• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.261-262
• /
• 2022

Globally, it is estimated that the number of people living outside of their country of origin reached 281 million in 2020. The primary drive of those migrants when migrating voluntarily is work to increase their income and provide for their families left behind in their home countries. Those who migrate immediately seek means of income to sustain themselves through a perilous process as currently evidenced in the war in Ukraine and not too long ago in Syria and Venezuela. Unfortunately, migrant workers are globally known to predominantly be working in "4-D jobs"- dirty, dangerous, and difficult and discriminatory; the fourth D was recently added to acknowledge the discriminatory aspect and other social determinants of health migrant workers face in their host country while exposed to precarious work. Consequently, migrant workers are at considerable risk of work-related illnesses and injury but their health needs are critically overlooked in research and policy. Recognizing the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights "Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment", we cannot consider any human life - thus, the life of migrant workers - as dispensable through a structural discriminatory process that undervalues their occupational safety and health, livelihood and the contribution these workers bring to their host countries. This was seen during the preparation for the upcoming world cup in Qatar where migrant workers were exposed to a multiplicity of serious hazards including deadly heat hazards.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.31-49
• /
• 2019

Flutter is a dangerous phenomenon encountered in flexible structures subjected to aerodynamic forces. This includes aircraft, helicopter blades, engine rotors, buildings and bridges. Flutter occurs as a result of interactions between aerodynamic, stiffness and inertia forces on a structure. The conventional method for designing a rotor blade to be free from flutter instability throughout the helicopter's flight regime is to design the blade so that the aerodynamic center (AC), elastic axis (EA) and center of gravity (CG) are coincident and located at the quarter-chord. While this assures freedom from flutter, it adds constraints on rotor blade design which are not usually followed in fixed wing design. Periodic Structures have been in the focus of research for their useful characteristics and ability to attenuate vibration in frequency bands called "stop-bands". A periodic structure consists of cells which differ in material or geometry. As vibration waves travel along the structure and face the cell boundaries, some waves pass and some are reflected back, which may cause destructive interference with the succeeding waves. In this work, we analyze the flutter characteristics of a helicopter blades with a periodic change in their sandwich material using a finite element structural model. Results shows great improvements in the flutter forward speed of the rotating blade obtained by using periodic design and increasing the number of periodic cells.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.127-142
• /
• 2016

Aerodynamic effects, such as drag force and flow-induced vibration (FIV), on civil engineering structures can be minimized by optimally modifying the structure shape. This work investigates the turbulent wake of a square prism with its faces modified into a sinusoidal wave along the spanwise direction using three-dimensional large eddy simulation (LES) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques at Reynolds number $Re_{Dm}$ = 16,500-22,000, based on the nominal width ($D_m$) of the prism and free-stream velocity ($U_{\infty}$). Two arrangements are considered: (i) the top and bottom faces of the prism are shaped into the sinusoidal waves (termed as WSP-A), and (ii) the front and rear faces are modified into the sinusoidal waves (WSP-B). The sinusoidal waves have a wavelength of $6D_m$ and an amplitude of $0.15D_m$. It has been found that the wavy faces lead to more three-dimensional free shear layers in the near wake than the flat faces (smooth square prism). As a result, the roll-up of shear layers is postponed. Furthermore, the near-wake vortical structures exhibit dominant periodic variations along the spanwise direction; the minimum (i.e., saddle) and maximum (i.e., node) cross-sections of the modified prisms have narrow and wide wakes, respectively. The wake recirculation bubble of the modified prism is wider and longer, compared with its smooth counterpart, thus resulting in a significant drag reduction and fluctuating lift suppression (up to 8.7% and 78.2%, respectively, for the case of WSP-A). Multiple dominant frequencies of vortex shedding, which are distinct from that of the smooth prism, are detected in the near wake of the wavy prisms. The present study may shed light on the understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms of FIV control, in terms of passive modification of the bluff-body shape.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.49 no.3
• /
• pp.307-323
• /
• 2023

In this research, the study of the thermoelastic flexural analysis of silicon carbide/Aluminum graded (FG) sandwich 2D uniform structure (plate) under harmonic sinusoidal temperature load over time is presented. The plate is modeled using a simple two dimensional integral shear deformation plate theory. The current formulation contains an integral terms whose aim is to reduce a number of variables compared to others similar solutions and therefore minimize the computation time. The transverse shear stresses vary according to parabolic distribution and vanish at the free surfaces of the structure without any use of correction factors. The external load is applied on the upper face and varying in the thickness of the plates. The structure is supposed to be composed of "three layers" and resting on nonlinear visco-Pasternak's-foundations. The governing equations of the system are deduced and solved via Hamilton's principle and general solution. The computed results are compared with those existing in the literature to validate the current formulation. The impacts of the parameters (material index, temperature exponent, geometry ratio, time, top/bottom temperature ratio, elastic foundation type, and damping coefficient) on the dynamic flexural response are studied.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
• /
• v.46 no.1
• /
• pp.47-53
• /
• 2019

