• Title/Summary/Keyword: Development Characteristics

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Community Residents' Knowledge, Attitude, and Needs for Hospice Care (일부 지역주민들의 호스피스에 대한 인지와 태도 및 간호요구 조사)

  • Ro, You-Ja;Han, Sung-Suk;Ahn, Sung-Hee;Yong, Jin-Sun
    • Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.23-35
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    • 1999
  • Purpose : The hospice movement began about 30 years ago in Korea. However, basic studies have seldom been conducted about the general public's knowledge concerning hospice care and their needs for it. The purpose of this study was to investigate the general public's knowledge of and attitude toward hospice, and their needs for hospice care, and to analyze the needs for hospice care in relation to their knowledge and attitude in residents from a specific community. Methods : The survey was conducted with 924 people randomly selected from a district in Seoul. The data were collected through a self-reporting questionnaire constructed by the authors. With 30 items given in the questionnaire, the level of hospice needs showed Cronbach's alpha .89 in a pilot study and .92 in this study and the items were classified into four areas by a factor analysis. The data collected were analyzed by means of t-test and ANOVA. Results : 1) The average age of the respondents was 38. The majority of the respondents were well-educated. 2) Regarding awareness of hospice care, 54%(501 people) indicated they have heard of hospice. About 74% thought that people should be able to prepare for death in advance. About 83% wanted to be informed when they have life threatening illnesses such as terminal cancer. Also, about 63% responded that patients with terminal diseases should be provided with physical, spiritual, and psychological care for minimizing pain and peaceful death. Regarding the attitude toward hospice care, 74% responded that they would use hospice care if needed. The number of the respondents who preferred home visitation by the hospice team to care for the terminally ill ranked first with 34%. Concerning needs for hospice care : 1) By needs area, physical need showed highest mean(M=4.37), followed by social need(M=3.96), emotional need(M=3.87), and the spiritual need(M=3.79). The overall need level showed the mean value of 4.00 which reflects a considerable need for hospice care. 2) By demographic characteristics, people age over 50, the married, and the unemployed indicated higher level of needs for hospice care. Women showed higher level of needs than did men, and Catholics demonstrated higher level of needs than believers of other religion(P<0.0001). 3) As for the knowledge of and attitude toward hospice rare, the level of hospice care needs was significantly higher in the following groups: those who have heard of hospice, those who are aware of death preparation, those who want information on terminal diseases, those who want to use every method to sustain life, and those who are aware of hospice needs(P<0.001). Conclusion : It is assumed that the findings of this study on the knowledge, attitude, and needs for hospice care in the public can contribute to planning a successful hospice care program. Furthermore, the findings of this study will serve as useful data for the promotion of home hospice care to improve the quality of life of community residents, and contribute to the development of hospice care as a whole.

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Nutrition Survey in Koje Island (거제도(巨濟島) 주민(住民)의 영양실태조사(營養實態調査))

