• Title/Summary/Keyword: Sustainable health care

Search Result 91, Processing Time 0.027 seconds

How to Reflect Sustainable Development, exemplified by the Equator Principles, in Overseas Investment (해외투자(海外投資)와 지속가능발전 원칙 - 프로젝트 파이낸스의 적도원칙(赤道原則)을 중심으로 -)

  • Park, Whon-Il
    • THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
    • /
    • v.31
    • /
    • pp.27-56
    • /
    • 2006
  • Today's financial institutions usually take environmental issues seriously into consideration as they could not evade lender liability in an increasing number of cases. On the international scene, a brand-new concept of the "Equator Principles" in the New Millenium has driven more and more international banks to adopt these Principles in project financing. Sustainable development has been a key word in understanding new trends of the governments, financial institutions, corporations and civic groups in the 21st century. The Equator Principles are a set of voluntary environmental and social guidelines for sustainable finance. These Principles commit bank officers to avoid financial support to projects that fail to meet these guidelines. The Principles were conceived in 2002 on an initiative of the International Finance Corporation(IFC), and launched in June 2003. Since then, dozens of major banks, accounting for up to 80 percent of project loan market, have adopted the Principles. Accordingly, the Principles have become the de facto standard for all banks and investors on how to deal with potential social and environmental issues of projects to be financed. Compliance with the Equator Principles facilitates for endorsing banks to participate in the syndicated loan and help them to manage the risks associated with large-scale projects. The Equator Principles call for financial institutions to provide loans to projects under the following circumstances: - The risk of the project is categorized in accordance with internal guidelines based upon the environmental and social screening criteria of the IFC. - For Category A and B projects, borrowers or sponsors are required to conduct a Social and Environmental Assessment, the preparation of which must meet certain requirements and satisfactorily address key social and environmental issues. - The Social and Environmental Assessment report should address baseline social and environmental conditions, requirements under host country laws and regulations, sustainable development, and, as appropriate, IFC's Environmental, Health and Safety Guidelines, etc. - Based on the Social and Environmental Assessment, Equator banks then make agreements with borrowers on how they mitigate, monitor and manage the risks through a Social and Environmental Management System. Compliance with the plan is included in the covenant clause of loan agreements. If the borrower doesn't comply with the agreed terms, the bank will take corrective actions. The Equator Principles are not a mere declaration of cautious banks but a full commitment of lenders. A violation of the Principles in the process of project financing, which led to an unexpected damage to the affected community, would not give rise to any specific legal remedies other than ordinary lawsuits. So it is more effective for banks to ensure consistent implementation of the Principles and to have them take responsible measures to solve social and environmental issues. Public interests have recently mounted up with respect to environmental issues on the occasion of the Supreme Court's decision (2006Du330) on the fiercely debated reclamation project at Saemangeum. The majority Justices said that the expected environmental damages like probable pollution of water and soil were not believed so serious and that the Administration should continue to implement the project seeking ways to make it more environment friendly. In this case, though the Category A Saemangeum Project was carried out by a government agency, the Supreme Court behaved itself as a signal giver to approve or stop the environment-related project like an Equator bank in project financing. At present, there is no Equator bank in Korea in contrast to three big banks in Japan. Also Korean contractors, which are aggressively bidding for Category A-type projects in South East Asia and Mideast, might find themselves in a disadvantageous position because they are generally ignorant of the environmental assessment associated with project financing. In this regard, Korean banks and overseas project contractors should care for the revised Equator Principles and the latest developments in project financing more seriously. It's because its scope has expanded to the capital cost of US$10 million or more across all industry sectors regardless of developing countries or not. It should be noted that, for a Korean bank, being an Equator bank is more or less burdensome in a short-term period, but it must be conducive to minimizing risks and building up good reputation in the long run.

