• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.52-69
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• 2002

The WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant), located 42km east of Carlsbad, New Mexico (NM), in bedded salt 655m below the surface, is a mined repository constructed by the US DOE for the permanent disposal of transuranic (TRU) wastes generated by activities related to defence of the US since 1970. Its historical disposal operation began in March 1999 following receipt of a final permit from the State of NM after a positive certification decision for the WIPP was issued by the EPA in 1998, as the first licensed facility in the US for the deep geologic disposal of radioactive wastes. The CCA (Compliance Certification Application) for the WIPP that the DOE submitted to the EPA in 1966 was supported by an extensive performance assessment (PA) carried out by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), with so-called 1996 PA. Even though such PA methodologies could be greatly different from the way we consider for HLW disposal in Korea largely due to quite different geologic formations in which repository are likely to be located, a review on lots of works done through the WIPP PA studies could be the most important lessons that we can learn from in view of current situation in Korea where an initial phase of conceptual studies on HLW disposal has been just started. The objective of this art report is an overview of the methodology used in the recent WIPP PA to support the US DOE WIPP CCA and some relevant results completed by SNL.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.77-90
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated which message provider is effective in a virtual reality (VR) environment for individuals with different needs with regard to affect (need for affect [NFA]) and cognition (need for cognition [NFC]). According to Haddock et al (2008), individuals with high NFA were more influenced to change their behavior by the emotional aspects of a message, whereas individuals with high NFC were more influenced by the cognitive aspects of the same message. We hypothesized that individual differences in needs could affect not only receipt of the message but also the acceptability of the message provider. For example, someone with high NFA might accept messages more easily from an acquaintance than from experts. In the VR environment, the appearance of the message provider could be manipulated in a way that makes him or her more familiar to the person receiving the message. Accordingly, in order to promote the effectiveness of message providers in a VR environment according to the individual difference in needs, we measured the level of the preference and self-efficacy according to needs (NFA or NFC), type of message provider (expert, significant other, or other), and VR device (text or VR). Contrary to what we expected, the results showed that there was no matching effect between the needs and the message provider. However, we found that level of preference and self-efficacy were significantly high when a VR device was worn only by participants with high NFA. This result suggests that a VR environment is more suitable for providing health advice to people with high NFA. In addition, the novelty of this study is that we tried to find the tailored message provider on health advice in VR environment and it is in the early stage of the research.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.130-145
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• 1996

Purpose : the management of University Hospital is being challenged in maintenance of reasonable level of income and high ranked reputation by domestic competition with each other and emergence of enterprised owned hospitals. It is imperative that University Hospitals have to make management for patient satisfaction. Furthermore, increased patient's requirement for qualified hospital services (quality assurance) and low-estimated service fee also repress the hospital management condition as well as medical markets open following with Urguay Connection. Due to these unforable conditions surrounding hospital management, -University Hospitals are being pressed to seek improved management strategies. To develope the strategies, we need to have basic understanding about the problems on hospital management and detail information for various patient's requirement. Methods: For this study, we have analysed out-patients from five different University Hospitals located in Seoul, Korea. To obtain the data, we have carried out personal interviews with patients who patients who visit the Out-Patient Clinics of five different University Hospitals using a previously prepared questionnaire. Result: Around 65.7 percent of the visits to University Hospitals were indwelt in the vicinity of 1 hour and motuvation of visiting University Hospital was expending high wuality medical csre in 49.3 percent. The 79.3 percent of the patients have experienced inconvenience during medical care in University Hospital. The most inconvenient condition was waiting for doctors. The 57.2 percent of total patient have experienced rudness. The most rudness condition was registration and receipt desk in 44.4 percent. Patient expect that doctors working in University Hospitals as professors have high and updated medical knowledge(50.4%) and University Hospitals have a high quality medical care system(79.4%). The patient satisfaction was relatively low in 61.1 percent of total patient and revealed high frequency of again visit University Hospital in satisfaction group. Comparison of interhospital analytical study showed quite difference on various problems. Conclusion: Almost patients who visit to Out-Patient Clinic of University Hospital havevisiting motivation to high quality medical care. University Hospitals have several different unsatisfactorial factors and revealed different degree of patient satisfaction. In a future day, University Hospitals have to make use of another University Hospital's merits for approach of Benchmarking and also should be studied decision factors of patient satisfaction and interhospital difference of them.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.23
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• pp.10157-10164
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• 2015