  • Oh, Seoung-Ho;Chang, Soo-Kyung;Park, Michael Myung-Yun
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
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    • v.10 no.4
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    • pp.43-58
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    • 1977
  • Kojedo is the second largest island in Korea and a total population of 115,500 is living on the island of 394.69 sq. km. Under the direction of three nutrition professors, nutrition surveys in two villages in Kojedo, namely Siljun Ri in Hachung Myon and Soowol Ri in Shinhyun Myon, were carried by 30 college senior students majoring in nutrition from August to 20 August 1977. From a total of 176 households of the two villages, 67 households were randomly selected and 390 family members of the households were subjcets of the nutrition surveys. The precise weighing method was used in evaluating the kinds of foods and nutrient intakes of the subjects for three consecutive days. Thirty-seven pre-school children aged between 3 to 6 years and 27 fertile women were examined for biochemical findings and physical status. The main purposes of the surveys are to provide baseline data on nutrition in Kojedo Island for the Kojedo Community Development Project and to compare the nutritional status of the villages of Siljun Ri and Soowol Ri. Siljun Ri is located in the pilot project area of the Koiedo Community Health Project sponsored since December 1970 by the Christian Medical Commission of the World Council of Churches. While Soowol Ri is a control village for comparison. The results obtained are summarized as follows: Food Intake The average food intake per person per day in Siljun Ri, 1064 grams (91.7% in vegetable foods and 7.6% in animal foods) was 90 grams more than that of Soowol Ri, 974 grams (92.8% in vegetable foods and 5.9% in animal foods). However, the food intake per pre-school child in Siljun Ri, 485 grams (92.6% from vegetable foods and 6.4% from animal foods) was 21 grams lower than that of the Soowol Ri, 506 grams (88.5% from vegetable foods and 6.5% from animal foods). The average intake of beans was 16 grams(1.5% out of the total food intake) in Siljun Ri and 21 grams(2.2% of the total food intake)in Soowol Ri. The villagers should be guided for more consumption of soybeans to improve the quality of protein intake from vegetable foods. Nutrient Intake The adult intake in Siljun Ri and Soowol Ri were 2,529 kcal and 2,511 kcal respectively. The average energy intake of pre-school childen in Siljun Ri was 948 kcal and that for adult and 1,500 kcal for childen aged between 4 to 6 years-given by the Korea FAO Association, the diets in both villages were not adequate. Average daily protein intake of the subjected adult in Siljun Ri was 78.4 grams and that of Soowol Ri was 76.2 grams, while pre-school children took 30.7 grams in the former village and 31.7 grams in the latter village per child per day. The protein intake in both villages were lower than the recommended allowances, 80 grams for adult and 45 grams for $4{\sim}6$ years childen, and animal protein intake of the all subjects was very much lower than the RDA. The main charecter of the diet has been found low in quality of protein and high in carbohydrate. The calcium intakes of the pre-school children in both villages, 251.9 milligrams in Siljun Ri and 218.8 milligrams in Soowol Ri, were very much lower than the recommended allowance of 500 milligrams per day. It is apparent that the diet for children should be supplemented with calcium. Among the vitamin group, the daily average intakes of vitamin A and $B_{2}$(thiamine), $B_{2}$(riboflavin), C(ascorbic acid), and niacin were not adequate for the children in both villages. Especially the intake of riboflavin, 0.4 milligrams in both village children, was much lower than the RDA, 0.9 milligrams per day. Physical Characteristics Average height, weight, chest and head circumference of the pre-school children in both villages were similar to those of the Korean standard given by the Korean Paediatrics Association except that the average height of pre-school boys in Siljun Ri was 8 cm higher than the Korean standard of 105 cm. The mean values of upper arm circumference and skinfold thickness of pre-school boys in both villages were the same, 15.4 cm for upper arm circumference and 6.8 mm for skinfold thickness, but the mean values of those of the girls in Siljun Ri were higher than those of pre-school grils in Soowol Ri. Biochemical Findings Avera ge hemogobin value of boys and girls in both villages was the same, 11.1 grams per 100 ml of blood. The incidence of anemia (Hb value below 11g/100ml) was similar in both viltagesr 36.4% for boys and 50% for girls in Siljun Ri and 37.5% for boys and 50% for girls in Soowol Ri. Average hemoglobin values of fertile women were 10.7g% in Siljun Ri and 10.8% in Soowor Ri. The incidences of anemia(Hb valre brlow 12g/100ml) were 100% in Siljun Ri and 86.7% in Soowol Ri. The anemia of these subjects may be caused mainty low intake of good quality protein and iron intake from vegetable food. Recommendation In general, the nutritional status of a community health pilot village is not higher than that of control village due to the lack of nutrition improvement guldance services. Nutrition education should be delivered to the villagers as a main part of the health education artivities. The emphasis should be on building better health through bttter food habits and better food production as well as on preventing malnutrition and diseasrs. It can be an invaluable part of community developnent. Since nutrition is considered to be at least one-half of MCH care, no village or home visits should be made without careful provision for teaching and demoastrating something simple and practical on nutrition. The nurse, midwife, and village health worker should be the chief promoters of nutrition.

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Construction of Event Networks from Large News Data Using Text Mining Techniques (텍스트 마이닝 기법을 적용한 뉴스 데이터에서의 사건 네트워크 구축)

