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Typology of Korean Eco-sumers: Based on Clothing Disposal Behaviors (관우한국생태학적일개예설(关于韩国生态学的一个预设): 기우복장탑배적행위(基于服装搭配的行为))

  • Sung, Hee-Won;Kincade, Doris H.
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.59-69
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    • 2010
  • Green or an environmental consciousness has been a major issue for businesses and government offices, as well as consumers, worldwide. In response to this movement, the Korean government announced, in the early 2000s, the era of "Green Growth" as a way to encourage green-related business activities. The Korean fashion industry, in various levels of involvement, presents diverse eco-friendly products as a part of the green movement. These apparel products include organic products and recycled clothing. For these companies to be successful, they need information about who are the consumers who consider green issues (e.g., environmental sustainability) as part of their personal values when making a decision for product purchase, use, and disposal. These consumers can be considered as eco-sumers. Previous studies have examined consumers' purchase intention for or with eco-friendly products. In addition, studies have examined influential factors used to identify the eco-sumers or green consumers. However, limited attention was paid to eco-sumers' disposal or recycling behavior of clothes in comparison with their green product purchases. Clothing disposal behaviors are ways that consumer can get rid of unused clothing and in clue temporarily lending the item or permanently eliminating the item by "handing down" (e.g., giving it to a younger sibling), donating, exchanging, selling, or simply throwing it away. Accordingly, examining purchasing behaviors of eco-friendly fashion items in conjunction with clothing disposal behaviors should improve understanding of a consumer's clothing consumption behavior from the environmental perspective. The purpose of this exploratory study is to provide descriptive information about Korean eco-sumers who have ecologically-favorable lifestyles and behaviors when buying and disposing of clothes. The objectives of this study are to (a) categorize Koreans on the basis of clothing disposal behaviors; (b) investigate the differences in demographics, lifestyles, and clothing consumption values among segments; and (c) compare the purchase intention of eco-friendly fashion items and influential factors among segments. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. The questionnaire included 10 items of clothing disposal behavior, 22 items of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) characteristics, and 19 items of consumption values, measured by five-point Likert-type scales. In addition, the purchase intention of two eco-friendly fashion items and 11 attributes of each item were measured by seven-point Likert type scales. Two polyester fleece pullovers, made from fabric created from recycled bottles with the PET identification code, were selected from one Korean brand and one US imported brand among outdoor sportswear brands. A brief description of each product with a color picture was provided in the survey. Demographic variables (i.e., gender, age, marital status, education level, income, occupation) were also included. The data were collected through a professional web survey agency during May 2009. A total of 600 final usable questionnaires were analyzed. The age of respondents ranged from 20 to 49 years old with a mean age of 34 years. Fifty percent of the respondents were males and about 58% were married, and 62% reported having earned university degrees. Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to identify the underlying dimensions of the clothing disposal behavior scale, and three factors were generated (i.e., reselling behavior, donating behavior, non-recycling behavior). To categorize the respondents on the basis of clothing disposal behaviors, k-mean cluster analysis was used, and three segments were obtained. These consumer segments were labeled as 'Resale Group', 'Donation Group', and 'Non-Recycling Group.' The classification results indicated approximately 98 percent of the original cases were correctly classified. With respect to demographic characteristics among the three segments, significant differences were found in gender, marital status, occupation, and age. LOHAS characteristics were reduced into the following five factors: self-satisfaction, family orientation, health concern, environmental concern, and voluntary service. Significant differences were found in the LOHAS factors among the three clusters. Resale Group and Donation Group showed a similar predisposition to LOHAS issues while the Non-Recycling Group presented the lowest mean scores on the LOHAS factors compared to the other segments. The Resale and Donation Groups described themselves as enjoying or being satisfied with their lives and spending spare-time with family. In addition, these two groups cared about health and organic foods, and tried to conserve energy and resources. Principal components factor analysis generated clothing consumption values into the following three factors: personal values, social value, and practical value. The ANOVA test with the factors showed differences primarily between the Resale Group and the other two groups. The Resale Group was more concerned about personal value and social value than the other segments. In contrast, the Non-Recycling Group presented the higher level of social value than did Donation Group. In a comparison of the intention to purchase eco-friendly products, the Resale Group showed the highest mean score on intent to purchase Product A. On the other hand, the Donation Group presented the highest intention to purchase for Product B among segments. In addition, the mean scores indicated that the Korean product (Product B) was more preferable for purchase than the U.S. product (Product A). Stepwise regression analysis was used to identify the influence of product attributes on the purchase intention of eco product. With respect to Product A, design, price and contribution to environmental preservation were significant to predict purchase intention for the Resale Group, while price and compatibility with my image factors were significant for the Donation Group. For the Non-Recycling Group, design, price compatibility with the factors of my image, participation to eco campaign, and contribution to environmental preservation were significant. Price appropriateness was significant for each of the three clusters. With respect to Product B, design, price and compatibility with my image factors were important, but different attributes were associated significantly with purchase intention for each of the three groups. The influence of LOHAS characteristics and clothing consumption values on intention to purchase Products A and B were also examined. The LOHAS factor of health concern and the personal value factor were significant in the relationships with the purchase intention; however, the explanatory powers were low in the three segments. Findings showed that each group as classified by clothing disposal behaviors showed differences in the attributes of a product, personal values, and the LOHAS characteristics that influenced their purchase intention of eco-friendly products. Findings would enable organizations to understand eco-friendly behavior and to design appropriate strategic decisions to appeal eco-sumers.

