• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-30
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• 2010

Customers often experience waiting for buying service. Managing customers' waiting time is important for service providers since customers who are dissatisfied with waiting, secede from a service place at last. Not a few studies have been done to solve waiting time problem and improve customers' waiting experience. Hui & Tse(1996) identify evaluation factors in customers' behavioral mechanism as customers wait. That is, customers experience perceived waiting time, waiting acceptability and emotional response to the wait when they wait. Since customers evaluate the wait using these factors, service provider should manage these factors in order to minimize customers' dissatisfaction. Therefore, this study explores that evaluation factors of waiting are influenced by customers' situational and experiential characteristics, which include customer loyalty, transaction importance for customer and waiting expectation level. Those situational and experiential characteristics are usually given to service providers so they can't control these at waiting point. The major findings derived from two exploratory studies can be summarized as follows. First, according to the result from the study 1 (restaurant setting), customers' transaction importance has the greatest positive influence on waiting experience. The results show restaurant service provider could prevent customers' separation effectively through strategies which raise customers' transaction importance, like giving special coupons for important events. Second, in study 2 (amusement part setting) customer loyalty has large positive impact on waiting experience as well as transaction importance. This results show that service provider could minimize customers' dissatisfaction using strategies which raise customer loyalty continuously. This results show customer perceives waiting experience differently according to characteristics of service place and service itself. Therefore, service provider should grasp the unique customers' situational and experiential characters for each service and service place. It could provide an effective strategy for waiting time management. Third, the study finds transaction importance and waiting expectation level have direct influence customers' waiting experience as independent variables, while existing studies treated them as moderators. Customer loyalty which has not been incorporated in previous waiting time research is known to affect waiting experience. It suggests that marketing strategy which builds up customer loyalty for long period of time is also quite effective, compared to short term tactics to help customers endure waiting time. Fourth, this study reveals the importance of actual waiting time along with perceived waiting time. So far most studies only focus on customers' perceived waiting time. Especially, this study incorporates the concept of patient limit on waiting time to investigate effect of actual waiting time. The results show that there were various responses to the wait depending on how actual waiting time exceeds individual's patent limit on waiting time or not, even though customers wait about the same period of time. Finally, using structural equation model, conceptual path between behavioral responses is verified. As customer perceives waiting time, then she decides whether she can endure it or not, and then her emotional response occurs. This result are somewhat different from Hui & Tse(1996)'s study. The study also includes theoretical contributions as well as practical implications.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.3-33
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• 1991

