• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.556-562
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• 2018

Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the boron concentrations in 30 slime products and estimate children's dermal exposure to boron. Methods: Thirty slime products from online and offline stores were purchased for boron analysis. The boron content of each slime sample was analyzed using ICP-OES. A nationwide survey was performed to determine use patterns of slimes by a home-visit survey of 10,000 children divided into three age groups: 0-2, 3-6, and 7-12 years. The dermal exposure to boron was calculated using an exposure algorithm for child slime users. Results: The proportion of the child population using slime was 45.8%, and the mean use frequency was $2.5{\pm}3.8$ per week (range: 0.08-35). Mean time spent playing with slime was $19.6{\pm}11.3min$ (range: 1-100). Twenty-five of the thirty slimes contained a boron concentration exceeding the EU limit for toys made with sticky material of 300 mg/kg. Dermal exposure ranged from $0.0008-13.78{\mu}g/kg/day$ with the maximum weight fractions of boron in the 30 products. The dermal exposure estimate was the highest in 7-12 years old group. Conclusion: Slime use among Korean children may cause high exposure to boron. Regulation is needed to minimize boron exposure from slime products.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.619-644
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to estimate the economic benefit of improving ground water quality in Jeju Island, where groundwater pollution has recently become a social issue and various water quality improvement projects are being promoted. By applying the contingent valuation method, an online survey was conducted on Jeju Island residents to analyze the response data of 542 respondents and estimate the mean willingness to pay using 16 models. The estimation of the double-bounded dichotomous choice model confirmed that each household was willing to pay 28,008 won per year, with the willingness to pay estimated at a minimum of 17,762 won and a maximum of 37,416 won based on different models. The total annual benefit for Jeju Island's ground water quality improvement was estimated to be about 8.66 billion won , and socioeconomic factors influencing willingness-to-pay were investigated. This study is expected to serve as a foundation for the development of environmental improvement policies by assisting in the understanding of Jeju Island's unique water resource environment.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.260-275
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• 2022

Sterile alpha motif (SAM) domains bind to various proteins, lipids, and RNAs. However, these domains have not yet been analyzed as prognostic biomarkers. In this study, SAM domain containing 13 (SAMD13), a member of the SAM domain, was evaluated to identify a novel prognostic biomarker in various human cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Moreover, we identified a correlation between SAMD13 expression and immune cell infiltration in HCC. We performed bioinformatics analysis using online databases, such as Tumor Immune Estimation Resource, UALCAN, Kaplan-Meier plotter, LinkedOmics, and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis2. SAMD13 expression in HCC samples was significantly higher than that in normal liver tissue; additionally, SAMD13 was higher in primary tumors, various stages of cancer and grades of tumor, and status of nodal metastasis. Higher SAMD13 expression was also associated with poorer prognosis. SAMD13 expression positively correlated with CD8+ T cells, CD4+ T cells, B cells, neutrophils, macrophages, and dendritic cells. In the analysis of SAMD13 co-expression networks, positively related genes of SAMD13 were associated with a high hazard ratio in different types of cancer, including HCC. In biological function of SAMD13, SAMD13 mainly include spliceosome, ribosome biogenesis in eukaryote, ribosome, etc. These results suggest that SAMD13 may serve as a novel prognostic biomarker for HCC diagnosis and provide novel insights into tumor immunology in HCC.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.116-130
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• 2023

Expressways play pivotal roles in cargo transportation because of their superior accessibility and mobility compared to rail and air. On the other hand, there is a limit to the accurate calculation of cargo transportation performance using existing highways owing to the mixture of vehicle types and difficulty in identifying cargo loads of individual cargo vehicles. This paper presents an algorithm for calculating more reliable cargo transportation performance using big data. The traffic performance (veh·km/day) was derived using the data collected from Toll Collecting System. The average tolerance weight for each vehicle type and the cargo load unit (ton/unit) considering it was calculated using vehicle specification information data and high-speed and low-speed axis data. This study calculated the cargo transportation performance by section and type using various online integrated highway data and presented a method for calculating the transportation performance by linking open business offices and private highways.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.209-209
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• 2022

Reservoirs play a key role in the carbon cycle between terrestrial and marine systems and are pathways that release greenhouse gases(GHGs), CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O, into the atmosphere by decomposing organic matters. Developed countries have been actively conducting research on carbon emission assessment of dam reservoirs for over 10 years under the leadership of UNESCO/IHA, but associated research is very rare in Korea. In particular, the GHGs footprint evaluation, which calculates the change in net carbon emission considering the watershed environment between pre- and post- impoundment, is very important in evaluating the carbon emission of hydroelectric dams. The objective of this study was to estimate the GHG emissions and footprints in Daecheong Reservoir using the G-res Tool, an online platform developed by UNESCO/IHA. The G-res Tool estimates CO₂ and CH₄ emissions in consideration of diverse pathway fluxes of GHGs from the reservoir and characterizes changes in GHG fluxes over 100 years based on the expected lifetime of the dam. The input required to use the G-res Tool include data related to watersheds, reservoirs, and dams, and most were collected through the government's public portal. As a result of the study, the GHG footprint of Daecheong Reservoir was estimated to be 93 gCO₂eq/m²/yr, which is similar to that of other reservoirs around the world in the same climate zone. After impoundment, the CH₄ diffusion emission from the reservoir was 73 gCO₂eq/m²/yr, also similar to those of the overseas reservoirs, but the CH₄ bubbling emission, degassing emission, and CO₂ diffusion emissions were 44, 34, 252 gCO₂eq/m²/yr, respectively, showing a rather high tendency. Since the dam reservoir carbon footprint evaluation is essential for the Clean Development Mechanism evaluation of hydroelectric power generation, continuous research is needed in the future. In particular, experimental studies that can replace the emission factors obtained from the overseas dam reservoirs currently used in the G-res Tool should be promoted.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.43-61
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• 2016

