Instrumental Variable Estimates of the Effect of Management Practices on Firm Performance in Korean Firms

To empirically examine the unbiased effect of management practice on firm productivity, this paper aims to suggest an instrumental variable approach, which requires less costly method. This study uses three firm-level instrumental variables such as the motivations for organizational reform, empowerment, and IT investment during the organizational reform. For empirical study, we use Korean manufacturing firm-level data that contains information on management score and financial statement. The results of the instrumental variable estimation show that better management practice leads to higher level of firm productivity statistically significantly, while the effect of management practices is statistically insignificant in the ordinary least square estimation

Instrumental Variable Estimates of the Effect of Management Practices on Firm Performance in Korean Firms

To empirically examine the unbiased effect of management practice on firm productivity, this paper aims to suggest an instrumental variable approach, which requires less costly method. This study uses three firm-level instrumental variables such as the motivations for organizational reform, empowerment, and IT investment during the organizational reform. For empirical study, we use Korean manufacturing firm-level data that contains information on management score and financial statement. The results of the instrumental variable estimation show that better management practice leads to higher level of firm productivity statistically significantly, while the effect of management practices is statistically insignificant in the ordinary least square estimation

Clinical and microbiologic characteristics of tcdA-negative variant clostridium difficile infections

BACKGROUND: The tcdA-negative variant (A(-)B(+)) of Clostridium difficile is prevalent in East Asian countries. However, the risk factors and clinical characteristics of A(-)B(+)C. difficile infections (CDI) are not clearly documented. The objective of this study was to investigate these characteristics. METHODS: From September 2008 through January 2010, the clinical characteristics, medication history and treatment outcomes of CDI patients were recorded prospectively. Toxin characterization and antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed on stool isolates of C. difficile. RESULTS: During the study period, we identified 22 cases of CDI caused by tcdA-negative tcdB-positive (A(-)B(+)) strains and 105 cases caused by tcdA-positive tcdB-positive (A(+)B(+)) strains. There was no significant difference in disease severity or clinical characteristics between the two groups. Previous use of clindamycin and young age were identified as significant risk factors for the acquisition of A(-)B(+) CDI (OR = 4.738, 95% CI 1.48–15.157, p = 0.009 and OR = 0.966, 95% CI 0.935–0.998, p = 0.038, respectively) in logistic regression. Rates of resistance to clindamycin were 100% and 69.6% in the A(-)B(+) and A(+)B(+) isolates, respectively (p = 0.006), and the ermB gene was identified in 17 of 21 A(-)B(+) isolates (81%). Resistance to moxifloxacin was also more frequent in the A(-)B(+) than in the A(+)B(+) isolates (95.2% vs. 63.7%, p = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: The clinical course of A(-)B(+) CDI is not different from that of A(+)B(+) CDI. Clindamycin use is a significant risk factor for the acquisition of tcdA-negative variant strains

Self-Sexualization in Relation to Sexual Harassment and Body Shame

While many researchers examined several harmful consequences of the imposed or forced sexualization of women, still little is known about voluntary self-sexualization and its potential effects on women who engage in the practice. Although the idea that self-sexualization is self-fulfilling remains contentious, women who self-sexualize are naturally expected to receive sexualized attention, including unwanted attention. This study starts with the question of whether self-sexualizing women, including those who use self-sexualization as a source of power, experience sexual objectification, measured by nonphysical sexual harassment, and its negative consequence, measured by body shame. Furthermore, we investigate how age moderates the relationship. An online questionnaire was created and a total of 308 women completed the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the hypothesized causal relationships from self-sexualization (self-empowering sexualization and no-power-intent self-sexualization) to nonphysical sexual harassment, which can lead to body shame. The results showed that the effects of self-sexualization are dependent on the intent for self-sexualization as well as the self-sexualizer’s age. While self-sexualization without intent to gain power can lead to increased sexual harassment incidents and body shame, mature women’s self-sexualization as a source of power does not lead to increased sexual harassment experiences nor increased body shame. However, unlike the mature women’s self-empowering sexualization, the young women’s self-sexualization, with or without intent to gain power, can lead to more sexual harassment experiences. The findings of this study indicate the need to uncover the various intentions for self-sexualization as well as their different effects