The aim of this study was to investigate the difficulties that Korean farmers and processors currently experience with respect to the market for Korean native chicken (KNC). This study also provides suggestions by which they can overcome these difficulties. In all, sixty-nine farmers and sixty-two processors participated in our investigation, which addressed 1) the current difficulties that KNC farmers face, 2) the current importance-satisfaction measures among KNC farmers and processors, and 3) the future direction of the KNC market: farmer and processor opinions. The respondents stated that the limited number of sales stores was the most difficult market condition they faced in raising KNC, followed by feed cost, animal disease, and poor production environment. Regarding issues of importance and satisfaction, origin in raising step and slaughtering in the processing and distribution step were considered the areas most in urgent need of improvement, given farmers' and processors' high levels of dissatisfaction with these. Both the free-range farming system and the concept of animal welfare are growing in importance, given consumers' interests in these areas. As to opinions on the direction of KNC development, menu development was cited as most important, followed by public advertisement, accessibilities, business aid, and breed development. Consequently, the results show that well-organized support from both the government and related industries is needed, as chicken farmers and processors cannot resolve certain limitations inherent in the KNC industry on their own.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.42 no.6
• /
• pp.403-407
• /
• 2009

Objectives : The amount of medical utilization by Medical Aid recipients was 3.7 times that of patients with Korean Medical Insurance. This study aims to describe the surplus medicine and the medication-related utilization, and to determine factors contributing to surplus medicine. Methods : Among those who used copayment-free Class I Medical Aid in 2005, 146,880 subjects who were $\geq19$ year-old and received >365 days medical treatment per year were studied with their case managers by conducting face-to-face interviews. The analytic methods were description, chi-square, t-tests, ANCOVA and multiple logistic regressions. Results : Most subjects were female (68.6%), the elderly (62.5%), and the separated (61.6%), had an elementary graduation or less (74.8%), and had disabilities (33.2%). The percentage of subjects with surplus medicine was 18.5%. However, the percentage of females, the elderly, those with non-disabilities, the separated, the uneducated, those with a very poor perceived health status and those with an economical burden for medical treatment was 19.3%, 18.9%, 19.0%, 19.3%, 19.0%, 20.2% and 24.3%, respectively. For subjects with surplus medicine, averages for the number of used pharmacies, the pharmacy-visit days and the medication costs were 4.6 drugstores, 34.9 days and approximately 1,124 thousand Won(￦). These values were higher than those without surplus medicine (4.4 drugstores, 33.8 days, and ￦1,110 thousand, respectively). The odds ratios of the contributing factors to surplus medicine were female 1.11 (95% CI=1.07-1.14), the elderly 1.06 (95% CI=1.02-1.10), those with non-disabilities 1.08 (95% CI=1.05-1.12), the separated 1.14 (95% CI=1.10-1.18), the unmarried 1.12 (95% CI=1.07-1.18), the uneducated 1.03 (95% CI=1.01-1.08), those with a very poor perceived health status 1.04 (95% CI=1.01-1.08) and experiencing an economical burden for medical treatment 2.33 (95% CI=2.26-2.40). Conclusions : 18.5% of subjects had surplus medicine with a higher mean of medication cost. Therefore, health education and health promotion programs to prevent surplus medicine and to improve the appropriate usage of medication are necessary.

• Architectural research
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2006

Various housing measures are needed for the rapidly aging society of Korea. In particular, the welfare policy for the elderly has changed towards the community care. Taking this fact into consideration, it is necessary to have the establishment of a system that offers the elderly appropriate welfare services at their appropriate residence (ageing in place) for the effectiveness of the community care. In this aspect, there are a number of implications to Korea to study merits and demerits of the Health Facilities for the Aged (HFA) in Japan. The society of Japan has been rapidly aging since 1970, and Korea is to face the same situation. As for the data of this study, a total of 2,393 facilities (as of November 1999) mentioned in the annual report of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare were classified based on types of their establishment: (1) free-standing structures (603 facilities); (2) annexes to hospitals (981 facilities); (3) annexes to welfare facilities (511 facilities); and (4) annexes to clinics (298 facilities). Next, 239 facilities were selected through taking a sample of 10 percent from each type of the HFA mentioned above. This was done through the random sampling method with the computer program of MS EXCEL. The Implications of the results of analyses are as follows. First, most of the health facilities were planned with the scale that was larger than the scale of standard special nursing homes in terms of the total floor area. Precise equations that were to obtain precise results of the scale of the HFA and the appropriate number of residents were obtained through the method of the regression analysis. Korea and Japan have similarities in terms of culture, society and family relations; however, the two countries also have differences in terms of the application of laws on the establishment of houses, hospitals, and welfare facilities. As for planning the scale of the HFA, the realities of Korea should be considered. Second, as for the functional aspect of the HFA with a condition of returning home, the place before and after the HFA showed the pattern of 'from a residential place to a residential place' and 'from a hospital to a hospital.' This reveals a close correlation with the types of the HFAs and operational ways of the facilities. Its cause is considered to be the aspect of the operation and management of the HFA rather than the aspect of its function of providing services in association with medical and health facilities. Therefore, when intermediate welfare facilities are considered in Korea, it is strongly advised to consider the problem of annexes to other facilities and efficiency of sharing of the facilities in terms of its operation and management.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.173-191
• /
• 2021

