• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.66-84
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• 2008

Objectives: This study aimed to. offer some fundamental evidences for the stroke management policy by investigating the trends of medical care utilization and regionalization in stroke inpatients. Methods: We used the National Health Insurance claims and registry data for stroke inpatients from 1998 to 2005. Among all stroke inpatient claims data, self-employed insured and their dependents were only included in this study. The classification of stroke was based on ICD-10(I60-I69) and its subtype was divided by hemorrhage(I60-I62) and infarction(I63-I64) type. To evaluate regionalization of medical care utilization, relevance index was calculated by regions. The regions were classified 8 large catchment areas and 163 self authorized areas. Results: The overall medical care utilization rate of stroke inpatient has been increased, especially infarction subtype. Among medical care institutions, the utilization of hospital has been the most rapidly increased. Although considered annual rate of interest, total medical cost of stroke inpatients has been increased, Totally, more than 84% of stroke inpatient were admitted to medical care institutions in their own large catchment area during 1998-2005. The relevance indices in their own large catchment area (self sufficiency rates) were more than 70% in most areas regardless of stroke subtype except Chungbuk catchment area. Self sufficiency rates of stroke inpatients among 163 self authorized areas in 1998 and 2005 were 84.2% and 83.1% in metropolitan, 46.7% and 45.5% in urban, and 19.5% and 22.6% in rural areas, respectively. Conclusion: Stroke management policy for improvement of distribution at the district level, especially in rural areas, may be helpful for reducing regional inequality in stroke.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.56-65
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• 2007

The aim of this study is to provide a fundamental data which can be applied to management conservation, and restoration of coastal sand dune vegetation by determining the classification and distribution of community, and ecological characteristics of the habitat. This research was performed by the Braun-Blanquet's method. The coastal sand dune vegetation of Uido (I.) was composed with 9 communities as follows : Vitex rotundifolia community, Zoysia macrostachya community, Carex kobomugi community, Iachaemum anthephoroides community, Imperata cylindrica var. koenigii community, Carex pumila community, Calystegia soldanella community Messerschmidia sibirica community and Pinus thunbergii community, the evergreen needle-leaved forest. The constancy degree showed high in Calystegia soldanella (77%), Vitex rotundifolia (74%), Carex kobomugi (66%), Zoysia macrostachya (50%) and Imperata cylindrica var. koenigii (47%). However the highest constancy degree Calystegia soldanella has, it turned out to have low net contribution degree (NCD) in each community. In terms of the distribution and growth feature of the composition species in the coastal sand dune, Vitex rotundifolia, Carex kobomuri and Zoysia macrostachya were widely distributed from unstable sand dune to stable one but Iachaemum anthephoroides and Imperata cylindrica var. koenigii were mainly found at the stable sand dune. Carex kobomugi was especially dominant at the unstable sand dune where the sand continued to be deposited. On the other hand, Carer pumila and Messerschmidia sibirica showed regional distributions around fresh water.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.21 no.2 s.24
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• pp.390-403
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• 1988

The objectives of the study were to provide the basic informations needed in the development of balanced medical services throughout the nation. As the national health care system was expanding rapidly along with the economic growth, quantitative re-evaluation of the system is of great need. For that reason, characteristics of the admitted patients were analyzed for the case-mix and patients' flow within and through regions. Materials were 421,530 cases of inpatients, who were reported through Korea Medical Insurance Corporation(KMIC) for insurance claim, during the period of March 1, 1985 through February 28, 1987. Korean Diagnosis Related Groups(K-DRGs) classification system was adopted for the study of case-mix and 189 cities and counties were classified into 5 district groups by factor analysis results of K-DRGS. The major findings of this study were as follows ; 1) Factor analysis of case-mix, employing K-DRG system, revealed 5 distinct funtional district groups. Group A(18 districts) was prominent for tertiary medical care. In group B(36 districts), rather simple procedures were prevalent. Group C(26 districts) was distinctive for the medical care of well organized internal medicine practices with qualified clinical laboratories. Group D(17 districts) was characterized by relatively high balanced medical care. Group E (92 districts) was with very low level of medical care. 2) Analysis of the case-flow through the districts showed 3 types of flow patterns : inflow, outflow, and balanced types. Inflow type of case-flow was found in Group A, C and D while Group B and E showed outflow type. Inflow was most prominent in Group A and Group E was of typical outflow type. Group B was consistently the outflow type except for Major Diagnostic Category XX regardless of the disease treaters, but Group C and D were inflow or outflow types according to the disease tracers.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.467-489
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to explore the suitable creative class in korea as the core capital of creative urban growth under creative economy era. We are test to find it for two types of creative class. One is Richard Florida(2002)'s creative class, the other is Mcgranahan & Wojan(2007)'s recasting creative class. Data on 2010 for this paper are generated from Statistics Korea. As a result, we find that the economic geography of creative class is highly concentrated. Furthermore, the geography of creative class is strongly associated with innovation index and high-technology industry location. And Mcgranahan & Wojan(2007)'s creative class is more strong relationship between all dependent variables than Florida's. We also find that it has better power of explanation than Florida's with all of them in regression analysis. According to the results, this study suggests some solutions. First, this study can be provided to government and local policy makers as basis data and practical policy guide to attract creative class. Second, this paper presents standard about a diversity of definitions for creative class in Korea. Third, this research also facilitates follow-up studies about regional economic growth and creative climates.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.4 s.59
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• pp.870-883
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• 1997

