Income Distribution and Public Transfers as Social Safety Nets in Korea

Using 5-year balanced household panel data, this paper shows that the inequality of per capita income in Korea aggravated during the financial crisis in 1998. The decomposition analysis of income inequality by factor component shows that the dominant positive effect on the income inequality is by the asset income. Next is the wage income, followed by the other income. Furthermore, this paper shows that social safety net programs were not yet in place during the initial period of the crisis. Public transfers were not effective social safety net devices and did not contribute in decreasing income inequality. Private transfers, on the other hand, were effective devices and narrowed the disparity in household income.

The Singer's Formant and Speaker's Ring Resonance: A Long-Term Average Spectrum Analysis

ObjectivesWe previously showed that a trained tenor's voice has the conventional singer's formant at the region of 3 kHz and another energy peak at 8-9 kHz. Singers in other operatic voice ranges are assumed to have the same peak in their singing and speaking voice. However, to date, no specific measurement of this has been made.MethodsTenors, baritones, sopranos and mezzo sopranos were chosen to participate in this study of the singer's formant and the speaker's ring resonance. Untrained males (n=15) and females (n=15) were included in the control group. Each subject was asked to produce successive /a/ vowel sounds in their singing and speaking voice. For singing, the low pitch was produced in the chest register and the high notes in the head register. We collected the data on the long-term average spectra of the speaking and singing voices of the trained singers and the control groups.ResultsFor the sounds produced from the head register, a significant energy concentration was seen in both 2.2-3.4 kHz and 7.5-8.4 kHz regions (except for the voices of the mezzo sopranos) in the trained singer group when compared to the control groups. Also, the chest register had a significant energy concentration in the 4 trained singer groups at the 2.2-3.1 kHz and 7.8-8.4 kHz. For speaking sound, all trained singers had a significant energy concentration at 2.2-5.3 kHz and sopranos had another energy concentration at 9-10 kHz.ConclusionThe results of this study suggest that opera singers have more energy concentration in the singer's formant/speaker's ring region, in both singing and speaking voices. Furthermore, another region of energy concentration was identified in opera singer's singing sound and in sopranos' speaking sound at 8-9 kHz. The authors believe that these energy concentrations may contribute to the rich voice of trained singers

Comparison of very-large-scale motions of turbulent pipe and boundary layer simulations

A direct numerical simulation of a fully developed turbulent pipe flow was performed to investigate the similarities and differences of very-large-scale motions (VLSMs) to those of turbulent boundary layer (TBL) flows. The Reynolds number was set to ReD = 35 000, and the computational domain was 30 pipe radii in length. Inspection of instantaneous fields, streamwise two-point correlations, and population trends of the momentum regions showed that the streamwise length of the structures in the pipe flow grew continuously beyond the log layer (y/?? 3??), and the maximum length of the VLSMs increased up to ~30??. Such differences between the TBL and pipe flows arose due to the entrainment of large plumes of the intermittent potential flow in the TBL, creating break-down of the streamwise coherence of the structures above the log layer with the strong swirling strength and Reynolds shear stress. The average streamwise length scale of the pipe flow was approximately 1.5-3.0 times larger than that of the TBL through the log and wake regions. The maximum contribution of the structures to the Reynolds shear stress was observed at approximately 6?? in length, whereas that of the TBL was at 1??-2??, indicating a higher contribution of the VLSMs to the Reynolds shear stress in the pipe flow than in the TBL flow.open1

Robotic Sacrocolpopexy for Treatment of Prolapse of the Apical Segment of the Vagina

Abdominal sacrocolpopexy for apical prolapse repair is the gold standard treatment and is more effective and durable than the transvaginal approach. The increase in minimally invasive surgery has led to attempts at laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy, but this technique has not gained popularity due to complex procedures and a steep learning curve. Robotic sacrocolpopexy overcomes these issues and has yielded good results for more than 15 years, with equivalent outcomes and safety to open and laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy (LSC). LSC is still a useful procedure for experienced surgeons, but it is expected that robot-assisted sacrocolpopexy (RSC) will have better results overall due to the advantages of the robotic instrument. The most important advantage is that surgeons who are inexperienced with minimally invasive approaches can more readily master RSC compared to overcoming the steep learning curve of LSC