  • PDF

The Status of Contact Lens Wearing, Management and Eye Health Awareness Among Female University Students in Jeju Area (제주지역 여대생들의 콘택트렌즈 착용 및 관리 실태와 눈건강 인식)

  • Choi, Ji Young;Song, Yun Young;Byun, Jong Chul
    • Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
    • /
    • v.21 no.3
    • /
    • pp.203-214
    • /
    • 2016
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the status of contact lens wearing, management and awareness of eye health knowledge among female university students in Jeju area and to utilize the basic data for education and management of contact lens. Methods: Data for this study were collected from the 236 female university students in Jeju area who have a contact lens experience from May 1, 2016 to June 11, 2016. Results: We found the status of contact lens wearing and management of subjects and there were different correlations between discomfort and awareness of eye health knowledge among the subjects who have different characteristics. There were also correlations in discomfort, the average days of contact lens wear per week, initial wearing day and action when they have any discomfort in some contact lens wearers. Conclusions: We realized the status of contact lens wearing and management of female university students and it suggests appropriate contact care education and sustainable management system are need to be established for considering daily average wearing time, the type and material of contact lens wear and main discomfort and so on.

Engineering Cellulose Fibers for High-Value Added Products for Pulp & Paper Industry

  • Ko, Young Chan;Park, Jong-Moon
    • Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
    • /
    • v.47 no.6
    • /
    • pp.22-40
    • /
    • 2015
  • Cellulose fibers is one of the most abundant in nature. It has many distinctive features: abundant in nature, biodegradable, non-toxic, eco-friendly, sustainable, easy to fabricate, hydrophilic, and cost-effective. Cellulose fibers, known as pulp, is produced from cellulose-containing materials by the pulping process. As the raw material, wood has been most commonly used while recycled pulp has been also used to some degree. Thus, pulp usually refers to wood pulp. Generally, the pulp and paper industry is regarded as the commodity market where the cost should be much more important than the quality. It also belongs to a mature market where the growth is slow, or even in decline. Accordingly, technological development has been rather stagnant for the industry. Recently, however, the pulp and paper industry has faced very serious challenges. First, due to digital technology, there has been a steady decline in the need for pulp and paper products. The digital industry has continuously replaced printed products such as books, newspapers, and magazines. Second, there has been a trend initiated by developed countries to limit the use of wood as the raw material for the sake of environmental protection. This forces the industry to find a more efficient use of wood pulp as well as finding alternative, non-wood sources. Third, as an individual becomes wealthier and more conscious of health-care, the quality of a product becomes more important than the cost. Thus, a paradigm shift is needed from the cost-conscientious to the quality conscientious. The objective of this article is to review the technologies aimed at engineering cellulose fibers for producing high-value added paper products.

Development of an Evidence-based Nutritional Intervention Protocol for Adolescent Athletes

  • Lee, Saningun;Lim, Hyunjung
    • Korean Journal of Exercise Nutrition
    • /
    • v.23 no.3
    • /
    • pp.29-38
    • /
    • 2019
  • [Purpose] Effective nutritional intervention can help reduce the risk of nutritional problems and improve athletic performance in adolescents. The five A's (assess, advise, agree, assist, and arrange) model is widely used as the theoretical framework for advice on nutrition, smoking, drinking, and physical activity and it recommends that practitioners in primary health care promote behavior change to facilitate positive outcomes. This model has also been useful in understanding the underlying processes of behavior change. This study aimed to develop both a novel evidence-based nutritional intervention protocol, rooted in sound nutritional theory, and a customizable nutritional intervention program to support sustainable healthy eating, enhance nutrient intake, and improve athletic performance in adolescent athletes. [Methods] In this study, we adapted the 5 A's behavioral change model and motivational interview to develop a theoretical framework to help adolescent athletes change their behavior and achieve their goals. [Results] During each step of the 5 A's protocol, a customized nutritional intervention protocol was developed by nutrition experts for each of adolescent athletes. Each plan was developed to improve the eating habits of adolescent athletes through group education and counseling. All nutritional counseling sessions were designed to enable participants to apply nutritional knowledge and practical action plans to their training and competition conditions to enable each of them to achieve individual athletic goals and facilitate self-management. [Conclusion] A theoretical and evidence-based nutritional intervention protocol was developed to identify and address obstacles to healthy dietary habits in adolescent athletes. This could be used as the basis for further studies aimed at improving nutrient intake and athletic performance in adolescent athletes.

