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In the context of the COVID-19, it is very significant to explore the dynamic fluctuation of China's export growth to the international market and examine the causes of this fluctuation in a multi-dimensional way. The dynamic fluctuation level is measured in the short and medium-long cycle respectively based on monthly data. Factor decomposition of the dynamic fluctuation is made from the growth effect, the structure effect and the competitiveness effect by the improved CMS model, which results show that the growth effect has decreased first and then increased; The structure effects include market structure effects and commodity structure effects, and the former effect basically fluctuates around the X-axis while there is a negative commodity structure effect; There are different specific competitiveness effects on 21 categories of goods. China should rely on the RCEP agreement to strengthen and stabilize trade cooperation other countries, and strengthen its core position in the industry chain and value chain in the Asia Pacific region. The current paper creatively introduce the trade expansion margin including the ternary margin and product structure into the CMS model, explaining the internal relationship between the trade expansion margin analysis at the product- market level and the CMS analysis at the overall level; meanwhile, this paper analyses the dynamic fluctuation structure of China's export growth to Japan and South Korea through a CMS factor decomposition from the perspective of technological structure and factor ladder, and studies the source and dynamic distribution evolution of this growth pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to compare the sustainability assessment methods of DGNB and G-SEED, the two domestic green building rating systems, focusing on indoor environmental evaluation and reviewing recent laws, certifications systems, and guidelines from Germany and South Korea. According to existing studies, Korea's green building certification has similar evaluation items, environmental (62.6%), social aspects (25.4%), and economic aspects (3.0%) compared with DGNB. Continuing research comparing DGNB and G-SEED, this paper will present an insight into the DGNB and G-SEED green building rating systems' aspects and motives; furthermore, we intend to equate the sustainability assessment methods of the DGNB and G-SEED certification systems, in order to improve certification systems by comparing and finding solutions to differences, thereby making international systems more adaptable to each country. This analysis will unify property categorization systems and will promote green building and sustainable development globally. Findings: Regarding similarities and differences, the certification criteria for air, thermal, visual/light, and acoustic quality are based on domestic laws in both countries. DGNB and G-SEED are similar in terms of the requirements but differ in methods and domestic laws. Some findings regarding differences are that DGNB requires low VOC-emitting products, while G-SEED focuses on natural ventilation. Thermal comfort is measured through design-phase simulation in DGNB, while G-SEED lighting is evaluated on the basis of saving light energy. Finally, in G-SEED, acoustic quality is measured via indoor soundproofing performance, while DGNB takes room size into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous influence on many aspects of life in Korea. Some people have had to relocate their workplaces from factories or offices to their homes in order to stop the spread of the virus. This paper examines the effects of home production on the Korean macroeconomy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, the impulse response function is used to perform an empirical analysis. The results show that total output, market goods consumption, investment, capital, and market work hours all decline as a consequence of a home productivity shock, while home goods consumption, wages, transfer payments, and home work hours all increase. Moreover, using fiscal policies such as lowering the capital tax rate and increasing the fiscal deficit, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Korean macroeconomy can be improved. Robustness tests are carried out in light of the uneven economic development and different COVID-19 pandemic scenarios inside and outside the Seoul circle. The conclusions of this paper are accurate and reliable, as shown by the results of the robustness test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed to make a bibliometric analysis of the current research situation in unilateral biportal endoscopy/biportal endoscopic spinal surgery (UBE/BESS). Research data sets were acquired from the Web of Science database. The study chosed "biportal endoscopic spinal surgery" OR "two portal endoscopic spinal surgery" OR "percutaneous biportal endoscopic decompression" OR "unilateral biportal endoscopy" OR "irrigation endoscopic discectomy" as the search terms. The literature search was limited to articles published before March 5, 2021. We only included original articles and reviews. VOS viewer and Citespace software were used to analyze the data and generate visualization knowledge maps. Annual trend of publications, distribution, H‐index status, co‐authorship status, and research hotspots were analyzed. A total of 74 publications met the requirement. The sum number of citations was 31,204, in which 19,336 were no self‐citations. The average citation of all the papers was 21.84 times. The H‐index of all the publications was 85. South Korea's total number of articles was far higher than that of other countries and regions (61, 82.4%), followed by United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Peoples Republic of China (three, ranking second, accounting for 12.2% of the total). For the most productive authors, Choi ranked first with 21 articles, Kim ranked second with 16 articles, and Heo ranked third with 12 articles. The journal with the greatest number of publications was World Neurosurgery, with a total of 18 (39.1%) papers. Clinics in Orthopedic Surgery ranked second with six (13.0%) papers. In third place, there were fix articles published by Asian Spine Journal and Neurospine, accounting for 21.8% of the total articles. These top three journals accounted for 73.9% of all the papers. Spondylolisthesis and endoscopic decompression were the research hotspots in recent years. The number of publications has showed an upward trend with a stable rise in recent years. South Korea is the country with the highest productivity, not only in quality, but also in quantity. Barun Hosp and Leon Wiltse Mem Hosphave published most articles. Choi is the most productive author. World Neurosurgery is the most productive journal. Spondylolisthesis and endoscopic decompression are the research hotspots in recent years. Indeed, this study provides new insight into the growth and development of UBE/BESS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of posted feedback on recycling in a lounge area at a South Korean university was studied. Participants were college students, professors, and staff members. The dependent variables were the percentage and number of correctly separated aluminum cans, the percentage and number of correctly separated paper cups, and the weight of recycled paper. An A-B-BC-A time series design was used. During baseline (A), separation containers were provided. Posted written feedback was introduced (B) and graphic feedback was added (BC). All feedback was then withdrawn (A). Written feedback resulted in statistically significant increases in all five measures. Although all five measures increased again when graphic feedback was added, none of the increases was statistically significant. When feedback was removed, all but the percentage of correctly separated paper cups decreased significantly. Although the study was of short duration, the results suggest that publicly posted written feedback can increase recycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviewed the papers that studied the effect of simulation nursing education in the nursing field and examined the trend of simulation nursing education for nursing college students in Korea. Background: Simulation-based education started receiving attention as a pedagogical method in order to provide medical service of high quality in an ethical and safe environment. This has been of great importance during the coronavirus disease 2019 global pandemic. This literature review was conducted to suggest a direction for simulation-based nursing education in Korea. Methods: For literature searches, the authors used the following search terms in the Web of Science, CINAHL, Scopus, PubMed—'utilization', 