  • Lee, Minchul;Kim, Hea-Jin
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.183-203
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    • 2018
  • News articles are the most suitable medium for examining the events occurring at home and abroad. Especially, as the development of information and communication technology has brought various kinds of online news media, the news about the events occurring in society has increased greatly. So automatically summarizing key events from massive amounts of news data will help users to look at many of the events at a glance. In addition, if we build and provide an event network based on the relevance of events, it will be able to greatly help the reader in understanding the current events. In this study, we propose a method for extracting event networks from large news text data. To this end, we first collected Korean political and social articles from March 2016 to March 2017, and integrated the synonyms by leaving only meaningful words through preprocessing using NPMI and Word2Vec. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling was used to calculate the subject distribution by date and to find the peak of the subject distribution and to detect the event. A total of 32 topics were extracted from the topic modeling, and the point of occurrence of the event was deduced by looking at the point at which each subject distribution surged. As a result, a total of 85 events were detected, but the final 16 events were filtered and presented using the Gaussian smoothing technique. We also calculated the relevance score between events detected to construct the event network. Using the cosine coefficient between the co-occurred events, we calculated the relevance between the events and connected the events to construct the event network. Finally, we set up the event network by setting each event to each vertex and the relevance score between events to the vertices connecting the vertices. The event network constructed in our methods helped us to sort out major events in the political and social fields in Korea that occurred in the last one year in chronological order and at the same time identify which events are related to certain events. Our approach differs from existing event detection methods in that LDA topic modeling makes it possible to easily analyze large amounts of data and to identify the relevance of events that were difficult to detect in existing event detection. We applied various text mining techniques and Word2vec technique in the text preprocessing to improve the accuracy of the extraction of proper nouns and synthetic nouns, which have been difficult in analyzing existing Korean texts, can be found. In this study, the detection and network configuration techniques of the event have the following advantages in practical application. First, LDA topic modeling, which is unsupervised learning, can easily analyze subject and topic words and distribution from huge amount of data. Also, by using the date information of the collected news articles, it is possible to express the distribution by topic in a time series. Second, we can find out the connection of events in the form of present and summarized form by calculating relevance score and constructing event network by using simultaneous occurrence of topics that are difficult to grasp in existing event detection. It can be seen from the fact that the inter-event relevance-based event network proposed in this study was actually constructed in order of occurrence time. It is also possible to identify what happened as a starting point for a series of events through the event network. The limitation of this study is that the characteristics of LDA topic modeling have different results according to the initial parameters and the number of subjects, and the subject and event name of the analysis result should be given by the subjective judgment of the researcher. Also, since each topic is assumed to be exclusive and independent, it does not take into account the relevance between themes. Subsequent studies need to calculate the relevance between events that are not covered in this study or those that belong to the same subject.

Comparison of Property Changes of Black Jujube and Zizyphus jujube Extracts during Lactic Acid Fermentation (흑대추와 일반 건조대추의 추출 및 유산발효과정 중 특성 변화)

  • Auh, Mi Sun;Kim, Yi Seul;Ahn, Seung Joon;Ahn, Jun Bae;Kim, Kwang Yup
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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    • v.41 no.10
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    • pp.1346-1355
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    • 2012
  • This study was carried out to investigate the characteristics of black jujube and Zizyphus jujube extracts during lactic acid fermentation. Both extracts were fermented using Lactobacillus fermentum YL-3. As a result, viable cell number rapidly increased until 24 hours, after which it gradually decreased. Before lactic acid fermentation, the $IC_{50}$ of black jujube, which was 0.014 mg/mL, was lower than that of Zizyphus jujube. Further, black jujube showed stronger antioxidant activity (374.21 mg AA eq/g) than Zizyphus jujube. Contents of total polyphenolics in both extracts were 15.46 mg/g and 13.61 mg/g, respectively, whereas contents of total flavonoids were 374.21 ${\mu}g/g$ and 64.25 ${\mu}g/g$. After lactic acid fermentation, there was no significant increase in DPPH or ABTS free radical scavenging activity. Total polyphenolic content of Zizyphus jujube decreased to 12.39 mg/g upon fermentation, whereas flavonoid content significantly increased to 291.58 ${\mu}g/g$. Further, polyphenolic and flavonoid contents of black jujube increased from 15.46 mg/g to 17.46 mg/g and from 374.21 ${\mu}g/g$ to 1,135.29 ${\mu}g/g$, respectively. These results demonstrate that 9-Times Steamed and Dried increased functional components. Especially, lactic acid fermented black jujube showed remarkably high antioxidant activity. These results confirm the potential use of lactic acid fermented black jujube as a valuable resource for the development of functional foods.

Training, Working State and Ways of Improving Work of Sex Education Counselors in Health Centers (대구·경북지역 보건소 성교육 담당자의 훈련 및 업무현황과 개선방안)