Since the early 1980's, the Korean government has gradually been widening the Korean market to foreign consumer goods. This, combined with the increased purchasing power of the Korean consumers resulting from the continued economic growth of the country, has sparked a spectacular influx of foreign consumer goods into Korea, ranging from BMW's to chopsticks. Import of foreign consumer goods amounted to more than 6 billion dollars in 1989 and is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. The increased import of foreign consumer goods doubtlessly improved the overall welfare of the Korean consumers by providing them with a wider range of options to choose from, by lowering the prices of some of the consumer goods domestically produced, and also by forcing the producers of some Korean goods to face competition with better foreign goods, thus giving them an incentive to raise the quality of their products. However, it is agreed by most economists that this increase in general welfare has been much smaller than what they had expected at the outset. Consumer prices of most imported consumer goods are easily double the import price, and in some cases, more than treble the import prices. Further, there has not been a noticeable drop in the prices of domestically produced consumer goods. Much of the blame has been attributed to the distribution sector of Korea. The objective of this paper is to analyze the imported consumer goods distribution sector of Korea, focusing on the possible sources of the poor performance of that sector, and to make policy suggestions that could potentially increase the welfare. This paper differs from all the previous research by others on this subject in that it analyzes the imported consumer goods distribution sector of Korea as a vertical structure. The distribution sector of an imported consumer good is a vertical structure since it consists of an international market, an import stage, and domestic wholesale and retail markets, in that order vertically. Our study naturally includes the analysis of the vertical restraints as well as the analysis of the industrial organization of each horizontal stage in the vertical structure. Each horizontal component of the imported consumer goods distribution sector is basically a monopolistically competitive market differentiated by characteristics of goods and by the locations and the services of firms. Further, restrictive dealership and resale price maintenance are found to be widely in use. Our main findings are the follwing; First, most consumer goods are imported monopolistically or oligopolistically through restrictive dealership contracts between foreign producers and domestic importers. Such restrictive dealership gives importers market power in the domestic market and explains many of the large discrepancies betwen the consumer prices and the import prices of many goods. Korean anti - trust law does not cover the issues arising from the market power of an importer resulting from a restrictive dealership contract. Second, some major producers of Korean goods are also importers of foreign goods that are substitutes of their products. The import of substitutes by major domestic producers is anti - competitive because it tends to raise the prices of both domestic goods and foreign goods, and also because it reduces the incentive of the domestic producers to raise the quality of their products. Third, wholesalers and retailers widely use resale price maintenance as a price fixing mechanism, and while this is against the anti- trust law, it seldom gets noticed. Fourth, the high level of rents of real estate for commercial use works as an entry barrier to the distribution sector and results in reduced competition by the firms in that sector. Finally, there are information problems. Consumers have inferior information to firms about the quality of a foreign consumer good that they have not tried before. Such information asymmetry often enables firms to raise prices. In addition, information asymmetry between importers frequently delays the import of cheaper substitutes. In order to alleviate the problems indentified above, we suggest the following policy changes. The government should strengthen the anti - trust law and its enforcement to regulate restrictive import contracts, import of competing goods by major domestic producers, and RPM by wholesalers and retailers that is aimed at price fixing. In addition, the government should loosen its tight real estate policy to encourage investment in the distribution sector. Finally, we suggest that the import price revelation policy that has been in use for some items since 1990 be expanded to most imported consumer goods that are introduced for the first time to give consumer better information and be used only for the period of time needed to inform sufficient number of consumers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2013

In this study, the early suicide prevention program was applied to the elementary school students and compared the prior & post effect of the program, and verified the status of psychology change like emotional status, or temptation to take a suicide, and presented the possibility as a suicide prevention program. The period of adolescence is the very unstable period in the process of growth being cognitively immature, emotionally impulsive period. It is the period emotionally unstable and unpredictable possible to select the method of suicide as an extreme method to escape the reality, or impulsive problem solving against small conflict or dispute situation. Many stress of the student such as recent nuclear family, expectation of parents to their children, education problem, socio-environmental elements, individual psychological factor lead students to the extreme activity of suicide in recent days. In this study, the scope of stress experienced in the elementary school as well as idea and degree of temptation regarding suicide by the suicide prevention program were identified, and through prevention program such as meditation training, breath training and through experience of anger control, emotion-expression, self overcome and establish positive self-identity and make understanding Self-control, Self-esteem & preciousness of life based on which the effect to suicide prevention was analyzed. The study was made targeting 51 students of 2 classes of 6th grade of elementary school of Goyang-si and processed 30 minutes every morning focused on through experience & activity of the principle & method of brain science. The data was collected for 20 times before starting morning class by using Suicide Probability Scale(herein SPS-A) designed to predict effectively suicide Probability, suicide risk prediction scale, surveyed by 7 areas such as Positive outlook, Within the family closeness, Impulsivity, Interpersonal hostility, Hopelessness, Hopelessness syndrome, suicide accident. Analytical methods and validation was used the Wilcoxon's signed rank test using SPSS Program. Though the process of program in short period, but there was a effective and positive results in the 7 areas in the average comparison. But in the t-test result, there was a different outcome. It indicated changes in the 3 questionnaires (No.7, No.14, No.19) out of 31 SPS-A questionnaires, and there was a no change to the rest item. It also indicated more changes of the students in the class A than class B. And in case of the class A students, psychological changes were verified in the areas of Hopelessness syndrome, suicide accident among 7 areas after the program was processed. Through this study, it could be verified that different results could be derived depending on the Student tendency, program professional(teacher in charge, processing lecturer). The suicide prevention program presented in this article can be a help in learning and suicide prevention with consistent systematization, activation through emotion and impulse control based on emotional stress relief and positive self-identity recovery, stabilization of brain waves, and let the short period program not to be died out but to be continued connecting from childhood to adolescence capable to make surrounding environment for spiritual, physical healthy growth for which this could be an effective program for suicide prevention of the social problem.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.4-31
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• 2018

