• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.39C no.4
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• pp.387-399
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• 2014

This study proposes strategies for economic development through mobile in Africa where mobile emerges as an infra to solve socioeconomic problems. It analyzes economy and ICT industry in Africa and studies several cases that are utilized in agriculture, finance, education, and healthcare. It also examines economic development theory and the impact of broadband on economic growth and development. It is necessary to leapfrog to mobile to achieve an information society and a compact industrialization based on ICT because fixed-line is very poor and expensive in Africa. Building a mobile broadband infra, supporting a dissemination of low-end smartphones and a government's support for mobile contents are necessary to achieve a leapfrogging development through mobile in Africa. The findings of this study provide additional insights for Korean ICT companies to consider a business in Africa.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.172-181
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• 2016

This study evaluated the satisfaction and healthy eating index of nutrition-plus program providing nutritional supplements to pregnancy, lactating women, infant and children. This program was carried out at Public Healthcare Center, Seodaemun-gu in Seoul from February 2014 to June 2014. The subject selected among applicants for low income family financing of the government included 159 subjects. There was no statistically significant difference for degree of satisfaction with supplementary food by age, but the degree tends to get higher at lower age. Degree of satisfaction with supplementary food by the duration for participation was shown higher as the duration gets longer. For questions of 'Do you check nutrition label?' and 'Do you preserve food as described at food label?' in healthy eating index evaluation, the scores appeared higher at younger age group as they check the nutrition label more. Also as the duration for participation gets longer, the scores appeared higher which can be interpreted as effect of nutrition education from Nutrition-Plus. Frequency of having breakfast gets lower at higher age of subjects. And it gets higher as the duration for participation gets longer even though that there's no difference between '3 to 4 months' and '5 to 8 months' of the duration of participation. For evaluation of food security in recent 1 year, 86.8% of subjects responded 'Food sufficiency' and 'Enough but not always the kinds of food we want', and there is no difference by age and the duration of participation. As a result of this research, it is shown that the subjects of nutrition support project are relatively satisfied with the support. And healthy eating index gets improved as the duration of participation gets longer which can be considered as effect of nutrition education. It seems to be necessary to keep nutrition education as well as food support so to perform food life education on appropriate purchase and consumption of food.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.126-137
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• 2008

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference in gender related to health status, occupational environment, occupational safety and health and hazardous chemicals use of migrant workers in Korea. Method: The survey was conducted in clinics that provided free healthcare services for migrant workers. Of the 413 respondents, 66.3% were males and 33.7% were females. Result: In the case of male migrant workers, many worker were not fluent in Korean, had illegal status in the country, and had moved jobs frequently. There were many cases in which migrant workers worked in small-scale enterprises and worked long hours. Job stress score was high for many workers and they dealt with heavy materials and risky machines. Many workers had not received proper occupational health and safety education and those that were previously injured had repeated injuries. Among the female migrant workers, many worker received low salary and shift work was common. Many worker complained of gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal illnesses and treated toxic substances. Conclusion: As a result, it will be necessary to focus on the strategies for decreasing occupational injuries from physical risk factors for males and from chemical risk factors for female migrant workers.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.295-316
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• 2011

If the medical staff privileges, which mean the eligibility to practice at open hospitals, are excluded in the United States, antitrust claims based on the violation of the Sherman Act have been raised a lot. The proliferation of these lawsuits in the United States, which are characterized as antitrust lawsuits, can be understandable situation. The reason is because doctors who don't belong to specific hospitals are seriously damaged, if the medical staff privileges are excluded and doctors cannot use facilities of open hospitals. In order to decide to allow the privileges of certain doctors, hospitals have to rely on peer review to maintain high quality of medical services, and it is not easy to find alternative of peer review in the professional areas like healthcare. However, there are possibilities that members of the peer review can abuse power to unfairly exclude privileges of potential competitors. In this sense, it is asserted in the U.S. antitrust lawsuits that the restraint of medical staff privilege can be the illegal restraint of trade in violation of section 1 of Sherman Act and can be monopolization or an attempt to monopoly by hospitals in violation of section 2 of Sherman Act. As Korea adopted open hospital system quite recently, there is still no case related with the exclusion of medical staff privileges. However, medical staff privilege system of Korea is not different from that of the United States in principle. Thus, the U.S. jurisprudence on the exclusion of medical staff privileges can be referred in the interpretation of "practice that interferes with or restricts the activities or contents of the business" based on Article 19.1.9 of Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Law of Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.367-379
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• 2014

Background: Over the last decade, medical tourism industry has grown in Korea. Especially the number of Mongolian medical tourists has increased rapidly. Therefore, the Mongolia is one of the targets for Korea medical tourism. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of destination image and expected attributes of medical services on Mongolian's intention to use Korean medical tourism service. Methods: This study empirically collected survey data from Mongolian lived in Mongolia. The study analyzed the data using a PLS model. Results: Our results are as follows. First, the country image didn't significantly have causal effects on expected medical service quality and perceived risk. Second, tourism image (e.g., entertainment, economic feasibility, and local convenience) has significantly causal effects on expected medical service quality and perceived risk. However, tourist site as tourism image didn't significantly have causal effects on expected medical service quality and perceived risk. Third, medical image made a statistically significant effect on expected medical service quality and perceived risk. Fourth, the expected medical service quality showed a significant effect on intention to use Korean medical tourism service. Fifth, the perceived risk of medical tourism showed a significant effect on the reliability of medical tourism, but didn't show a significant effect on the intention to use Korean medical tourism service. Finally, the reliability has a significant effect on the intention to use Korean medical tourism service. Conclusion: From our empirical results, this study concluded that as a strategy attracting Mongolian patients, it is more effective to strengthen Korean hospital image and tourism image than Korean country image.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.1-8
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• 2012