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the State of Qatar. Due to low participation in breast cancer screening (BCS) activities, women in Qatar are often diagnosed with breast cancer at advanced stages of the disease. Findings indicate that low participation rates in BCS activities are significantly related to women's low level of awareness of breast cancer screening. The objectives of this study were to: (1) determine the factors that influence Qatari women's awareness of breast cancer and its screening activities: and (2) to find ways to effectively promote breast cancer screening activities among Arabic speaking women in Qatar. Materials and Methods: A multicenter, cross-sectional quantitative survey of 1,063 (87.5% response rate) female Qatari citizens and non-Qatari Arabic-speaking residents, 35 years of age or older, was conducted in Qatar from March 2011 to July 2011. Outcome measures included participant awareness levels of the most recent national recommended guidelines of BCS, participation rates in BCS activities, and factors related to awareness of BCS activities. Results: While most participants (90.7%) were aware of breast cancer, less than half had awareness of BCS practices (28.9% were aware of breast self-examination and 41.8% of clinical breast exams, while 26.4% knew that mammography was recommended by national screening guidelines. Only 7.6% had knowledge of all three BCS activities). Regarding BCS practice, less than one-third practiced BCS appropriately (13.9% of participants performed breast self-examination (BSE) monthly, 31.3% had a clinical breast exam (CBE) once a year or once every two years, and 26.9% of women 40 years of age or older had a mammogram once every year or two years). Awareness of BCS was significantly related to BCS practice, education level, and receipt of information about breast cancer and/or BCS from a variety of sources, particularly doctors and the media. Conclusions: The low levels of participation rates in BCS among Arab women in this study indicate a strong need to increase awareness of the importance of breast cancer screening in Qatari women. Without this awareness, compliance with the most recent breast cancer screening recommendations in Qatar will remain low. An increased effort to implement mass media and public health campaigns regarding the impact of breast cancer on women's health and the benefits of early detection of breast cancer must be coupled with an enhanced participation of health care providers in delivering this message to Qatar population.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.403-410
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• 2015

Since 1970, MRI has greatly been developing in terms of strength of magnetic field, the number of receipt channels, and short time of examination. With the development of digital systems and wireless network, hospitals have also acquired, saved, and managed digital images taken by various kinds of medical imaging equipment. However, domestic universities fail to provide practice training course independently thanks to expensive practice equipment and high maintenance cost, and rely on clinical training. Therefore, this study developed a MR patient diagnosis program based on Windows PC to help out students before their working in clinical filed. The designed Relational Database of MRI Simulator is made up of seven tables according to functions and data characteristics. Regarding the designed patient information, each stepwise function was classified by the patient registration method in clinical field. In addition, on the assumption of the basic information for diagnosis, each setting and content were classified. The menu by execution step was arrayed on the left side for easy view. For patient registration, a patient's name, gender, unique ID, birth date, weight, and other types of basic information were entered, and the patient's posture and diagnosis direction were set up. In addition, the body regions for diagnosis and Pulse Sequence were listed for selection. Also, Protocol name and other additional factors were allowed to be entered. The final window was designed to check diagnosis images, patient information, and diagnosis conditions. By learning how to enter patient information and change diagnosis conditions in this program, users will be able to understand more theories and terms learned in practice and thereby to shorten their learning time in actual clinical work.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.284-287
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• 2000

Recently, developing medical devices have a tendency becoming the module for satisfying user's mutual complex needs. Because the most effective method for the observation of patients condition a diagnosis and a treatment is collecting data from various devices and controling operation following it. Module tendency is more popular due to manage easily totally many individual systems. This study implemented communication protocol to control by one control system connecting modular medical devices. Implemented system consist of one master module controlling all module and managing communication and many Slave modules. Communication between each modules introduced SPI(Serial Peripheral Interface) among many synchronous serial communication methods for the exact transmission and receipt of data. All communication executes by packet format. This can detect error. And, this protocol introduced PNP(Plug And Play) function that auto-detect connecting or removing module during running. This protocol exactly transmitted and received in faster speed more than 1Mbps. And in practical application to the ventilator this confirmed to give and take real-time data. And various functions by th central control system is implemented in this protocol.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.137-152
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• 2012

The graying of populations is emerging as an international issue around the world, and this is a problem that is rapidly advancing in Korea as well, signaling the need for financial preparations for the aged. For this purpose, various retirement pension systems are being employed as preparatory measures for the nation's elderly. Using data from 1474 people in the 2007 panel study of National Security for the Retired, the present work attempts to look at satisfaction rates with regard to public pension receipts for the national pension and special occupational pensions according to general characteristics and factors related to the preparation for an aging society. Satisfaction with retirement pension receipts according to the type of pension was high for special occupation retirement pensions, individual retirement pensions and the national retirement pension, in that order. Looking at satisfaction rates based on the general characteristics of pension recipients, the study revealed that for the national pension, satisfaction was highest for groups with above-average physical and psychological health, groups who think appropriate living expenses for the elderly are lower, groups in which a partner also earns income, and groups who had amply prepared for their expected living expenses in later life. Regarding special occupation retirement pensions, satisfaction was high for groups over the age of 70, groups with good psychological health, and groups sufficiently prepared for their living expenses in later expenses, compared to groups for which these factors did not apply. In terms of the relative influences impacting retirement pension recipient satisfaction, satisfaction with the national pension was highest when the primary source to cover elderly living expenses was a resource other than income earned by the recipient and their partner and/or income received from children. Concerning special occupation retirement pensions, satisfaction was highest among those whose education terminated before middle school, and for those in good physical health. Based on the above results, it is vital that plans exist for preparing sufficiently for the living expenses of the elderly and for facilitating the physical and psychological health of pension recipients. Plans are also necessary to, ensure that citizens are provided with easily accessible educational programs and activities regarding general installment savings and deposits, stocks and bonds, real estate investments, individual retirement pensions, private insurance, severance pay pensions, and public pensions.

