• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.144-155
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• 1996

During the 1990s the workplace has grown more complex and business competition has increased world-wide. All organizations, whether for-profit or non-profit have been forced to respond to market changes. More advanced information and technology, greater product diversity, shorter product life cycles, increased quality requirements, more regulation oversight, decreasing productivity, more competitors, and increasing overhead costs have motivated organizations to focus on ways to deliver products cheaper, better, and faster. Many organizations are searching for ways to reduce costs through downsizing, reengineering business processes, implementing quality management, outsourcing, and improving cost management. Support departments that provide services internal to an organization such as human resources, legal, and environmental, safety, and health (ES&H) are often the first organization targeted for cost reduction and cost control initiatives because these functions are part of a rapidly increasing overhead cost. Recently, ES&H functions are incresingly being integrated into the business of business to contribute value to organization beyond mere compliance with ES&H regulations. The discussions and development of the ISO compatible Environmental Management Standards or Occupational Safety and Health Management Standards is another impetus to integrate ES&H function into the business of business. Thus, ES&H professional need new skills to analyze the cost of their function and communicate the value of the products and services they provide. In recent years, the need for and the importance developing cost management and business skills by ES&H professionals have been emphasized in the literature. Communicating with decision makers in terms of cost and value to the organization, and by using business language and business arguments is the first step toward effectively integrating ES&H activities into the business of business. Activity-based costing (ABC) is a cost management method that measures the cost of a product or service based on the actual use of resources by activities, and based on the actual amount of activities used to produce a product or service. ABC is recommended as a tool for managers of ES&H organizations to determine the cost of developing and providing ES&H products within a for-profit firm or non-profit agency. This paper discusses the trend of integration of ES&H functions into the mainstream of business activities within an organization. The general principles of treditional cost accounting are presented as a bases for understandging why and how ABC will provide more accurate estimates of cost. The principles and concepts of ABS are presented as a tool for determining more accurately the true cost of ES&H products and services.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2018.06a
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• pp.126-126
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• 2018

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.50-56
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• 2022

Change Orders generally impact cost and schedule performance of highway projects. However, highway projects that do not have any change orders also face cost growth and schedule delays. This study seeks to determine the cost and schedule performance of Texas DOT projects by collecting project data for 120 highway projects completed between 2016 to 2020. For the study, we selected project data that has zero or negative change orders which were then grouped and analyzed based on their Project Types i.e., maintenance works; structural works; restoration and rehabilitation works; and safety works. The study found that performance of Maintenance and Safety type projects had less cost and schedule growth among the data analyzed. Statistical tests also found that even though the projects have no change orders, Rehabilitation and Restoration type projects experienced significant schedule growth compared to others. However, the data did not show any significant cost and schedule growth for the projects when statistical tests were performed on overall data. The study concluded that highway projects are experiencing schedule growth even though the projects had no change orders. Results from the study can help planners, engineers, and administrators to gain better insight on how different types of highway projects are performing in terms of cost and schedule and eventually derive appropriate solutions to minimize cost and schedule growth in such projects.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2023.05a
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• pp.172-172
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• 2023

The use of low-cost IoT sensors for flow measurement in open channels has gained significant attention due to their potential to provide continuous and real-time data at a low cost. However, the accuracy and reliability of these sensors in real-world scenarios are not well understood. This study aims to compare the performance of low-cost IoT sensors in the laboratory and real-world conditions to evaluate their accuracy and reliability. Firstly, a low-cost IoT sensor was integrated with an IoT platform to acquire real-time flow rate data. The IoT sensors were calibrated in the laboratory environment to optimize their accuracy, including different types of low-cost IoT sensors (HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor & YF-S201 sensor) using an open channel prototype. After calibration, the IoT sensors were then applied to a real-world case study in the Dorim-cheon stream, where they were compared to traditional flow measurement methods to evaluate their accuracy.The results showed that the low-cost IoT sensors provided accurate and reliable flow rate data under laboratory conditions, with an error range of less than 5%. However, when applied to the real-world case study, the accuracy of the IoT sensors decreased, which could be attributed to several factors such as the effects of water turbulence, sensor drift, and environmental factors. Overall, this study highlights the potential of low-cost IoT sensors for flow measurement in open channels and provides insights into their limitations and challenges in real-world scenarios.