A Study on the Design of Sustainable App Services for Medication Management and Disposal of Waste Drugs (약 복용 관리와 폐의약품 처리를 위한 지속 가능한 앱 서비스 디자인 연구)

  • Lee, Ri-Na;Hwang, Jeong-Un;Shin, Ji-Yoon;Hwang, Jin-Do
    • Journal of Service Research and Studies
    • /
    • v.14 no.2
    • /
    • pp.48-68
    • /
    • 2024
  • Due to the global pandemic aftermath of the coronavirus, the importance of health care is being emphasized more socially. Due to the influence of these changes, domestic pharmaceutical companies have introduced regular drug delivery services, that is, drug and health functional food subscription services. Currently, this market is continuously growing. However, these regular services are causing new environmental problems in which the number of waste drugs increases due to the presence of unused drugs. Therefore, this study proposes a service that not only promotes health management through regular medication adherence to reduce the amount of pharmaceutical waste but also aims to improve awareness and practices regarding proper medication disposal. As a preliminary survey for service design, a preliminary survey was conducted on 51 adults to confirm their perception of drug use habits and waste drug collection. Based on the Honey Comb model, a guideline for service design was created, and a prototype was produced by specifying the service using the preliminary survey results and service design methodology. In order to verify the effectiveness of the prototype, a first user task survey was conducted to identify the problems of the prototype, and after improving this, a second usability test was conducted on 49 adults to confirm the versatility of the service. Usability verification was conducted using SPSS Mac version 29.0. For the evaluation results of the questionnaire, Spearmann Correlation Analysis was conducted to confirm the relationship between frequency analysis and evaluation items. This study presents specific solutions to the problem of waste drugs due to the spread of drug subscription services.

The Cause-and-Effect Relationship between Perceptual Satisfaction and Expectation Factors for Special Hospitals by Busan and Gyungnam Medical Consumers (부산·경남지역 의료소비자들의 전문병원에 대한 지각 만족도와 기대요소 간의 인과관계)

  • Park, Ki-Hyeok;Shin, Jin-Ho
    • Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
    • /
    • v.11 no.7
    • /
    • pp.181-188
    • /
    • 2021
  • This study was performed to examine the strategy method for the sustainable stability and effectiveness of small and medium hospital, where the relationship between perceptual satisfaction and expectation factors for special hospital was analyzed. The structural questionnaire was given to the residents of Busan and Gyungnam over the age of 20 and the square contingency and the logistical regression were employed for the analysis of the results. First, the respondent with 68.0% has realized the hospital claiming to be characterization as the special hospital and the Ministry of Health and Welfare designated hospital was identified to the respondent of 21.3%. Second, perceptual satisfaction with expectation level was satisfied to the most visitor in case of visiting special hospitals with subjective perception and was confirmed to the intention of revisiting consistently. Third, for the perceptual satisfaction of visiting with expectation level, the safety and the quality of treatment affected significantly the cause-and-effect. The result has provided the useful information with the establishment of a strategy for the long-term and continued effect through the perceptual satisfaction and the emotional attachment.

Social Welfare Policy Expansion and Generational Equity: Generational Accounting Approach (복지지출 확대가 세대 간 형평성에 미치는 효과 분석: 세대 간 회계를 이용한 접근)

