• Title/Summary/Keyword: 3)Internet of Things

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Game Theoretic Optimization of Investment Portfolio Considering the Performance of Information Security Countermeasure (정보보호 대책의 성능을 고려한 투자 포트폴리오의 게임 이론적 최적화)

  • Lee, Sang-Hoon;Kim, Tae-Sung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.26 no.3
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    • pp.37-50
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    • 2020
  • Information security has become an important issue in the world. Various information and communication technologies, such as the Internet of Things, big data, cloud, and artificial intelligence, are developing, and the need for information security is increasing. Although the necessity of information security is expanding according to the development of information and communication technology, interest in information security investment is insufficient. In general, measuring the effect of information security investment is difficult, so appropriate investment is not being practice, and organizations are decreasing their information security investment. In addition, since the types and specification of information security measures are diverse, it is difficult to compare and evaluate the information security countermeasures objectively, and there is a lack of decision-making methods about information security investment. To develop the organization, policies and decisions related to information security are essential, and measuring the effect of information security investment is necessary. Therefore, this study proposes a method of constructing an investment portfolio for information security measures using game theory and derives an optimal defence probability. Using the two-person game model, the information security manager and the attacker are assumed to be the game players, and the information security countermeasures and information security threats are assumed as the strategy of the players, respectively. A zero-sum game that the sum of the players' payoffs is zero is assumed, and we derive a solution of a mixed strategy game in which a strategy is selected according to probability distribution among strategies. In the real world, there are various types of information security threats exist, so multiple information security measures should be considered to maintain the appropriate information security level of information systems. We assume that the defence ratio of the information security countermeasures is known, and we derive the optimal solution of the mixed strategy game using linear programming. The contributions of this study are as follows. First, we conduct analysis using real performance data of information security measures. Information security managers of organizations can use the methodology suggested in this study to make practical decisions when establishing investment portfolio for information security countermeasures. Second, the investment weight of information security countermeasures is derived. Since we derive the weight of each information security measure, not just whether or not information security measures have been invested, it is easy to construct an information security investment portfolio in a situation where investment decisions need to be made in consideration of a number of information security countermeasures. Finally, it is possible to find the optimal defence probability after constructing an investment portfolio of information security countermeasures. The information security managers of organizations can measure the specific investment effect by drawing out information security countermeasures that fit the organization's information security investment budget. Also, numerical examples are presented and computational results are analyzed. Based on the performance of various information security countermeasures: Firewall, IPS, and Antivirus, data related to information security measures are collected to construct a portfolio of information security countermeasures. The defence ratio of the information security countermeasures is created using a uniform distribution, and a coverage of performance is derived based on the report of each information security countermeasure. According to numerical examples that considered Firewall, IPS, and Antivirus as information security countermeasures, the investment weights of Firewall, IPS, and Antivirus are optimized to 60.74%, 39.26%, and 0%, respectively. The result shows that the defence probability of the organization is maximized to 83.87%. When the methodology and examples of this study are used in practice, information security managers can consider various types of information security measures, and the appropriate investment level of each measure can be reflected in the organization's budget.

Development of the Regulatory Impact Analysis Framework for the Convergence Industry: Case Study on Regulatory Issues by Emerging Industry (융합산업 규제영향분석 프레임워크 개발: 신산업 분야별 규제이슈 사례 연구)