A study on the ecological habitat and protection of natural Sorbus commixta forest at Mt. Seorak (설악산(雪嶽山)에 분포(分布)하는 마가목 천연림(天然林)의 생태환경(生態環境)과 보호(保護)에 관(關)한 연구(硏究))

  • Shin, Jai Man;Kim, Tong Su;Han, Sang Sup
    • Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.1-9
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    • 1983
  • The purpose of this study was to elucidate the ecophysiological habitat of natural Sorbus commixta forest at Mt. Seorak. The results obtained were as follows: 1. The Sorbus commixta trees mainly distributed from 900m to 1,500m altitude. In there, the warm index(WI) was about 42$3.2{\times}10^3$ to $9.2{\times}10^3$, cation exchange capacity(CEC) was 13.7 to 19.5mg/100g, N content 0.21 to 0.39%, $P_2O_5$ content was 22.6 to 38.7ppm, and pH value was 5.6 to 5.8 respectively. 4. The upper crown trees in Sorbus commixta communities were Abies nephrolepis, Taxus cuspidata, Betula platyphylla var. japonica, Quercus${\times}$grosseserrata, Acer mono, Prunus sargentii, Carpinus cordata, Tilia amurensis, and the under crown trees were Rhododendron brachycarpum, Acer pseudo-sieboldianum, Thuja olientalis, Corylus heterohpylla, Philadelphus schrenckii, Rhododendron schlippenbachii, Rhododendron mucronulatum, and Magnolia sieboldii. 5. The stand densities were 1,156 trees/ha at 1,160m and 3,600 trees/ha at 1,300m respectively. The coverages by the DBH basal area were 0.37 at 1,160m and 0.31 at 1,300m respectively, and the vegetation coverages by the crown projection area were 2.04 at 1,160m and 1.61 at 1,300m respectively. 6. The light extinction coefficient(k) in Beer-Lambert's law, showed the distance, F(z), from top canopy to aboveground, was 0.17. 7. The water relations parameters of Sorbus commixta shoot were obtained by the pressure chamber technique. The osmotic pressure, ${\pi}_o$, at maximum turgor was -16.2 bar, and VAT pressure was 14.5bar. The osmotic pressure, ${\pi}_p$, at incipient plasmolysis was -19.4bar. The relative water contents at incipient plasmolysis were 83.1% ($v_p/v_o$) and 87.1%($v_p/w_s$;$w_s$, total water at maximum turgor). 8. The bulk modulus of elasticity(E) of shoot was about 69.6. The total symplasmic water to total water in shoot was 67.7%, and the apoplastic water to total water was 32.3%.

