• Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.356-362
• /
• 2015

Many burial sites were constructed in a short time to prevent the rapid spread of foot and mouth disease in infected livestock carcasses in Korea. More than 4,700 carcass burial sites were constructed in 2011. Approximately seven million poultry and 3.5 million livestock, including cattle and swine, were buried on farmland. Some burial sites were suspected of leachate leakage and were excavated and carcasses redisposed in a bioaugmentation process. This study performed interviews in order to understand the economic issues related to carcass burial and redisposal. The internal data from local government and the assumption data from online sites were analyzed to evaluate the costs; the focus was on burial site construction. The results showed that the local government paid $4.7 and $10.9 per carcass for traditional burial and redisposal. The comparable costs shown online were $4.5. This study found that the standard operating procedures should be carried out to reduce environmental impact and avoid additional costs. We estimated that the cost could be reduced by the advance preparations of materials against the emergency situations such as catastrophe of epidemics. In addition, the innovative technology for the stabilization of carcasses should be established through a future study.

• Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.132-139
• /
• 2016

In early 90s the worldwide awareness about the energy crisis and global warming had been increased and emission reduction (by improving energy efficiency), as well as increasing the capacity of clean and renewable energies, showed themselves as the most important steps towards the sustainable development approach. However, investigations on Iran's environmental situation show huge decline in recent decades and apparently there is no sense of urgency about these issues through the vision of Iranian politicians. In this article the idea of replacing the old gas turbines of Polkalleh natural gas compressor station - as one of the main compressor stations of Iran - with newer and more efficient gas turbines is evaluated, emphatically for reducing greenhouse gases emissions and their environmental costs and decreasing natural gas consumption as well. Clearly such idea is costly, but analyzing its economic impacts, huge declines in annual costs and greenhouse gases emissions can be seen as well. So an investment about $95 million can decrease 40% of Polkalleh compressor station annual costs, 25% of natural consumption and 30% of $CO_2$ and $NO_x$ emissions. Besides the simple payback period of this investment is about 2.5 years from the cut-expenses of annual costs.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.78-96
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate whether costs are 'sticky' -that is, whether costs increase more when revenues rises than they decrease when revenues falls by an equivalent amount by using the financial data fromf korean general hospital Financial data used in this study were obtained from the Database of Korean Health Industry Development Institute and analyzed using multiple regression model in dummy variables. The main results of this study are as follows: First, we found, for 69 Korean general hospitals for 3 years(2000~2002), that total hospital costs, hospital labor costs, hospital administrative costs were sticky, these costs provided strong support for the sticky costs hypothesis 1, but hospital material costs were shown to be proportional to sales revenues. Second, this results provided strong support for the hypotheses that the' degree of stickiness was lower in sales revenues declining that were preceded by revenue-declining periods (hypothesis 2-1), and that stickiness was less pronounced in a second successive year of revenue decline(hypothesis 2-2). Third, this results provided strong support for the hypothesis(hypothesis 3) that stickiness was greater hospitals that employ relatively more people to support their sales revenues(hypothesis 4) that stickiness was greater for hospital that used relatively more assets to support their sales revenues. After all, a managerial implication of this study was that sticky cost, for the general hospital, could be recognized and controlled.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.3007-3013
• /
• 2016

Background: Gastrointestinal cancers are common malignancies associated with high mortality rates. Healthcare systems are always faced with high costs of treatment of gastrointestinal cancers including stomach cancer. Identification and prioritization of these costs can help determine economic burden and then improve of health planning by policy-makers. This study was performed in 2015 in Kerman City aimed at estimating the direct hospital costs for patients with gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the medical records of 160 patients with stomach cancer admitted from 2011 to 2014 to Shafa Hospital were examined, the current stage of the disease and the patients' health status were identified, and the direct costs related to the type of treatment in the public and private sectors were calculated. SPSS-19 was used for statistical analysis of the data. Results: Of the patients studied, 103 (65%) were men and 57 (35%) were women. The mean age of patients was 65 years. Distribution into four stages of the disease was 5%, 20%, 30%, and 45%, respectively. Direct costs in four stages of the disease were calculated as 2191.07, 2642.93, 2877, and 2674.07 USD (63,045,879, 76,047,934, 82,783,019, and 76,943,800 IRR), respectively. The highest percentage of costs was related to surgery in Stage I and to medication in Stages II, III, and IV. According to the results of direct costs of treatment for stomach cancer in Kerman, the mean total cost of treating a patient in the public sector was estimated at 74,705,158 IRR, of which averages of 60,141,384 IRR and 14,563,774 IRR were the shares of insurance and patients, respectively. Conclusions: The high prevalence and diagnosis of disease in old age and at advanced stages of disease impose great costs on the patients and the health system. Early diagnosis through screening and selecting an appropriate treatment method might largely ameliorate the economic burden of the disease.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.1-26
• /
• 2022

Recently, the number of cases of purchasing food online has been increased, especially in the open market. Therefore, we examined the characteristics of status quo bias and switching costs in the open market. Also, in this study, the causal relationship between the characteristics of status quo bias and switching costs, switching costs and switching intention in the open market was investigated. The analysis result consists of four parts as follows. First, in the open market, rational decision making, which belongs to the characteristics of status quo bias, was found to have a positive (+) effect on time switching cost among switching costs, but did not have a positive (+) effect on economic and psychological switching cost. Second, cognitive misperceptions was consistent with the assumption that it have a positive (+) effect on all of the economic, time, and psychological switching cost, which are switching costs in the open market. Third, psychological commitment was found to have a positive (+) effect on economic and time switching cost among switching costs, but did not have a positive (+) effect on psychological switching cost. Fourth, psychological switching cost, which belongs to switching costs in the open market, was found to have a negative (-) effect like the hypothesis set in switching intention. However, it was found that economic and time switching cost did not have a negative (-) effect on switching intention. This study subdivided the switching costs into three dimensions and compared the degree of influence on the switching intention, and the degree of influence was different for each dimension. Therefore, it was found that when switching from the existing open market to the new open market, it is not possible to simply judge that the switching costs directly has a negative (-) effect on the switching intention or does not.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.37 no.2
• /
• pp.141-149
• /
• 2004