• IE interfaces
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.237-248
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• 1997

The purpose of this study is to make an economic analysis of power plant utilities by examining electricity generating costs with environmental consideration. Economic growth has caused pollutant emission, and subsequent environmental pollution has been identified as a very real limit to sustainable development. Considering the enormous role of electricity in the national economy, it is thus very important to study the effect of environmental regulations on the electricity sector. Because power utilities need large investments during construction, operation and maintenance, and also require much construction lead time. Economic analysis is the very important process in the electric system expansion planning. In this study, the levelized generation cost method is used in comparing economic analysis of power plant utilities. Among the pollutants discharged of the electricity sector, this study principally deals with the control activities related only to $CO_2$, and $NO_2$, since the control cost of $SO_2$, and TSP (Total Suspended Particulates) is already included in the construction cost of utilities. The cost of electricity generation in a coal-fired power plant is compared with one in an LNG combined cycle power plant. Moreover this study surveys the sensitivity of fuel price, interest rate and carbon tax. In each case, this sensitivity can help to decide which utility is economically justified in the circumstance of environmental regulations.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.14-19
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• 2014

This paper presents a preliminary experimental and computational study on the evaluation of thermal performance and initial cost of U, W and coil type ground heat exchangers (GHEs). Heat exchange rate of the individual GHE was evaluated from the thermal resperformance test (TPT) results, and the construction cost was also calculated. For more information, GLD (ground loop design) simulations of various piping size are carried out. From simulation results, the optimized GHE was suggested based on the thermal performance and construction cost as well. Besides, the required borehole length of U and W type GHEs was calculated considering a real construction condition using GLD program.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.11
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• pp.295-317
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• 1998

Environmental accounting identifies and measures environmental costs and provides them to interested parties of corporation. The purposes of this study are as follows: First, it investigates the method of measurement and the timing of recognition of environmental costs. Second, it suggests the method of disclosure of environmental costs. In order to accomplish these objectives, this study reviewed relevant literature and studies in advanced countries and Korea. The main results of this study can be summarized into four points: (1) environmental costs are classified into environmental pollution cost and environmental pollution prevention cost, by considering the sources of occurrence of, the functions of and the types of environmental costs. (2) the methods of measurement of environmental costs are various but they almost all subjective and arbitrary. So an accurate measurement of environmental cost is actually difficult. (3) According to the accrual basis, environmental costs are recognized respective to prior period adjustments, expenses or losses of the current period and the assets of the next period. (4) There are 3 methods of disclosure of environmental costs: an extension model of financial statements, a compromise model, and an original model. An extension model financial statements is easy to apply in business practice because it discloses environmental costs by adding accounts into the framework of a traditional accounting system or supplementary reports. This research can contribute to the establishment of accounting standards for environmental costs in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1245-1254
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• 2008

Proposing a method for the estimation of the social cost for global warming impact (external cost) is the aim of this paper. Both the endpoint approach and conjoint analysis were applied to estimating the social cost for global warming. The endpoint approach was used to assess the damage on the safeguard subjects by global warming due to the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The conjoint analysis was used to estimate the economic values for safeguard subjects which measure the social preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) on safeguard subjects. The economic values of human health and social asset were estimated at 62,261,700 Won / DALY (yr) and 10,000 Won / 10,000 Won, respectively. Moreover, cost factors of GHGs were calculated by multiplying the damage factor which is quantified the unit damage on safeguard subject and the economic value. In the case of CO$_2$, the cost factor was calculated at 13.52 Won / kg (13,520 Won / ton). External cost of products or services can be calculated by multiplying the GHG inventory result of products or services by the cost factor of each GHG. inventory.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.641-653
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• 2008

This paper proposes a practical and realistic method to establish an optimal lifetime maintenance strategy for deteriorating bridges by considering the life-cycle performance as well as the life-cycle cost. The proposed method offers a set of optimal tradeoff maintenance scenarios among other conflicting objectives, such as minimizing cost and maximizing performance. A genetic algorithm is used to generate a set of maintenance scenarios that is a multi-objective combinatorial optimization problem related to the lifetime performance and the life-cycle cost as separate objective functions. A computer program, which generates optimal maintenance scenarios, was developed based on the proposed method using the life-cycle costs and the performance of bridges. The subordinate relation between bridge members has been considered to decide optimal maintenance sequence and a corresponding algorithm has been implemented into the program. The developed program has been used to present a procedure for finding an optimal maintenance scenario for steel-girder bridges on the Korean National Road. Through this bridge maintenance scenario analysis, it is expected that the developed method and program can be effectively used to allow bridge managers an optimal maintenance strategy satisfying various constraints and requirements.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.379-392
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• 2020

The paper presents a Life-Cycle Cost-based optimization framework for wind-excited tall buildings equipped with Tuned Mass Dampers (TMDs). The objective is to minimize the Life-Cycle Cost that comprises initial costs of the structure, the control system and costs related to repair, maintenance and downtime over the building's lifetime. The integrated optimization of structural sections and mass ratio of the TMDs is carried out, leading to a set of Pareto optimal solutions. The main advantage of the proposed methodology is that, differently from the traditional optimal design approach, it allows to perform the unified design of both the structure and the control system in a Life Cycle Cost Analysis framework. The procedure quantifies wind-induced losses, related to structural and nonstructural damage, considering the stochastic nature of the loads (wind velocity and direction), the specificity of the structural modeling (e.g., non-shear-type vibration modes and torsional effects) and the presence of the TMDs. Both serviceability and ultimate limit states related to the structure and the TMDs' damage are adopted for the computation of repair costs. The application to a case study tall building allows to demonstrate the efficiency of the procedure for the integrated design of the structure and the control system.