• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.643-655
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• 2021

This study investigated the effect of the Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) microfinancing on the economic, social, and household empowerment of women borrowers in Malaysia. The study used a quantitative approach based on primary data. For this study, the participants comprised 384 AIM borrowers from Terengganu, Kelantan, and Pahang in the east coast region of Malaysia. Purposive stratified random sampling was used as well as the Krejcie and Morgan method to count the number of samples. Descriptive statistics and the Women Empowerment Index (WEI) were used in the analysis. The study findings reveal that AIM microfinancing affects the economic, social, and household empowerment of women borrowers in Malaysia. However, in comparing the three categories, women enjoyed more freedom in social and household decision-making than in economic decision-making. The present study recommends policies for the successful and effective operation of microfinance programs by providing the necessary guidelines for the control of AIM loan for women borrowers; increasing income-generating activities, sufficient access of credit, and proper education for the borrowers; and giving economic freedom of choice with necessary skill training policymaking options for the government and NGOs with the aim to improve the total household income and empowerment of the microcredit borrowers in Malaysia.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.151-163
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• 2021

Purpose - The break-even point refers to the point where total profit and total cost coincide, and from this point on, the entrepreneur's decision-making takes a different route. Strategic decisions can be made for more efficient operation and eventually for more likelihood for growth and sustainability if a startup figures out when it recoups the investment and switches to a net profit. Design/methodology/approach - 748 creativity and skill-based sole proprietors in manufacturing industry were examined to demonstrate the effect of the entrepreneur's entrepreneurial experience and education level, the business launch preparation time, or the self-financing on the achievement of break-even point. Findings - While the business launch preparation time lowered the likelihood of reaching a break-even point, self-financing increased the likelihood. As a result of further analysis by subdividing into subgroups according to skill level, only the business launch preparation time was statistically significant in the highly skilled industries. In the low skilled industries, in addition to the business launch preparation time, the CEO's education level and the self-financing were statistically significant. Research implications or Originality - The longer the business launch preparation time, the higher the start-up cost, which increases the burden of initial cost recovery, and the agile response to market changes is thereby delayed, resulting in the business idea losing its appeal. Self-financing not only provides stability and strong motivation for the business operation but also promotes careful spending which contributes to the achievement of break-even point. In particular, it is found that practical experience is more useful than theoretical knowledge in low skilled industries. Due to the limitation of secondary data based on the recollection, the time required to reach a break-even point, percentage of financing sources, etc. may include cognitive errors. In addition, variables are not included that explain the characteristics of creativity and skill-based sole proprietorship, so it is necessary to exercise caution with the actual application.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.49-75
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• 2003

This paper empirically examines multiskill formation as a critical mechanism of human capital accumulation within the firm. We investigate various factors that foster multiskill formation of the employees at the workplace. We also investigate whether and how multiskill formation of the employees, in tum, affect the labor productivity. Our empirical results are summarized as the following. First, skills of the employees are developed along the sequential path rather than the parallel path. They evolve from the simple-skill to the single-skill, and then to the multi-skill state. Second, multi skilling is stimulated by uncertainty factors of the environment and various human resource management practices such as mutual learning among workers, workers' participation in decision making, and job rotation. Third, the increase in the ratio of multiskilled workers in the firm has a positive impact on the growth of the firm's labor productivity. Our analyses show that the labor productivity growth increases by 0.019 with the increase in multi skilling ratio by 0.1. Fourth, uncertainty and human resource management practices had an indirect impact on labor productivity growth only through multiskilling. These results strongly indicate that multiskilling is a result of human capital accumulation fostered by various human resource management practices.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.150-160
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• 1999

Background and purpose : Drug abuse is one of the most serious problems among the Korean adolescents today and has been associated with delinquent behavior in adolescents. The number of adolescents who abuse drugs is increasing yearly. Solutions to the problem, however, have not been well developed. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a drug use prevention program which was developed by researchers. The program was a modified DARE(Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program for Korean adolescents. Methods: This study used an experimental, one-group pretest-posttest design with a convenience sample of 122 middle school students who were at one middle school located in Seoul. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire where ‘knowledge and attitude about drug use’, ‘social skill’, and ‘self-esteem’ were measured. The program had 12 sessions to improve knowledge and attitudes towards drugs, decision making skills, social resistance skills, management of stress and self-esteem of students. Teaching strategies for each session were varied lectures, group discussion. role-playing, question-and-answer sessions and audiovisual materials. Paired t-test was used to analyze the differences between the pre- and post-test scores on knowledge of and attitudes towards drug use, social skills, and self-esteem. Results : There were significant differences in knowledge and attitudes about drug use between pretest and post-test (p＜.05), but no significant differences in social skill and self-esteem(p＞.05). Conclusion: Our results showed that the drug use prevention program was not effective in promoting social-skill and self-esteem of Korean adolescents. These findings might be due to the respondents being in the period of early adolescence (puberty) and not being good at group discussion. So, further study is needed to develop a drug use prevention program appropriate to students 9 and 10 years old, and to encourge small group discussion.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.442-451
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify effects of action learning approaches on learning outcomes of students taking nursing management courses. Methods: The questionnaire surveys were completed between March 2011 and June 2012 by 109 undergraduate seniors in the nursing department of C University. Survey data were obtained 3 times: before, in and after the study of nursing management. The course consisted of lectures and clinical practices. Learning outcomes were measured through problem solving skills, team efficacy, and class satisfaction. Collected data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA with the SPSS 20.0 program Results: Scores for problem solving skills (F=13.67, p<.001) and team efficacy (F=4.49, p=.012) showed statistically significant increases after the course. The scores also increased significantly after the lectures for 5 of 9 problem solving skill subscales: analysis skill, divergent thinking, decision making, assessment, feedback, and after the clinical practices for 2 subscales: divergent thinking, and execution and risk taking. Class satisfaction score also increased after both the lectures and the clinical practices. Conclusion: The findings from this study suggest that an action learning approaches for nursing management courses would be a useful teaching and learning method to achieve learning outcomes.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.965-977
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• 2013