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On the present bamboo groves of Cholla-nam-do and their proper treatment -No. 1. On the growing stock of reprsentative phyllostachys reticulata grove by county (전라남도(全羅南道)의 죽림현황(竹林現況)과 그 개선대책(改善對策) -제일(第一), 각군별대표고죽림(各郡別代表苦竹林)의 몇가지 죽간형질(竹桿形質)과 축적(蓄積)에 대하여)

  • Chung, Dong Oh
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.19-28
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    • 1962
  • Total area of bamboo groves in Korea which is limited to $37^{\circ}$ north latitude, i.e., to southern part of Chungchung-nam-do Province and Kangwon-do Province, is 3,235ha., but this country must import about 3,000 metric ton's bamboo culms from Japan every year. It may be true that the country is not so fit for economical cultivation of bamboo groves from the view point of climatic condition, but the author believes that self-sufficiency in bamboo is not impossible if some scientific method for improving bamboo groves is introduced to our primitive groves. Keeping this point in his mind the auther tried to study on the bamboo groves in the country, and as the first step set about to investigate the actual state of twenty good bamboo groves located in Cholla-nam-do Province from March, 1961 to January, 1962. This is a report on some characters of bamboo culms and growing stock with samples collected in the present investigation. 1) Numbers of bamboo culm per 0.1ha. are 1,183 in average, 1,840 in maximum and 87.5 in minimum before harvesting. 2) According to owners' saying, 1960 was such an off-year that they could hardly see any yearling bamboos in groves, but in 1961 very many new bamboos are produced as follows: the proportion of the number of yearling bamboos produced this year to that of mature bamboos (over 2 years old) is 58.7% in average; the highest 110.5% and the lowest 16.8%. 3) the average diameter of culms at eye height is 6.5cm, but the biggest diameter comes to 11.2 cm, and the average diameters of yearling and mature bamboos are 6.5cm and 6.6cm respectively. 4) Internode length records 29.4 cm in average, the shortest 21.3 cm and the longest 38.4 cm. Average internode lengths of new culms and mature culms are 27.6 cm and 29.4 cm respectively. This shows that the internode length of new culms is in the decrease to that of maturer's. 5) Through this investigation, it was found that internode length is in the influence of the exposure and density of bamboo groves, i. e., the more the dencity of bamboo groves is and the more the exposure nears the north-east, the longer the internode length becomes (see Table 7 and 8). 6) In the growing stock of bamboo groves, bundles per 0.1ha. amount to 271 sok (unit of bundle) in total average, 445 sok in maximum and 126 sok in minimum. 7) Among twenty typical bamboo groves, chosen in each County in Cholla-nam-do Province, only one passes perfectly by Veda's standard rule* prescribing the good bamboo grove, but the eight groves shown in Table 9 could be recommended as good ones in Cholla-nam-do Province, because the auther believes that those groves may be improved better, if we pay more attention to the management of them. 8) Considering that they have managed their groves carelessly and primitively, and that unfortunately their groves must have faced almost on clear felling over the entire area at the time of the Korean War, we can surely expect much more increments in bamboo groves, if we introduce some scientific methods in managing their groves.

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Evaluation on the Immunization Module of Non-chart System in Private Clinic for Development of Internet Information System of National Immunization Programme m Korea (국가 예방접종 인터넷정보시스템 개발을 위한 의원정보시스템의 예방접종 모듈 평가연구)

  • Lee, Moo-Sik;Lee, Kun-Sei;Lee, Seok-Gu;Shin, Eui-Chul;Kim, Keon-Yeop;Na, Bak-Ju;Hong, Jee-Young;Kim, Yun-Jeong;Park, Sook-Kyung;Kim, Bo-Kyung;Kwon, Yun-Hyung;Kim, Young-Taek
    • Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.65-75
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    • 2004
  • Objectives: Immunizations have been one of the most effective measures preventing from infectious diseases. It is quite important national infectious disease prevention policy to keep the immunizations rate high and monitor the immunizations rate continuously. To do this, Korean CDC introduced the National Immunization Registry Program(NIRP) which has been implementing since 2000 at the Public Health Centers(PHC). The National Immunization Registry Program will be near completed after sharing, connecting and transfering vaccination data between public and private sector. The aims of this study was to evaluate the immunization module of non-chart system in private clinic with health information system of public health center(made by POSDATA Co., LTD) and immunization registry program(made by BIT Computer Co., LTD). Methods: The analysis and survey were done by specialists in medical, health field, and health information fields from 2001. November to 2002. January. We made the analysis and recommendation about the immunization module of non-chart system in private clinic. Results and Conclusions: To make improvement on immunization module, the system will be revised on various function like receipt and registration, preliminary medical examination, reference and inquiry, registration of vaccine, print-out various sheet, function of transfer vaccination data, issue function of vaccination certification, function of reminder and recall, function of statistical calculation, and management of vaccine stock. There are needs of an accurate assessment of current immunization module on each private non-chart system. And further studies will be necessary to make it an accurate system under changing health policy related national immunization program. We hope that the result of this study may contribute to establish the National Immunization Registry Program.