  • Song, Hye-Lim;Seo, Bong-Goon;Cho, Sung-Min
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.27 no.3
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    • pp.199-230
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    • 2021
  • Innovative new products and services are being launched through the convergence between heterogeneous industries, and social interest and investment in convergence industries such as AI, big data-based future cars, and robots are continuously increasing. However, in the process of commercialization of convergence new products and services, there are many cases where they do not conform to the existing regulatory and legal system, which causes many difficulties in companies launching their products and services into the market. In response to these industrial changes, the current government is promoting the improvement of existing regulatory mechanisms applied to the relevant industry along with the expansion of investment in new industries. This study, in these convergence industry trends, aimed to analysis the existing regulatory system that is an obstacle to market entry of innovative new products and services in order to preemptively predict regulatory issues that will arise in emerging industries. In addition, it was intended to establish a regulatory impact analysis system to evaluate adequacy and prepare improvement measures. The flow of this study is divided into three parts. In the first part, previous studies on regulatory impact analysis and evaluation systems are investigated. This was used as basic data for the development direction of the regulatory impact framework, indicators and items. In the second regulatory impact analysis framework development part, indicators and items are developed based on the previously investigated data, and these are applied to each stage of the framework. In the last part, a case study was presented to solve the regulatory issues faced by actual companies by applying the developed regulatory impact analysis framework. The case study included the autonomous/electric vehicle industry and the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, because it is one of the emerging industries that the Korean government is most interested in recently, and is judged to be most relevant to the realization of an intelligent information society. Specifically, the regulatory impact analysis framework proposed in this study consists of a total of five steps. The first step is to identify the industrial size of the target products and services, related policies, and regulatory issues. In the second stage, regulatory issues are discovered through review of regulatory improvement items for each stage of commercialization (planning, production, commercialization). In the next step, factors related to regulatory compliance costs are derived and costs incurred for existing regulatory compliance are calculated. In the fourth stage, an alternative is prepared by gathering opinions of the relevant industry and experts in the field, and the necessity, validity, and adequacy of the alternative are reviewed. Finally, in the final stage, the adopted alternatives are formulated so that they can be applied to the legislation, and the alternatives are reviewed by legal experts. The implications of this study are summarized as follows. From a theoretical point of view, it is meaningful in that it clearly presents a series of procedures for regulatory impact analysis as a framework. Although previous studies mainly discussed the importance and necessity of regulatory impact analysis, this study presented a systematic framework in consideration of the various factors required for regulatory impact analysis suggested by prior studies. From a practical point of view, this study has significance in that it was applied to actual regulatory issues based on the regulatory impact analysis framework proposed above. The results of this study show that proposals related to regulatory issues were submitted to government departments and finally the current law was revised, suggesting that the framework proposed in this study can be an effective way to resolve regulatory issues. It is expected that the regulatory impact analysis framework proposed in this study will be a meaningful guideline for technology policy researchers and policy makers in the future.

A Smoothing Data Cleaning based on Adaptive Window Sliding for Intelligent RFID Middleware Systems (지능적인 RFID 미들웨어 시스템을 위한 적응형 윈도우 슬라이딩 기반의 유연한 데이터 정제)

  • Shin, DongCheon;Oh, Dongok;Ryu, SeungWan;Park, Seikwon
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.1-18
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    • 2014
  • Over the past years RFID/SN has been an elementary technology in a diversity of applications for the ubiquitous environments, especially for Internet of Things. However, one of obstacles for widespread deployment of RFID technology is the inherent unreliability of the RFID data streams by tag readers. In particular, the problem of false readings such as lost readings and mistaken readings needs to be treated by RFID middleware systems because false readings ultimately degrade the quality of application services due to the dirty data delivered by middleware systems. As a result, for the higher quality of services, an RFID middleware system is responsible for intelligently dealing with false readings for the delivery of clean data to the applications in accordance with the tag reading environment. One of popular techniques used to compensate false readings is a sliding window filter. In a sliding window scheme, it is evident that determining optimal window size intelligently is a nontrivial important task in RFID middleware systems in order to reduce false readings, especially in mobile environments. In this paper, for the purpose of reducing false readings by intelligent window adaption, we propose a new adaptive RFID data cleaning scheme based on window sliding for a single tag. Unlike previous works based on a binomial sampling model, we introduce the weight averaging. Our insight starts from the need to differentiate the past readings and the current readings, since the more recent readings may indicate the more accurate tag transitions. Owing to weight averaging, our scheme is expected to dynamically adapt the window size in an efficient manner even for non-homogeneous reading patterns in mobile environments. In addition, we analyze reading patterns in the window and effects of decreased window so that a more accurate and efficient decision on window adaption can be made. With our scheme, we can expect to obtain the ultimate goal that RFID middleware systems can provide applications with more clean data so that they can ensure high quality of intended services.