  • Yeom, Seok-Hun;Kim, Chang-Yoon;Lee, Kyeong-Soo
    • Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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    • v.27 no.2
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    • pp.159-175
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    • 2002
  • This present study was conducted to reduce problems by analyzing training and work of sex education counselors and to come up with ways of improving sex education counseling. A survey was performed in 57 subjects at health centers who finished training on sex education counseling in Taegu Metropolitan City and cities, kuns, and gus of Kyongsangbuk Province from December, 1999 to February, 2000 on general characteristics, items relating to the work of sex education, and ways of improving work. The results are as follows. Out of the sex education counselors, there were 55 females, taking 99% out of the total counselors, and the average age of these counselors was 42 years. There were 26 nurses, and their government grade was level 7 in 36 and level 6 in 14. The members who had finished sex education counseling at each public health center was 2.1 counselors at an average. Among those had finished sex education training, 30 was not in sex counseling. When analyzed the answers given by 27 sex counselors who were counseling at the time and the results are as follows. As for the amount of work, 15 answered to have too much work and 1 little; as for having pride on being a sex education counselor, 18 answered to felt pride and 7 so-so; as for materials for sex education and counseling, 25 answered to use videos, 23 books, 10 pictures, 8 beam projectors, and 7 slides. All of the subjects answered to have other responsibilities besides sex education and counseling, and the satisfaction felt on having other responsibilities was 6 satisfied, 12 average, and 2 dissatisfied. The proportion of work load in sex education counselors was other work besides sex education 76.2%, sex education at schools 7.6%. collecting sex education materials 5.7%, counseling of adolescents 4.9%. development of sex education materials 3.5%, and administrative work related to sex education 3.1%. The biggest problem of their work was over-load in 9 respondents, lack of sex education materials in 8, lack of training in 6, and shortage of professionals in 2. As for the answer on the ways of improving matters related to work of sex education counselors, the most frequent answer was that the organizations responsible for sex education needs to be more professional and systematic, followed by dividing the work load so that they could concentrate on developing education materials and sex education and counseling. Thus, the results of the present study indicated that in order to utilize human resources efficiently, the speciality of counselors needs to be considered when making personnel transfers among health centers, and continued activity as a sex education counselor needs to promoted by reducing other overloading tasks. And systematic re-training of the counselors needs to be done, and education manuals that are diverse and realistic to applicable to the children, who are to be the subjects of sex education, need to be developed and distributed.

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Clinical Efficacy of Clomiphene Citrate and Letrozole Combined with Gonadotropins for Superovulation in Patients with Clomiphene-Induced Thin Endometrium (클로미펜에 얇은 자궁내막을 보이는 환자에서 성선자극호르몬 병합 과배란유도시 클로미펜과 레트로졸의 임상적 효용성)

  • Lee, Eun-Joo;Park, Hyun-Jong;Yang, Hyo-In;Lee, Kyung-Eun;Seo, Seok-Kyo;Kim, Hye-Yeon;Cho, Si-Hyun;Choi, Young-Sik;Lee, Byung-Seok;Park, Ki-Hyun;Cho, Dong-Jae
    • Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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    • v.36 no.2
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    • pp.111-119
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    • 2009
  • Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the clinical efficacy of clomiphene citrate (CC) and letrozole combined with gonadotropins for controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) in patients with CC-induced thin endometrium Methods: Fifty-one intrauterine insemination cycles performed in patients who previously had a thin endometrium (<8 mm) to ovulation induction using CC were included in this study. A CC 100 mg/day (CC+gonadotropin group, n=26) or letrozole 2.5 or 5 mg/day (letrozole+gonadotropin group, n=25) was administered on day 3~7 of the menstrual cycle, combined with gonadotropins at dose 75~150 IU every other day starting on day 5~7. We compared total dose of gonadotropin used, endometrial thickness, endometrial pattern, number of follicles ${\geq}14\;mm$ on hCG day, pregnancy rate and multiple pregnancy rate between the two groups, which were statistically analyzed using Mann-Whitney U test or Fisher's exact test, where appropriate. Results: There were no significant differences in clinical characteristics such as age, duration of infertility, number of previous IUI cycles, basal serum hormone levels and cause of infertility between the two groups. In both groups, the endometrium was significantly thicker than that of previous ovulation induction cycles using CC. No significant differences were found in the total dose of gonadotropin used, day of hCG administration, the rate of triple endometrium and pregnancy rate. The number of follicles ${\geq}14\;mm$ was significantly lower ($3.7{\pm}1.7$ vs. $2.8{\pm}1.7$, p=0.03) and the endometrium on hCG day was significantly thicker ($7.7{\pm}1.5$ vs. $9.1{\pm}1.7$, p=0.001) in letrozole+gonadotropin group compared to CC+gonadotropin group. Conclusion: The clomiphene citrate and letrozole combined with gonadotropins appear to avoid the undesirable effects on the endometrium frequently seen with CC for ovulation induction. However, in terms of adequate endometrial development or optimal follicular growth, letrozole may be more beneficial than CC for gonadotropin-combined COS in patients with CC-induced thin endometrium. Further prospective randomized controlled studies in a larger scale will be necessary to confirm our findings.