Customer reviews help potential customers make purchasing decisions. However, the prevalence of reviews on websites push the customer to sift through them and change the focus from a mere search to identifying which of the available reviews are valuable and useful for the purchasing decision at hand. To identify useful reviews, websites have developed different mechanisms to give customers options when evaluating existing reviews. Websites allow users to rate the usefulness of a customer review as helpful or not. Amazon.com uses a ratio-type helpfulness, while Yelp.com uses a count-type usefulness index. This usefulness index provides helpful reviews to future potential purchasers. This study investigated the effects of sentiment and readability on useful votes for customer reviews. Similar studies on the relationship between sentiment and readability have focused on the ratio-type usefulness index utilized by websites such as Amazon.com. In this study, Yelp.com's count-type usefulness index for restaurant reviews was used to investigate the relationship between sentiment/readability and usefulness votes. Yelp.com's online customer reviews for stores in the beverage and food categories were used for the analysis. In total, 170,294 reviews containing information on a store's reputation and popularity were used. The control variables were the review length, store reputation, and popularity; the independent variables were the sentiment and readability, while the dependent variable was the number of helpful votes. The review rating is the moderating variable for the review sentiment and readability. The length is the number of characters in a review. The popularity is the number of reviews for a store, and the reputation is the general average rating of all reviews for a store. The readability of a review was calculated with the Coleman-Liau index. The sentiment is a positivity score for the review as calculated by SentiWordNet. The review rating is a preference score selected from 1 to 5 (stars) by the review author. The dependent variable (i.e., usefulness votes) used in this study is a count variable. Therefore, the Poisson regression model, which is commonly used to account for the discrete and nonnegative nature of count data, was applied in the analyses. The increase in helpful votes was assumed to follow a Poisson distribution. Because the Poisson model assumes an equal mean and variance and the data were over-dispersed, a negative binomial distribution model that allows for over-dispersion of the count variable was used for the estimation. Zero-inflated negative binomial regression was used to model count variables with excessive zeros and over-dispersed count outcome variables. With this model, the excess zeros were assumed to be generated through a separate process from the count values and therefore should be modeled as independently as possible. The results showed that positive sentiment had a negative effect on gaining useful votes for positive reviews but no significant effect on negative reviews. Poor readability had a negative effect on gaining useful votes and was not moderated by the review star ratings. These findings yield considerable managerial implications. The results are helpful for online websites when analyzing their review guidelines and identifying useful reviews for their business. Based on this study, positive reviews are not necessarily helpful; therefore, restaurants should consider which type of positive review is helpful for their business. Second, this study is beneficial for businesses and website designers in creating review mechanisms to know which type of reviews to highlight on their websites and which type of reviews can be beneficial to the business. Moreover, this study highlights the review systems employed by websites to allow their customers to post rating reviews.

• Journal of Korea Spatial Information System Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.67-75
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• 2008

This study is for the effective training strategy of human resources for the u-City construction to support the u-City human resource development plan of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTM). One of the biggest problems concerning u-City is the shortage of advanced human resources for the u-City constructions. The characteristic of u-City makes u-City related human resources had knowledge of various fields including IT, GIS, construction engineering, urban planning and so on. But, there are only a few programs to train u-City related human resources. Therefore, this research established the objective of the training strategy for u-City human resource development as "the training strategy of human resources for the successful u-City constructions". To achieve this objective, four different core strategies are established like followings: (1) demander-oriented education, (2) regional balanced education, (3) integration education of u-City related subjects, (4) u-City related education infrastructure development. These 4 different core strategies can be achieved from 5 sub projects like followings: (1) demand estimation of u-City human resources, (2) u-City education from selected regional core universities, (3) u-City education from u-City human resource education centers, (4) online education and (5) construction of education infrastructures. These 5 interrelated sub projects can be preconditions of the successful human resource strategy development.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.113-132
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• 2007

