis. Results : 1. Among 30 patients, women were 19(63.3%), men were 11(36.7%). The mean age of the patients were 27.3 years old, patients between the ages of 17 and 30 years were 23, over 30 were seven. 2. The mean score of Objective SCORAD was $32.89{\pm}7.30$, Subjective SCORAD was $8.13{\pm}3.53$ and EASI was $9.15{\pm}6.90$이었다. 3. The mean score of Skindex-29 was $28.26{\pm}7.58$, DLQI was $10.17{\pm}5.55$. 4. By analyzing the questionnaire, a monthly average cost of 583,200 won for each patient was determined. Direct cost was 236,800 won and indirect cost was 346,300 won. 5. By analyzing the correlation between the severity of AD and QOL, Objective SCORAD and EASI were positively correlated with QOL(Skindex-29, DLQI) but not significant, meanwhile subjective SCORAD were significantly and positively correlated with QOL(Skindex-29, DLQI). 6. By analyzing the correlation between the severity of AD and economic impact, Objective SCORAD were significantly and positively correlated with direct cost and indirect cost. Also, EASI were significantly and positively correlated with direct cost and oriental medical hospital visits. Conclusions : The above results show that the QOL of the patients with atopic dermatitis is significantly related to their disease severity. Atopic dermatitis patients pay 583,200 won a month, and the economic impact of the patients is significantly related to their disease severity.