Cooperation Strategy in the Business Ecosystem and Its Healthiness: Case of Win - Win Growth of Samsung Electronics and Partnering Companies (기업생태계 상생전략과 기업건강성효과: 삼성전자와 협력업체의 상생경영사례를 중심으로)

  • Sung, Changyong;Kim, Ki-Chan;In, Sungyong
    • The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.19-39
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    • 2016
  • With increasing adoption of smart products and complexity, companies have shifted their strategies from stand alone and competitive strategies to business ecosystem oriented and cooperative strategies. The win-win growth of business refers to corporate efforts undertaken by companies to pursue the healthiness of business between conglomerates and partnering companies such as suppliers for mutual prosperity and a long-term corporate soundness based on their business ecosystem and cooperative strategies. This study is designed to validate a theoretical proposition that the win-win growth strategy of Samsung Electronics and cooperative efforts among companies can create a healthy business ecosystem, based on results of case studies and surveys. In this study, a level of global market access of small and mid-sized companies is adopted as the key achievement index. The foreign market entry is considered as one of vulnerabilities in the ecosystem of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). For SMEs, the global market access based on the research and development (R&D) has become the critical component in the process of transforming them into global small giants. The results of case studies and surveys are analyzed mainly based on a model of a virtuous cycle of Creativity, Opportunity, Productivity, and Proactivity (the COPP model) that features the characteristics of the healthiness of a business ecosystem. In the COPP model, a virtuous circle of profits made by the first three factors and Proactivity, which is the manifestation of entrepreneurship that proactively invests and reacts to the changing business environment of the future, enhances the healthiness of a given business ecosystem. With the application of the COPP model, this study finds major achievements of the win-win growth of Samsung Electronics as follows. First, Opportunity plays a role as a parameter in the relations of Creativity, Productivity, and creating profits. Namely, as companies export more (with more Opportunity), they are more likely to link their R&D efforts to Productivity and profitability. However, companies that do not export tend to fail to link their R&D investment to profitability. Second, this study finds that companies with huge investment on R&D for the future, which is the result of Proactivity, tend to hold a large number of patents (Creativity). And companies with significant numbers of patents tend to be large exporters as well (Opportunity), and companies with a large amount of exports tend to record high profitability (Productivity and profitability), and thus forms the virtuous cycle of the COPP model. In addition, to access global markets for sustainable growth, SMEs need to build and strengthen their competitiveness. This study concludes that companies with a high level of proactivity to invest for the future can create a virtuous circle of Creativity, Opportunity, Productivity, and Proactivity, thereby providing a strategic implication that SMEs should invest time and resources in forming such a virtuous cycle which is a sure way for the SMEs to grow into global small giants.

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Categorizing Quality Features of Franchisees: In the case of Korean Food Service Industry (프랜차이즈 매장 품질요인의 속성분류: 국내 외식업을 중심으로)