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A Ranking Algorithm for Semantic Web Resources: A Class-oriented Approach (시맨틱 웹 자원의 랭킹을 위한 알고리즘: 클래스중심 접근방법)

  • Rho, Sang-Kyu;Park, Hyun-Jung;Park, Jin-Soo
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.31-59
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    • 2007
  • We frequently use search engines to find relevant information in the Web but still end up with too much information. In order to solve this problem of information overload, ranking algorithms have been applied to various domains. As more information will be available in the future, effectively and efficiently ranking search results will become more critical. In this paper, we propose a ranking algorithm for the Semantic Web resources, specifically RDF resources. Traditionally, the importance of a particular Web page is estimated based on the number of key words found in the page, which is subject to manipulation. In contrast, link analysis methods such as Google's PageRank capitalize on the information which is inherent in the link structure of the Web graph. PageRank considers a certain page highly important if it is referred to by many other pages. The degree of the importance also increases if the importance of the referring pages is high. Kleinberg's algorithm is another link-structure based ranking algorithm for Web pages. Unlike PageRank, Kleinberg's algorithm utilizes two kinds of scores: the authority score and the hub score. If a page has a high authority score, it is an authority on a given topic and many pages refer to it. A page with a high hub score links to many authoritative pages. As mentioned above, the link-structure based ranking method has been playing an essential role in World Wide Web(WWW), and nowadays, many people recognize the effectiveness and efficiency of it. On the other hand, as Resource Description Framework(RDF) data model forms the foundation of the Semantic Web, any information in the Semantic Web can be expressed with RDF graph, making the ranking algorithm for RDF knowledge bases greatly important. The RDF graph consists of nodes and directional links similar to the Web graph. As a result, the link-structure based ranking method seems to be highly applicable to ranking the Semantic Web resources. However, the information space of the Semantic Web is more complex than that of WWW. For instance, WWW can be considered as one huge class, i.e., a collection of Web pages, which has only a recursive property, i.e., a 'refers to' property corresponding to the hyperlinks. However, the Semantic Web encompasses various kinds of classes and properties, and consequently, ranking methods used in WWW should be modified to reflect the complexity of the information space in the Semantic Web. Previous research addressed the ranking problem of query results retrieved from RDF knowledge bases. Mukherjea and Bamba modified Kleinberg's algorithm in order to apply their algorithm to rank the Semantic Web resources. They defined the objectivity score and the subjectivity score of a resource, which correspond to the authority score and the hub score of Kleinberg's, respectively. They concentrated on the diversity of properties and introduced property weights to control the influence of a resource on another resource depending on the characteristic of the property linking the two resources. A node with a high objectivity score becomes the object of many RDF triples, and a node with a high subjectivity score becomes the subject of many RDF triples. They developed several kinds of Semantic Web systems in order to validate their technique and showed some experimental results verifying the applicability of their method to the Semantic Web. Despite their efforts, however, there remained some limitations which they reported in their paper. First, their algorithm is useful only when a Semantic Web system represents most of the knowledge pertaining to a certain domain. In other words, the ratio of links to nodes should be high, or overall resources should be described in detail, to a certain degree for their algorithm to properly work. Second, a Tightly-Knit Community(TKC) effect, the phenomenon that pages which are less important but yet densely connected have higher scores than the ones that are more important but sparsely connected, remains as problematic. Third, a resource may have a high score, not because it is actually important, but simply because it is very common and as a consequence it has many links pointing to it. In this paper, we examine such ranking problems from a novel perspective and propose a new algorithm which can solve the problems under the previous studies. Our proposed method is based on a class-oriented approach. In contrast to the predicate-oriented approach entertained by the previous research, a user, under our approach, determines the weights of a property by comparing its relative significance to the other properties when evaluating the importance of resources in a specific class. This approach stems from the idea that most queries are supposed to find resources belonging to the same class in the Semantic Web, which consists of many heterogeneous classes in RDF Schema. This approach closely reflects the way that people, in the real world, evaluate something, and will turn out to be superior to the predicate-oriented approach for the Semantic Web. Our proposed algorithm can resolve the TKC(Tightly Knit Community) effect, and further can shed lights on other limitations posed by the previous research. In addition, we propose two ways to incorporate data-type properties which have not been employed even in the case when they have some significance on the resource importance. We designed an experiment to show the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm and the validity of ranking results, which was not tried ever in previous research. We also conducted a comprehensive mathematical analysis, which was overlooked in previous research. The mathematical analysis enabled us to simplify the calculation procedure. Finally, we summarize our experimental results and discuss further research issues.

