Search

Local governments around the world have implemented various budget participation mechanisms to overcome the drawbacks of representative-directed budget allocation by allowing the public to participate directly in the budget process. How far these budget participation mechanisms influence budget allocation decisions and produce the desired financial outcomes is still under debate. This article explains South Korean local government budget participation practices and reveals that adopting public budget participation mechanisms with greater citizen empowerment and inclusiveness increases expenditures that benefit the majority at the expense of special interest groups. The authors' findings will be helpful for local government managers and policy-makers who are considering adopting budget participation mechanisms. In this article, the authors investigate how participatory budgeting affects local spending. They test their hypothesis on a large N sample in South Korea that budget institutions with a higher participation level (higher empowerment and inclusiveness) increase their spending on the majority of the public and limit spending for the exclusive interests of the few. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the management strategy changes of a government-hosted festival from the government's perspective based on Ansell and Gash's (2008) definitive criteria of collaborative governance. Design/methodology/approach: This is a longitudinal case study of Hi Seoul Festival (HSF) in South Korea from 2003 to 2013. First, a detailed description of HSF management strategy change over time is presented through an analysis of internal government documents. Then, factors influencing management strategy changes are investigated through interviews with governmental and professional stakeholders. Findings: The content analysis of the internal government documents reveals that HSF's management strategy changed between collaborative governance and contracting out multiple times. The follow-up interviews then found that the prehistory experiences in managing festivals, the change of festival goals, and political leverages influenced the management strategy changes. Originality/value: The government is one of the key stakeholders of festivals, which sometimes hosts and manages its own festivals. However, how a government manages its own festival is rarely studied. This study would add new insights into the studies of government-hosted festivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the cutoff value and efficacy of the EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale (EQ-VAS) for predicting frailty.Design: The EQ-VAS medians (Interquartile Range) were compared and analyzed against the FFI.Participants: The subjects were 1471 older adults aged 70 to 84 years who had completed both EQ-VAS and Fried Frailty index (FFI) in the first baseline year (2016) of the Korean Frailty and Aging Cohort Study.Results: Of the 1471 subjects,600 were classified as robust, 716 as pre-frail, and 155 as frail. The median EQ-VAS scores were 80.00 (20.00) for robust, 75.00 (25.00) for pre-frail, and 60.00 (25.00) for frail subjects.The medians of all five components of the FFI, weight loss (70.00 vs. 80.00), grip strength (70.00 vs. 80.00), exhaustion (70.00 vs. 80.00), walking velocity (70.00 vs. 80.00), and physical activity (70.00 vs. 80.00), were lower in the abnormal groups. We tested the efficacy of EQ-VAS as a diagnostic tool to predict frailty, and the area under the curve of EQ-VAS was 0.71 withthe optimal cut-off value of 72.Conclusion: EQ-VAS presented negative correlation with FFI, and the optimal cut off value for frailty was 72. These results suggest that EQ-VAS is a valuable tool for assessing frailty andmay be a good predictor of frailty in Korean elderly population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, direct citizen engagement in budgeting helps local governments reflect the citizens' budget preferences more precisely, thereby enhancing citizen-government communication. However, the efficacies of budget participation remain ambiguous considering both its democratic values and the cost of deliberation. In this study, we test how direct citizen participation by means of participatory budgeting (PB) affects the financial condition of local governments. We use a sophisticated concept of financial condition that encompasses various abilities of local government. We measure the degree of citizen participation as the availability of institutional mechanisms associated with different levels of inclusiveness and authorities determined by South Korean local government ordinances of formal budget participation. Our empirical analysis based on South Korean local governments' data between 2012 and 2019 reveals that a PB institution with higher participation level further worsens the local financial condition. The adverse effects are mostly identified in the mid-term and long-term financial conditions, whereas the short-term financial condition remains unaffected. The findings imply that direct participation in theory corrects mismatches between bureaucratic and citizen priorities, but, in practice, the citizens may inappropriately direct mid- and long-term oriented public investment and debt management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participants: B. Cho (Korea) ISSUE Care coordination is important to manage chronic disease. But, there are in shortage of care coordinator in primary care of Korea. We started 'Comprehensive chronic care project in primary care' demonstration project. Care coordinator application program was introduced to solve the care coordinator shortage problem. CONTENT The application program consists of 1) AI chatbot application 2) Communication with health coach 3) Life style monitoring (exercise, diet, stress). It adopted blended approach with AI and health coach direct consultation. Primary care doctors and health coaches shared the health information of patients who agreed to this program. New system to facilitate communication among medical doctors and health coaches and patients was developed. STRUCTURE Patients are asked to install app by primary care physician. Primary care physician, health coach and patient communicate through the app more efficiently. CONCLUSION Patients who use care coordinate app managed their life style more efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Objective: Tacrolimus has been shown to be an important immunosuppressive agent in organ and bone marrow transplantation. Previously, we reported that there were no statistically significant differences between the pharmacokinetic parameters of the oral formulation of generic tacrolimus (TacroBell) and the conventional formulation (Prograf). This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of oral capsules of TacroBell in de novo renal transplantation. Methods: Ninety-six renal transplant recipients from 9 transplantation centers in South Korea were enrolled between November 2005 and July 2007. De novo renal recipients ranged from 19–65 years old. Ninety-four patients who underwent renal transplantation were administered study drug at least one time in the intent-to-treat (ITT) analysis. This phase 4 clinical trial was a 26-week, open-label, noncomparative, multicenter study. Results: An acute rejection episode developed in 10/94 recipients (10.6%, 95% confidence interval, 4.4%–16.9%). There were no patient deaths during the study. The 6-month graft survival rate was 96.8%. Conclusion: Based on this study, treatment with TacroBell is considered to be efficient and safe after primary renal transplantation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]