  • Chun, Young Jun
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
    • /
    • v.34 no.3
    • /
    • pp.31-65
    • /
    • 2012
  • We study the sustainability of the current fiscal policy of Korea, and the effects of the social welfare policy expansion, which has been recently discussed among the political circles, on the government budget and the generational equity, using generational accounting. We follow the generational accounting approach, considering the fact that most of the social welfare policies are the entitlement programs, which imposes the limitation of the policy maker's discretion to control the cost of their provision. The social welfare expenditure will change due to the change in the policy environments of the future, such as population aging. Therefore, we need to take into account the government cash flow of the future as well as of the present to investigate its effects on the fiscal sustainability, which implies that the national debt or the budget balance is not a proper index for the investigation. Our findings are as follows. The current fiscal policies are not sustainable, and the long-term budgetary imbalance is shown very serious. The required tax adjustment, which is defined as the percentage change of tax burden required to attain the long-term budgetary balance, is very large. Unless the level of the government expenditure is properly controlled, the tax burden and the social contribution level will rise to the untolerable level. Moreover, the expansion of the social welfare policies, which has been discussed among the political circles, will substantially increase the fiscal burden of the future generations. Even though the provision of the free lunch to the primary and the secondary school students, the free child care, and the discounted college tuition do not increase the fiscal burden much, because their magnitude at present is not large and will decrease due to the decrease in the number of the newborns and the students resulting from the fall in the fertility rate, that of the free health care service will increase tax burden of the future generations very much, because the magnitude of the government expenditure needed at present is very large and the population aging will further increase the magnitude of the health care expenditure. The findings indicate that the structural reforms, to prevent the explosive increase in the social welfare expenditure in the future, are necessary before the implementation of the welfare policy expansion. In particular, the cost control of the social transfers to the elderly needs to be made, because the speed of the population aging of Korea is among the highest in the world. The findings also indicate that the budget balance or the national debt can cause the fiscal illusion, which makes the Korean government budget look sound, even though the fiscal policy will rapidly increase the social welfare expenditure in the future, as the population ages. The generational accounting, which takes into account the cash flow of the future as well as of the present, unlike the budgetary balance and the national debt, which shows the results of the government financial activities of the past and the present, is a useful method to overcome the fiscal illusion.

  • PDF

Artifacts in Digital Radiography (디지털 방사선 시스템에서 발생하는 Artifact)

  • Min, Jung-Whan;Kim, Jung-Min;Jeong, Hoi-Woun
    • Journal of radiological science and technology
    • /
    • v.38 no.4
    • /
    • pp.375-381
    • /
    • 2015
  • Digital Radiography is a big part of diagnostic radiology. Because uncorrected digital radiography image supported false effect of Patient's health care. We must be manage the correct digital radiography image. Thus, the artifact images can have effect to make a wrong diagnosis. We report types of occurrence by analyzing the artifacts that occurs in digital radiography system. We had collected the artifacts occurred in digital radiography system of general hospital from 2007 to 2014. The collected data had analyzed and then had categorize as the occurred causes. The artifacts could be categorized by hardware artifacts, software artifacts, operating errors, system artifacts, and others. Hardware artifact from a Ghost artifact that is caused by lag effect occurred most frequently. The others cases are the artifacts caused by RF noise and foreign body in equipments. Software artifacts are many different types of reasons. The uncorrected processing artifacts and the image processing error artifacts occurred most frequently. Exposure data recognize (EDR) error artifacts, the processing error of commissural line, and etc., the software artifacts were caused by various reasons. Operating artifacts were caused when the user didn't have the full understanding of the digital medical image system. System artifacts had appeared the error due to DICOM header information and the compression algorithm. The obvious artifacts should be re-examined, and it could result in increasing the exposure dose of the patient. The unclear artifact leads to a wrong diagnosis and added examination. The ability to correctly determine artifact are required. We have to reduce the artifact occurrences by understanding its characteristic and providing sustainable education as well as the maintenance of the equipments.

