• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.268-270
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper was to explore delay avoiding measures and strategies. The paper was based on previous work of authors on finding delay causes. Firstly, the paper has discussed about delay avoidance measures prescribed by the previous work. As the previous study identified five main causes of construction delays, various measures and strategies to overcome those delay problems have been discussed in sequence in the last sections. Major delay prevention strategies are: involving stakeholders in the project decisions, outreach program, realistic time and resource estimation, try to adjust the triple constraints of time, cost and scope, ensure fair and complete disclosure of information at an early stage of the construction project, contractor, itself should inquire about patent design errors prior to submitting its bid, owner should include in its contract with the consultant an indemnity (protection) clause etc.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.309-314
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• 2015

A sunken ship often involves an oil spill. This paper was carried out to minimize environmental and cost damages stemming from oil spil of sunken shipl. Through the analysis of both the standards of the oil tank system and installation, we have identified potential oil spill sites and proposed a remedy of prevention. The result of study, the air pipes of the oil tank are a vulnerable point for oil spill. Also, the remote control devices of emergency shut-off valve have poor accessibility at abandon ship, making it difficult to shut off the emergency shut-off valve. Thus, we propose the addition of a remote quick closing valve in the air pipe and the building of a central control system.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.581-584
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• 2006

The durability of reinforced concrete structures is severely degraded by mainly corrosion due to seawater attack and chloride ion diffusion in concrete. The deterioration of durability causes high repair cost for maintenance of marine concrete structure. In this paper, high-durability materials for prevention of rebar corrosion are investigated to promote the durability in marine concrete structures. For these, the effect of the mineral materials addition(SF, FA and BFS), the modified steel(stainless and coating steel). and corrosion inhibitors are compared.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2023.11a
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• pp.277-278
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• 2023

In 2022, construction had a five fold higher accident and fatality rate compared to the overall industry. The Construction Technology Promotion Act requires parties in construction contracts to calculate safety costs following Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport guidelines. Understanding safety expense components is vital for evaluating accident prevention costs and planning anti-accident strategies. A study surveyed safety professionals to analyze the importance and influence of safety management expense components, providing basic data for future research. Survey results highlighted the significance of safety management plans, structural safety assurance, and preventing collateral damage.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.511-514
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• 2013

Background: A small but significant proportion of cases with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) may harbour CIN 2-3, or even invasive carcinoma. Although immediate colposcopy, HPV-DNA testing or expectant management are three recommended options in ASCUS triage, a consensus does not currently exist on which one of these approaches is the most efficient. In this study, we aimed to compare the performance and cost of immediate colposcopy and colposcopy based on the human papillomavirus (HPV) testing for detecting histologically confirmed high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) in women with ASCUS. Materials and Methods: Records of 594 women with an index Papanicolaou smear showing ASCUS were retrospectively analyzed. Women in the immediate colposcopy arm were referred directly to colposcopy (immediate colposcopy group, n=255) and those in the HPV triage arm were proceeded to colposcopy if the high-risk HPV (hrHPV) test was positive (HPV triage group, n=339). High grade CIN (CIN2+) detection rate and treatment costs were compared between the groups. Results: The detected rate of CIN2+ was higher in the HPV triage group compared to immediate colposcopy group (8% vs. 1.6%, p=0.011). In the HPV triage group, the total cost, cost per patient, and the cost for detecting one case of high grade CIN were higher than the immediate colposcopy group (p<0.001). Conclusions: In women with ASCUS cytology, HPV DNA testing followed by colposcopy is more costly than immediate colposcopy, but this approach is associated with a higher rate of CIN2+ detection. This findings suggest that HPV DNA testing combined with cervical cytology could reduce the referral rate to colposcopy.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.14
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• pp.5921-5926
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• 2014

A large proportion of patients with thyroid nodules in China undergo thyroidectomy in order to get confirmatory histology diagnosis. The financial impact of this modality remains to be investigated. To evaluate rationality of performing thyroidectomy without a routine FNA preoperatively from the economic perspective, we conducted a retrospective, observational study of all archival thyroidectomies with records of cost per stay (CPS), cost per day (CPD) and length of stay (LOS) from 2008 to 2013 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. We compared all the parameters between cancer and non-cancer thyroidectomies. We recruited 6, 140 thyroidectomies with valid records of CPS, CPD and LOS in this period. The CPS of cancer thyroidectomy was significantly higher than non-cancer thyroidectomy. The percentage of cancer thyroidectomy increased from 26.5% to 41.6%. The percentage of annual cost of cancer thyroidectomies rose from 30.2% to 45.2%. The LOS for cancer and non-cancer thyroidectomy decreased while the CPD increased in the past six years. The estimated national cost in 2012 for all thyroidectomies would be USD 1.86 billion with USD 1.09 billion for non-cancer thyroidectomies. We have witnessed great improvement in the healthcare for patients with thyroid nodules in China. However, given limited healthcare resources, currently thyroid FNA for more precise preoperative diagnosis may help to curb the rapidly increasing demand in healthcare costs in the future for nodular thyroid disease in China.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.3645-3651
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• 2012