'simulation,' 'nursing student', 'nursing education'. A final search was conducted on 6 January 2021. The materials for this study were collected through literature searches according to the PRISMA guidelines. Results: 25 papers were selected as the final literature for analysis. The study was conducted for 48 percent of senior students in nursing college students in Korea (N = 12). High fidelity (HF) as the simulation type was 44 percent (N = 11). The simulation education subjects were composed of 52 percent adult health nursing (N = 13). According to educational goals described by Benzamine Bloom (1956), 90% in the psychomotor domain is considered a positive learning achievement. Conclusions: Effectiveness in the psychomotor domain through simulation-based training is correlated with expert nursing. It is essential to develop a systematic debriefing model and methods to evaluate performance and learning in the short- and long-term to expand the effectiveness of simulation-based education in nursing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents economic value estimation of improved biogas utilization systems of public wastewater treatment plants in Republic of Korea. Since a large amount of biogas produced at digestion facilities is being wasted as a by-product, the biogas energy utilization system needs to be enhanced. In this paper, three operating options able to utilize the produced biogas are proposed, and then their monetary benefits are estimated by means of net present value calculation. Real operational data from the public wastewater treatment plant located in Sejong city, Republic of Korea, is used to reflect a variation of the rated daily gas production and its concentration according to the weather and seasons, resulting in calculating more reliable results. Additionally, to minimize the estimation errors due to uncertainties of the gas concentration and the gas selling price, a Monte Carlo simulation considering the variation of critical input data is carried out. As a result, the proposed approach can lead to better decisions in selecting the suitable biogas utilization system by forecasting the ranges of possible economic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce and study in this paper the policy design improvement regarding the public procurement process for public management innovation. Public procurement is obtained transparently and efficiently at the exact cost of goods, constructions, services, among others. In addition, it has decreased the national budget and supported the national economic development. Most of the major contributions of public procurement included support for small businesses, jobs, and balanced regional development. Nevertheless, a lot of issues have become apparent during the public procurement process, thus requiring preventive measures. The aim of this study is to demonstrate an enhanced public procurement process and develop efficient policies in the future. For this reason, we investigated the issues regarding South Korea's public procurement process, and concentrated on policy improvement. It is our intention to provide a highly efficient global public procurement process that can be used as an academic paper that will help in developing South Korea's public procurement process and policy direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every year, diverse types of safety accidents cause major damage to human life and property. In particular, failure to suppress safety accidents caused by fires during the early stages can lead to large-scale accidents, which in turn can cause more serious damage than other types of accident. Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of the prevailing research trends and future directions for research on preventing safety accidents due to fire. Since fire outbreaks can occur in many types of places, the study was conducted by selecting the places and causes involved in frequent fires, using fire data from Korea. As half of these fires were found to occur in buildings, this paper presents an analysis of the causes of building fires, and then focuses on three themes: fire prevention based on fire and gas detection; fire prevention in electrical appliances; and fire prevention for next-generation electricity. In the gas detection of the first theme, the gas referred to does not denote a specific gas, but rather to the gas used in each place. After an analysis of research trends for each issue related to fire prevention, future research directions are suggested on the basis of the findings. It is necessary to evaluate the risk, select a detection system, and improve its reliability in order to thoroughly prevent fires in the future. In addition, an active emergency response system should be developed by operating a fire prevention control system, and safety training should be developed after classifying the targets of the training targets appropriately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper uses a SEIR(D) model to analyse the time-varying transmission dynamics of the COVID-19 epidemic in Korea throughout its multiple stages of development. This multi-stage estimation of the model parameters offers a better model fit compared to the whole period analysis and shows how the COVID-19's infection patterns change over time, primarily depending on the effectiveness of the public health authority's non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). Methods: This paper uses the SEIR(D) compartment model to simulate and estimate the parameters for three distinctive stages of the COVID-19 epidemic in Korea, using a manually compiled COVID-19 epidemic dataset for the period between 18 February 2020 and 08 February 2021. The paper identifies three major stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, conducts multi-stage estimations of the SEIR(D) model parameters, and carefully infers context-dependent meaning of the estimation results to help better understand the unique patterns of the transmission of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in each stage. Results: The original SIR compartment model may produce a poor and even misleading estimation result if it is used to cover the entire period of the epidemic. However, if we use the model carefully in distinctive stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, we can find useful insights into the nature of the transmission of the novel coronavirus and the relative effectiveness of the government's non-pharmaceutical interventions over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite the significance of demand forecasting accuracy for the registered nurse (RN) workforce, few studies have evaluated past forecasts. Purpose: This paper examined the ex post accuracy of past forecasting studies focusing on RN demand and explored its determinants on the accuracy of demand forecasts. Methods: Data were collected by systematically reviewing national reports or articles on RN demand forecasts. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) was measured for forecasting error by comparing the forecast with the actual demand (employed RNs). Nonparametric tests, the Mann‒Whitney test, and the Kruskal‒Wallis test were used to analyze the differences in the MAPE according to the variables, which are methodological and researcher factors. Results: A total of 105 forecast horizons and 196 forecasts were analyzed. The average MAPE of the total forecast horizon was 34.8%. Among the methodological factors, the most common determinant affecting forecast accuracy was the RN productivity assumption. The longer the length of the forecast horizon was, the greater the MAPE was. The longer the length of the data period was, the greater the MAPE was. Moreover, there was no significant difference among the researchers' factors. Conclusions: To improve demand forecast accuracy, future studies need to accurately measure RN workload and productivity in a manner consistent with the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores under what political conditions a “responsible prime minister” can emerge in a presidential system, focusing on South Korea after the 1987 democratization. Under presidentialism, premiers lack the constitutional resources to make themselves into a “responsible prime minister” independent from the president. Even such political resources as high popularity, deep trust from the president, and influence over the legislature are not enough to make them a “responsible prime minister”. Thus, most premiers remain a highly compliant subordinate of their president in Korea. By contrast, in a multi-party system Kim Dae-jung (DJ) sought to invite a third party, the United Liberal Democrats, into the “DJP Alliance” in order to win a highly competitive