Objectives : To evaluate the cost and proportion of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) in the total healthcare costs among the elderly in the last 6 months of life. Methods : The care-giving families of 301 persons older than 65 years, who died between July 1st and December 31st of 2001, and were also registered in Self-Employed Health Insurance Programs in Seoul, were interviewed. Results : The cost of CAM was 1.09 million Won, which as a proportion of the total healthcare cost was 38.1%. The elderly aged between 65 and 69 year-old, male, living with their spouse, Buddhist and having cancers had higher CAM costs in an ANOVA and simple regression analysis. After controlling of various factors, age was the only significant factor associated with the cost of CAM. The elderly above 80 years old, female, bereaved and Buddhist had higher proportional CAM costs, and the elderly having cancers or cardiovascular diseases had lower proportional CAM costs in an ANOVA and simple regression analysis. After adjusting for various factors, the elderly above 85 years old, female and Buddhist had higher proportional CAM costs, and the elderly having cancers had lower proportional CAM costs. Conclusion : The very old and Buddhist, and/or the ill with no clear diagnosis, may depend more on CAM. Further research will be needed on the meaning and impact of CAM and their costs to public health and the total healthcare system.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.57-64
• /
• 2018

Background: Patients experience significant differences in aspects of mortality, quality of life, and costs between during the year of receiving liver transplant (LT) and the subsequent years (post-LT). This study aimed to estimate the medical utilization and cost of LT for patients compared to post-LT patients by using a recent National Patient Sample (NPS) data provided by the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA). Methods: This study used a subset of the 2015 HIRA-NPS. Patient claims data that included Z944 (Korean Standard Classification of Diseases code for LT status) were selected. Within the selected data, LT patients were identified based on whether the national health insurance number code of Q80 (procedure code for LT surgery) was included, and they were compared to post-LT patients. Results: In the analysis, 330 patients were included. The average cost per patient was $90,066{\pm}36,959$ thousand KRW and $10,557{\pm}9,668$ thousand KRW for LT and post-LT patients, respectively. Especially, LT patients' costs for injection/procedure, surgery/treatment, and examination were higher than other costs, being $35,983{\pm}18,115$ thousand KRW, $28,246{\pm}9,408$ thousand KRW, and $12,131{\pm}6,604$ thousand KRW, respectively. For inpatients, the average number of hospitalized days was $63.5{\pm}66.0$ days for LT patients and $22.3{\pm}35.1$ days for post-LT patients. Conclusion: Compared to post-LT patients, LT patients had higher costs, especially for injection/procedure, surgery/treatment, and examination. Additionally, the LT group had longer hospitalization duration and higher costs for their hospital admission, whereas they did not show a significant difference in number of visits and medical costs for outpatient-care.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
• /
• v.29 no.5 s.101
• /
• pp.421-429
• /
• 2005

Traditionally, determination of the optimal containership size is the most important factor for competitiveness of shipping companies in the shipping market. Under this environment, many shipping companies and researchers have studied about it. The objective of this research is to determine the optimal containership size using a total shipping cost in the main trunk lines. Total shipping cost is calculated at the ground of capital costs, vessel operation costs, voyage costs, port charges and miscellaneous costs for 'Europe-Far East', 'Far East-North America' and 'Europe-Far East-North America' services. Analysis results showed that the 6,500TEU containership is an optimal size on the 'Europe-Far East' and 'Europe-Far East-North America' services. And the 8,200TEU containership is an optimal size on the 'Far East-North America' service. Moreover, if the larger containerships over 8,200TEU class start operation afterward, it would be less competitive in the analyzed 3services.

• Journal of Labour Economics
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.27-52
• /
• 2010

This study, using Korean Time Use Survey 1999, analyzes how opportunity costs of maternal time affects the ways in which mothers allocate their time to market work/housework/child care/leisure. Opportunity costs include two kinds: hourly child care costs and log hourly wage rates. Results show that a unit increase in child care costs reduces market work but increases housework, child care, and leisure. The effects of log wage rates are opposite those of child care costs. The result that a unit increase in the log wage rates decreases child care lime is not consistent with a previous study for the United Stales. These results differed by mother's educational attainments. This study suggests that policy-makers should pay careful attention to the effects of various types of mother's opportunity costs on non-market time in promoting maternal employment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Educational Facilities
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.3-10
• /
• 2017

The efforts for sustainable development in building construction is widely applied by global organizations, governments, etc. However, according to the researchers, if the green rating systems on the building, it is reported that construction costs and durations are increased compared to conventional buildings. In this respect, the objective of this study is to identify the construction costs between LEED and non-LEED buildings. The scope of this study is limited in 21 university buildings of Canada. The methodology is as follows: First, the data of LEED and non-LEED buildings are collected in every university building. Second, the average construction costs per square meter is collected and normality check is conducted. Third, to identify statistical significance, the difference of average construction costs is analyzed by using T-test. As a result, it is concluded that the construction costs of LEED buildings are increased by approximately 3.8% more than non-LEED buildings. In the future, the results of this study can be applied to analyzing the additional costs according to the LEED grade in educational buildings.