Bureaucratic Rationale and Use of an Academic Concept in Policy-Making: The Rise and Fall of the Regional Innovation System in South Korea

Sonn J. W. and Kang H. Bureaucratic rationale and use of an academic concept in policy-making: the rise and fall of the regional innovation system in South Korea, Regional Studies. This paper contributes to the understanding of the interface between academic research and regional policy. According to the literature on policy rationale, policy-makers select elements from existing academic research that fit their policy rationale. This paper further expands on this idea and argues that bureaucrats not only passively choose academic concepts but also actively reconstruct them. To show this, the paper theoretically distinguishes between three different levels of policy rationale – meta, intermediate and specific – and analyses the way the regional innovation system concept was used in regional policies under South Korea's Roh administration (2003–08)

Factors influencing audio-visual comfort evaluation in the metro commercial space

Metro commercial spaces have a potential audio-visual problem because of lack of outside openings. China has built plenty metro commercial entities with its rapid urban development, in which the audio-visual comfort has been concerned as current situation is not good. In order to improve space quality and then enhance staying willing in the metro commercial space, this paper illustrates a study of influencing factors on aural and visual comfort in the metro commercial space. The study takes three metropolises (Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Guangzhou) into account and investigated 103 metro commercial cases. In the study, the spatial differences on aural and visual comfort were firstly examined, and then physical factors of the acoustic and visual environments were considered. It is found that correlations of various acoustic and visual environmental factors on aural and visual comfort were not significant as the correlation value is rather low. If taking spatial differences into account, closer relations could be found. It discovered that visual environmental factors could influence aural comfort, and the vice versa. The factors of saturation, brightness, illuminance and roughness from the visual environment, and sound level and sources from the acoustic environment, are significantly influence aural and visual comfort especially to a typical spatial type of the metro commercial space

Nanocluster-Based Ultralow-Temperature Driven Oxide Gate Dielectrics for High-Performance Organic Electronic Devices.

The development of novel dielectric materials with reliable dielectric properties and low-temperature processibility is crucial to manufacturing flexible and high-performance organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) for next-generation roll-to-roll organic electronics. Here, we investigate the solution-based fabrication of high-k aluminum oxide (Al2O3) thin films for high-performance OTFTs. Nanocluster-based Al2O3 films fabricated by highly energetic photochemical activation, which allows low-temperature processing, are compared to the conventional nitrate-based Al2O3 films. A wide array of spectroscopic and surface analyses show that ultralow-temperature photochemical activation (6 MV/cm). Using this dielectric layer, precisely aligned microrod-shaped 2,7-dioctyl[1]benzothieno [3,2-b][1] benzothiophene (C8-BTBT) single-crystal OTFTs were fabricated via solvent vapor annealing and photochemical patterning of the sacrificial layer

Variation of structural, electrical, and optical properties of Zn <inf>1-x</inf>Mg <inf>x</inf>O thin films

Zn 1-xMg xO thin films on (001) sapphire substrates were deposited using pulsed laser deposition. As the substrate temperature increased, the Mg content in the Zn 1-xMg xO thin films increased and the photoluminescence (PL) peak position of the Zn 1-xMg xO thin films shifted from 370 to 356 nm, indicating a band gap expansion. Variations of the structural, electrical, and optical properties of Zn 1-xMgO thin films have been observed and analyzed by x-ray diffraction, Hall measurements, and PL measurements. © 2006 American Institute of Physics

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A Reaction Between High Mn-High Al Steel and CaO-SiO2-Type Molten Mold Flux: Part I. Composition Evolution in Molten Mold Flux

In order to elucidate the reaction mechanism between high Mn-high Al steel such as twin-induced plasticity steel and molten mold flux composed mainly of CaO-SiO2 during continuous casting process, a series of laboratory-scale experiments were carried out in the present study. Molten steel and molten flux were brought to react in a refractory crucible in a temperature range between 1713 K to 1823 K (1440 A degrees C to 1550 A degrees C) and composition evolution in the steel and the flux was analyzed using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence, and electron probe microanalysis. The amount of SiO2 in the flux was significantly reduced by Al in the steelthus, Al2O3 was accumulated in the flux as a result of a chemical reaction, 4[Al] + 3(SiO2) = 3[Si] + 2(Al2O3). In order to find a major factor which governs the reaction, a number of factors ((pct CaO/pct SiO2), (pct Al2O3), [pct Al], [pct Si], and temperature) were varied in the experiments. It was found that the above chemical reaction was mostly governed by [pct Al] in the molten steel. Temperature had a mild effect on the reaction. On the other hand, (pct CaO/pct SiO2), (pct Al2O3), and [pct Si] did not show any noticeable effect on the reaction. Apart from the above reaction, the following reactions are also thought to happen simultaneously: 2[Mn] + (SiO2) = [Si] + 2(MnO) and 2[Fe] + (SiO2) = [Si] + 2(FeO). These oxide components were subsequently reduced by Al in the molten steel. Na2O in the molten flux was gradually decreased and the decrease was accelerated by increasing [pct Al] and temperature. Possible reactions affecting the Al2O3 accumulation are summarized.ope

Adsorption-induced conversion of the carbon nanotube field effect transistor from ambipolar to unipolar behavior

We investigate ambipolar to unipolar transition by the effect of ambient air on the carbon nanotube field-effect transistor. A unipolar transport property of the double-walled nanotube field-effect transistor and its conversion from ambipolar behavior are observed. We suggest that adsorptions of oxygen molecules, whose lowest-unoccupied-molecular-orbital state is around the midgap of the carbon nanotube, could suppress the electron channel formation and, consequently, result in the unipolar transport behavior.open343

Do differences in profiling criteria bias performance measurements? Economic profiling of medical clinics under the Korea National Health Insurance program: An observational study using claims data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>With a greater emphasis on cost containment in many health care systems, it has become common to evaluate each physician's relative resource use. This study explored the major factors that influence the economic performance rankings of medical clinics in the Korea National Health Insurance (NHI) program by assessing the consistency between cost-efficiency indices constructed using different profiling criteria.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data on medical care benefit costs for outpatient care at medical clinics nationwide were collected from the NHI claims database. We calculated eight types of cost-efficiency index with different profiling criteria for each medical clinic and investigated the agreement between the decile rankings of each index pair using the weighted kappa statistic.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The exclusion of pharmacy cost lowered agreement between rankings to the lowest level, and differences in case-mix classification also lowered agreement considerably.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A medical clinic may be identified as either cost-efficient or cost-inefficient, even when using the same index, depending on the profiling criteria applied. Whether a country has a single insurance or a multiple-insurer system, it is very important to have standardized profiling criteria for the consolidated management of health care costs.</p