presidential election and therefore had to yield the prime-ministerial post to the head of the coalition partner party, Kim Jong-pil (JP). Under these political conditions, JP could be a “responsible prime minister” as an exception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is commonly defined as a transitional subclinical state between normal aging and dementia. A growing body of research indicates that health behaviors may play a protective role against cognitive decline and could potentially slow down the progression from MCI to dementia. The aim of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of literature focusing on health behaviors and MCI to summarize the factors and evidence regarding the influence of health behaviors on MCI. Methods: The study performed a bibliometric analysis by retrieving publications from the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index subdatabases within the Web of Science Core Collection. Utilizing VOSviewer and CiteSpace software, a total of 2,843 eligible articles underwent co-citation, cokeywords, and clustering analyses. This methodology aimed to investigate the current status, trends, major research questions, and potential future directions within the research domain. Results: The bibliometric analysis indicates that research on healthy behaviors in individuals with MCI originated in 2002 and experienced rapid growth in 2014, reflecting the increasing global interest in this area. The United States emerged as the primary contributor, accounting for more than one-third of the total scientific output with 982 articles. Journals that published the most articles on MCI-related health behaviors included "Journal of Alzheimer's Disease," "Neurobiology of Aging," "Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience," and other geriatricsrelated journals. High-impact papers identified by VOSviewer predominantly cover concepts related to MCI, such as diagnostic criteria, assessment, and multifactorial interventions. Co-occurrence keyword analysis highlights five research hotspots in health behavior associated with MCI: exercise, diet, risk factors and preventive measures for dementia, cognitive decline-related biomarkers, and clinical trials. Conclusion: This study provides a comprehensive review of literature on health behavior in individuals with MCI, emphasizing influential documents and journals. It outlines research trends and key focal points, offering valuable insights for researchers to comprehend significant contributions and steer future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neural networks (NNs) have shown outstanding performance in solar photovoltaic (PV) power forecasting due to their ability to effectively learn unstable environmental variables and their complex interactions. However, NNs are limited in their practical industrial application in the energy sector because the optimization of the model structure or hyperparameters is a complex and time-consuming task. This paper proposes a two-stage NN optimization method for robust solar PV power forecasting. First, the solar PV power dataset is divided into training and test sets. In the training set, several NN models with different numbers of hidden layers are constructed, and Optuna is applied to select the optimal hyperparameter values for each model. Next, the optimized NN models for each layer are used to generate estimation and prediction values with fivefold cross-validation on the training and test sets, respectively. Finally, a random forest is used to learn the estimation values, and the prediction values from the test set are used as input to predict the final solar PV power. As a result of experiments in the Incheon area, the proposed method is not only easy to model but also outperforms several forecasting models. As a case in point, with the New-Incheon Sonae dataset—one of three from various Incheon locations—the proposed method achieved an average mean absolute error (MAE) of 149.53 kW and root mean squared error (RMSE) of 202.00 kW. These figures significantly outperform the benchmarks of attention mechanism-based deep learning models, with average scores of 169.87 kW for MAE and 232.55 kW for RMSE, signaling an advance that is expected to make a significant contribution to South Korea's energy industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's remarkable success in controlling the spread of COVID-19 during the pre-Omicron period was based on extensive contact tracing and large-scale testing. Here we suggest a general criterion for tracing and testing based on South Korea's experience, and propose a new framework to assess tracing and testing. We reviewed papers on South Korea's response to COVID-19 to capture its concept of tracing and testing. South Korea expanded its testing capabilities to enable group tracing combined with preemptive testing, and to conduct open testing. According to our proposed model, COVID-19 cases are classified into 4 types: confirmed in quarantine, source known, source unknown, and unidentified. The proportion of the first two case types among confirmed cases is defined as "traced proportion", and used as the indicator of tracing and testing effectiveness. In conclusion, South Korea successfully suppressed COVID-19 transmission by maintaining a high traced proportion (> 60%) using group tracing in conjunction with preemptive testing as a complementary strategy to traditional contact tracing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of renewable energy sources to achieve carbon neutrality is increasing. However, the uncertainty and volatility of renewable resources are causing problems in power systems. Flexible and low-carbon resources such as Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) are essential for solving the problems of power systems and achieving greenhouse gas reduction goals. However, ESSs are not being installed because of Korea's fuel-based electricity market. To address this issue, this paper presents a method for determining the optimal investment timing of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESSs) using the Least Squares Monte Carlo (LSMC) method. A case study is conducted considering the System Marginal Price (SMP) and Capacity Payment (CP), which are electricity rates in Korea. Revenue is calculated through the arbitrage of a 10 MW/40 MWh lithium-ion BESS, and linear programming optimization is performed for ESS scheduling to maximize revenue. The ESS revenue with uncertainty is modeled as a stochastic process using Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM), and the optimal time to invest in an ESS is determined using an LSMC simulation considering investment costs. The proposed method can be used as a decision-making tool for ESS investors to provide information on facility investments in arbitrage situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent experience with the strongest earthquakes greater than magnitude 5.4 in Korea leads to public interest in the safety and resilience of critical infrastructures. There are many nuclear power plants near the epicenters of the earthquakes. Nuclear power plants are essential infrastructures that provide stable and enough energy for human life, and simultaneously, control systems for the safety and security of nuclear power plants are critical due to the risk of nuclear accidents on public health and the environment. The nuclear area uses probabilistic risk assessment to estimate the risk of structures, systems, and components in nuclear power plants, and the evaluation of the fragility curve is a key process for probabilistic risk assessment. The challenges of a seismic fragility analysis lie in estimating the influence of various uncertainties in material, geometry, and earthquake and improving the existing fragility analysis methods, which require time-consuming nonlinear time history analysis. Thus, this paper conducts a multivariate seismic fragility analysis using surrogate models for reinforced concrete squat shear walls and proposes a simplified closed form equation for a chosen surrogate seismic demand model. The surrogate models are trained and validated by several approaches: response surface method, support vector machine, Gaussian process regression, and neural network. In addition, a correlation analysis is used to evaluate the relative importance of the variables to the seismic demand to simplify the surrogate model further. Finally, simplified surrogate models based on the importance of the variables are proposed as closed form of polynomials, and the performance of these models on the fragility analysis is evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media not only changes the traditional communication environment but also brings new