It is difficult to ascertain exactly when the Hongjuupseong (Town Wall) was first constructed, due to it had undergone several times of repair and maintenance works since it was piled up newly in 1415, when the first year of the reign of King Munjong (the 5th King of the Joseon Dynasty). Parts of its walls were demolished during the Japanese occupation, leaving the wall as it is today. Hongseong region is also susceptible to historical earthquakes for geological reasons. There have been records of earthquakes, such as the ones in 1978 and 1979 having magnitudes of 5.0 and 4.0, respectively, which left part of the walls collapsed. Again, in 2010, heavy rainfall destroyed another part of the wall. The fortress walls of the Hongjuupseong comprise various rocks, types of facing, building methods, and filling materials, according to sections. Moreover, the remaining wall parts were reused in repair works, and characteristics of each period are reflected vertically in the wall. Therefore, based on the vertical distribution of the walls, the Hongjuupseong was divided into type I, type II, and type III, according to building types. The walls consist mainly of coarse-grained granites, but, clearly different types of rocks were used for varying types of walls. The bottom of the wall shows a mixed variety of rocks and natural and split stones, whereas the center is made up mostly of coarse-grained granites. For repairs, pink feldspar granites was used, but it was different from the rock variety utilized for Suguji and Joyangmun Gate. Deterioration types to the wall can be categorized into bulging, protrusion of stones, missing stones at the basement, separation of framework, fissure and fragmentation, basement instability, and structural deformation. Manually and light-wave measurements were used to check the amount and direction of behavior of the fortress walls. A manual measurement revealed the sections that were undergoing structural deformation. Compared with the result of the light-wave measurement, the two monitoring methods proved correlational. As a result, the two measuring methods can be used complementarily for the long-term conservation and management of the wall. Additionally, the measurement system must be maintained, managed, and improved for the stability of the Hongjuupseong. The measurement of Nammunji indicated continuing changes in behavior due to collapse and rainfall. It can be greatly presumed that accumulated changes over the long period reached the threshold due to concentrated rainfall and subsequent behavioral irregularities, leading to the walls' collapse. Based on the findings, suggestions of the six grades of management from 0 to 5 have been made, to manage the Hongjuupseong more effectively. The applied suggested grade system of 501.9 m (61.10%) was assessed to grade 1, 29.5 m (3.77%) to grade 2, 10.4 m (1.33%) to grade 3, 241.2 m (30.80%) and grade 4. The sections with grade 4 concentrated around the west of Honghwamun Gate and the east of the battlement, which must be monitored regularly in preparation for a potential emergency. The six-staged management grade system is cyclical, where after performing repair and maintenance works through a comprehensive stability review, the section returned to grade 0. It is necessary to monitor thoroughly and evaluate grades on a regular basis.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.45-61
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to explore students' epistemic goals and considerations in designing an experiment task and to investigate how a shift in the students' epistemology affected their argumentation. Four 7th grade students were selected as a focus group. According to the results, when they designed their own experiment, their epistemic goal was 'scientific sense-making' and their epistemic considerations - the perception of the nature of the knowledge product was 'this experiment should explain how something happened', the perception of the justification was 'we need to use our interpretation of the data' and the perception of the audience was 'constructor' - contributed to designing their experiment actively. When students tried to select one argument, their epistemic goal shifted to 'winning a debate', showing 'my experiment is better than the others' with the perception of the audience, 'competitor'. Consequently, students only deprecated the limits of different experiment so that they did not explore the meaning of each experiment design deeply. Eventually, student A's experiment design was selected due to time restrictions. When they elaborated upon their result, their epistemic goal shifted to 'scientific sensemaking', reviewing 'how this experiment design is scientifically valid' through scientific justification - we need justification to make members accept it - acting as 'cooperator'. Consequently, all members engaged in a productive argumentation that led to the development of the group result. This study lays the foundation for future work on understanding students' epistemic goals and considerations to prompt productive argumentation in science classrooms.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.445-458
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• 2016

