• The Journal of Health Technology Assessment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.123-132
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• 2018

Objectives: Maternal morbidity and mortality are important healthcare issues. However there have been few studies on cost of illness (COI) from maternal disorders. This study aimed to estimate the COI due to maternal disorders in Korea. Methods: By reviewing previous studies and consulting expert we determined the scope of maternal disorders. We operationally defined maternal disorders as maternal hemorrhage, maternal sepsis, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, obstructed labor, and abortion for maternal disorders. The reference period of this study is the year 2015. Main source of data were the National Health Insurance Service claims data, cause of death statistics from the Korea National Statistical Office, and the Korea Health Panel study. We classified the total costs into direct and indirect costs. The direct costs cover healthcare costs and non-healthcare costs. The indirect costs consist of productivity losses due to morbidity and premature death. Results: The cost of maternal disorders in 2015 was 229.7 billion won. The direct and indirect costs of maternal disorders were 165.2 billion won and 64.5 billion won respectively. The largest cost item for maternal disorders was healthcare cost (138.3 billion won, 60.2%). By age groups, the COI in 30-39 years old women were the highest (165.1 billion won, 71.9%). Abortion was the disorder with the highest COI among maternal disorders (71.9 billion won, 31.3%). Conclusion: The COI due to maternal disorders in Korea is quite substantial. Economic burden of maternal disorder increased when being compared with the year 2012 data despite the continued low birth rate in Korea. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously monitor the social costs of the maternal disorders in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.249-260
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• 2023

Purpose: The study aimed to examine the effects of nurse staffing levels on patient outcomes in long-term care hospitals in South Korea using path analysis. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of national data, which included the 2021 hospital assessment results of long-term care hospitals from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. Data collection was performed between June 19 and June 27, 2023. The study sample consisted of 1,215 hospitals, and we analyzed the data using SAS 9.4 and Mplus 8 software. Results: The average numbers of patients per registered nurse, certified nursing assistant, and nursing staff, including both registered nurses and certified nursing assistant, was 10.00, 7.43, and 4.00, respectively. Path analysis revealed that the number of patients per registered nurse had direct effects on improvements in activities of daily living and indirect effects on indwelling catheterization, pressure ulcer improvement, and weight loss. The number of patients per certified nursing assistant had direct effects on new pressure ulcer development and pressure ulcer improvement, with no indirect effects. The number of patients per nursing staff had direct effects on pressure ulcer improvement and no indirect effects on other patient outcomes. Conclusion: The findings suggest that establishing policies to evaluate staffing levels of registered nurse and certified nursing assistants separately is necessary in order to improve registered nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes in long-term care hospitals.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2024.07a
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• pp.319-326
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• 2024

Construction projects account for a significant proportion of workplace hazards globally. While construction cost reports typically emphasize direct accident costs such as treatment expenses, nursing care costs, or disability benefits, indirect factors like work interruption loss costs or consolation costs are frequently overlooked, because it is relatively difficult to estimate those factors in advance. Recognizing and accurately estimating the indirect costs factors associated with construction accidents would not only shed light on the monetary impact these incidents have on overall project costs but also would enable to estimate the total accident cost in advance. The current study seeks to identify factors influencing indirect costs, which ultimately govern the total accident cost, through a data mining approach. A survey was conducted in domestic construction companies, resulting in a dataset of 1038 accident records collected from construction sites. First, statistical analysis was performed to uncover characteristics and patterns of factors affecting construction accident costs from both direct and indirect perspectives. Later, this study proposes four distinct machine learning (ML) models, comparing their performances in predicting the total accident cost (including indirect costs) in advance. Additionally, this research sheds light on an important issue in construction data analysis, which is the scarcity of data in a particular class, by applying random oversampling and random undersampling techniques. The suggested framework can assist practitioners and management in estimating construction accident costs and identifying the relevant attributes that impact accidents at the construction site for future practices.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.181-186
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• 2017

This study was conducted to investigate the weight loss, firmness, external color and vitamin C (VC) content of tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum) using non-destructive method to measure identical tomato samples during 15 days storage at low temperature and high humidity. Tomatoes were harvested at the light red stage, sorted, box packed and then stored in thermo-hygrostat ($10{\pm}1^{\circ}C$, $90{\pm}10%RH$). The quality changes in weight loss, firmness and external color were measured every 3 day interval. Weight loss was increased by $1.13{\pm}0.15%$, but it may not be considered to affect quality. Surface color of fruit was changed, especially in lightness and hue angle value. The color values were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA), and the results were significant (p<0.001). Firmness of fruit declined during storage, but it did not decrease in direct proportion. On the storage of day 15, firmness was decreased to 40% of initial state. At last, all the experiment data are summarized and the relationship between firmness and weight loss is analyzed to construct a linear regression mathematical model that can predict the weight loss with the firmness value measured by non-destructive method. This research result could be useful in helping tomato exporters and suppliers to get real-time quality factor by using proposed method and regression model.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.782-793
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• 2022

The rise in chronic disease not only has a negative effect on people's lives, but it also increases the cost of medical care owing to the increased usage of medical care as health and medical technology improves, life expectancy rises, and rapid population ageing. In such context, this study examined the difference in the disease cost of hypertension according to demographic information and the effect of the initial diagnosis age and treatment period on the cost. This study used the Korean Health Panel Survey from 2010 to 2017, and selected subjects based on health insurance beneficiaries between the ages of 30 and under 80. With the selected data, the direct and indirect costs of disease loss were calculated according to the cost of illness approach, and we constructed a disease-loss ratio cohort considering the age of diagnosis and time of treatment for hypertension. From the results of the study, the annual cost of disease loss for hypertensive patients differed by gender by 110,107 won, and it was found that the cost increased by 1.8 times as the treatment time increased. In addition, when comparing disease loss ratios between the same age groups, it was found that the disease loss ratios between those in their 60s and 70s were affected by treatment time. This study confirmed that hypertension significantly affects the cost of the disease, and not only requires early diagnosis and management, but also preventive efforts to lower the incidence of hypertensive disease must be strengthened.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.328-333
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• 2005