Reliable long-term streamflow forecasting is invaluable for water resource planning and management which allocates water supply according to the demand of water users. It is necessary to get probabilistic forecasts to establish risk-based reservoir operation policies. Probabilistic forecasts may be useful for the users who assess and manage risks according to decision-making responding forecasting results. Probabilistic forecasting of seasonal inflow to Andong dam is performed and assessed using selected predictors from sea surface temperature and 500 hPa geopotential height data. Categorical probability forecast by Piechota's method and logistic regression analysis, and probability forecast by conditional probability density function are used to forecast seasonal inflow. Kernel density function is used in categorical probability forecast by Piechota's method and probability forecast by conditional probability density function. The results of categorical probability forecasts are assessed by Brier skill score. The assessment reveals that the categorical probability forecasts are better than the reference forecasts. The results of forecasts using conditional probability density function are assessed by qualitative approach and transformed categorical probability forecasts. The assessment of the forecasts which are transformed to categorical probability forecasts shows that the results of the forecasts by conditional probability density function are much better than those of the forecasts by Piechota's method and logistic regression analysis except for winter season data.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.127-135
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• 2013

For the successful implementation of IT projects, individual consultant's competency in the project is very important. Especially, 3 key factors which are 1) Learning-by-Doing, 2) Learning-from-Others, and 3) Learning-by-Investment with individual consultant's competency, are required for solving various critical issues which can be occurred during implementing IT project. The objective of this research is to examine the effects of these learning processes on decision performance of consultants. Prior to setup the research model, we conducted 3 times in-depth interviews with IT consultants who have over 20 years IT project experiences. Through interviews with IT project expert, we tried to validate our research model and develop survey questionnaires. Over 100 consultants, who are working at SI companies those of Samsung SDS, LG CNS, SK C&C and other small SI companies, were participated to survey. In the contrary of our thoughts before conducted experiment, we got the interesting result from pilot experiment. Most influenced learning process was Learning-by-Doing and less influenced learning process was Learning-from-Others.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.652-661
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• 2006

Purpose. The purposes of this study were to apply data mining tool to nursing specific knowledge discovery process and to identify the utilization of data mining skill for clinical decision making. Methods. Data mining based on rough set model was conducted on a large clinical data set containing NMDS elements. Randomized 1000 patient data were selected from year 1998 database which had at least one of the five most frequently used nursing diagnoses. Patient characteristics and care service characteristics including nursing diagnoses, interventions and outcomes were analyzed to derive the meaningful decision rules. Results. Number of comorbidity, marital status, nursing diagnosis related to risk for infection and nursing intervention related to infection protection, and discharge status were the predictors that could determine the length of stay. Four variables (age, impaired skin integrity, pain, and discharge status) were identified as valuable predictors for nursing outcome, relived pain. Five variables (age, pain, potential for infection, marital status, and primary disease) were identified as important predictors for mortality. Conclusions. This study demonstrated the utilization of data mining method through a large data set with stan dardized language format to identify the contribution of nursing care to patient's health.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2020

Seasonal forecast is growing in demand, as it provides valuable information for decision making and potential to reduce impact on weather events. This study examines how operational climate prediction systems can be reliable, producing the probability forecast in seasonal scale. A reliability diagram was used, which is a tool for the reliability by comparing probabilities with the corresponding observed frequency. It is proposed for a method grading scales of 1-5 based on the reliability diagram to quantify the reliability. Probabilities are derived from ensemble members using hindcast data. The analysis is focused on skill for 2 m temperature and precipitation from climate prediction systems in KMA, UKMO, and ECMWF, NCEP and JMA. Five categorizations are found depending on variables, seasons and regions. The probability forecast for 2 m temperature can be relied on while that for precipitation is reliable only in few regions. The probabilistic skill in KMA and UKMO is comparable with ECMWF, and the reliabilities tend to increase as the ensemble size and hindcast period increasing.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.111-129
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• 2001

This study was performed to develope a money management education program for elementary school students graded from 3 to 6 in order to enhance their money management skill. Based on the developmental stages of the children, this program covered five financial issues such as value of money, financial planning, allowance planning, saving and investment, and consuming and purchasing. Total 15 specific education programs were developed. The contents included in each program were value of money & economic circulation, types of money and the importance of money management, the issues related on choice and resource use, long-term and short-term planning, the relationship between occupation and earnings, career planning, budgeting, the reasons and types of saving, understanding of interest, investment methods, the functions of market and trade, intra family income distribution, consumptions, and consumer decision making process.