Most of water curtain cultivation (WCC) area in Korea has been inveterately suffering from the gradual draw-down of groundwater level and related shortage of water resources at the late stage of WCC peak time. To solve this problem, artificial recharge techniques has been recently applied to some WCC area. This study introduces infiltration gallery, which is one of the artificial recharge methods, and tentatively examined the effectiveness of three galleries installed at Sangdae-ri WCC area of Cheongju City. Seven galleries are set up at each empty space between eight vinyl houses in this area and its dimension is designed as 50 cm in each width and height and 300 cm in each length. Installation process was including bed excavation, backfill with gravels and silica sands, and completion of gallery by equipment of piezometer and covering with non-woven cloth. For each B, C, D gallery, 3 types of test including preliminary, four step and one long-term injection were performed. The first preliminary test showed the rough relations between injection rates and water level rise as follows; 20 cm and 30 cm level rise for $33.29{\sim}33.84m^3/d$ and $45.60{\sim}46.99m^3/d$ in B gallery; 0 cm, 16 cm and 33 cm level rise for $21.1m^3/d$, $33.98m^3/d$ and $41.69m^3/d$ in C gallery; 29 cm and 42 cm level rise for $48.10m^3/d$ and $52.23m^3/d$ in D gallery. Afterwards, more quantitative results estimating effectiveness of artificial recharge were reasoned out through stepped and long-term injection tests, which is expected to be employed for estimating water quantity re-injected into the aquifer through these galleries by natural injection over the period of WCC peak time.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.59-68
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• 1998

Digital hearing aids offer many advantages over conventional analog hearing aids. With the advent of high speed digital signal processing chips, new digital techniques have been introduced to digital hearing aids. In addition, the evaluation of new ideas in hearing aids is necessarily accompanied by intensive subject-based clinical tests which requires much time and cost. In this paper, we present an objective method to evaluate and predict the performance of hearing aid systems without the help of such subject-based tests. In the hearing impairment simulation(HIS) algorithm, a sensorineural hearing impairment medel is established from auditory test data of the impaired subject being simulated. Also, the nonlinear behavior of the loudness recruitment is defined using hearing loss functions generated from the measurements. To transform the natural input sound into the impaired one, a frequency sampling filter is designed. The filter is continuously refreshed with the level-dependent frequency response function provided by the impairment model. To assess the performance, the HIS algorithm was implemented in real-time using a floating-point DSP. Signals processed with the real-time system were presented to normal subjects and their auditory data modified by the system was measured. The sensorineural hearing impairment was simulated and tested. The threshold of hearing and the speech discrimination tests exhibited the efficiency of the system in its use for the hearing impairment simulation. Using the HIS system we evaluated three typical hearing aid algorithms.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.46-54
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• 2017