The health center has to play an important role in promoting community health and satisfying a variety of community health needs and demands in the decentralized Korea. The nearly enacted Community Health Act compels every health center to make its own health plans which intend to deal with local health problems and plan its future health care. This obligation is obviously a big burden to most health centers. They do not have experiences in and abilities of making local health care plans. In order to establish a systematic community health plan, health centers have to concentrate their efforts on enhancing the ability of making health care plan through gathering and analysing the local health informations. However, it is very difficult in reality. This is simply because it will take long time to accomplish these activities. It seems natural that various professionals and researchers participate in carrying out the process of making community health plan in the initial stage. No standardized methodology and analysing framework exist even in the health professional society. Nonetheless, it is common to introduce survey research methodologies in analysing consumer's health care utilization and cost, and in identifying factors influencing health behaviors. Many researchers and professionals have applied social survey methodologies in obtaining information on providers and health policy makers as well. The authors have found that few studies have ever utilized local health data stored at the self-employed medical insurance society as the data source of planning activities. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the usefulness of the data stored at the Sung-Dong Gu Self-employed Medical Insurance Society in establishing the community health plan. The major contents of this study are as follows ; 1. frequency of utilization by age, area, sex, type of medical care institutions, and some major diseases 2. Medical treatment by type of medical care institutions, by classification of 21 diseases, by frequency of three-character categories 3. Medical treatment of major neoplasm and some chronic diseases by age, sex, and area. The conclusion of this study is that it is of great potentiality to find out the local health problems and to use them in blueprinting the community health plan through comparing the frequency of medical utilization analyzed by a variety of variables with NHI health data or the health data from survey research.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.33-40
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• 1978

Clinical features of 147 patients with biopsy-proven thyroid carcinomas were investigated from January, 1972 to April, 1978 at the Seoul National University Hospital with the following results. 1) The incidence of thyroid carcinomas according to their histopathological classification revealed 76.2% of papillary carcinoma, 19.0% of follicular carcinoma, and 3 cases of occult sclerozing carcinoma, 1 case of giant cell carcinoma and 1 case of metastatic melanoma. 2) The ratio of male to femle patients was 1:8.3 and showed no difference between papillary and follicular carcinomas. 3) The age distribution showed the peak incidence in the fourth decade (29.3%) followed by the fifth and sixth decades. 4) The average duration of illness from the onset of symptoms was about 5 years while it was 4.4 years and 7.6 years in the papillary and follicular carcinomas respectively. 5) The diameter of the thyroid masses was smaller than 5 cm in 53.6% of the patients, from 5 cm to 10 cm in 40.0% and larger than 10 cm in 6.4%. 6) In 36.4% of the patients with thyroid carcinomas the thyroid masses were fixed to adjacent tissues. 7) Metastasis to the regional lymph nodes was noted in 40.0% of the total cases, and in 45.2% and 17.6% of the papillary and follicular carcinomas respectively, while the lung and bone metastases were found in 10.0% and 4.4% in each type respectively. 8) 88.9% of the patients showed cold areas in the thyroid scans using $^{131}I$. 9) Typical psammoma bodies were observed in 21.3% of the cases in the microscopic examination of the pathological specimens. 10) The initial diagnosis of thyroid malignancy could be made before histological confirmation in 64.5% of the patients. 11) The clinical staging slightly modified from Schulz method revealed 43.6% of the patients in stage I, 26.4% in stage II, 20.9% in stags III and 9.1 % in stage IV. 12) The association with Hashimoto's thyroiditis was noted in 4 cases, with nodular goiter in 3 cases, and with follicular adenoma in 1 case.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 1986

Clinical features of 406 patients with histologically verified thyroid carcinomas were investigated from May, 1978 to April, 1985 at the Seoul National University Hospital with the following results. 1) The incidence of thyroid cancer according to their histological classification was 79.8% of papillary carcinoma, 14.5% of follicular carcinoma, 1.5% of medullary carcinoma, 2.2% of anaplastic carcinoma, 2 cases of squamous carcinoma and 3 cases of lymphoma. 2) The age distribution showed the peak incidence in the fourth decade (25.1%), followed by the fifth and the third decade. 3) The ratio of male to female patients was 1 : 6.1. The ratio is 1 : 5.9 in papillary carcinoma and 1 : 8.8 in follicular carcinoma. 4) The mean age was 40.2 year in papillary carcinoma, 37.4 year in follicular carcinoma. 36.5 year in medullary carcinoma, 60.3 year in anaplastic carcinoma, 62.0 year in squamous carcinoma, 59.7 year in lymphoma. 5) The diameter of the thyroid masses was smaller than 1.5cm in 19.9% of the patients, from 1.5cm to 5cm in 50.5%, from 5cm to 10cm in 25.4% and larger than 10cm in 25.4%. 6) Metastasis to the regional lymph nodes at diagnosis was noted in 44.2% of total patients, and distant metastasis was 5%, and local infiltration was 44.2%. 7) The clinical staging was revealed 42.1% of the patients in stage I, 9.1% in stage II, 35.7% in stage III, 5.2% in stage IV, and 7.9% in undetermined stage.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.293-299
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• 2014

