• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.183-196
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• 2016

Objectives: There is no systematic review on economic evaluations of telemedicine in Japan, despite over 1000 trials implemented. Our systematic review aims to examine whether Japan's telemedicine is cost-saving or cost-effective, examine the methodological rigorousness of the economic evaluations, and discuss future studies needed to improve telemedicine's financial sustainability. Methods: We searched five databases, including two Japanese databases, to find peer-reviewed articles published between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2014 in English and Japanese that performed economic evaluations of Japan's telemedicine programs. The methodological rigorousness of the economic analyses was assessed with a well-established checklist. We calculated the benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) when a reviewed study reported related data but did not report the BCR. All cost values were adjusted to 2014 US dollars. Results: Among the 17 articles identified, six studies reported on settings connecting physicians for specialist consultations, and eleven studies on settings connecting healthcare providers and patients at home. There are three cost-benefit analyses and three cost-minimization analyses. The remaining studies measured the benefit of telemedicine only, using medical expenditure saved or users' willingness-to-pay. There was substantial diversity in the methodological rigorousness. Studies on teledermatology and teleradiology indicated a favorable level of economic efficiency. Studies on telehomecare gave mixed results. One cost-benefit analysis on telehomecare indicated a low economic efficiency, partly due to public subsidy rules, e.g., a too short budget period. Conclusions: Overall, telemedicine programs in Japan were indicated to have a favorable level of economic efficiency. However, the scarcity of the economic literature indicates the need for further rigorous economic evaluation studies.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.121-140
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• 2015

The purposes of this study were to analyze the duplicated contents of 'Consumer life' area of Technology & Home Economics and other subject textbooks for the middle and high school students. It focused on textbooks compiled following the 2009 revised curriculum. To achieve the purposes of this study, "Technology & Home Economics I II", "Social studies I II", and "Ethics I II"textbooks for middle school and "Technology & Home Economics", "Social studies", and "Life & Ethics" textbooks for high school were analyzed based on the criteria for analyses of 'Consumer life' area. The results were as follows. First, the analysis of duplicated contents in Technology & Home Economics and other subjects (Ethics, Social studies) for middle school revealed that Technology & Home Economics textbook had the most proportion of 'Consumer Life' area, followed by Social studies and Ethics. The duplicated content elements in Technology & Home Economics, Ethics, and Social studies textbooks for middle school were 'consumer decision making', 'consumer information', 'economic impact of consumption', 'food life and sustainability', and 'consumption and sustainability'. Secondly, as a result of the content analysis of textbooks for high school Technology & Home Economics, Social studies, and Life & Ethics according to the criteria of analysis, it was found that Technology & Home Economics textbook had the most proportion of 'Consumer Life' area, followed by Life & Ethics and Social studies. The "content elements" 'food life management and consumption environment', 'desire of consumption', 'economic impact of consumption', 'changing factors and characteristics of consumer culture', and 'consumption and sustainability' were commonly found in all three textbooks. In this way, the 'Consumer life' area of Technology & Home Economics is thought to play a central role in teaching the 'Consumer Life' area because of its strength that contains detailed contents about consumer life for adolescent consumers who will apply it to everyday life. Based on the result of this research, it is needed to consider articulation of 'Consumer life' area of secondary schools for the future curriculum development of Technology & Home Economics to reduce the duplicated contents and to help the adolescents develop the ability to solve consumption problems they may encounter in real life and grow up to be rational adult consumers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2016.10a
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• pp.807-808
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• 2016

With the recent rise in nuclear families and single-member families, there is a need for the kind of home management unaffected by neither space nor time. Moreover, electronic devices in and around the home need to be managed efficiently and prevented from overheating, and there is an increasing risk of fire, theft, and leak of personal data with these devices, which is leading to an increase in the economic costs. Accordingly, there is a growing need for an efficient and secure smart home management system. This paper proposes a home management system that uses smart devices. This system has addressed the shortcomings of a conventional Internet-based home network. Furthermore, it communicates with IoT-enabled devices and features intelligent information home appliances that are isolated from personally identifiable information and which are secure against advanced persistent threats, a type of cyber-attack.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.117-126
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• 2008

The study identifies gender stereotypes, examines the level of women's economic empowerment at the household level and explores the influence of factors on it. Data were collected from 159 randomly selected farm women using both qualitative and quantitative survey methods between January and March 2007 from three villages of the Mymensingh District of Bangladesh. Four key informants (2 local leaders and 2 development personnel) were questioned to elicit views in the light of boosting women's empowerment. Five constructs of empowerment covering 30 indicators were aggregated together to develop a cumulative economic empowerment index (CEEI) to obtain multidimensional views of women's empowerment. The findings show that there were some prejudices against women in allocating divisions of labour and access to education, food, property, decision-making and institutions. The distribution of the CEEI demonstrates that the majority of the respondents (86%) had a low to moderate level of empowerment. A multiple regression analysis showed positive significant effects of education, training, media contact and freedom of mobility on women's CEEI, while domestic abuse restrained it. It is concluded that interventions by development agencies in co-ordination with the local community was necessary to attain women's self-reliance in the study area. Development actors can undertake some core strategies to enhance women's level of awarencess, knowledge, skills, and productive resources through providing training, loans, and information. To change traditional beliefs, it is important to create awareness of various gender issues amongst rural people through different methods and media.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.151-164
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• 2014