changes to agenda-setting. The main body of agenda-setting has shifted from the traditional media to the politicians, political parties and grassroots people. With the increasing use of social bots in public opinion manipulation and political election interference, whether they can participate in or influence agenda-setting has become an urgent concern. So far, there has been less literature focusing on engagement in agenda-setting for social bots. This paper studies the social media discussion content of the South Korean presidential election, determines the participation of social bots, and explores the connection between media agenda, bot agenda, and public agenda from the perspective of agenda setting. This study finds that while the main agendas of media, social bots, and the public are not the same, their agendas are relevant. In addition, the media agenda is not timely ahead of the bot agenda and the public agenda, and the time order only appears between the social bots and the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to assess and to validate the suitability of the stable nitrogen and carbon isotope signature as soil erosion indicators in a mountain forest site n South Korea. Our approach is based on the comparison of the isotope signature of "stable" landscape positions (reference sites), which are neither affected by erosion nor deposition, with eroding sites. For undisturbed soils we expect that the enrichment of δ15d N and δ13C with soil depth, due to fractionation during decomposition, goes in parallel with a decrease in nitrogen and carbon content. Soil erosion processes potentially weaken this correlation. 137Cs-method and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation are applied for the soil erosion quantification. The erosion rates obtained with the 137Cs method range from 0.9 t ha-1 yr-1 to 7 t ha-1 yr-1. Considering the steep slopes of up to 40 and the erosive monsoon events (R-factor of 6600 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1), the rates are plausible and within the magnitude of the RUSLE- modelled soil erosion rates, varying from 0.02 t ha-1 yr-1 to 5.1 t ha-1 yr-1. The soil profiles of the reference sites showed significant (p<0.0001) correlations between nitrogen and carbon content and its corresponding δ15N and δ13C signatures. In contrast, for the eroding sites this relationship was weaker and for the carbon not significant. These results verify the usefulness of the stable carbon isotope signature as qualitative indicator for soil disturbance. We could show further that the δ15N isotope signature can be used similarly for uncultivated sites. We thus propose that the stable δ15N and δ15C signature of soil profiles could serve as a tool confirming the accurate choice of the reference site in soil erosion studies using the 137Cs-method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to examine five theses from major journals concerning Korea's Library and Information Science, published from 1970 to 2018, so as to diagnose the current stage of International Research collaboration in the field of Korea's Library and Information Science which researchers from two or more different nations jointly conducted. Furthermore, it proposed measures for activating International Research collaboration in the field of Korea's Library and Information Science. First, related conferences should be held and education need to be offered in terms of elevating the awareness of the need and importance of international research collaboration. Second, relevant policies need to be developed and projects should be implemented to strengthen the practical international research collaboration. Third, collaboration with various countries should be pursued in the area of detailed majors of library and information science of greater diversity than now in terms of the detailed majors and countries. Fourth, a research environment supporting the collaboration with various research institutions overseas moving forward will need to be created around the universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored journal publishing and authorship by South Korean early career researchers (ECRs) in the field of library and information science (LIS). This research analyzed relevant journal publication data and conducted interviews to obtain information on the experiences and opinions of ECRs. Results indicated that South Korean ECRs in LIS were highly productive. This was evidenced by their annual publishing rate of 2.04 articles per person. In addition, Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) publications were produced at an annual average of 0.26 articles per person, while the quartile ratings for SSCI journal publications were also relatively high. However, unlike the trends seen in other academic fields, their collaborative research efforts were not considered very high because such efforts did not correspond to half their total publications. ECRs often participate as lead or corresponding authors despite being new researchers. ECRs are publishing first in the journals approved by their universities. These researchers cannot receive proper credit if the journal was not approved in this manner. ECRs are particularly disadvantaged when publishing in international journals corresponding to specific areas that are not on the SSCI list. By examining the journal publishing and authorship efforts of ECRs, this study discovered a variety of difficulties that should be addressed. For example, South Korean universities do not currently have cooperative research guidelines to solve authorship problems. The results from this study can serve as a basis to establish academic publishing and authorship policies while promoting scholarly communication in LIS and other scientific fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the usability of Korean logistics in life (LIL) startups mobile apps that aim to provide more convenience and a better quality of life. Determining an app’s usability requires a different set of evaluation criteria from that of desktop sites or full sites due to the inherent characteristics of the mobile environment. This paper derived 10 evaluation criteria from a literature review, calculated the weights of each criterion, and performed a usability test for 14 Korean LIL apps involving 27 subjects. To highlight areas of improvement, a comparison was done using a top ranked app on Google Play which had the best score in terms of usability (in 10 items test) among the best Korean LIL app. The average usability score of the LIL apps represented an overall lack of high usability. The evaluation criteria of the apps showed higher scores in the error-free, prediction, and consistency variables categories. In contrast, this was not the case for effectiveness, usefulness, and interaction, which were relatively low. Usability and interest had a slightly negative relationship when implementing big data analytics. From the quadrants analysis, it was found that for most of the evaluation criteria, continuous improvement was needed. As a result of logistics 4.0, the number of LIL apps is growing rapidly. This paper is the first to define the concept of LIL and develop an evaluation model for usability, which was then used to identify the ease of use, learnability, effectiveness, and efficiency of representative LIL apps in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although South Korea's e-government development is in a leading position worldwide, its government portal websites are not very popular with the public. Koreans are reluctant to use government portal websites continuously. One possible reason is that culture influences citizens' continuous use behavior. For the first time, this paper introduces the national culture model and nudge theory into the research of the citizens' continuous use of government portal websites. Based on the national cultural model, this study established a model of influencing factors on the citizens' continuous use of government portal websites. Through hierarchical regression analysis, this paper finds that the citizens' continuous use of South Korean government portal websites is influenced by three cultural dimensions: power distance, femininity, and long-term orientation. In view of these results, this paper discusses these Korean cultures that influence citizens' continuous use behavior of government portal websites. Furthermore, combined with the nudge theory, this paper puts forward some countermeasures for the Korean government to improve the citizens' continuous use of government portal websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a SEIR(D) model to analyse the time-varying transmission dynamics of the COVID-19 epidemic in Korea throughout its multiple stages of