• The Journal of Information Technology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.199-215
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• 1999

A quantitative analysis was conduct on the economic effect of electronic commerce according to the method of constructing the internet. As a consequence, it was information retrieval cost that had the most cost retrenchment effect in connecting the internet by telephone, which saved about 353,700 won. And it was found that the dedicated line to electronic commerce saved 420,600 won of information retrieval cost and a considerable amount of 319,900 won of brokerage expenses and physical distribution expenses. In terms of value, it was found that the telephone line reduced the time of order process by 8.25%, whereas the dedicated line did so by 9.41% and therefore saved more time than the telephone line. It was found that the dedicated line convenient to use had the higher effect by about 1.2%, respectively than the telephone line in terms of the effective construction of corporate image and the increase of potential buyers. In terms of business management, the intensification of corporate competitiveness improved by 10.00% in case of less than 10 times and by 11.53% in case of 50 to less than 50 times. And it was found that the effect of profit increase as the number of inquiries was large. That is, it was found that the effect of profit increase was 10.88% when the number of inquiries was less than 10 times but it increased to 14.00% in case of 50∼1ess than 100 times. The limitation of this study is that because the size of samples through mail, interview and E-mail was not large, its results have some limitation in applying them to every firm. That is, since the improvement effect of the intrafirm business method, unnecessary repeated manual paperwork and the use effect of being able to maintain the close relationship with to the parties to trades in the process of prompt receipt and delivery of documents are long-term and indirect effects, they have some limitation in that they can not be measured as coefficients but only as scales. Thus, firms using electronic commerce have difficulty enjoying a uniformly identical effect. Therefore, to revitalize electronic commerce, it is thought that government, the academic community and the business world all need to make much research into and sustained investment in electronic commerce.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.239-250
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• 2012

In recent years, national health insurance(NHI) coverage had been expanded gradually for cancer as a severe disease requiring high level of medical expenditure, to reduce patient's financial burden. But, subjective burdens level for out-of-pocket(OOP) money expense are still considerable owing to high medical cost and decent numbers of services not covered by benefit plan. This study aimed to investigate OOP medical expenditures and identify factors influencing subjective financial burden in cancer patients. A 28-items questionnaire for self-reporting by responders was designed to satisfy study goal and finalized following by one pilot study and experts' verification process. Subjects were enrolled during July to October 2010 through regular meetings organized by five patient or patient-advocacy groups had acknowledged the study purpose. Subjects who aged 20 or more, have histories of cancer diagnosis and anticancer drug use, and voluntarily agreed to participate in this study were recruited. Total 107 subjects included in the analysis have cancer lesions in breast, colon, kidney, liver or stomach at the stages from I to IV. Approximately 73% of them has passed less than 5 years since cancer diagnosis. For the OOP medical expenditure regarding cancer, less 6 million won was in 31%, 6-15 million won in 35% and more than 15 million won in 28% of responders, and more than half responders(58%) felt financial burden subjectively. 63% of responders had subscribed commercial insurances, resulting in money receipts of more than 10 million won since cancer diagnoses in 76% of responders. Logistic regression results showed significant differences in subjective OOP financial burden level depending on gender, household income level, benefit type, commercial insurance money receipt degree, year cancer diagnosed, cancer lesion, therapy type, duration of anticancer drug use, drug listing in national formulary, total OOP medical expenditure and total OOP anticancer drug expense. They had mixed feelings both wishes to expand NHI coverage to reduce financial burden(70%) and no willingness to increase premium(59%). This result suggested that NHI might direct future strategies to reduce absolute total OOP medical cost and expand benefit plan coverage in higher burden groups in particular.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.179-188
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• 2007

Recently, the concern on the receipt of poor ready-mixed concrete in the construction field and the durability of concrete has been increased. Based on the such background, a large number of measuring methods of water content for fresh concrete have been developed and enforced in a developed country. In this study, to investigate practicality for quality control of ready-mixed concrete among various water content measurement techniques, microwave range method, air meter method and capacitance measurement method as measuring methods of water content were selected. Then, it was evaluated estimating performance of water content according to the change of binder types, fine aggregate types, absorption ratio, water content and water-binder ratio in series I and II. Also, it was examined influence on error occurrence of water content according to change of properties of used materials in series III. Finally, based on this study, it was proposed fundamental data to utilize measurement technique of water content to quality control of ready-mixed concrete in construction field.