This study was conducted to explore the relationships between the elderly's existential identity and psychological well-being in accordance with the elderly's age-identity so as to improve the quality of life in the elderly with prolonged lives. The data were collected from respondents who were more than 60 years in age who live in city Suncheon. The statistics used for the data analysis were reliability, frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, one way analysis of variance, and multiple regression. The results of this study were as follows: (1) A majority of the elderly (49.8%) acknowledged psychological age as actual age. (2) The degrees of the elderly's existential identity was 54.90, while the degree of the elderly's psychological well-being was 33.07. (3) The elderly's existential identity level was significantly affected by economic state, spouse, age-identity, monthly living expenses, household, religion, career, age, and health state. Further, the elderly's psychological well-being level was significantly affected by existential identity, economic state, spouse, health state, age-identity, monthly living expenses, household, education, career, and age. (4) The variables that affect the elderly's existential identity were age-identity, economic state, health state, religion, monthly living expenses, and career, indicating an explanatory power of 38%. Moreover the variables that affect the elderly's psychological well-being were existential identity, age-identity, economic state, health state, and monthly living expenses, explaining approximately 55% of the total variance.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.45-51
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• 2008

The fuel cell system is environment-friendly and energy efficient system. Especially, the fuel cell cogeneration systems providing heat and electricity to buildings have been developed and applied to a lot of sites in the world to cope with the global warming and $CO_2$ emission problem. This paper presents the result of study on the economic evaluation with super-micro fuel cell (SMFC) cogeneration system by varying the floor area ($132m^2{\sim}331m^2$) of the house, whose system capacity ranges from 0.10 kWe to 0.50 kWe. The electricity demand, heat demand, saved energy cost, and the simple pay-back period have been simulated for the various capacities of fuel cell cogeneration system. As a result, this study suggests the fuel cell system’s capacity decision strategy for a given house area. Contrary to conventional design assumptions, the smaller capacity fuel cell cogeneration system is appropriate for the house of large floor area to defense the progressive electricity tax, and the larger capacity fuel cell cogeneration system is appropriate for the house of small floor area to sell the electricity.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.25-28
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• 2008

The fuel cell system is environment-friendly and energy efficient system. Especially, the fuel cell cogeneration systems providing heat and electricity to buildings have been developed and applied to a lot of sites in the world to cope with the global warming and $CO_2$ emission problem. This paper presents the result of study on the economic evaluation with super-micro fuel cell (SMFC) cogeneration system by varying the floor area ($132m^2{\sim}331m^2$) of the house, whose system capacity ranges from 0.10 kWe to 0.50 kWe. The electricity demand, heat demand, saved energy cost, and the simple pay-back period have been simulated for the various capacities of fuel cell cogeneration system. As a result, this study suggests the fuel cell system's capacity decision strategy for a given house area. Contrary to conventional design assumptions, the smaller capacity fuel cell cogeneration system is appropriate for the house of large floor area to defense the progressive electricity tax, and the larger capacity fuel cell cogeneration system is appropriate for the house of small floor area to sell the electricity.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.213-220
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to find the degree of satisfaction of the Korean elderly with their existing residential environment and their propensity to move. The data were collected through interviews and structured questionnaires. The subjects were 1,200 nationwide elderly over the age of 60 selected by probability sampling proportionate to size. cluster and random sampling method. The data were analyzed with frequency. percentage. and $X^2$-test using the SAS package. The major findings were as follows: Most subjects were satisfied with their housing environment and had no intention of moving. The subjects were highly satisfied with their residential environment. did not tend to move. This result does not necessarily mean that there is no need for better housing and no need to design elderly housing in Korea. It implies the need for community integrated housing development with flexible service system.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.53-69
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• 2005

This research has a significant meaning to observe and understand the historical condition of a furniture industry and the characteristics of Korean home furniture's formation, ability, skill and materials from 1980s when there were an economic growth and a historical development of Korean home furniture occurred to present days. During 1980s, there was an automatic system available and has enforced and settled the standards on its quality and price in a furniture industry. Also, there was a big trend of black furniture as well as an entrance of corporation and high glossy furniture due to technical cooperation from Europe. In 1990s, there was an entrance of furniture which various techniques was applied due to a high development of the materials and skills, and also various sizes of height and weight and enlargement of acceptance function using highly-technological hardware. After 2000 and now, pro-environmental products is embossed in the Korean home furniture where they added a public issue which is the concept of well being, and A.I and sub material has been pro-environment. There also was a natural unity between nature and technology because of increased usage of trees with its natural patterns, metals, and glasses. For the future development of home furniture design, This problem should be promptly recognized that current home furniture designs are now on the verge of being lack of originality and are just following the market demand and recent trend as it is. Then, there should be a development of its specialized, detailed, unique design as well as a development of advanced materials, production management, distribution, and so on, and carrying out a diversified research continuously. There also should be a systematic education, which is necessary for training specialists to lead the Korean home furniture design industry as well as preparing a basic level for the future without a negligence.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.22 no.1 s.79
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• pp.30-35
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• 2007

With the rapid industrialization and civilization development, noise has become a major problem in cities and is a very serious issue for the environment. Noise induced in a factory has a bad influenced on operation efficiency, accuracy and detail of work. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new noise evaluation software for predicting acoustic condition including noise properties during the design of a factory. Majority of commercial softwares for this purpose have been developed in foreign countries and they are quite expensive and hard to use. A new home-made software tool has been developed in the present work, which aimed at providing a more user-friendly environment. The tool developed in this work consists of four major part; the prediction and evaluation of noise in system design, database design, noise analysis development and 3D graphic modeling. The outcome of present work is expected to provide domestic users with a more user-friendly and economic acoustic design tool.