development. This multi-stage estimation of the model parameters offers a better model fit compared to the whole period analysis and shows how the COVID-19's infection patterns change over time, primarily depending on the effectiveness of the public health authority's non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). This paper uses the SEIR(D) compartment model to simulate and estimate the parameters for three distinctive stages of the COVID-19 epidemic in Korea, using a manually compiled COVID-19 epidemic dataset for the period between 18 February 2020 and 08 February 2021. The paper identifies three major stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, conducts multi-stage estimations of the SEIR(D) model parameters, and carefully infers context-dependent meaning of the estimation results to help better understand the unique patterns of the transmission of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in each stage. The original SIR compartment model may produce a poor and even misleading estimation result if it is used to cover the entire period of the epidemic. However, if we use the model carefully in distinctive stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, we can find useful insights into the nature of the transmission of the novel coronavirus and the relative effectiveness of the government's non-pharmaceutical interventions over time. Identifies three distinctive waves of the COVID-19 epidemic in Korea. Conducts multi-stage estimations of the COVID-19 transmission dynamics using SEIR(D) epidemic models. The transmission dynamics of the COVID-19 vary over time, primarily depending on the relative effectiveness of the government's non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). The SEIR(D) epidemic model is useful and informative, but only when it is used carefully to account for the presence of multiple waves and context-dependent infection patterns in each wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Korean government’s public health responses to the COVID-19 epidemic have achieved a remarkable outcome in terms of the measured number of infected patients and the overall mortality rate. Nonetheless, the public health authority’s various mitigation strategies and vaccination efforts have faced several challenges primarily posed by politically motivated Christian fundamentalists and ultraconservative media’s distorted news framing in Korea. This paper examines how these conservative forces – both religious and political – have undermined the Korean public health authority’s various mitigation efforts and discusses how to address the problems from a public policy point of view. The paper argues that a comprehensive legal reform including the introduction of effective punitive damages in the media market is a necessary minimum to address some of these problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Introduction: Recently, endoscopic thyroidectomy has been developed and applied to thyroid surgery to achieve minimized neck scar formation and enhanced aesthetic outcomes. Our scientometric research in this paper offers a thorough overview of endoscopic thyroidectomy from 2013 to 2022. Methods: All pertinent articles on endoscopic thyroidectomy were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection Database. The data on the number of citations and publications, most prolific countries and institutions, significant authors and journals, top themes, and keywords were analyzed by Biblioshiny, CiteSpace, and VOSviewer. Results: There were 758 publications, all of that were found from 2013 to 2022. The output of the annual publication showed an upward trend. A series of cases report by Anuwong et al. published in 2016 received the most citations. The country with the most articles published articles was South Korea, and the two countries with the most collaboration were South Korea and the United States. The most productive journal was Surgical Endoscopy and Other Interventional Techniques. Dionigi G, Kim HY, and Anuwong A were the writers with the most articles published, the highest hand g-indices, and the strongest link strength, respectively. The keywords "endoscopic thyroidectomy", "surgical", "thyroidectomy", "robotic thyroidectomy", "experience", and others were most used. Conclusion: The innovative surgical technique, transoral endoscopic thyroidectomy vestibular approach (TOETVA), leaves no scars and produces optimal cosmetic results. However, the long-term oncologic results for thyroid cancer performed with this approach are still missing. This scientometric analysis can offer valuable insights into the present research standing and key focal points in this domain, enabling researchers to gain a precise understanding of the state-of-the-art research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An SMR (small modular reactor) is expected to be able to operate flexibly in conjunction with a high renewable energy penetration grid as a result of improved safety and easy power control compared to large nuclear power plants. SMRs, such as South Korea's System-integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor (SMART), are designed to use canned motors (CMs) for their reactor coolant pumps (RCPs) to enhance their safety. CMs passively enhance the reactor's safety by preventing the leakage of radioactive reactor coolant. However, with motor sizes designed to be as small as possible, and the increased air gap of CMs between the stator and rotor, the starting torque may be insufficiently low compared to that of similar-sized induction motors (IMs). Thus, CMs may require variable frequency drives (VFDs) to start. This paper compares the torque characteristics of CMs with those of IMs for SMART's RCPs. ETAP is then used to perform a motor-starting analysis for CMs activated with and without VFDs. The results are presented and analyzed to find out if VFDs can deal with the CM starting torque issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many students, learning physics is difficult because of its abstractness. To help students to learn physics, we have developed the Integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Projects Based Learning (STEM-PjBL) method based on principles from neuroscience. We believe that incorporating principles from educational neuroscience would help students learn better. This paper describes our experiments of implementing the integrated STEM-PjBL Module in physics, i.e., classical mechanics, to secondary school students in Malaysia and South Korea. The study consists of two groups of students: the experiment group, 77 in total, comprising those who have undergone the integrated STEM-PjBL, and the control group, again 77 in total, who experienced the traditional approach. The Colorado Learning Attitudes Science Survey (CLASS) was conducted for the two groups on students' beliefs about physics and learning physics before and after the implementation. The paired sample t-test from the pre-survey and post-survey shows that the integrated STEM-PjBL group has a more positive shift in belief about physics and learning physics than the traditional group. The results of the independent samples t-test for students' beliefs about physics and learning physics, compared with the postsurvey between the experimental group and the traditional group for both Malaysian and Korean perspectives, show that the experimental group has a higher mean compared to the traditional group. This paper explains why the integrated STEMPjBL has improved students' beliefs about physics and learning physics, from the neuroscience education perspective. Finally, the paper concludes with guidelines for teachers who wish to implement the integrated STEM-PjBL in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of foreigners residing in South Korea has increased, the overall scale of crimes committed by non-Korean nationals and the associated public anxiety have both risen. This paper seeks to explore the trends in violent crimes committed by foreigners in Korea by examining crime statistics from the Korean National Police Agency and immigration data from the Korean Ministry of Justice. Additionally, this paper empirically examines the attributes of the home countries of foreign criminals who are arrested in Korea. The results of our analysis, based on the violent crime statistics for foreign nationals of twelve types from 2003 to 2019, reveal that foreigners from higher-income countries with better educational environments are more likely to be involved in violent criminal activities. Individuals from countries with relatively strong law enforcement are less likely to engage in violent crime while residing in South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the demand for citizen-sensible