Requirement Analysis for Agricultural Meteorology Information Service Systems based on the Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies (4차 산업혁명 기술에 기반한 농업 기상 정보 시스템의 요구도 분석)

  • Kim, Kwang Soo;Yoo, Byoung Hyun;Hyun, Shinwoo;Kang, DaeGyoon
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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    • v.21 no.3
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    • pp.175-186
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    • 2019
  • Efforts have been made to introduce the climate smart agriculture (CSA) for adaptation to future climate conditions, which would require collection and management of site specific meteorological data. The objectives of this study were to identify requirements for construction of agricultural meteorology information service system (AMISS) using technologies that lead to the fourth industrial revolution, e.g., internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. The IoT sensors that require low cost and low operating current would be useful to organize wireless sensor network (WSN) for collection and analysis of weather measurement data, which would help assessment of productivity for an agricultural ecosystem. It would be recommended to extend the spatial extent of the WSN to a rural community, which would benefit a greater number of farms. It is preferred to create the big data for agricultural meteorology in order to produce and evaluate the site specific data in rural areas. The digital climate map can be improved using artificial intelligence such as deep neural networks. Furthermore, cloud computing and fog computing would help reduce costs and enhance the user experience of the AMISS. In addition, it would be advantageous to combine environmental data and farm management data, e.g., price data for the produce of interest. It would also be needed to develop a mobile application whose user interface could meet the needs of stakeholders. These fourth industrial revolution technologies would facilitate the development of the AMISS and wide application of the CSA.

The Need and Improvement Direction of New Computer Media Classes in Landscape Architectural Education in University (대학 내 조경전공 교육과정에 있어 새로운 컴퓨터 미디어 수업의 필요와 개선방향)

  • Na, Sungjin
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.49 no.1
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    • pp.54-69
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    • 2021
  • In 2020, civilized society's overall lifestyle showed a distinct change from consumable analog media, such as paper, to digital media with the increased penetration of cloud computing, and from wired media to wireless media. Based on these social changes, this work examines whether the use of computer media in the field of landscape architecture is appropriately applied. This study will give directions for new computer media classes in landscape architectural education in the 4th Industrial Revolution era. Landscape architecture is a field that directly proposes the realization of a positive lifestyle and the creation of a living environment and is closely connected with social change. However, there is no clear evidence that landscape architectural education is making any visible change, while the digital infrastructure of the 4th Industrial Revolution, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, autonomous vehicles, cloud networks, and the Internet of Things, is changing the contemporary society in terms of technology, culture, and economy among other aspects. Therefore, it is necessary to review the current state of the use of computer technology and media in landscape architectural education, and also to examine the alternative direction of the curriculum for the new digital era. First, the basis for discussion was made by studying the trends of computational design in modern landscape architecture. Next, the changes and current status of computer media classes in domestic and overseas landscape education were analyzed based on prior research and curriculum. As a result, the number and the types of computer media classes increased significantly between the study in 1994 and the current situation in 2020 in the foreign landscape department, whereas there were no obvious changes in the domestic landscape department. This shows that the domestic landscape education is passively coping with the changes in the digital era. Lastly, based on the discussions, this study examined alternatives to the new curriculum that landscape architecture department should pursue in a new degital world.

A User Profile-based Filtering Method for Information Search in Smart TV Environment (스마트 TV 환경에서 정보 검색을 위한 사용자 프로파일 기반 필터링 방법)