Objectives: Domestic violence is related to many psychiatric diseases, such as depression, anxiety disorder, and PTSD. Heart rate variability (HRV) is an index of autonomic control of the heart and is related to cardiovascular and emotional disorders. Although there have been some studies on the effects of domestic violence on women's mental health, relatively little information is available on HRV in this population. The aim of this study is to investigate demographic data, psychological features, and HRV in female victims of domestic violence and difference between Korean and foreign female victims. Methods: A total of 210 female victims of domestic violence (166 Korean women and 44 foreign women) were recruited for this study. Psychological symptoms were measured using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAM-A), Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D), and Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R). HRV measures were assessed by time-domain and frequency-domain analyses. Results: The mean score of HAM-A was 13.81, that of HAM-D was 12.92, and that of IES-R was 33.61 ; there were no significant differences between Korean and foreign women in these measures. In HRV time domain analyses, approximate entropy (ApEn) was significantly increased in foreign women compared to the Korean women. The square root of the mean of the sum of the squares of differences between adjacent NN intervals (RMSSD) was significantly decreased in foreign women compared to Korean women. There were no significant differences in the other HRV variables between Korean and foreign women. Conclusion: Female victims of domestic violence in Korea are associated with depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms. The physiologic factors of a female victim's nationality could be related to higher ApEn and lower RMSSD in foreign female victims. These findings have important implications for future study to study the relationships among ethnic and environmental factors and HRV variables.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.39-51
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• 2008

The objectives of this study were to analyze the socio-economical factors related to smoking and drinking behaviors using the Korea Welfare Panel data. The key variables were sex, age, frequency of health and medical facilities visit, subjective health level, smoking level, drinking level, depression symptoms, and low income level. Since the health variables in the Welfare Panel data were limited, the analysis was exploratory. In male population of those older than 30 years old, low income group people were more likely to smoke cigarettes than the general income population. In the result of the Chi square analysis, the smoking rate showed significantly different relationships with the different age groups, gender and income level. According to the descriptive analysis, persons with low income level were more likely to experience health risk behaviors and showed more medical service utilization. The utilization of the local public health centers was 4.6% for the Bow income level and 1% for the general level. The higher smoking rate was associated with the younger age, and the lower income. The smoking rate in the age category from 20 to 29 was 23.3% for the general level and 25% for the low income level. On the other hand, the drinking rate was even higher in the general families. The rates of non use of alcohol was 36.7% in the general families and 58.4% for the low income families. For both smoking and high risk drinking issues, demographic and sociological variables such as sex, age, education levels and income levels were analyzed, and there wer significant relationships. Health risk factors were serious for males, with age groups of 20's and 30's, lower education level, and in a low income family. In general, females were more unhealthy. The rates of smoking and drinking were higher in the low income level. Even in the health and nutrition survey results in 2005, persons in the low income class were experiencing poorer health in health level or the degree of action restriction. Since the effects of the health promotion could not be measured in a short period of time, it has not been easy to create the basis for the substantial effects. Factors related to health risks needs to be continuously studied using data from diverse field.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.24-32
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• 1999

To develope appropriate soil base for planting on the artificial ground, 9 kinds of soil types(varying the components and mixing ratios) and 3 levels of soil depths(10cm, 15cm, 20cm) were chosen. And their plant growing effects were tested and analysed from the test plant Zoysia japonica. The results of the research are as follows. 1. Among the 9 type of soil mixtures, the "sandy loam" soil type gave the worst effects on germination, disease contamination and ground covering. 2. The soil types like VSH(vermiculite20%+sand70%+humus sawdust10%), VSS(vermiculite 40%+sand 50%+humus sawdust 10%) and VS(vermiculite 70%+sand 30%), where vermiculite and sand were added to, show better germination effect promoted from the better condition of aeration and saturation. 3. The plant growing effects(leaf length and ground covering ratio) was evident under the soil types like VSH(vermiculite20%+sand70%+humus sawdust10%) and VSS(vermiculite40%+sand50%+humus sawdust10%), where organic matters were added to. 4. Vermiculite added soil types effect fast leaf decolorization on the tested Zoysia japonica plant, on the contrary to organic matter mixed soil types including SCS(sandy loam 50%+carbonized rice husk30%+sand20%) and SHS(sandy loam 50%+humus sawdust30%+sand20%) with which green leaves subsist longer. S. Soil depth effect to plant growth was found. And a favorable covering rate was accomplished even at the soil depth of 15cm - the limit soil depth for grass survival - from the soil types where organic matters were mixed to. From this result, the soil depth limit for plant survival could be said to be shall owed if appropriate soil type were based.