service solutions such as traffic, crime prevention, and disasters in smart cities is increasing. In order to provide technology-based smart city services, local government control centers could be utilized. Accordingly, this paper presented a method for selecting a control center-based dynamic object information utilization service model through in-depth interviews with 26 related local government control center operation personnel. A comparative analysis according to the size of the local government to which the evaluator belongs was also performed. As a methodology, Fuzzy AHP was used, which can support rational decision-making by mathematically expressing ambiguous phenomena such as subjective and uncertain judgments. The summary of the research results is as follows. Services related to recent incidents in South Korea (e.g., school zone traffic accidents and lowland inundation) were identified as very important. These social issues are significant factors in policy decisions. In comparing the results for each urban scale, the importance of pedestrian safety services on backside roads and main road traffic services was found to be important in the metropolitan area and regional, medium, and small cities, respectively. This was attributed to metropolitan cities with high population density, and medium and small cities experiencing alienated traffic information. In metropolitan areas, new services are highly important owing to the demand for a more scientific control service and future mobility based on a sound control infrastructure. In medium and small cities, facility management services were assessed relatively highly owing to the poor conditions of regional cities with a lack of supervising personnel in the field and a lack of surveillance system infrastructure. This paper was able to confirm the difference in service preference by city size, and it is necessary to select the optimal service model considering these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Growing concerns about online examinations have led to various investigations of techniques for improvement. With most higher education institutions shifting to online learning and examination amid COVID-19, these concerns, including the academic dishonesty, validity, reliability, and anxiety of online examination, are more critical than ever. This paper presents the outcomes of the survey to elicit the perceptions of undergraduate students from two universities in South Korea and Malaysia towards undertaking online exams and the associated concerns. Additionally, the study explores the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in addressing these concerns. There are three main research questions: 1) How has AI been adopted to tackle the four main concerns in online exams? 2) What are the students' perceptions regarding these concerns? Are there any differences between South Korean and Malaysian students? 3) What is the extent of the stress level when webcam proctoring and timers are implemented during online exams? The survey results show that both South Korean and Malaysian students agree that online exams make cheating more accessible than inperson exams. They also suggest that selecting questions randomly from a question bank could discourage cheating. Moreover, the study highlights that both groups of students experience moderate stress levels when webcam proctoring is used over Zoom during online exams, and they experience a high-stress level when timers are set for each question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been sixty years since English-language journals in Korean Studies began to be published in Korea. During this time span, Korean academic circles and journals have undergone various changes, which resulted in the transformation of both the journals and their surrounding environment. With due consideration of these changes, this paper attempts to investigate the significance and agendas of English-language journals in Korean Studies. First, it investigates why Korean intellectuals felt the need to learn English during the modern transitional period by examining the case of Yu Gil-jun. It then examines the initial goals of English-language magazines and journals in Korea. In the early phase, these publications tended to deliver one-way statements, almost sounding like publicity pitches, but they gradually took on the facade of an arena of scholarly discussion and output. The now defunct Pictorial Korea began publication following national liberation to inform the world about Korea by using photographs accompanied by brief texts. Korea Journal, which began publication immediately following the May 16 Coup (1961) for the prospective readership of overseas Koreans as well as foreigners, has transformed itself multiple times over the years and acquired the characteristics of a specialized academic journal. Seoul Journal of Korean Studies, which began publication following the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, initially took the approach of transmitting to the world research outcomes in Korean Studies in Korea. English-language journals published in Korea are expected to play a role in the advancement of Korean scholarship. This is because they can serve as a sphere of symbiosis and debate between Korean Studies inside and outside Korea. It is particularly hoped the journals will contribute to complementing or overcoming the closedness of the disciplinary system of the Korean academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians of post-colonial medicine in South Korea have understood a series of changes in the public health system during the Cold War era as an abrupt shift from a Japanese model to an American one. Challenging this perspective of alleged Americanization, this paper examines the continuity of a colonial medical legacy and its relationship with the newly established Americanstandard public health in the late 1940s and 1950s South Korea. Especially, this paper focuses on the intellectual aspect of public health that has been neglected in the historiography of public health, which to date has been limited to the administrative and institutional aspects of public health. By doing so, this paper aims to show how Japanese colonial medicine and American public health practices actively interacted with each other. Taking as case studies South Korea's doctors who studied public health in the United States with the support of the USAMGIK, this paper analyzes their academic activities on public health. By tracing the process of interaction between colonial medicine and American public health practices, this paper argues that the newly established American public health standards in the post-liberation era was a result of an entanglement between the Japanese colonial legacy and American public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea is at an important juncture in its history to decide whether to continue its investment to become a first-mover of artificial intelligence (A.I.) platform technology or stay as a fast follower. This paper compares South Korea's A.I. platform capacity to that of the United States, China and the European Union by reviewing publicly opened documents and reports on AI platform strategies and policies using the three elements of the national innovation capacity: common innovation infrastructure, cluster-specific conditions, and quality of linkages. This paper found three major areas the South Korean government can focus on in the A.I. platform industry. First, South Korea needs to increase its investment in the A.I. field and expand its public-private collaboration activities. Second, unlike the U.S. and the U.K., South Korea lacks data protection policies. Third, South Korea needs to build a high-performance system and environment to experiment with artificial intelligence technology and big data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the effects of capital gains taxes on investment in the Republic of Korea (hereafter, Korea), where capital gains tax rates vary at the firm level by firm size. Following a reform in 2014, firms with a tax cut increased investment by 34 log points and issued more equity by 9 cents per dollar of lagged revenue, relative to unaffected firms. Additionally, the effects were larger for firms that appeared more cash constrained or went public after the reform. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the "traditional view" predicting that lower payout taxes spur equity-financed investment by increasing marginal returns on investment. (JEL D25, G31, G32, H25, H32, L25) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tried to explore the view of religious and non-religious people on severity of coronavirus disease 2019 in South Korea. Authors employs a survey method to investigate if religious people in South Korea have different opinions about the risk and dangers of coronavirus disease 2019 compared to non-religious people. The samples for this research were collected via Google Form and paper-pencil based from the university students of Korea. Correlation coefficient tests was performed and the difference-of-means t-test to see if there was a significant correlation between religiosity and the belief that the coronavirus is dangerous. The results showed that is no strong evidence to support our hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ground-based microwave sounding radiometers installed at 9 weather stations of Korea Meteorological Administration alongside with the wind profilers have been operated for more than 4 years. Here we introduce a process to assess the characteristics of the instrument calibration by comparing the measured brightness temperature (Tb) with the theoretical reference data, which are prepared by the radiative transfer simulation with the temperature and humidity profiles from the numerical weather prediction model. Based on the three years of data, from 2010 to 2012, we were able to characterize the effects of the absolute calibration, the thick clouds, and the frequency calibration to the quality of the measured Tb. When the three effects are properly considered, including the frequency adjustment which is estimated using the simulated Tb, the measured and simulated Tb show an excellent agreement. The regression coefficients are better than 0.97 along with the bias value of better than 0.5 K. However, the variability given as the SD of difference between the measured and simulated Tb, show a relatively large value at the lower observation frequencies, as large as 2.6 K at the 51.28 GHz channel, while they improve with the increasing frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tsunamis that have occurred in many places around the world over the past decade have taken a heavy toll on human lives and property. The eastern coast of the Korean Peninsula is not safe from tsunamis, particularly the eastern coastal areas, which have long sustained tsunami damage. The aim of this study was to mitigate the casualties and property damage on the east eastern coast by developing a proper tsunami response system for important ports and harbors with high population densities and high concentrations of key national industries. For study purposes, the governmentmanaged major international trade ports and coastal harbors were selected and an effective tsunami response system was formulated based on field surveys and related literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Among the surgical methods for lumbar disc herniation, open lumbar microdiscectomy is considered the gold standard. Recently, percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy is also commonly performed for lumbar disc herniation for its various strong points. Objectives. The present study aims to examine whether percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy and open lumbar microdiscectomy show better results as surgical treatments for lumbar disc herniation in the Korean population. Methods. In the present meta-analysis, papers on Korean patients who underwent open lumbar microdiscectomy and percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy were searched, both of which are surgical methods to treat lumbar disc herniation. The papers from 1973, when percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy was first introduced, to March 2018 were searched at the databases of MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed, and Cochrane Library. Results. Seven papers with 1254 patients were selected. A comparison study revealed that percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy had significantly better results than open lumbar microdiscectomy in the visual analogue pain scale at the final follow-up (leg: mean difference [MD]=-0.35; 95% confidence interval [CI]=-0.61, -0.09; p=0.009; back: MD=-0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI]=-1.42, -0.17; p=0.01), Oswestry Disability Index (MD=-2.12; 95% CI=-4.25, 0.01; p=0.05), operation time (MD=-23.06; 95% CI=-32.42, -13.70; p<0.00001), and hospital stay (MD=-4.64; 95% CI=-6.37, -2.90; p<0.00001). There were no statistical differences in the MacNab classification (odds ratio [OR]=1.02; 95% CI=0.71, 1.49; p=0.90), complication rate (OR=0.72; 95% CI=0.20, 2.62; p=0.62), recurrence rate (OR=0.83; 95% CI=0.50, 1.38; p=0.47), and reoperation rate (OR=1.45; 95% CI=0.89, 2.35; p=0.13). Limitations. All 7 papers used for the meta-analysis were non-RCTs. Some differences (type of surgery (primary or revisional), treatment options before the operation, follow-up period, etc.) existed depending on the selected paper, and the sample size was small as well. Conclusion. While percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy showed better results than open lumbar microdiscectomy in some items, open lumbar microdiscectomy still showed good clinical results, and it is therefore reckoned that a randomized controlled trial with a large sample size would be required in the future to compare these two surgical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have focused on umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs) due to their potential therapeutic effects in a cluster of diseases. However, there has been no bibliometric analysis evaluating the evolution in UC-MSC research. Therefore, this study aimed to assess scientific activity regarding UC-MSC research. Publications on UC-MSCs were retrieved from the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) of the Web of Science (WoS) from 1975 to 2017. Statistical analyses were performed using Excel, GraphPad Prism 5, and VOSviewer software. Comparative analyses were employed to assess contributions between different countries, institutes, and researchers. With 21.26 citations per paper, 1206 papers cited 25,517 times were included. Mainland China contributed the most with 558 papers, with the most citations (6858 times) and the highest H-index (43). South Korea ranked first for number of papers per million people and per trillion gross domestic product (GDP). Keywords were stratified into two clusters by VOSviewer software: cluster 1, "treatments and effects"; and cluster 2, "characteristics". The average appearing years (AAY) of keywords in cluster 1 was more recent than that in cluster 2. For promising hotspots, "TNF-a" showed the latest AAY at 2014.09, followed by "migration", "angiogenesis", and "apoptosis". We conclude that the number of publications has been continuously growing dramatically since 2002 and that mainland China and South Korea are the most productive regions. The focus gradually shifts from "characteristics" to "treatments and effects". Attention should be drawn to the latest hotspots, such as "TNF-α", "migration", "angiogenesis", and "apoptosis". Furthermore, funding agencies might increase investments in exploring the therapeutic potential of UC-MSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates systemwide short-term voltage stability concerns of power systems due to the multiple parametric uncertainties in the dynamic load model. The impact of regional load model uncertainty can be widespread and may mislead the whole system analysis and subsequent measures, if not properly addressed. This research discloses that the systemwide impact is related to the voltage weak areas through voltage stability modal analysis, and suggests that the impact of uncertain parameters needs to be assessed from a systems perspective, which has rarely been done in the existing practices. We thus present a three-step methodology for evaluating the systemwide uncertainty impacts: Firstly, it screens possible trajectories of all buses. The second step verifies whether the screened trajectories comply with the defined criteria, and determines the necessity of the final step. The final detailed analysis is conducted for those selected scenarios. Comprehensive studies for both the IEEE test and real Korea power systems consistently confirm the observations and demonstrate the efficacy and validity of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have examined adolescent sexual behaviors by family immigration status, but most of these failed to account for heterogeneity within youths’ multicultural backgrounds. To fill this gap in the literature, this paper draws data from the 2011 to 2022 rounds of the Korean Youth’s Risk Behavior Survey (N  =  769,160) and compares the likelihood of sexual intercourse across four groups of adolescents. Results from logistic regression indicate that the odds of having sexual contact increased 