Conventional pap smear (CPS) examination has been the mainstay for early detection of cervical cancer. However, its widespread use has not been possible due to the inherent limitations, like presence of obscuring blood and inflammation, reducing its sensitivity considerably. Automated methods in use in developed countries may not be affordable in the developing countries due to paucity of resources. On the other hand, manual liquid based cytology (MLBC) is a technique that is cost effective and improves detection of precursor lesions and specimen adequacy. Therefore the aim of the study was to compare the utility of MLBC with that of CPS in cervical cancer screening. A prospective study of 100 cases through MLBC and CPS was conducted from October 2009 to July 2010, in a Medical College in India, by two independent pathologists and correlated with histopathology (22 cases). Morphological features as seen through MLBC and CPS were compared. Subsequently, all the cases were grouped based on cytological diagnosis according to two methods into 10 groups and a subjective comparison was made. In order to compare the validity of MLBC with CPS in case of major diagnoses, sensitivity and specificity of the two methods were estimated considering histological examination as the gold standard. Increased detection rate with MLBC was 150%. The concordance rate by LBC/histopathology v/s CPS/histopathology was also improved (86% vs 77%) The percentage agreement by the two methods was 68%. MLBC was more sensitive in diagnosis of LSIL and more specific in the diagnosis of inflammation. Thus, MLBC was found to be better than CPS in diagnosis of precursor lesions. It provided better morphology with increased detection of abnormalities and preservation of specimen for cell block and ancillary studies like immunocytochemistry and HPV detection. Therefore, it can be used as alternative strategy for cervical cancer prevention in limited resource settings.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.135-141
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• 2016

This study aims to analyze the feasibility of installing a storage facility and make recommendations based on a cost-benefit analysis regarding the installation of a storage facility capable of preventing both floods and droughts. The capacity and installation costs are specified for the storage facility necessary to prevent floods, and a cost-benefit analysis is conducted by calculating the costs and benefits for each cost or benefit factor such as loss amounts, recovery costs, and drought prevention. The information can be used as the basic data for suggesting the feasibility of installing a multipurpose storage facility capable of preventing floods and droughts simultaneously. Also, this study expects to utilize its detailed results in a number of different ways including the prediction of loss amounts from natural disasters.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.52-61
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• 2015

Objectives: Because recently hospital had to faced with financial hardship, we have to have more effective hospital management. The purpose of this study was to reduce loss costs of the hospital through the systematic management of medical supplies and increase operational efficiency. Methods: The team was composed of outpatient nursing staff, medical record administrator, nurses in medical insurance, medical computer center, dermatologists for this study. We surveyed for 114 people including outpatient nursing staff, nurse aids, medical assistant, physician assistant. Pre-survey period was 2013.03.11 ~ 03.30(2 weeks), and post-survey period was 2013.09.03 ~ 09.17(2 weeks). Result: We improved this way through the computational improvement, conservation campaigns, inventory management, staff training, replaced by low-cost medical supplies. The finding of this study were as follows: Comparing before and after the activity of outpatient nursing staff's degree of knowledge, performance, economic consciousness, the degree of knowledge, performance was increased, but there was no significant change in economic consciousness. Performance of Married person is higher than the unmarried, In addition, the high-position people were more the degree of knowleage, economic consciousness. After activity, correlation of goods and treatment, examinations is increasing, but statistically there was no mean. Conclusion: This study revealed that knowledge in a short period of activity, but also can improve, perform the same change in behavior is not easy. This one shows the intensive training required to sustained and systematic behavioral changes, such as changes in behavior, perform rituals to help the economy. Expensive medical supplies to replace a similar effect as the cost of materials just to have a lot of cost savings. Therefore, more medical supplies change is necessary to develop alternative treatment and cost cutting.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.293-303
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• 2015

Optimal design of the water supply pipe network aims to minimize construction cost while satisfying the required hydraulic constraints such as the minimum and maximum pressures, and velocity. Since considering one single design factor (i.e., cost) is very vulnerable for including future conditions and cannot satisfy operator's needs, various design factors should be considered. Hence, this study presents three kinds of design factors (i.e., minimizing construction cost, maximizing reliability, and surplus head) to perform multi-objective optimization design. Harmony Search (HS) Algorithm is used as an optimization technique. As well-known benchmark networks, Hanoi network and Gyeonggi-do P city real world network are used to verify the applicability of the proposed model. In addition, the proposed multi-objective model is also applied to a real water distribution networks and the optimization results were statistically analyzed. The results of the optimal design for the benchmark and real networks indicated much better performance compared to those of existing designs and the other approach (i.e., Genetic Algorithm) in terms of cost and reliability, cost, and surplus head. As a result, this study is expected to contribute for the efficient design of water distribution networks.