Excess mortality and the COVID-19 pandemic: causes of death and social inequalities

Background During the coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, population’s mortality has been affected not only by the risk of infection itself, but also through deferred care for other causes and changes in lifestyle. This study aims to investigate excess mortality by cause of death and socio-demographic context during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea.  Methods Mortality data within the period 2015–2020 were obtained from Statistics Korea, and deaths from COVID-19 were excluded. We estimated 2020 daily excess deaths for all causes, the eight leading causes of death, and according to individual characteristics, using a two-stage interrupted time series design accounting for temporal trends and variations in other risk factors. Results During the pandemic period (February 18 to December 31, 2020), an estimated 663 (95% empirical confidence interval [eCI]: -2356–3584) excess deaths occurred in South Korea. Mortality related to respiratory diseases decreased by 4371 (3452–5480), whereas deaths due to metabolic diseases and ill-defined causes increased by 808 (456–1080) and 2756 (2021–3378), respectively. The increase in all-cause deaths was prominent in those aged 65–79 years (941, 88–1795), with an elementary school education or below (1757, 371–3030), or who were single (785, 384–1174), while a decrease in deaths was pronounced in those with a college-level or higher educational attainment (1471, 589–2328). Conclusion No evidence of a substantial increase in all-cause mortality was found during the 2020 pandemic period in South Korea, as a result of a large decrease in deaths related to respiratory diseases that offset increased mortality from metabolic disease and diseases of ill-defined cause. The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected those of lower socioeconomic status and has exacerbated inequalities in mortality.This work was supported by Korea Environment Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) through "Climate Change R&D Project for New Climate Regime.", funded by Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE) (2022003570006)

Factors influencing adolescents healthy pregnancy preparation behavior: a cross-sectional gender comparison applying the health belief model

Interventions to prepare for a healthy pregnancy from an early age can ensure the health of both mother and child. This study aims to compare the factors associated with healthy pregnancy preparation behavior (HPPB) among male and female adolescents. A total of 690 Korean adolescents participated in this cross-sectional study from July 11 to August 24, 2018. Determinants of the likelihood of engaging in HPPB were described using hierarchical regression about the importance of and confidence in HPPB, the gender equality related to pregnancy and birth, and the health belief model (HBM) constructs about HPPB. Smoking experience (β = − 0.18, p < 0.001 for boys, β = − 0.25, p < 0.001 for girls), and HBM constructs were identified as factors correlated with HPPB in both genders. The significant factors in boys were perceived susceptibility (β = − 0.13, p = 0.005), perceived severity (β = 0.12, p = 0.015), perceived benefits (β = 0.23, p < 0.001), and perceived barriers (β = − 0.18, p < 0.001), whereas the corresponding factors in girls were perceived severity (β = 0.20, p = 0.001), and perceived barriers (β = − 0.23, p < 0.001). The importance of HPPB was identified as a factor only among girls (β = 0.19, p = 0.005), while confidence in HPPB (β = 0.12, p = 0.401), gender equality related to pregnancy and childbirth (β = − 0.20, p = 0.001 for womens responsibility variable, β = 0.14, p = 0.018 for mens responsibility variable), and alcohol (β = − 0.10, p = 0.022) were factors identified only among boys. The gender differences in opinions on HPPB identified in this study can help nurses and community health care professionals recognize issues for which they can develop and implement preventive interventions. For healthy pregnancy preparation, interventions based on HBM constructs and smoking should be presented for both male and female adolescents. Imparting education to females on the importance of HPPB and to males on confidence in HPPB, gender equality related to pregnancy and childbirth, and alcohol consumption, should be emphasized. In addition, as perceived susceptibility may be low in a disease prevention model using the health belief model, it is necessary to prioritize increasing the perceived susceptibility of school-age children as an intervention.Plain Language Summary In the context of pregnancy preparation, attention has recently shifted from the period just before pregnancy to the early years, or even throughout ones life. The World Health Organization identifies adolescents as requiring specific attention. Adolescents health behaviors can impact their adulthood years and have significant repercussions on the health of the future generation. In addition, recent studies consistently report that the preparedness of both men and women is essential to pregnancy preparation. Therefore, it is now time to present a new strategy by identifying and grasping the different factors that influence the two genders. This study can raise awareness of healthy pregnancy preparation behavior from adolescence onwards of both genders. There were differences in factors affecting HPPB by gender. For healthy pregnancy preparation, interventions based on HBM constructs and smoking should be presented for both male and female adolescents. Imparting education to females on the importance of HPPB (β = 0.19, p = 0.005) and males on confidence in HPPB (β = 0.12, p = 0.401), gender equality related to pregnancy and childbirth (β = − 0.20, p = 0.001 for womens responsibility variable, β = 0.14, p = 0.018 for mens responsibility variable), and alcohol consumption (β = − 0.10, p = 0.022) should be emphasized; and effective healthy pregnancy preventive strategies should be developed based on these findings. Interventions to prepare for a healthy pregnancy from an early age can ensure the health of both mother and child.This study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (Grant No. 2018R1A2B2001231, 2022R1G1A1003939) And this research was supported by the BK21 four project (Center for Human-Caring Nurses leaders for thr future) funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE, Korea) and NR