This study noted that a survey of teachers in a leading study conducted in Korea during the Pandemics period pointed out that the "real-time interactive" classes account for a significantly small portion of the remote class format. Contentually, the study reported cases of developing and applying "real-time interactive" class materials based on "planar decision requirements" of high school mathematics subject geometry. The teacher who participated in the development was a math teacher who worked at a Seoul-based high school with 28 years of high school teaching experience, and a teacher who was in charge of geometry in the math department in 2020. The development teacher decided to develop real-time interactive classes. In particular, the materials were developed by organizing the class guidance plan in four stages: 'Meeting and Class Guidance', 'Giving motivation', 'Suggesting tasks', 'Individual Investigative Activities and Teacher Feedback' and 'Reflection and Evaluation' which were selected through the process of selecting the class contents and selecting online class tools. At this time, the development teacher produced and presented about five minutes of video material using the videooscribe, a whiteboard animation program. And in case of task number 8, it consisted of recording the students' free thoughts after class, which served as a role of assessment by students themselves and providing feedback to their teachers. This study is a case study that introduces a series of courses in which field teachers develop class materials, and in addition to presenting class materials that can be applied directly to classes, is a result of a study that focuses on the role of presenting samples for future class data development. The materials developed were verified as class materials based on the opinions of the students who participated in the class and the results of the evaluation commissioned by the three math teachers.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.75-100
• /
• 2018

Mobile devices have become an important channel for news content usage in our daily life. However, online news content readers' resistance to online news monetization is more serious than other digital content businesses, such as webtoons, music sources, videos, and games. Since major portal sites distribute online news content free of charge to increase their traffics, customers have been accustomed to free news content; hence this makes online news providers more difficult to switch their policies on business models (i.e., monetization policy). As a result, most online news providers are highly dependent on the advertising business model, which can lead to increasing number of false, exaggerated, or sensational advertisements inside the news website to maximize their advertising revenue. To reduce this advertising dependencies, many online news providers had attempted to switch their 'free' readers to 'paid' users, but most of them failed. However, recently, some online news media have been successfully applying the Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) payment model, which allows readers to voluntarily pay fees for their favorite news content. These successful cases shed some lights to the managers of online news content provider regarding that the PWYW model can serve as an alternative business model. In this study, therefore, we collected 379 online news articles from Ohmynews.com that has been successfully employing the PWYW model, and analyzed the comparative importance of systematic attributes of online news content on readers' voluntary payment. More specifically, we derived the six systematic attributes (i.e., Type of Article Title, Image Stimulation, Article Readability, Article Type, Dominant Emotion, and Article-Image Similarity) and three or four levels within each attribute based on previous studies. Then, we conducted content analysis to measure five attributes except Article Readability attribute, measured by Flesch readability score. Before conducting main content analysis, the face reliabilities of chosen attributes were measured by three doctoral level researchers with 37 sample articles, and inter-coder reliabilities of the three coders were verified. Then, the main content analysis was conducted for two months from March 2017 with 379 online news articles. All 379 articles were reviewed by the same three coders, and 65 articles that showed inconsistency among coders were excluded before employing conjoint analysis. Finally, we examined the comparative importance of those six systematic attributes (Study 1), and levels within each of the six attributes (Study 2) through conjoint analysis with 314 online news articles. From the results of conjoint analysis, we found that Article Readability, Article-Image Similarity, and Type of Article Title are the most significant factors affecting online news readers' voluntary payment. First, it can be interpreted that if the level of readability of an online news article is in line with the readers' level of readership, the readers will voluntarily pay more. Second, the similarity between the content of the article and the image within it enables the readers to increase the information acceptance and to transmit the message of the article more effectively. Third, readers expect that the article title would reveal the content of the article, and the expectation influences the understanding and satisfaction of the article. Therefore, it is necessary to write an article with an appropriate readability level, and use images and title well matched with the content to make readers voluntarily pay more. We also examined the comparative importance of levels within each attribute in more details. Based on findings of two studies, two major and nine minor propositions are suggested for future empirical research. This study has academic implications in that it is one of the first studies applying both content analysis and conjoint analysis together to examine readers' voluntary payment behavior, rather than their intention to pay. In addition, online news content creators, providers, and managers could find some practical insights from this research in terms of how they should produce news content to make readers voluntarily pay more for their online news content.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.69-98
• /
• 2009

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as independent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically. Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experienced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild's offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable. To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: 'WoW playforum,' 'WoW gamemeca,' and 'Wow invent.' The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statistically significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, character control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players' loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow indicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support. Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express themselves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up through social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.