Microbiological Evaluation of Foods and Kitchen Environments in Childcare Center and Kindergarten Foodservice Operations (보육시설과 유치원 급식의 식품 및 환경 미생물의 오염도 평가)

  • Seol, Hye-Rin;Park, Hyoung-Su;Park, Ki-Hwan;Park, Ae-Kyung;Ryu, Kyung
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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    • v.38 no.2
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    • pp.252-260
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    • 2009
  • Whereas the numbers of childcare centers and kindergartens are increasing rapidly, systematic management to control the food safety of foodservice operation is not yet well established. Samples from 12 centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province were collected to assess the microbiological quality of 32 raw materials, 24 cooked foods, 76 food-contact surfaces (knives, cutting boards, dish towels and gloves), 17 employees' hands and 12 air-borne bacteria. The microbiological analyses were performed for aerobic plate counts (APC), Enterobacteriaceae, E. coli and 7 pathogens (B. cereus, C. jejuni, C. perfringens, L. monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., S. aureus, and V. parahaemolyticus). Among raw materials, E. coli ($1.39{\sim}2.08\;\log\;CFU/g$) were detected in 4 out of 6 meats and 7.46 log CFU/g of APC in tofu. High enterobacteriaceae levels of 4.23, 5.14 and 4.19 log CFU/g were found in cucumber salad, steamed spinach with seasonings and steamed bean sprout with seasonings, respectively. No pathogens were found in all samples except for C. perfringens detected from raw spinach and raw lotus root. Only APC and enterobacteriaceae were found in food-contact surfaces. Two of the 23 knives and three of the 24 kitchen boards showed over 500 CFU/$100\;cm^2$ of APC; also, APC levels (5.03 to 5.44 log CFU/g) were detected in 4 of the 12 dish towels. Only one glove showed Enterobacteriaceae (2.44 log CFU/glove) contamination. Enterobacteriaceae were found in 2 employees' hands ($2.37{\sim}4.44\;\log\;CFU$/hand) among the 16 employees. The contamination levels of air-borne bacteria were shown unacceptable in two (2.25 and 2.30 log CFU/petri-film/15 min) out of the 12 kitchen areas. These results suggest that the microbiological hazards in some foods and environments are not well controlled and thus a guideline should be provided to ensure the food safety in childcare center and kindergarten foodservice operations.

The Impact of Collective Guilt on the Preference for Japanese Products (집체범죄감대경향일본산품적영향(集体犯罪感对倾向日本产品的影响))

