• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.4765-4771
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• 2014

Background: Patients with chronic liver diseases (CLD) may have compromised health related quality of life (HRQoL). Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection has long been the leading cause of CLD including liver cancer and cirrhosis. Knowledge on different symptom profiles of CLD should help in development of comprehensive treatment and patient care plans. Objective: To access the facets of HRQoL in chronic liver diseases throughout their spectrum of severity. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University in Yunnan Province of China. Both out- and inpatients undergoing treatment protocols for different HBV related liver disease states were consecutively collected from December 2012 to June 2013. ANOVA was used to compare the mean scores of EQ-5D and chronic liver disease questionnaire (CLDQ) among 5 disease groups. The relationship between demographic variables predicting global CLDQ scores and the domains of CLDQ was analysed. Results: A total of 1040 patients including 520 without complications, 91 with compensated cirrhosis, 198 with decompensated cirrhosis, 131 with HCC and 100 with liver failure were recruited. All domains of CLDQ, the means of EQ-5D value and EQ VAS exhibited significant decline with worsening of disease severity from uncomplicated HBV to liver failure. The multivariate regression demonstrated the reduction of mean scores of CLDQ domain at advanced stage. Patients with liver failure and HCC had more HRQoL impairment than other disease states. No effect of patient gender was found. Patient age was associated with 'fatigue' and 'worry' domains (p=0.006; p=0.004) but not with other domains and global scores of CLDQ and ED-5D. Conclusions: The HRQoL in chronic hepatitis B patients is greatly affected by disease states. Care for HBV-related diseases should consider not only the outcomes of treatment strategies but also improvement in patient wellbeing.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.65-98
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• 2007

Wetland provides various environmental services as well as marketable goods to human society. This paper presents a meta-analysis of the wetland valuation studies conducted in Korea during the past decade. Meta-analysis is a technique of summarizing research results from the separate but related studies using statistical methods. The objectives of the paper is to identify the main factors affecting the wetland values and to examine the applicability of meta-regression analysis for summarizing the information from valuation studies of natural ecosystem. The total of 64 observations from 24 studies are assembled, and we observe significant differences in wetland values depending on the characteristics of the studies. With the statistical significance, our results indicate that the method employed affects the wetland values while the wetland function evaluated affects little. In addition, we found that the size of wetland is negatively associated with the values, implying that wetland values exhibit the decreasing returns to scale. The evidences from our empirical analysis suggest that the meta-analysis has a potential as a tool to synthesize the research results from valuation studies and to provide useful information to policy makers. However, this study acknowledges that more effort should be dedicated toward the construction of DB on valuation studies as well as the research on the model improvement to enhance the validity and reliability of meta-analysis.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.99-127
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• 2007

When the margin between available capacity and demand is thin in a liberalized electricity market, prices rise steeply and system reliability is threatened. The principal response to these circumstances is often an assumption that price spikes and electricity shortages are the result of a failure to build sufficient new supplying facilities. It is, of course, often the case that additional investments in generation and network facilities would improve reliability, and such investments are often needed. But focusing on additional generation and transmission facilities for restoring balance to the grid overlooks the essential fact that reliability is a function of the relationship between supply and demand, imposing unnecessary costs on electric system. When the relationship is out of balance, the search for solutions must consider not only investments supply-side resources but also cost-effective demand-side resources such as accelerated load management, efficiency measures, and price-responsive load programs. Integrating demand resources into electricity markets can add enormous value to the electric system, widening the capacity margin, lowering costs and enhancing system reliability at the same time. This paper studies several challenges now facing electricity markets: demand-side management-especially, economic effects of demand response, potential reliability problems, market and system operation, CBP market improvements and so on. The paper concludes with a series of policy recommendations in five areas: (i) The Effects of efficient improvement to incorporate demand responses and demand-side resources into modem electricity markets, (ii) Fosteing price based demand response and (iii) improving incentive based demand response, (iv) strengthen demand response analysis and valuation, (v) integrating demand response into resource planning and adopting enabling technologies.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.133-138
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• 2006

Chemical wastes containing small amounts of uranium can not be disposed of them after treatment as an industrial waste, because the uranium concentration in the final dry cake exceeds the exemption level. Especially for the removal of uranium in this study, the method for immobilizing Diphosil powder within alginate beads is adopted to make a bead form from a powdered resin. Sodium alginate bead itself showed a capability to uptake uranium to above 60%, but the value was decreased to below 30% after equilibrium. The adsorption rate of uranium increased with the increasing content of Diphosil in the sodium alginate bead. Diphosil resin itself showed very fast uptake of uranium from early stages, and then the rates were leveled off. Diphosil bead showed an improved capability to uptake uranium considering the pure Diphosil content in the composite bead, and provide a considerable potential for further applications of a continuous process by using Diphosil as a bead form.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.15-29
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• 2020