Ammonia volatilization is the major form of nitrogen (N) loss from flooded paddy soils and causes low N use efficiency. The effects of controlled release fertilizer (latex coated urea complex fertilizer, LCU) on reducing N loss by ammonia volatilization was measured comparing with urea in rice culture system of direct seeding on dry soil. In the treatment of urea, $NH_4-N$ concentration in surface water after flooding increased rapidly up to $8-10mg\;L^{-1}$ as affected by topdressing, while in the LCU treatment $NH_4-N$ concentration in surface water was less than $1mg\;L^{-1}$ during rice growing season. Relation of $NH_4-N$ concentration in surface water and ammonia volatilization was significant in urea treatment. The amount of ammonia volatilized from rice paddy of LCU treatment was $2.4-3.0kg\;ha^{-1}$ and the rate of ammonia volatilization from N fertilizer applied was only 2.0-2.3% compared with 5.9-7.9% in urea treatment. Therefore, N loss by ammonia volatilization could be reduced by 72-76% with by LCU compared with urea in rice culture system of direct seeding on dry soil.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2020

In Floating PV (Photovoltaic) systems, PV modules are installed on water by utilizing the surface of idle water such as a reservoir and multipurpose dam. A floating PV system, therefore, has the advantage of efficiency in national land use and improved energy yield owing to cooling effect compared to on-land PV systems. Owing to the limitation of installation environment for a floating PV system, the system, however, has the disadvantage of an increase in transmission distance of DC (Direct current) cables. A longer transmission distance of a DC cable results in greater power loss due to a voltage drop. This leads to a decline in economic feasibility for the floating PV system. In this paper, the economic analysis for 10 floating PV systems installed in a reservoir has been conducted in terms of a change in annual power sales according to the variation of transmission losses depending on the factors affecting the voltage drop, such as transmission distance, cross-section area of underwater cable, the presence of joint box, and PV capacity.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.71-77
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• 2017

In the event of loss of coolant accident (LOCA) and station black out (SBO) in the primary system of a nuclear reactor, the coolant water should be injected to reactor coolant system (RCS) without any intervention of operators or active components. To satisfy the requirements, hybrid safety injection tank (Hybrid SIT) was suggested by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). The pressure equalizing time of Hybrid SIT is an important parameter to determine the timing of coolant injection. To predict the pressure equalizing time of the Hybrid SIT, a separate effect test facility was constructed and sensitivity tests were conducted in various conditions. The main parameter determining the pressure equalizing time was obtained from separate effect test (SET) results. The wall of condensation on the inner wall of SIT and direct contact condensation on the water surface affected to the pressure equalizing time very much. In this study, the effect of each condensation phenomena on pressure equalizing time was quantitatively analyzed from results of SET and a prediction method of pressure equalizing time was proposed.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.273-281
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• 2001

Digital subtraction radiography may be one of the most precise and noninvasive methods for assessing subtle density changes in peri-implant bone, providing additional diagnostic information on implant tissue integration in overall maintenance. The aims of this study were to evaluate density changes after first, second surgery of dental implant and to measure the amount of marginal bone loss 9 months after second surgery using digital subtraction radiography. Bone change around 30 screw-shaped implants in 16 patients were assessed on radiographs. 17 Branemark implants of 3.75mm in diameter(Nobel Biocare, Goteborg, Sweden), 2 Branemark implants of 5.0mm in diameter, 11 $Replace^{TM}$ implants of 4.3mm in diameter(Nobel Biocare, Goteborg, Sweden) were used. To standardize the projection geometry of serial radiographs of implants, customized bite block was fabricated using XCP film holder(Rinn Corporation, Elgin, IL.) with polyether impression material of Impregum(ESPE, Germany) and direct digital image was obtained. Qualitative and quantitative changes on radiographs were measured with Emago software(The Oral Diagnostic System, Amsterdam, Netherlands). The results were as follows: 1. The peri-implant bone density of 69.2% implants did not change and the peri-implant bone density of 30.8% implants decreased after 3 months following first surgery. 2. The crestal bone density of 53.9% implants decreased first 3 months after second surgery. The crestal bone density of 58.8% implants increased 9 months after second surgery. No density change was observed around the midportion of the implants after second surgery, 3. The amount of marginal bone loss between different kinds of implants showed no statistically significant differences (p>0.05). 4. More than 90% of total marginal bone loss recorded in a 9-month period occurred during the first 3 months.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.57-66
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• 2001

The precise prediction of the performance is essential to develope the system at the development of propulsion system since no experimental data are available. The accuracy of 1on the total system's performance as well as itself, which depends on how the correction fac $I_{sp}$, and so on, are determined in accurate. However some of the design factors are dete engineer's experience or the similar test data if they are available, so far. This study was the method of the determination of correction factors of both $I_{sp}$ and thrust in direct. The bas is to define the detail performance loss mechanism of solid rocket motors, might be occurre and to calculate in quantitative those correction factors from the performance loss mechanism the test results, the model of this study can predict those factors less than 1% error, in additi physical variances of each loss mechanism.