  • Sean, Visal;Oh, Kyeong-Jin;Jo, Geun-Sik
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.97-117
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    • 2012
  • Nowadays, Internet users tend to do a variety of actions at the same time such as web browsing, social networking and multimedia consumption. While watching a video, once a user is interested in any product, the user has to do information searches to get to know more about the product. With a conventional approach, user has to search it separately with search engines like Bing or Google, which might be inconvenient and time-consuming. For this reason, a video annotation platform has been developed in order to provide users more convenient and more interactive ways with video content. In the future of smart TV environment, users can follow annotated information, for example, a link to a vendor to buy the product of interest. It is even better to enable users to search for information by directly discussing with friends. Users can effectively get useful and relevant information about the product from friends who share common interests or might have experienced it before, which is more reliable than the results from search engines. Social networking services provide an appropriate environment for people to share products so that they can show new things to their friends and to share their personal experiences on any specific product. Meanwhile, they can also absorb the most relevant information about the product that they are interested in by either comments or discussion amongst friends. However, within a very huge graph of friends, determining the most appropriate persons to ask for information about a specific product has still a limitation within the existing conventional approach. Once users want to share or discuss a product, they simply share it to all friends as new feeds. This means a newly posted article is blindly spread to all friends without considering their background interests or knowledge. In this way, the number of responses back will be huge. Users cannot easily absorb the relevant and useful responses from friends, since they are from various fields of interest and knowledge. In order to overcome this limitation, we propose a method to filter a user's friends for information search, which leverages semantic video annotation and social networking services. Our method filters and brings out who can give user useful information about a specific product. By examining the existing Facebook information regarding users and their social graph, we construct a user profile of product interest. With user's permission and authentication, user's particular activities are enriched with the domain-specific ontology such as GoodRelations and BestBuy Data sources. Besides, we assume that the object in the video is already annotated using Linked Data. Thus, the detail information of the product that user would like to ask for more information is retrieved via product URI. Our system calculates the similarities among them in order to identify the most suitable friends for seeking information about the mentioned product. The system filters a user's friends according to their score which tells the order of whom can highly likely give the user useful information about a specific product of interest. We have conducted an experiment with a group of respondents in order to verify and evaluate our system. First, the user profile accuracy evaluation is conducted to demonstrate how much our system constructed user profile of product interest represents user's interest correctly. Then, the evaluation on filtering method is made by inspecting the ranked results with human judgment. The results show that our method works effectively and efficiently in filtering. Our system fulfills user needs by supporting user to select appropriate friends for seeking useful information about a specific product that user is curious about. As a result, it helps to influence and convince user in purchase decisions.

A Study of Teacher's Satisfaction Regarding Korean Medicine Doctor's Student Health and Wellness Program in 2016 - In Middle & High School of Seongnam City - (2016년도 한의 교의 프로그램의 교사들의 만족도에 관한 연구 - 성남시 중고등학교를 대상으로 -)

  • Sung, Hyun Kyung;Shin, Seon Mi;Go, Ho-Yeon;Ko, Jae-Un;Kim, Hyo-Sun;Choi, Suk-Hoon;Park, Jeong-Su
    • The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.83-91
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    • 2018
  • Objectives This study aims to build the baseline data for promoting school health care program by identifying satisfaction level and improvement point through the satisfaction survey after Korean medicine doctor's student health and wellness program in 2016. Methods An association of Korean medicine doctor in Seongnam city conducted Korean medicine doctor's student health and wellness program for 12 middle schools, 6 high schools and 1 special-need school in Seongnam city in 2016. The participating Korean medicine doctor visited each school for 8 times and conducted health consultations, health education classes and Korean medicine treatment for the school students and the school employees. Teachers and administrators from the participating schools answered the self-reported satisfaction questionnaires and the results were analyzed by SPSS 22.0. Results 35 people responded the program satisfaction questionnaires, the overall satisfaction average was $9.40{\pm}0.88$ (out of 10). In the course of the program, satisfaction average regarding the student's health check-ups was $9.05{\pm}0.88$, satisfaction average regarding the informatory brochures for the parents was $9.08{\pm}1.09$, satisfaction average regarding the participation enrollment process was $9.06{\pm}1.16$, and the satisfaction average regarding the questionnaire statistics and the result reports was $8.86{\pm}1.93$. The satisfaction average of the program was as follows: health consultation ($9.20{\pm}1.08$), treatment ($9.31{\pm}0.90$), and health education classes ($8.78{\pm}1.68$). Some of the good things about program were 'Telling students about their physical condition' (57.1%), 'Curing the sick student quickly' (48.6%), 'Providing students with useful information about the health' (48.6%), 'Teaching students how to manage their health and how to manage symptoms' (42.9%). Average satisfaction about sustainability and needs of the program was $9.15{\pm}0.91$, and the participant teachers wanted to learn more about how to manage internet addiction (22.9%), stress (45.7%), atopy (28.6%), neck pain (42.9%), allergic rhinitis (37.1%), and low back pain (34.3%) from the future wellness programs. Conclusions Student health care is one of the most important issue in national health policies. We have designed a bridge model that a local community, school, and doctors can work together to develop. After the implementation of the program, the results of the satisfaction survey showed a very high satisfaction level. This study can be the basis for further improvement of the bridge program as well as the expansion of the program in other settings.