The aims of this study is to improve physical properties of the sewage sludge and the process sludge generated in the leachate treatment by mixing the dry fuel, to develop the neutral solidifing agents that reduce oder, and to recycle the sewage and the process sludges as landfill cover materials. The mixing ratio (W/W) of sludges and dry fuel was appropriate at about 1:1, and the mixed materials were shown to be homogeneous at that ratio. We could know that when the sludges were mixed with dry fuel, moisture contents and viscosities are reduced, and air passages are formed between particles and particles. The various mixing tests and odor tests showed that the neutral solidifing agent was effective for the odor reduction. The main ingredient of the solidifing agent is the ash of sewage sludge, enabling it competitive in waste recycling and production costs. The landfill cover, using developed neutral solidification agent, improved physical properties to satisfy the quality standards and to increase the compressive strength. It also proved to reduce the value of complex oder and the usage of solidification agent to 1/3 (3,000 to 1,000) and to 1/8 (50% to 6%), respectively, from the comparative study with alkaline solidified landfill cover. Further research is under way to prove that this can be mixed with general soil to be used as a soil improvement agent for plant cultivation.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.230-242
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• 2000

Background : The measuring instruments for customer satisfaction in hospitals are often composed of some dimensions reflecting the conceptive complexity of them. Then, overall satisfaction would be expected to be equal the 'weighted' sum of scores by dimensions because the importance rated by customers may be different across the dimensions. But the issue of how to weight the dimensions with importance is not yet solved. We examined 3 sets of weighting methods as to make effect on predictive power against overall satisfaction. Methods : We conducted a survey included 483 subjects who had visited or admitted to a university hospital, using the short form questionnaire being developed by The Korean Society of Quality Assurance in Health Care for out-patient and in-patient. By using a multiple linear regression model, we compared among changes of explanatory powers against overall satisfaction as dependent variable after weighting 4 dimensions of the survey questionnaire as independent variables with importance scores of dimensions perceived by consumers. And we compared the feasibility of each weighting, methods by checking missing cases. Results : There were no weighting methods increasing the explanatory power after applying them. The method of absolute scoring was found higher explanatory-power than others, but this finding had no statistical significance. Regarding the number of missing value, method of absolutely scoring had the least cases. Conclusion : Our findings suggested that weighting the dimensions with importance might have little significance in the cases of scales having items highly correlated, such as consumers' satisfaction. Though asking with items to be answered absolutely, customers might be rating relatively in some degree and this method produced least missing cases. Considering these points, in the cases when weighting the dimensions with importance would be required, we suggest that weighting method by absolute scoring might be better than others.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.310-315
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• 2017

Although studies evaluating the effects of the blasting vibration on the adjacent structures from various angles have continued, cases of securing the safety of the adjacent buildings and researching the proper blasting method for the field condition by analyzing the vibration waveform of the measuring field while performing the open pit blasting are poor. Therefore, it is necessary to present a remedy for blasting pattern selection through test blasting that is appropriate for field conditions, and is economical and efficient. In this study, open pit blasting work was conducted based on the separation distance applied according to the standard blasting method by test blasting and the vibration regulation standard in the road expansion construction site to measure the blasting vibration value, and the vibration prediction equation by blasting methods was examined using a regression analysis computer program to calculate K, N, and R of the confidence level 95%. By setting the blasting allowed vibration standard of the test blasting target area to 0.3cm/sec, and the charring weight and blasting method by the separation distances according to the blasting vibration estimation equation of the open pit blasting guideline and the blasting vibration estimation equation of the test blasting were compared/analyzed, it was possible to identify the factors that increased the working expenses. In addition, the measurement and analysis of the adjacent structures during open pit blasting and the blasting vibration were performed after selecting the most adjacent structure to the open pit blasting spot to analyze the problems on the test blasting procedure and analysis method in the open pit blasting design/construction guidelines, which appeared in the process of completing open pit blasting construction, and a remedy is presented.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.101-109
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• 2015

