The Determinants of Childbirth Grants of Local Governments in South Korea

Declining fertility is one of the top policy issues in South Korea. To increase the birth rate, the government of South Korea has been enacting several fertility encouragement polices. Although almost all of the birth encouragement policies have been led by the central government, a childbirth grant program was developed by primary local governments themselves. The grant levels vary significantly between local governments. I examine what explains the differences in the childbirth grant level by analyzing twelve years (2004-2015) of panel data with a fixed-effects model. Prior studies indicate that the extent of demand for a policy and the availability of financial resources are the main factors influencing welfare policies of South Korean local governments. From this point of view, my study focuses on population fluctuation and fiscal capacity of the local governments as the primary explanatory variables while including several socio-economic and political factors as control variables. According to my estimation results, population change has a statistically significant impact on the grant level (generosity of the grants) offered by primary local governments in the provinces while it has no significant impact in the metropolitan cites. By contrast, the fiscal capacity has a subtle impact only on the grant levels of the municipalities in the metropolitan cities. Interestingly, the grant level of nearby local governments has a positive effect both in the provinces and metropolitan cities. The results indicate the local governments in the provinces respond more sensitively to population change regardless of their fiscal capacity. Most provinces have more small municipalities facing a shrinking population compared to metropolitan cities. While the stated goal of childbirth grants is increasing births, a competition among local governments not to lose younger people to nearby local governments contributes to increasing childbirth grants. This suggests the central government intervene in the childbirth grant policy of local governments to alleviate financial burden on the small and poor local governments as well as to increase the birth rate

Continuum understanding of twin formation near grain boundaries of FCC metals with low stacking fault energy

Deformation twinning from grain boundaries is often observed in face-centered cubic metals with low stacking fault energy. One of the possible factors that contribute to twinning origination from grain boundaries is the intergranular interactions during deformation. Nonetheless, the influence of mechanical interaction among grains on twin evolution has not been fully understood. In spite of extensive experimental and modeling efforts on correlating microstructural features with their twinning behavior, a clear relation among the large aggregate of grains is still lacking. In this work, we characterize the micromechanics of grain-to-grain interactions that contribute to twin evolution by investigating the mechanical twins near grain boundaries using a full-field crystal plasticity simulation of a twinning-induced plasticity steel deformed in uniaxial tension at room temperature. Microstructures are first observed through electron backscatter diffraction technique to obtain data to reconstruct a statistically equivalent microstructure through synthetic microstructure building. Grain-to-grain micromechanical response is analyzed to assess the collective twinning behavior of the microstructural volume element under tensile deformation. Examination of the simulated results reveal that grain interactions are capable of changing the local mechanical behavior near grain boundaries by transferring strain across grain boundary or localizing strain near grain boundary.116Ysciescopu

Design principles for transforming making programs into online settings at public libraries

Purpose This paper aims to investigate design principles for transforming existing making communities of practice within public libraries into online knowledge-building communities to support youths, families with young children and adult members’ making and tinkering during COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach Building upon C4P and connected learning framework, the authors analyze existing literature and practitioner reports on informal learning projects related to making and STEM learning, family learning and online learning as well as emergent cases of innovative approaches in response to COVID-19 from public libraries, informal learning institutions and community groups. Findings The authors suggest 11 design principles around five areas: program design, facilitation, tools and materials, process documentation and sharing and feedback. Originality/value This work contributes to the information and learning sciences concerned with community engagement and knowledge creation by suggesting a design model to transform and sustain existing making communities of practice within public libraries into online knowledge-building communities during COVID-19

Possible Use Case of the Multidisciplinary Approach of Art Collaboration

898-901Recognizing that much of art collaboration projects undertaken by businesses today consume art for simple marketing purposes only and that even academic research on art collaboration is lopsidedly focused on the marketing function thereof, this study explores prospects for long-term collaboration between fine art and businesses. Contrasting the majority of one-time marketing events that have been organized in the form of art collaboration by innumerable businesses so far, the partnership between Unilever and Tate Modern, on the one hand, and Hyundai Motor’s culture and art projects, on the other, are distinct for their long-term commitment to culture and the arts. These two cases have opened up new possibilities for not only artists, but also businesses and consumers. Taking inspiration from Rosalind Krauss’ emphasis on “reinventing the medium” as the “post-medium condition” defining contemporary art, this study explores the importance of aesthetic value to long-term collaboration between fine art and commerce, and examines the broader horizon of opportunities that such collaboration opens up for both sides