An Exploratory Study on Smart Wearable and Game Service Design for U-Silver Generation: U-Hospital Solution for the Induction of Interest to Carry Out Personalized Exercise Prescription (U-실버세대를 위한 스마트 웨어러블 및 연동 게임의 서비스 디자인 방안 탐색: 개인 맞춤형 운동처방 실행을 위한 흥미 유도 목적의 U-Hospital 솔루션)

  • Park, Su Youn;Lee, Joo Hyeon
    • Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.23-34
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    • 2019
  • The U-Healthcare era has evolved with the development of the Internet of things (IoT) in the early stages of being connected as a society. Already, many changes such as increased well-being and the extension of human life are becoming evident across cultures. Korea entered the growing group of aging societies in 2017, and its silver industry is expected to grow rapidly by adopting the IoT of a super-connected society. In particular, the senior shift phenomenon has resulted in increased interest in the promotion of the health and well-being of the emergent silver generation which, unlike the existing silver generation, is highly active and wields great economic power. This study conducted in-depth interviews to investigate the characteristics of the new silver generation, and to develop the design for a wearable serious game that intends to boost the interest of the elderly in exercise and fitness activities according to their personalized physical training regimes as prescribed by the U-Hospital service. The usage scenario of this wearable serious game for the 'U-silver generation' is derived from social necessity. Medical professionals can utilize this technology to conduct health examinations and to monitor the rehabilitation of senior patients. The elderly can also use this tool to request checkups or to interface with their healthcare providers. The wearable serious game is further aimed at mitigating concerns about the deterioration of the physical functions of the silver generation by applying personalized exercise prescriptions. The present investigation revealed that it is necessary to merge the on / off line community activities to meet the silver generation's daily needs for connection and friendship. Further, the sustainability of the serious game must be enhanced through the inculcation of a sense of accomplishment as a player rises through the levels of the game. The proposed wearable serious game is designed specifically for the silver generation that is inexperienced in using digital devices: simple game rules are applied to a familiar interface grounded on the gourmet travels preferred by the target players to increase usability.

The Role of Home Economics Education in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4차 산업혁명시대 가정과교육의 역할)

  • Lee, Eun-hee
    • Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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    • v.31 no.4
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    • pp.149-161
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    • 2019
  • At present, we are at the point of change of the 4th industrial revolution era due to the development of artificial intelligence(AI) and rapid technological innovation that no one can predict until now. This study started from the question of 'What role should home economics education play in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?'. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterized by AI, cloud computing, Internet of Things(IoT), big data, and Online to Offline(O2O). It will drastically change the social system, science and technology and the structure of the profession. Since the dehumanization of robots and artificial intelligence may occur, the 4th Industrial Revolution Education should be sought to foster future human resources with humanity and citizenship for the future community. In addition, the implication of education in the fourth industrial revolution, which will bring about a change to a super-intelligent and hyper-connected society, is that the role of education should be emphasized so that humans internalize their values as human beings. Character education should be established as a generalized and internalized consciousness with a concept established in the integration of the curriculum, and concrete practical strategies should be prepared. In conclusion, home economics education in the 4th industrial revolution era should play a leading role in the central role of character education, and intrinsic improvement of various human lives. The fourth industrial revolution will change not only what we do, or human mental and physical activities, but also who we are, or human identity. In the information society and digital society, it is important how quickly and accurately it is possible to acquire scattered knowledge. In the information society, it is required to learn how to use knowledge for human beings in rapid change. As such, the fourth industrial revolution seeks to lead the family, organization, and community positively by influencing the systems that shape our lives. Home economics education should take the lead in this role.