Purpose - A traditional retail market is a place that offers economic opportunity to employees and employers alike it also is a place where the community can meet. The Korean government has invested three trillion won to improve physical and non-physical aspects in traditional retail markets since 2004. However, little research on this has been conducted. We explore this research gap that could lead to theory extension. We analyze consumption behavior with respect to traditional retail markets through an empirical analysis, thus overcoming limits in previous research. We empirically analyze policy effects of traditional retail market projects supported by the Korean government. Research design, data, and methodology - We propose a traditional retail market improvement plan via the relation between cause and effect resulting from the analysis. More specifically, logit analysis was carried out with 1,754 consumers in 16 cities nationwide. In order to analyze consumer consumption behaviors nationwide, the probability was analyzed using a logit model. This research analyzes the link between support and non-support by the Korean government using binary values. The dependent variable is whether Korean government support is implemented; the binomial logistic regression is used as the statistical estimation technique. The object variables are:1 (support) or 0 (nonsupport), and the prediction value is between 1 and 0. As a result of the factor analysis of questions related to attributes of service quality, four factors were extracted: convenience, product, facilities, and service. Results - The results indicate that convenience, product, and facilities have a significant influence on consumer satisfaction in accordance with the government's traditional retail market support. Additionally, the results reveal that convenience, product, facilities, and service all have a significant influence on consumer satisfaction in a traditional retail market's service quality and consumer satisfaction. Finally, the analysis indicates that the highly satisfied traditional retail market customer has a significant influence on revisit intention. Moreover, the results reveal that the highly satisfied traditional retail market customer has a significant influence on recommendation intention. Conclusions - This research focused on consumers nationwide to measure policy effects of traditional retail markets compared to previous research that focused on one traditional retail market or a specific area. We verified the relationship of service quality and customer satisfaction and consumer behavior based on service quality theory. The results indicate that consumer satisfaction of traditional retail markets supported by service quality factors has a significant impact. In a concrete form, the results indicate that these effects are from facility modernization projects and marketing support projects of the Korean government. The results also imply that these facility and management support effects from the Korean government have been consistent. We realize that the Korean government has to selectively support traditional retail markets in major cities and small and medium-sized cities. To that end, the Korean government needs to select a concentration strategy for the revitalization of traditional retail markets.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.75-84
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• 2014

Purpose - This article aims to examine whether the stock issuance of firms in the retail industry follows Myers' (1984) pecking order theory, which is based on information asymmetry. According to the pecking order model, firms have a sequence of financing decisions, of which the first choice is to use retained earnings, the second one is to get into safe debt, the next involves risky debt, and the last involves finance with outside equity. Since the 2000s, the polarization of the LEs (Large enterprises) and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) arose in the retail industry. The LEs exhibited an improvement in growth and profitability, whereas SMEs had a tendency to degenerate. This study contributes to corroborating the features of financing decisions in the retail industry distinguished from the other industries. Research design, data, and methodology - This study considers the stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013, and is more concentrated on the stocks in the retail industry. The data were collected from the financial information company, WISEfn. The empirical analysis is conducted by employing two measures of net equity issues (and), which were introduced in Fama and French (2005), and can be calculated from firms' accounting information. All variables are generated as the aggregate value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets, which, in effect, treats the entire sample as a single firm. Substantially, the financing decisions of the firms were analyzed by examining how often and under what circumstances firms issue and repurchase equity. Then, this study compares the features of the retail industry with those of the other industries. Results - The proportion of sample firms that show annual net stock issues reaching the level of the year's average was 54.33% for the 1990s, and fell to 39.93% per year for the 2000s. In detail, the fraction of the small firms actually increases from 45.08% to 51.04%, whereas that of large firms shows a dramatic decline from 58.94% to 24.76%. Considering the fact that the large firms' rapid increase in growth after the 2000s may lead to an increase in equity issues, this result is rather surprising. Meanwhile, net stock repurchases of assets are considerably disproportionate between the large (-50.11%) and the small firms (-15.66%) for the 2000s. Conclusions - Stock issuance of retail firms is not in line with the traditional seasoned equity offering based on information asymmetry. The net stock issuance of the small firms in the retail industry can be interpreted as part of an effort to reorganize business and solicit new investment to resolve degenerating business performance. For large firms, on the other hand, the net repurchase can be regarded as part of an effort to rearrange business for efficiency and amplifying synergy across business sections through spin-off. These results can help the government establish a support policy on retail industry according to size.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.149-154
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• 1994

The hardness of kelp(Laminaria japonica) blade is a major deterrent to mass consumption in spite of its value as food. For improvement of kelp products as a special product of 'Donghae', the effect of additives on softening of kelp blade was studied. Kelp was composed of $34.74\%$ ash, $50.5\%$ carbohydrates, $4.81\%$ lipids and $9.98\%$ proteins on a dry weight basis. Glutamic and Aspartic acid are the principal free amino acids with percentage compositions of $2340mg\%\;and\;1650mg\%$ respectively of the $4719mg\%$ of total free amino acids. The softening effects of acetic acid and commercial mixed polyphosphate are more effective than that of monosodium carbonate. Boiling for more than 1hr was necessary for adequate softness of kelp blade in $0.3\%$ acetic acid solution. But, the kelp blade were softened more satisfactorily to 0.165kg/mm for only 30 min boiling in $0.2\%$ phosphate solution, and it is equal to boiling in $0.3\%$ acetic acid for 1hr.