  • Byun, Sook-Eun;Cho, Eun-Seong
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.1
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    • pp.95-115
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    • 2011
  • Food service is the major part of franchise business in Korea, accounting for 69.9% of the brands in the market. As the food service industry becomes mature, many franchisees have struggled to survive in the market. In general, consumers have higher levels of expectation toward service quality of franchised outlets compared that of (non-franchised) independent ones. They also tend to believe that franchisees deliver standardized service at the uniform food price, regardless of their locations. Such beliefs seem to be important reasons that consumers prefer franchised outlets to independent ones. Nevertheless, few studies examined the impact of qualify features of franchisees on customer satisfaction so far. To this end, this study examined the characteristics of various quality features of franchisees in the food service industry, regarding their relationship with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The quality perception of heavy-users was also compared with that of light-users in order to find insights for developing differentiated marketing strategy for the two segments. Customer satisfaction has been understood as a one-dimensional construct while there are recent studies that insist two-dimensional nature of the construct. In this regard, Kano et al. (1984) suggested to categorize quality features of a product or service into five types, based on their relation to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Must-be quality, Attractive quality, One-dimensional quality, Indifferent quality, and Reverse quality. According to the Kano model, customers are more dissatisfied when Must-be quality(M) are not fulfilled, but their satisfaction does not arise above neutral no matter how fully the quality fulfilled. In comparison, customers are more satisfied with a full provision of Attactive quality(A) but manage to accept its dysfunction. One-dimensional quality(O) results in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. For Indifferent quality(I), its presence or absence influences neither customer satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Lastly, Reverse quality(R) refers to the features whose high degree of achievement results in customer dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction. Meanwhile, the basic guidelines of the Kano model have a limitation in that the quality type of each feature is simply determined by calculating the mode statistics. In order to overcome such limitation, the relative importance of each feature on customer satisfaction (Better value; b) and dissatisfaction (Worse value; w) were calculated following the formulas below (Timko, 1993). The Better value indicates how much customer satisfaction is increased by providing the quality feature in question. In contrast, the Worse value indicates how much customer dissatisfaction is decreased by providing the quality feature. Better = (A + O)/(A+O+M+I) Worse = (O+M)/(A+O+M+I)(-1) An on-line survey was performed in order to understand the nature of quality features of franchisees in the food service industry by applying the Kano Model. A total of twenty quality features (refer to the Table 2) were identified as the result of literature review in franchise business and a pre-test with fifty college students in Seoul. The potential respondents of our main survey was limited to the customers who have visited more than two restaurants/stores of the same franchise brand. Survey invitation e-mails were sent out to the panels of a market research company and a total of 257 responses were used for analysis. Following the guidelines of Kano model, each of the twenty quality features was classified into one of the five types based on customers' responses to a set of questions: "(1) how do you feel if the following quality feature is fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit," and "(2) how do you feel if the following quality feature is not fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit." The analyses revealed that customers' dissatisfaction with franchisees is commonly associated with the poor level of cleanliness of the store (w=-0.872), kindness of the staffs(w=-0.890), conveniences such as parking lot and restroom(w=-0.669), and expertise of the staffs(w=-0.492). Such quality features were categorized as Must-be quality in this study. While standardization or uniformity across franchisees has been emphasized in franchise business, this study found that consumers are interested only in uniformity of price across franchisees(w=-0.608), but not interested in standardizations of menu items, interior designs, customer service procedures, and food tastes. Customers appeared to be more satisfied when the franchise brand has promotional events such as giveaways(b=0.767), good accessibility(b=0.699), customer loyalty programs(b=0.659), award winning history(b=0.641), and outlets in the overseas market(b=0.506). The results are summarized in a matrix form in Table 1. Better(b) and Worse(w) index indicate relative importance of each quality feature on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Meanwhile, there were differences in perceiving the quality features between light users and heavy users of any specific franchise brand in the food service industry. Expertise of the staffs was labeled as Must-be quality for heavy users but Indifferent quality for light users. Light users seemed indifferent to overseas expansion of the brand and offering new menu items on a regular basis, while heavy users appeared to perceive them as Attractive quality. Such difference may come from their different levels of involvement when they eat out. The results are shown in Table 2. The findings of this study help practitioners understand the quality features they need to focus on to strengthen the competitive power in the food service market. Above all, removing the factors that cause customer dissatisfaction seems to be the most critical for franchisees. To retain loyal customers of the franchise brand, it is also recommended for franchisor to invest resources in the development of new menu items as well as training programs for the staffs. Lastly, if resources allow, promotional events, loyalty programs, overseas expansion, award-winning history can be considered as tools for attracting more customers to the business.