In this paper, we propose a new clustering combination based on numerical data driven for rule generation mechanism. In large and complicated space, a clustering method can obtain limited performance results. To overcome the single clustering method problem, hybrid combined methods can solve problem to divided simple cluster estimation. Fundamental structure of the proposed method is combined by mountain clustering and modified Chen clustering to extract detail cluster information in complicated data distribution of non-parametric space. It has automatic rule generation ability with advanced density based operation when intelligent systems including neural networks and fuzzy inference systems can be generated by clustering results. Also, results of the mechanism will be served to information of decision support system to infer the useful knowledge. It can extend to healthcare and medical decision support system to help experts or specialists. We show and explain the usefulness of the proposed method using simulation and results.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2018

Polypharmacy is increasing owing to an increase in the elderly population and multimorbidities associated with the increased risk of administration of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). The negative effects of polypharmacy on various health conditions and aspects, such as fall, fracture, mortality, cognitive function, and dementia, have been reported. The management of excess and inappropriate polypharmacy through proper interventions and local or national guidelines has been highlighted. The purpose of polypharmacy management is to appropriately prescribe medicines that are essential to treat diseases in patients and to avoid inappropriate polypharmacy, such as interactive or duplicate medicines under prescription and PIMs for specific diseases. Community pharmacists in Australia, the EU, USA, and Japan are collaborating with prescribers to review medications to ensure that the patients can be prescribed appropriate medications. The service cost is reimbursed by public or private insurers. A study in the United States has shown that even with medication review costs, the overall medication cost has reduced. In Korea, various projects such as Drug Utilization Review service and safe use of medicines have been conducted; however, no national guidelines or management measures have been established. It is necessary to implement a national long-term plan on polypharmacy management. Furthermore, a phased implementation plan is required. Shortly, active medication review services and education programs for healthcare professionals with the support of the government should be considered in Korea with reference to other countries in order to raise awareness of seriousness and risks of inappropriate polypharmacy.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.3279-3286
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• 2014

Background: Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in Korea. To reduce cancer incidence, the Korean National Cancer Center (KNCC) has been expanding its organized cancer screening program. In addition, there are opportunistic screening programs that can be chosen by individuals or their healthcare providers. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors associated with participation in organized and opportunistic cancer screening programs, with a particular focus on socioeconomic factors. Materials and Methods: We used data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), a cross-sectional nationwide study conducted by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare from 2007 to 2011. The study included information from 9,708 men and 12,739 women aged 19 years or over. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted, adjusting for age, year of data collection, residential region, current smoking status, current alcohol consumption status, exercise, marriage status, job status, perceived health status, stress level, BMI, limitation of activities, cancer history, health insurance type, and private insurance status, to investigate the association between education level, economic status, and cancer screening participation. Results: In terms of education level, disparities in attendance were observed only for the opportunistic screening program. In contrast, there was no association between education level and participation in organized screening. In terms of economic status, disparities in opportunistic screening participation were observed at all income levels, but disparities in organized screening participation were observed only at the highest income level. Conclusions: Our findings reveal that socioeconomic factors, including educational level and economic status, were not significantly associated with participation in organized cancer screening, except at the highest level of income.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.1494-1502
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• 2016

With the increasing availability of medical sensors and Internet of Things(IoT) devices for personal use, considering the interaction with users, it is planned to add intelligent function design to the fashionable jewelry, and develop composite multi-function intelligent jewelry through sensors identification. By means of IoT technology, while possessing communication function of intelligent jewelry, the function of intelligent jewelry can be expanded to the linkage network. In order to rapidly manage the mass data produced by intelligent jewelry sensors based on IoT, an intelligent jewelry system for health management is designed and an ontology model of intelligent jewelry system based on IoT is worked out. After the state of the services through the smart phone application is shown. The application provides a personalized service to the user and to determine the risk to show the guide lines according to the disease.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.29-43
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to provide basic material about the improvement method of the hospital evaluation system by grasping recognition, corresponding behavior to evaluation, influence and problems about the hospital evaluation system with respect to the employee of mid sized hospitals having relatively poorer environment. In this study were used 518 questionnaires to hospital employee working at 20 general hospitals in Pusan, Kyungnam with less than 500 beds and having experience of the hospital evaluation during 2005~2007. As a result of the research, they felt the investigation tool used for the hospital evaluation has too many items and it could be difficult to reflect characteristics of each hospital. It appeared that utilization of the report result after the hospital evaluation was helpful for grasping a part necessary for hospital improvement and the present level of hospitals and increase of interest about medical service quality improvement of the a hospital director or hospital employee. They trusted the result of the hospital evaluation to some degree, and recognized it helps the patients to select a hospital and increase rights-to-know. Hospital employee recognized the necessity and showed high interest and participation, but they didn't sympathize in the propriety and the feasibility of the hospital evaluation items. High degree evaluated hospital employee receive hospital evaluation system positively and think hospital services to be improve after taking hospital evaluation. The hospital evaluation should make the hospital to effort to achieve medical quality improvement to its purpose. Also, systematic reformation will be necessary to reflect characteristics of the hospital that has relatively small scale or locates in poor environment.