A Study on the Relationship Between Online Community Characteristics and Loyalty : Focused on Mediating Roles of Self-Congruency, Consumer Experience, and Consumer to Consumer Interactivity (온라인 커뮤니티 특성과 충성도 간의 관계에 대한 연구: 자아일치성, 소비자 체험, 상호작용성의 매개적 역할을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Moon-Tae;Ock, Jung-Won
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.157-194
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    • 2008
  • The popularity of communities on the internet has captured the attention of marketing scholars and practitioners. By adapting to the culture of the internet, however, and providing consumer with the ability to interact with one another in addition to the company, businesses can build new and deeper relationships with customers. The economic potential of online communities has been discussed with much hope in the many popular papers. In contrast to this enthusiastic prognostications, empirical and practical evidence regarding the economic potential of the online community has shown a little different conclusion. To date, even communities with high levels of membership and vibrant social arenas have failed to build financial viability. In this perspective, this study investigates the role of various kinds of influencing factors to online community loyalty and basically suggests the framework that explains the process of building purchase loyalty. Even though the importance of building loyalty in an online environment has been emphasized from the marketing theorists and practitioners, there is no sufficient research conclusion about what is the process of building purchase loyalty and the most powerful factors that influence to it. In this study, the process of building purchase loyalty is divided into three levels; characteristics of community site such as content superiority, site vividness, navigation easiness, and customerization, the mediating variables such as self congruency, consumer experience, and consumer to consumer interactivity, and finally various factors about online community loyalty such as visit loyalty, affect, trust, and purchase loyalty are those things. And the findings of this research are as follows. First, consumer-to-consumer interactivity is an important factor to online community purchase loyalty and other loyalty factors. This means, in order to interact with other people more actively, many participants in online community have the willingness to buy some kinds of products such as music, content, avatar, and etc. From this perspective, marketers of online community have to create some online environments in order that consumers can easily interact with other consumers and make some site environments in order that consumer can feel experience in this site is interesting and self congruency is higher than at other community sites. It has been argued that giving consumers a good experience is vital in cyber space, and websites create an active (rather than passive) customer by their nature. Some researchers have tried to pin down the positive experience, with limited success and less empirical support. Web sites can provide a cognitively stimulating experience for the user. We define the online community experience as playfulness based on the past studies. Playfulness is created by the excitement generated through a website's content and measured using three descriptors Marketers can promote using and visiting online communities, which deliver a superior web experience, to influence their customers' attitudes and actions, encouraging high involvement with those communities. Specially, we suggest that transcendent customer experiences(TCEs) which have aspects of flow and/or peak experience, can generate lasting shifts in beliefs and attitudes including subjective self-transformation and facilitate strong consumer's ties to a online community. And we find that website success is closely related to positive website experiences: consumers will spend more time on the site, interacting with other users. As we can see figure 2, visit loyalty and consumer affect toward the online community site didn't directly influence to purchase loyalty. This implies that there may be a little different situations here in online community site compared to online shopping mall studies that shows close relations between revisit intention and purchase intention. There are so many alternative sites on web, consumers do not want to spend money to buy content and etc. In this sense, marketers of community websites must know consumers' affect toward online community site is not a last goal and important factor to influnece consumers' purchase. Third, building good content environment can be a really important marketing tool to create a competitive advantage in cyberspace. For example, Cyworld, Korea's number one community site shows distinctive superiority in the consumer evaluations of content characteristics such as content superiority, site vividness, and customerization. Particularly, comsumer evaluation about customerization was remarkably higher than the other sites. In this point, we can conclude that providing comsumers with good, unique and highly customized content will be urgent and important task directly and indirectly impacting to self congruency, consumer experience, c-to-c interactivity, and various loyalty factors of online community. By creating enjoyable, useful, and unique online community environments, online community portals such as Daum, Naver, and Cyworld are able to build customer loyalty to a degree that many of today's online marketer can only dream of these loyalty, in turn, generates strong economic returns. Another way to build good online community site is to provide consumers with an interactive, fun, experience-oriented or experiential Web site. Elements that can make a dot.com's Web site experiential include graphics, 3-D images, animation, video and audio capabilities. In addition, chat rooms and real-time customer service applications (which link site visitors directly to other visitors, or with company support personnel, respectively) are also being used to make web sites more interactive. Researchers note that online communities are increasingly incorporating such applications in their Web sites, in order to make consumers' online shopping experience more similar to that of an offline store. That is, if consumers are able to experience sensory stimulation (e.g. via 3-D images and audio sound), interact with other consumers (e.g., via chat rooms), and interact with sales or support people (e.g. via a real-time chat interface or e-mail), then they are likely to have a more positive dot.com experience, and develop a more positive image toward the online company itself). Analysts caution, however, that, while high quality graphics, animation and the like may create a fun experience for consumers, when heavily used, they can slow site navigation, resulting in frustrated consumers, who may never return to a site. Consequently, some analysts suggest that, at least with current technology, the rule-of-thumb is that less is more. That is, while graphics etc. can draw consumers to a site, they should be kept to a minimum, so as not to impact negatively on consumers' overall site experience.

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