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The Effect of Attributes of Innovation and Perceived Risk on Product Attitudes and Intention to Adopt Smart Wear (스마트 의류의 혁신속성과 지각된 위험이 제품 태도 및 수용의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Ko, Eun-Ju;Sung, Hee-Won;Yoon, Hye-Rim
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.89-111
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    • 2008
  • Due to the development of digital technology, studies regarding smart wear integrating daily life have rapidly increased. However, consumer research about perception and attitude toward smart clothing hardly could find. The purpose of this study was to identify innovative characteristics and perceived risk of smart clothing and to analyze the influences of theses factors on product attitudes and intention to adopt. Specifically, five hypotheses were established. H1: Perceived attributes of smart clothing except for complexity would have positive relations to product attitude or purchase intention, while complexity would be opposite. H2: Product attitude would have positive relation to purchase intention. H3: Product attitude would have a mediating effect between perceived attributes and purchase intention. H4: Perceived risks of smart clothing would have negative relations to perceived attributes except for complexity, and positive relations to complexity. H5: Product attitude would have a mediating effect between perceived risks and purchase intention. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. After pretest, the data were collected during September, 2006, from university students in Korea who were relatively sensitive to innovative products. A total of 300 final useful questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS 13.0 program. About 60.3% were male with the mean age of 21.3 years old. About 59.3% reported that they were aware of smart clothing, but only 9 respondents purchased it. The mean of attitudes toward smart clothing and purchase intention was 2.96 (SD=.56) and 2.63 (SD=.65) respectively. Factor analysis using principal components with varimax rotation was conducted to identify perceived attribute and perceived risk dimensions. Perceived attributes of smart wear were categorized into relative advantage (including compatibility), observability (including triability), and complexity. Perceived risks were identified into physical/performance risk, social psychological risk, time loss risk, and economic risk. Regression analysis was conducted to test five hypotheses. Relative advantage and observability were significant predictors of product attitude (adj $R^2$=.223) and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.221). Complexity showed negative influence on product attitude. Product attitude presented significant relation to purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.692) and partial mediating effect between perceived attributes and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.698). Therefore hypothesis one to three were accepted. In order to test hypothesis four, four dimensions of perceived risk and demographic variables (age, gender, monthly household income, awareness of smart clothing, and purchase experience) were entered as independent variables in the regression models. Social psychological risk, economic risk, and gender (female) were significant to predict relative advantage (adj $R^2$=.276). When perceived observability was a dependent variable, social psychological risk, time loss risk, physical/performance risk, and age (younger) were significant in order (adj $R^2$=.144). However, physical/performance risk was positively related to observability. The more Koreans seemed to be observable of smart clothing, the more increased the probability of physical harm or performance problems received. Complexity was predicted by product awareness, social psychological risk, economic risk, and purchase experience in order (adj $R^2$=.114). Product awareness was negatively related to complexity, meaning high level of product awareness would reduce complexity of smart clothing. However, purchase experience presented positive relation with complexity. It appears that consumers can perceive high level of complexity when they are actually consuming smart clothing in real life. Risk variables were positively related with complexity. That is, in order to decrease complexity, it is also necessary to consider minimizing anxiety factors about social psychological wound or loss of money. Thus, hypothesis 4 was partially accepted. Finally, in testing hypothesis 5, social psychological risk and economic risk were significant predictors for product attitude (adj $R^2$=.122) and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.099) respectively. When attitude variable was included with risk variables as independent variables in the regression model to predict purchase intention, only attitude variable was significant (adj $R^2$=.691). Thus attitude variable presented full mediating effect between perceived risks and purchase intention, and hypothesis 5 was accepted. Findings would provide guidelines for fashion and electronic businesses who aim to create and strengthen positive attitude toward smart clothing. Marketers need to consider not only functional feature of smart clothing, but also practical and aesthetic attributes, since appropriateness for social norm or self image would reduce uncertainty of psychological or social risk, which increase relative advantage of smart clothing. Actually social psychological risk was significantly associated to relative advantage. Economic risk is negatively associated with product attitudes as well as purchase intention, suggesting that smart-wear developers have to reflect on price ranges of potential adopters. It will be effective to utilize the findings associated with complexity when marketers in US plan communication strategy.

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A Study on the Nutritive Value and Utilization of Powdered Seaweeds (해조의 식용분말화에 관한 연구)