2.8 times for youths with a non-Korean father and Korean mother, compared with those from families with two Korean parents. When both father and mother are foreign-born, the odds of being sexually active increased 4.7 times. In both cases, the discrepancies might be primarily associated with the foreign fathers’ lack of socioeconomic resources. Therefore, the father’s role deserves more examination, and sex education in schools should be tailored to reflect multicultural adolescents’ needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase in both rainfall and intensity due to climate change, the risk of debris flows is also increasing. In Korea, the increasing damage caused by debris flows has become a social issue, and research on debris-flow response is becoming increasingly important. Understanding the rainfall that induces debris flows is crucial for debris-flow response, and methods such as the I-D method have been used to evaluate and predict the risk of debris flows. However, previous studies on debris flow-induced rainfall analysis have been limited by the subjective decision of the researcher to select the impact meteorological stations, which greatly affects reliability. In this paper, in order to establish an objective standard, various maximum allowable distances between debris-flow disaster areas and meteorological stations were adjusted to 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 km using the CTRL-T automatic calculation algorithm, and the optimal maximum allowable distance suitable for Korean terrain was derived through parameter sensitivity analysis. Based on this, we developed a nomogram for sediment disaster risk prediction and warning in Gangwon-do, and applied it to past disaster cases, and found that, although the prediction time for each stage varies depending on the maximum allowable distance, on average, it is possible to predict the risk of sediment flows 4 to 5 h in advance. It is believed that the results of this study can be used to reduce sediment flow damage in advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an endocrine-disrupting compound and a mutagenic agent that poses health hazards to living organisms, making it a global contaminant. Several remediation techniques have been reported in the literature, however, a mixed-method science mapping analysis of research trends on BPA is still lacking. The present study aimed to investigate global research trends in BPA remediation. Published research papers on BPA remediation indexed in Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus between 1992 and 2021 were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively using science mapping algorithms including Rstudio, bibliometrix package and R Version 4.2.1. The thematic areas were determined using k-means clustering of the author-keywords while Porter's stemming algorithm was used to stemmed inflectional terms to their roots. Overall, 640 documents were published by 1903 authors with 2.07 authors/article and 0.336 article/author, 4.31 co-authors/article, an annual growth rate of 17.35% and a collaboration index of 2.99. Research productivity increased from 1 article in 1992 to 93 articles in 2021. The citations of the topmost 23 articles ranged from 365 to 109 and the total citation per year ranged from 45.6 to 27.3. China (n = 267, 41.7%), Japan (n = 53, 8.3%), USA (n = 33, 5.2%) and Korea (n = 28, 4.4%) were respectively the top four countries based on the total of published articles and overall citation. There were 48 relevant keywords dominated by Bisphenol A, adsorption, biodegradation, and peroximonosulphate. The present analysis identifies research accomplishment, focus and gaps on Bisphenol A remediation and offer the researchers the information needed to forecast future research priorities that can help policymakers and governments to internationalize collaborations and create research curricula that can remediate BPA on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the concept of a circular economy for carbon neutrality is emerging. In particular, waste plastics are one of the key wastes, and efforts are being made to recycle them as energy rather than dispose of them. Accordingly, the technology of producing and utilizing pyrolysis oil from waste plastics attracts attention. As it is an early stage of technology development, however, there are not many demonstrations and papers that analyze the technology broadly. The goal of this study is to propose building a circular economy on a university campus through waste plastic pyrolysis oil technology. To show its feasibility, waste plastic pyrolysis oil technology is analyzed comprehensively from economic, environmental, and policy perspectives using the scenario analysis technique on the university campus level. A methodology of the scenario analysis technique enables predicting the uncertainties. Since plastic pyrolysis oil technologies and carbon neutrality are accompanied by many uncertainties, this technique is expected to be an appropriate methodology for this study. First, the amount of pyrolysis oil production from waste plastics from the campus is estimated. Then, the cost and carbon emissions from waste plastics are estimated if the pyrolysis oil technology is used instead of the traditional waste disposal process. As a result, the total economic profits of up to 425,484,022 won/year (354,570.01 $/year) are expected when a circular economy is built using waste plastic pyrolysis oil. In addition, it is also confirmed that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be reduced by up to 840,891 kgCO2eq/year. The waste plastic pyrolysis oil satisfies Korea's gas pollutant standards and is consistent with the GHG reduction policy. It can be concluded that building a circular economy at the university campus level using waste plastic pyrolysis oil technology is suitable from economic, environmental, and policy perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how historical inter-firm syndication networks influence venture capitalists' (VCs) propensity to invest in startups pursuing novel, uncertain technologies, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). We theorize that VCs' positional attributes within cumulative syndication networks determine their access to external expertise and intelligence that aid AI investment decisions amidst informational opacity. Specifically, reachability to prior AI investors provides referrals and insights transmitted across short network paths to reduce ambiguity. Additionally, VC brokerage between disconnected industry clusters furnishes expansive, non-redundant information that is pivotal for discovering and assessing AI opportunities. Through hypotheses grounded in social network theory, we posit network-based mechanisms that equip VCs to navigate uncertainty when engaging with ambiguous innovations like AI. We test our framework, utilizing comprehensive historical records of global venture capital investments. Analyzing the location information of VC firms in this database, we uncovered a history of 14,751 investments made by Korean and Japanese firms. Using these data, we assembled an imbalanced panel dataset from 1984 to 2022 spanning 230 Korean and 413 Japanese VCs, with 4508 firm-year observations. Negative binomial regression analysis of this dataset reveals how historical relational patterns among venture capital firms foster readiness to evaluate unfamiliar innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, autonomous mobile platforms have seen an increase in usage in several applications. One of which is street-sweeping. Although street-sweeping is a necessary process due to health and cleanliness, fleet operations are difficult to plan optimally. Since each vehicle has several constraints (battery, debris, and water), path planning becomes increasingly difficult to perform manually. Additionally, in real-world applications vehicles may become inactive due to a breakdown, which requires real-time scheduling technology to update the paths for the remaining vehicles. In this paper, the fleet street-sweeping problem can be solved using the proposed lower-level and higher-level path generation methods. For the lower level, a Smart Selective Navigator algorithm is proposed, and a modified genetic algorithm is used for the higher-level path planning. A case study was presented for Uchi Park, South Korea, where the proposed methodology was validated. Specifically, results generated from the ideal scenario (all vehicles operating) were compared to the breakdown scenario, where little to no difference in the overall statistics was observed. Additionally, the lower-level path generation could yield solutions with over 94% area coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]