Objectives: The main objective of this study is to investigate domestic usage amount of insecticide for vegetable cultivation to provide fundamental data for establishing job-exposure matrix(JEM) related to farmers treating agricultural insecticide. Materials and Methods: The survey on domestic usage amount of insecticide for vegetable cultivation was conducted by two research methods. The first method is to utilize agricultural pesticides published annually from Korea Crop Protection Association(KCPA). The second method is to apply cultivation area of vegetable announced officially from Statistics Korea(SK). An estimation of domestic usage amount of insecticide for vegetable cultivation through the second method was done by multiplying total cultivation area of vegetable($m^2$) with optimal spray amount of insecticide for vegetable cultivation per unit cultivation area of vegetable ($kg/m^2$). Results: As a result of analysis of public data related to insecticide for vegetable cultivation, it was found that its domestic usage amount has decreased gradually from the first sale year(1969) to current year(2012). There is, however, a considerable difference of annual usage trend of insecticide for vegetable cultivation between shipments and estimation. The annual usage trends of insecticide for vegetable cultivation based on regional classification were different from those based on total aspect. Conclusions: The region which used insecticide for vegetable cultivation the most in Korea was Jeolla-do, followed by Gyeonsang-do, Chungcheong-do, Seoul/Gyeonggi-do, Gangwon-do and Jeju-do. Substantially, mean ratio of usage amounts of insecticide based on shipments and those based on estimation by cultivation area was $281{\pm}115%$, which indicates that usage amounts of insecticide estimated by cultivation area are three times lower than those based on shipments.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.59-64
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• 2014

Objectives: The principal aim of this study is to investigate and analyze domestic usage amounts of insecticide in rice cultivation in order to provide fundamental data for establishing a job-exposure matrix(JEM) related to farmers working with agricultural insecticides. Materials and Methods: An investigation of domestic usage amounts of insecticides rice cultivation was performed through two methods. The first method utilized information on agricultural pesticides published annually by the Korea Crop Protection Association(KCPA). The second method made use of area of cultivation of rice as officially determined by Statistics Korea(SK). An estimation of domestic usage of insecticides in rice cultivation through the second method was determined by multiplying the total cultivation area of rice($m^2$) by the optimal spray volume of insecticides for rice cultivation per unit of cultivation area($kg/m^2$). Results: As a result of the analysis of public data regarding insecticides in rice cultivation, it was found that the domestic usage amount has decreased sharply from the first year of market sales(1969) to the final data year(2012). There is little difference in the annual usage trend of insecticides in rice cultivation between shipment and estimation. Also, the annual usage trends of insecticides in rice cultivation based on regional classification were nearly similar to those based on the overall aspect. Conclusions: The region which used the largest volume of insecticide in rice cultivation in Korea was the Jeolla Provinces, followed by the Gyeonsang Provinces, the Chungcheong Provinces, Seoul/Gyeonggi Province, Gangwon Province and Jeju Province. Substantially, the mean ratio of usage amounts of insecticide based on shipments and those based on estimation by cultivation area was $96{\pm}29%$, which indicates that the domestic usage amount of insecticide for rice cultivation corresponded to the optimal spray standard per unit area.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.185-202
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• 2018

Many ecological studies regarding forest succession, which is the process of arriving at climax forest through ecological changes, have suggested that Carpinus laxiflora is the leading tree type of the climax forest of temperate zone in South Korea. However, most of these studies on C. laxiflora forest have focused on vegetation structure and succession process in specific areas or regional physiognomical forest communities, and thus some may question whether it is rational to consider C. laxiflora forest as the climax forest in South Korea's temperate forest zone. The purpose of this study was to analyze the vegetation classification, species composition, and stratum structure and to investigate the succession tendency with the vegetation data collected from C. laxiflora forests in 75 quadrates in 17 mountains between 2014 and 2017. We used the phytosociological method to analyze the vegetation structure and the importance value to analyze the stratum structure. The results showed the floristic composition of 6 vegetation units and 9 species groups. The hierarchy of the C. laxiflora community group was represented by the Ulmus laciniata community, Corylus heterophylla community (subdivided Quercus aliena group and Corylus heterophylla typical group), and Rhododendron schlippenbachii community (subdivided Fraxinus chiisanensis group, Carpinus tschonoskii group, and Rhododendron schlippenbachii typical group). Successional tendency of C. laxiflora forest based on the importance of each layer is predicted to be the total of three types such as to maintain the stand (vegetation units 2, 3, and 6), to success the Carpinus cordata forest (vegetation units 1 and 4), and to success Quercus acuta forest (vegetation unit 5).