  • Yu, Jong-Yull;Lee, Ki-Yull;Kim, Sook-Hee
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.15-37
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    • 1975
  • I. Subject of the study A study on the nutritive value and utilization of powdered seaweeds. II. Purpose and Importance of the study A. In Korea the shortage of food will be inevitable by the rapidly growing population. It will be very important study to develop a new food from the seaweeds which were not used hitherto for human consumption. B. The several kinds of seaweeds have been used by man in Korea mainly as side-dishes. However, a properly powdered seaweed will enable itself to be a good supplement or mixture to certain cereal flours. C. By adding the powdered seaweed to any cereals which have long been staple foods in this country the two fold benefits; saving of cereals and change of dietary pattern, will be secured. III. Objects and scope of the study A. Objects of the study The objects will come under four items. 1. To develop a powdered seaweed as a new food from the seaweeds which have been not used for human consumption. 2. To evaluate the nutritional quality of the products the analysis for chemical composition and animal feeding experiment will be conducted. 3. Experimental cocking and accepability test will be conducted for the powdered products to evaluate the value as food stuff. 4. Sanitary test and also economical analysis will be conducted for the powdered products. B. Scope of the study 1. Production of seaweed powders Sargassum fulvellum growing in eastern coast and Sargassum patens C.A. in southern coast were used as the material for the powders. These algae, which have been not used for human consumption, were pulverized through the processes of washing, drying, pulverization, etc. 2. Nutritional experiments a. Chemical composition Proximate components (water, protein, fat, cellulose, sugar, ash, salt), minerals (calcium, phosphorus, iron, iodine), vitamins (A, $B_1,\;B_2$ niacin, C) and amino acids were analyzed for the seaweed powders. b. Animal feeding experiment Weaning 160 rats (80 male and 80 female rats) were used as experimental animals, dividing them into 16 groups, 10 rats each group. Each group was fed for 12 weeks on cereal diet (Wheat flour, rice powder, barley powder, potato powder, corn flour) with the supplementary levels of 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 30% of the seaweed powder. After the feeding the growth, feed efficiency ratio, protain efficiency ratio and ,organs weights were checked and urine analysis, feces analysis and serum analysis were also conducted. 3. Experimental cooking and acceptability test a. Several basic studies were conducted to find the characteristics of the seaweed powder. b. 17 kinds of Korean dishes and 9 kinds of foreign dishes were prepared with cereal flours (wheat, rice, barley, potato, corn) with the supplementary levels of 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 30% of the seaweed powder. c. Acceptability test for the dishes was conducted according to plank's Form. 4. Sanitary test The heavy metals (Cd, Pb, As, Hg) in the seaweed powders were determined. 5. Economical analysis The retail price of the seaweed powder was compared with those of other cereals in the market. And also economical analysis was made from the nutritional point of view, calculating the body weight gained in grams per unit price of each feeding diet. IV. Results of the study and the suggestion for application A. Chemical composition 1. There is no any big difference in proximate components between powders of Sargassum fulvellum in eastern coast and Sargassum patens C.A. in southern coast. Seasonal difference is also not significant. Higher levels of protein, cellulose, ash and salt were found in the powders compared with common cereal foods. 2. The levels of calcium (Ca) and iron (Fe) in the powders were significantly higher than common cereal foods and also rich in iodine (I). Existence of vitamin A and vitamin C in the Powders is different point from cereal foods. Vitamin $B_1\;and\;B_2$ are also relatively rich in the powders.'Vitamin A in ·Sargassum fulvellum is high and the levels of some minerals and vitamins are seemed4 to be some influenced by seasons. 3. In the amino acid composition methionine, isoleucine, Iysine and valine are limiting amino acids. The protein qualities of Sargassum fulvellum and Sargassum patens C.A. are seemed to be .almost same and generally ·good. Seasonal difference in amino acid composition was found. B. Animal feeding experiment 1. The best growth was found at.10% supplemental level of the seaweed Powder and lower growth rate was shown at 30% level. 2. It was shown that 15% supplemental level of the Seaweed powder seems to fulfil, to some extent the mineral requirement of the animals. 3. No any changes were found in organs development except that, in kidney, there found decreasing in weight by increasing the supplemental level of the seaweed powder. 4. There is no any significant changes in nitrogen retention, serum cholesterol, serum calcium and urinary calcium in each supplemental level of the seaweed powder. 5. In animal feeding experiment it was concluded that $5%{\sim}15%$ levels supplementation of the seaweed powder are possible. C. Experimental cooking and acceptability test 1. The seaweed powder showed to be utilized more excellently in foreign cookings than in Korean cookings. Higher supplemental level of seaweed was passible in foreign cookings. 2. Hae-Jo-Kang and Jeon-Byung were more excellent than Song-Pyun, wheat cake, Soo-Je-Bee and wheat noodle. Hae-Je-Kang was excellent in its quality even as high as 5% supplemental level. 3. The higher levels of supplementation were used the more sticky cooking products were obtained. Song-Pyun and wheat cake were palatable and lustrous in 2% supplementation level. 4. In drop cookie the higher levels of supplementation, the more crisp product was obtained, compared with other cookies. 5. Corn cake, thin rice gruel, rice gruel and potato Jeon-Byung were more excellent in their quality than potato Man-Doo and potato noodle. Corn cake, thin rice gruel and rice gruel were excellent even as high as 5% supplementation level. 6. In several cooking Porducts some seaweed-oder was perceived in case of 3% or more levels of supplementation. This may be much diminished by the use of proper condiments. D. Sanitary test It seems that there is no any heavy metals (Cd, Pb, As, Hg) problem in these seaweed Powders in case these Powders are used as supplements to any cereal flours E. Economical analysis The price of the seaweed powder is lower than those of other cereals and that may be more lowered when mass production of the seaweed powder is made in future. The supplement of the seaweed powder to any cereals is also economical with the criterion of animal growth rate. F. It is recommended that these seaweed powders should be developed and used as supplement to any cereal flours or used as other food material. By doing so, both saving of cereals and improvement of individual's nutrition will greatly be achieved. It is also recommended that the feeding experiment for men would be conducted in future.

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