Related Factors of Smoking Cessation Success and Maintenance of Patients using Smoking Cessation Clinic at a Public Hospital : focused on patient demographics and smoking related factors (일개 공공병원 금연클리닉 이용 흡연 환자의 금연 성공 및 유지 요인 : 일반적 특성과 금연관련 특성 중심으로)

  • Hwang, Eun-Jeong
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
    • /
    • v.20 no.3
    • /
    • pp.535-543
    • /
    • 2019
  • This study was conducted to identify the factors related to the patient demographics and smoking factors on smoking cessation success and maintenance of subjects at the 6th and 12th week at a public hospital. This study utilized secondary data collected through the smoking cessation program of the 2014 public health care program, which is mediated for 6 weeks and checked for maintenance on the 12th week. The data were analyzed by the chi-square test, t-test and logistic regression analysis. There were 90 subjects in total, 85 men (94.45%) and 5 women (5.55%). The smoking success group and smoking failure group showed significant differences in family type (${\chi}^2=4.496$, p=0.037), education (${\chi}^2=12.253$, p=0.002), smoking amount per day before program (t=-2.906, p=0.005), and nicotine dependence before program (t=-3.081, p=0.003) after 6 weeks. Factors influencing smoking cessation success were religion (OR=3.719, 95% CI=1.076-12.859) and nicotine dependence before program (OR=0.713, 95% CI=0.520-0.976). Factors influencing smoking cessation maintenance were family type (OR=0.017, 95% CI=0.001-0.507) and no-smoking willingness (OR=2.062, 95% CI=1.059-4.015). For smoking cessation to be successful and sustainable, it is necessary to develop programs specific for the characteristics of the subjects; accordingly, continuous research and support are needed.

The Influence of the Restrictions in Chinese economic growth on Korean commercial environment (중국 경제성장의 제약요인이 한국 통상환경에 미치는 영향)

  • Shong, Il-Ho;Lee, Gye-Young
    • International Commerce and Information Review
    • /
    • v.15 no.4
    • /
    • pp.457-479
    • /
    • 2013
  • Through a Chinese rise, Chinese dream is actualizing as the world's great power. According to outlook of World Bank and IMF, Around 2030 China will be a great power bigger than America's economic power. The rise of China will give a huge impact to the whole world. China expands her influence through a global manufacturing base and a global market. To actualize 'Peaceful Rise' Strategy, China has many constraints. Chinese society is facing many difficult social problem due to side effects of a rapid development. Such as the spread of corruption, the severity of wealth gap, environmental degradation and energy shortage. Internationally there are containment from hegemon so-called 'China threat' dispute, Taiwan issue and territorial disputes. Western countries are hostile to China for two reasons. Based on expectations, one is China's socialist system and the other is the rising China which will compete for supremacy with Europe and America. Recent emergence of Chinese nationalism and the containment of the neighboring countries are also serious limiting factors. Domestically they have the rampant corruption in the bureaucracy, weakened capacity of Communist rule, wealth disparity due to the discriminatory economic development strategy, seriousness of rural problem, social instability, lack of social security systems and the development gap between the eastern coastal areas and western inland areas, ethnic minorities problems, the constraint of sustainable development issues due to lack of resources, environmental pollution and energy constraints. Like the former Soviet Union, China may face a dismantlement. After the rise, China may encounter possibilities of a war between great powers or a collapse of Chinese society caused by deepening internal conflict. Serious economic polarization would make peasants and urban workers, who are social vulnerable people, to turn their back to communist party and threaten the justification and the appropriateness of the ruling communist party. Chinese government will think internal system security threat is more formidable risk factor than a system security threat from the hegemon. The decline of great country comes from internal reasons rather than external reasons. To achieve peaceful rise, unification with Taiwan is an essential prerequisite. Taiwan issues are complex problems which equipped with international and domestic factors. Lack of energy resources, environmental pollution in China will bring economic crisis to Korean enterprises. Important influence to Korean economy will be a changeover of the method in economic development. It will turn the balance of investment and consumption, GDP-centered growth to consumption and environment-centered growth. Services industries including finance, environment, culture, education, health care and social welfare will grow. Change in China's growth model will give a great challenge upon the intermediate goods industry in Korea. Korea should reduce the portion of machinery, automotive, semiconductor, steel and chemical-centered export industry to China, and should increase the proportion of the service industry.

  • PDF