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Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning with Fully Homomorphic Encryption for Deep Neural Network

Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) is one of the prospective tools for privacypreserving machine learning (PPML), and several PPML models have been proposed based on various FHE schemes and approaches. Although the FHE schemes are known as suitable tools to implement PPML models, previous PPML models on FHE encrypted data are limited to only simple and non-standard types of machine learning models. These non-standard machine learning models are not proven efficient and accurate with more practical and advanced datasets. Previous PPML schemes replace non-arithmetic activation functions with simple arithmetic functions instead of adopting approximation methods and do not use bootstrapping, which enables continuous homomorphic evaluations. Thus, they could not use standard activation functions and could not employ a large number of layers. The maximum classification accuracy of the existing PPML model with the FHE for the CIFAR-10 dataset was only 77% until now. In this work, we firstly implement the standard ResNet-20 model with the RNS-CKKS FHE with bootstrapping and verify the implemented model with the CIFAR-10 dataset and the plaintext model parameters. Instead of replacing the non-arithmetic functions with the simple arithmetic function, we use state-of-the-art approximation methods to evaluate these non-arithmetic functions, such as the ReLU, with sufficient precision [1]. Further, for the first time, we use the bootstrapping technique of the RNS-CKKS scheme in the proposed model, which enables us to evaluate a deep learning model on the encrypted data. We numerically verify that the proposed model with the CIFAR-10 dataset shows 98.67% identical results to the original ResNet-20 model with non-encrypted data. The classification accuracy of the proposed model is 90.67%, which is pretty close to that of the original ResNet-20 CNN model...Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Breathing silicon anodes for durable high-power operations

Silicon anode materials have been developed to achieve high capacity lithium ion batteries for operating smart phones and driving electric vehicles for longer time. Serious volume expansion induced by lithiation, which is the main drawback of silicon, has been challenged by multi-faceted approaches. Mechanically rigid and stiff polymers (e.g. alginate and carboxymethyl cellulose) were considered as the good choices of binders for silicon because they grab silicon particles in a tight and rigid way so that pulverization and then break-away of the active mass from electric pathways are suppressed. Contrary to the public wisdom, in this work, we demonstrate that electrochemical performances are secured better by letting silicon electrodes breathe in and out lithium ions with volume change rather than by fixing their dimensions. The breathing electrodes were achieved by using a polysaccharide (pullulan), the conformation of which is modulated from chair to boat during elongation. The conformational transition of pullulan was originated from its a glycosidic linkages while the conventional rigid polysaccharide binders have beta linkagesopen1