• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2013

Purpose - The environment-friendly agricultural product market in Korea sees continual high growth. Recently, the Korean government has been actively fostering environment-friendly agriculture as an engine of future growth. Korean people have increasingly become more health-conscious and interested in food safety issues. Many distribution and retailing companies have responded with various promotional activities. However, most of these are not strategic and appear to have unsatisfactory outcomes. The main purpose of this paper is to suggest effective marketing strategies for environment-friendly agricultural products. To achieve this aim, the study empirically investigates the effects of consumer characteristics and trust on the purchase intention of environment-friendly agricultural products. Research design, data, methodology - Based on the theory of planned behavior, and previous studies related to the purchase intention and consumption of environment-friendly agricultural products, we set up five study hypotheses. These related to the demographic characteristics of consumers, purchase intention, and behavior of the products. We then set up a study model and four study hypotheses relating to health consciousness, environmental consciousness, consumer trust level, purchase intention, and behavior of the products. The data were collected using a questionnaire given to consumers living in Seoul and southern Geonggi Province. The final sample size is 403 and mean age is 44.3. SPSS 15.0 for Windows and Amos 7.0 were used as statistical analysis tools. Meaningful results were derived using frequency analysis, correlation analysis, a t-test, and structural equation modeling. Results - Empirical results of this research are as follows. (1) First, it is shown that consumers consider such attributes as intimacy and health to be important when they buy environment-friendly agricultural products. (2) We also found that consumers recognize the value of environment-friendly agricultural products as high, but their trust level as low. (3) Consumer groups consisting of married couples, with higher education, higher income, and higher age are shown to have a higher intention of buying environment-friendly agricultural products than any other consumer group. (4) It is estimated that the level of consumer trust positively affects the purchase intention of environment-friendly agricultural products. The path coefficient (.138) between consumer trust and purchase intention is statistically significant at the α = .05 level. (5). It is also estimated that environmental consciousness positively affects purchase intention. The path coefficient (.245) between environmental consciousness and purchase intention is statistically significant at the α = 0.05 level. The standardized path coefficients of consumer trust and environmental consciousness with purchase intention are .556 and .288 respectively. Therefore, consumer trust affects purchase intention more than environmental consciousness. (6) Finally, purchase intention is estimated to positively affect purchase behavior. Conclusions - Based upon empirical results, this research suggests that marketers of environment-friendly agricultural products should focus more on increasing consumer trust levels, emphasizing the training and education of employees. The government also should pay attention to a standardized certification system for environment-friendly agricultural products. Marketers of environment-friendly agricultural products should consider the consumer groups of married couples, with higher education, higher income, and higher age as a major target segment.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.73-82
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• 2017

In Korea, previous certification of water supply infrastructure was mainly focused on economical and physical aspects. Recently, hygienic safety of water supply service has become a sensitive and important issue to our people for evaluating the water quality with growth of economy and education system. According on water quality in 497 Korean water supply facilities, pH values in the supplied water have ranged between 5.8-8.5. However, little is known about metal leachability at the pH conditions observed in the real water supply systems because a fixed pH condition (pH 7.0) has been used in the current standard method, 'Hygienic Safety Testing Method', in water supply. In this work, we examined the effects on heavy metal leachability with pH differences in the water supply pipes which are typically used in Korea. As a result, the amounts of metal leachability were tended to increase when pH levels were decreased. Especially at pH 5.8, Cu leachability from Cu pipes was found to exceed the public health standard level even after applying a normalization factor (NF) given by the current Korea standard method. The Cr and Cu leached from stainless steel pipes, Cd, Pb, Cu, and Zn from Cu-based pipe fittings, and Zn from Zn-based pipe fittings were exceeded the Korean hygienic safety standards while, after applying the NF, concentrations of the leached metals were satisfied with the current Korean standard. The findings from this work provide implications on the needs of reforming the current hygienic safety standard methodology.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.34-48
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was two-fold; first, to develop safety performance functions (SPF) using transportation-related big data for all types of roads in Korea were developed, Second, to provide basic information to develop measures for relatively dangerous roads by evaluating the safety grade for various roads based on it. The coordinates of traffic accident data are used to match roads across the country based on the national standard node and link system. As independent variables, this study effort uses link length, the number of traffic volume data from ViewT established by the Korea Transport Research Institute, and the number of dangerous driving behaviors based on the digital tachograph system installed on commercial vehicles. Based on the methodology and result of analysis used in this study, it is expected that the transportation safety improvement projects can be properly selected, and the effects can be clearly monitored and quantified.