PGA: Personalizing Grasping Agents with Single Human-Robot Interaction

Language-Conditioned Robotic Grasping (LCRG) aims to develop robots that ground and grasp objects based on natural language instructions. While robots capable of recognizing personal objects like "my wallet" can interact more naturally with non-expert users, current LCRG systems primarily limit robots to understanding only generic expressions. To this end, we introduce a task scenario GraspMine with a novel dataset that aims to locate and grasp personal objects given personal indicators via learning from a single human-robot interaction. To address GraspMine, we propose Personalized Grasping Agent (PGA), that learns personal objects by propagating user-given information through a Reminiscence-a collection of raw images from the user's environment. Specifically, PGA acquires personal object information by a user presenting a personal object with its associated indicator, followed by PGA inspecting the object by rotating it. Based on the acquired information, PGA pseudo-labels objects in the Reminiscence by our proposed label propagation algorithm. Harnessing the information acquired from the interactions and the pseudo-labeled objects in the Reminiscence, PGA adapts the object grounding model to grasp personal objects. Experiments on GraspMine show that PGA significantly outperforms baseline methods both in offline and online settings, signifying its effectiveness and personalization applicability on real-world scenarios. Finally, qualitative analysis shows the effectiveness of PGA through a detailed investigation of results in each phase.Comment: 7 pages, under revie

Possible Use Case of the Multidisciplinary Approach of Art Collaboration

Recognizing that much of art collaboration projects undertaken by businesses today consume art for simple marketing purposes only and that even academic research on art collaboration is lopsidedly focused on the marketing function thereof, this study explores prospects for long-term collaboration between fine art and businesses. Contrasting the majority of one-time marketing events that have been organized in the form of art collaboration by innumerable businesses so far, the partnership between Unilever and Tate Modern, on the one hand, and Hyundai Motor’s culture and art projects, on the other, are distinct for their long-term commitment to culture and the arts. These two cases have opened up new possibilities for not only artists, but also businesses and consumers. Taking inspiration from Rosalind Krauss’ emphasis on “reinventing the medium” as the “post-medium condition” defining contemporary art, this study explores the importance of aesthetic value to long-term collaboration between fine art and commerce, and examines the broader horizon of opportunities that such collaboration opens up for both sides

Linear programming method to construct equated item sets for the implementation of periodical computer-based testing for the Korean Medical Licensing Examination

Purpose This study aimed to identify the best way of developing equivalent item sets and to propose a stable and effective management plan for periodical licensing examinations. Methods Five pre-equated item sets were developed based on the predicted correct answer rate of each item using linear programming. These pre-equated item sets were compared to the ones that were developed with a random item selection method based on the actual correct answer rate (ACAR) and difficulty from item response theory (IRT). The results with and without common items were also compared in the same way. ACAR and the IRT difficulty were used to determine whether there was a significant difference between the pre-equating conditions. Results There was a statistically significant difference in IRT difficulty among the results from different pre-equated conditions. The predicted correct answer rate was divided using 2 or 3 difficulty categories, and the ACAR and IRT difficulty parameters of the 5 item sets were equally constructed. Comparing the item set conditions with and without common items, including common items did not make a significant contribution to the equating of the 5 item sets. Conclusion This study suggested that the linear programming method is applicable to construct equated-item sets that reflect each content area. The suggested best method to construct equated item sets is to divide the predicted correct answer rate using 2 or 3 difficulty categories, regardless of common items. If pre-equated item sets are required to construct a test based on the actual data, several methods should be considered by simulation studies to determine which is optimal before administering a real test

Unveiling the Role of Ruthenium in Layered Sodium Cobaltite Toward High-Performance Electrode Enabled by Anionic and Cationic Redox

The effect of Ru substitution on the structure and electrochemical properties of P2-type Na0.67CoO2 is investigated. The first-discharge capacities of Na0.67CoO2 and Na0.6 [Co0.78Ru0.22]O2 materials are 128 and 163 mAh g−1 (23.5 mA g−1), respectively. Furthermore, the rate capability is improved due to the electro-conducting nature of Ru doping. Operando X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that the Na0.67CoO2 does not undergo a phase transition; however, multiple Na+/vacancy ordered superstructures within the P2 phase appear during Na+ extraction/insertion. In contrast, the Na0.6[Co0.78Ru0.22]O2 material undergoes a P2–OP4 phase transition during desodiation, with no formation of Na+/vacancy ordering within the P2 phase. The increased discharge capacity of Na0.6[Co0.78Ru0.22]O2 is most likely associated with additional cationic Ru4+/Ru5+ redox and increased anionic O2−/(O2n−) redox participation. Combined experimental (galvanostatic cycling, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, differential electrochemical mass spectrometry) and theoretical (density functional theory calculations) studies confirm that Ru substitution provokes the oxygen-redox reaction and that partial O2 release from the oxide lattice is the origin of the reaction. The findings provide new insight for improving the electrode performance of cathode materials via 4d Ru substitution and motivate the development of a new strategy for the design of high-capacity cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries.</p