Price rigidity involves prices that do not change with the regularity predicted by standard economic theory. It is of long-standing interest for firms, industries and the economy as a whole. However, due to the difficulty of measuring price rigidity and price adjustments directly, only a few studies have attempted to provide empirical evidence for explanatory theories from Economics and Marketing. This paper proposes and validates a research model to examine different theories of price rigidity and to predict what variables can explain the observed empirical regularities and variations in price adjustment patterns of Internet-based retailers. I specify and test a model using more than 3 million daily observations on 385 books, 118 DVDs and 154 CDs, sold by 22 Internet-based retailers that were collected over a 676-day period from March 2003 to February 2005. I obtained a number of interesting findings from the estimation of our logit model. First, quality seems to play a role-I find that both price levels as proxies for store quality, and information on the quality of a product consumers have, affect online price rigidity. Second, greater competition(i.e., less industry concentration) leads to less price rigidity(i.e., more price changes) on the Internet. I also find that Internet-based sellers more frequently change the prices of popular products, and the sellers with broader product coverage change prices less frequently, which seem due to economic forces faced by these Internet-based sellers. To the best of my knowledge, this research is the first to empirically assess price rigidity patterns for multiple industries in Internet-based retailing, and attempt to explain the variation in these patterns. I found that price changes are more likely to be driven by quality, competitive and economic considerations. These results speak to both the IS and economics literatures. To the IS literature these results suggest we take economic considerations into account in more sophisticated ways. The existence and variation in price rigidity argue that simplistic assumptions about frictionless and completely flexible digital prices do not capture the richness of pricing behavior on the Internet. The quality, competitive and economic forces identified in this model suggest promising directions for future theoretical and empirical work on their role in these technologically changing markets. To the economics literature these results offer new evidence on the sources of price rigidity, which can then be incorporated into the development of models of pricing at the firm, industry and even macro-economic level of analysis. It also suggests that there is much to be learned through interdisciplinary research between the IS, economics and related business disciplines.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.1-16
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to explore the identity of home economics(HE) education by assessing perceptions of HE teacher, students, and general adults regarding the images and characteristics of HE education. Respondents in this study were 234 HE teachers, 505 students, and 264 general adults. Questionnaires were collected through both online and offline. The image and the characteristics of HE education were the factors of the identity that were also the byproducts of HE education operation of the past and present, and had the characteristics in changing in accordance with the change of time. The current image of HE education was shown to positive recognition as the curriculum helpful to the actual living and future living for the HE teacher, students, and the general adults. For the HE teacher, it had strong emotionally warm image similar to the image of 'home', and it was connected to the curriculum image to be acknowledged as good problem solving teachers in terms of competence and conservative image. However, on the images of the HE curriculum and HE teacher, the HE teachers had the most positive recognition, and on the image of the HE curriculum, the students had the most negative recognition while the image of the HE teacher, the general adults had the most negative recognition. The general adults among the three groups recognized the HE curriculum as the most technical oriented curriculum while the students recognized as interesting curriculum, curriculum contributing on society. In the meantime, for the characteristic of the HE education, the HE teachers recognized that it had weak female curriculum characteristics and strong living functional curriculum characteristics, and the practical curriculum characteristics would be important in the future. Accordingly, the identity of the HE education formulated might be considered as the practical curriculum that was helpful to problem solving in actual living of the family and family members with the connection to the concept of 'home'. However, depending on the definition on implication of practice and issue of actual living, the characteristics and appearance of the HE education had been changed and might interpret as changing according to the above.for the fertility policy and the methods for the estimation of the child cost were suggested based on the results.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.3403-3410
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• 2014

Context: Interest exits in whether TNF-alpha antagonists increase the risk of breast cancer and total malignancies in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Objectives: To analyze the risk of malignancies, especially breast cancer, in patients with RA enrolled in randomized control trials (RCTs). Methods: A systematic literature search for RCTs from 1 January 1998 to 1 July 2013 from online databases, such as PubMed, WILEY, EMBASE, ISI web of knowledge and Cochrane Library was conducted. Studies included RCTs that compared the safety of at least one dose of the five TNF-${\alpha}$ antagonists with placebo or methotrexate (MTX) (or TNF-${\alpha}$ antagonists plus MTX vs placebo plus MTX) in RA patients for more than 24 weeks and imported all the references into document management software EndNote${\times}6$. Two independent reviewers selected studies and extracted the data about study design, patients' characteristics and the type, number of all malignancies. Results: 28 RCTs from 34 records with 11,741 patients were analyzed. Of the total, 97 developed at least one malignancy during the double-blind trials, and breast cancer was observed in 17 patients (17.5% of total malignancies). However, there was no statistically significant increased risk observed in either the per protocol (PP) model (OR 0.65, 95%CI [0.22, 1.93]) or the modified intention to treat (mITT) model (OR 0.75, 95%CI [0.25, 2.21]). There were also no significant trend for increased risk of total malignancies on anti-TNF-${\alpha}$ therapy administered at approved doses in either model (OR, 1.06, 95%CI [0.64, 1.75], and OR, 1.30, 95%CI [0.80, 2.14], respectively). As to the two models, modified intention to treat model analysis led to higher estimation than per protocol model analysis. Conclusions: This study did not find a significantly increased risk of breast cancer and total malignancies in adults RA patients treated with TNF-${\alpha}$ antagonists at approved doses. However, it cannot be ignored that more patients developed malignancies with TNF-${\alpha}$ antagonists therapy compared with patients with placebo or MTX, in spite of the lack of statistical significance, so that more strict clinical trials and long-term follow-up are needed, and both mITT and PP analyses should be used in such safety analyses.