  • Maher, Amro A.;Singhapakdi, Anusorn;Park, Hyun-Soo;Auh, Sei-Gyoung
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.135-148
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    • 2010
  • Arab boycotts of Danish products, Australian boycotts of French products and Chinese consumer aversion toward Japanese products are all examples of how adverse actions at the country level might impact consumers' behavior. The animosity literature has examined how consumers react to the adverse actions of other countries, and how such animosity impacts consumers' attitudes and preferences for products from the transgressing country. For example, Chinese consumers are less likely to buy Japanese products because of Japanese atrocities during World War II and the unjust economic dealings of the Japanese (Klein, Ettenson and Morris 1998). The marketing literature, however, has not examined how consumers react to adverse actions committed by their own country against other countries, and whether such actions affect their attitudes towards purchasing products that originated from the adversely affected country. The social psychology literature argues that consumers will experience a feeling called collective guilt, in response to such adverse actions. Collective guilt stems from the distress experienced by group members when they accept that their group is responsible for actions that have harmed another group (Branscombe, Slugoski, and Kappenn 2004). Examples include Americans feeling guilty about the atrocities committed by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib prison (Iyer, Schamder and Lickel 2007), and the Dutch about their occupation of Indonesia in the past (Doosje et al. 1998). The primary aim of this study is to examine consumers' perceptions of adverse actions by members of one's own country against another country and whether such perceptions affected their attitudes towards products originating from the country transgressed against. More specifically, one objective of this study is to examine the perceptual antecedents of collective guilt, an emotional reaction to adverse actions performed by members of one's country against another country. Another objective is to examine the impact of collective guilt on consumers' perceptions of, and preference for, products originating from the country transgressed against by the consumers' own country. If collective guilt emerges as a significant predictor, companies originating from countries that have been transgressed against might be able to capitalize on such unfortunate events. This research utilizes the animosity model introduced by Klein, Ettenson and Morris (1998) and later expanded on by Klein (2002). Klein finds that U.S. consumers harbor animosity toward the Japanese. This animosity is experienced in response to events that occurred during World War II (i.e., the bombing of Pearl Harbor) and more recently the perceived economic threat from Japan. Thus this study argues that the events of Word War II (i.e., bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) might lead U.S. consumers to experience collective guilt. A series of three hypotheses were introduced. The first hypothesis deals with the antecedents of collective guilt. Previous research argues that collective guilt is experienced when consumers perceive that the harm following a transgression is illegitimate and that the country from which the transgressors originate should be responsible for the adverse actions. (Wohl, Branscombe, and Klar 2006). Therefore the following hypothesis was offered: H1a. Higher levels of perceived illegitimacy for the harm committed will result in higher levels of collective guilt. H1b. Higher levels of responsibility will be positively associated with higher levels of collective guilt. The second and third hypotheses deal with the impact of collective guilt on the preferences for Japanese products. Klein (2002) found that higher levels of animosity toward Japan resulted in a lower preference for a Japanese product relative to a South Korean product but not a lower preference for a Japanese product relative to a U.S. product. These results therefore indicate that the experience of collective guilt will lead to a higher preference for a Japanese product if consumers are contemplating a choice that inv olves a decision to buy Japanese versus South Korean product but not if the choice involves a decision to buy a Japanese versus a U.S. product. H2. Collective guilt will be positively related to the preference for a Japanese product over a South Korean product, but will not be related to the preference for a Japanese product over a U.S. product. H3. Collective guilt will be positively related to the preference for a Japanese product over a South Korean product, holding constant product judgments and animosity. An experiment was conducted to test the hypotheses. The illegitimacy of the harm and responsibility were manipulated by exposing respondents to a description of adverse events occurring during World War II. Data were collected using an online consumer panel in the United States. Subjects were randomly assigned to either the low levels of responsibility and illegitimacy condition (n=259) or the high levels of responsibility and illigitemacy (n=268) condition. Latent Variable Structural Equation Modeling (LVSEM) was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The first hypothesis is supported as both the illegitimacy of the harm and responsibility assigned to the Americans for the harm committed against the Japanese during WWII have a positive impact on collective guilt. The second hypothesis is also supported as collective guilt is positively related to preference for a Japanese product over a South Korean product but is not related to preference for a Japanese product over a U.S. product. Finally there is support for the third hypothesis, since collective guilt is positively related to the preference for a Japanese product over a South Korean product while controlling for the effect of product judgments about Japanese products and animosity. The results of these studies lead to several conclusions. First, the illegitimacy of harm and responsibility can be manipulated and that they are antecedents of collective guilt. Second, collective guilt has an impact on a consumers' decision when they face a choice set that includes a product from the country that was the target of the adverse action and a product from another foreign country. This impact however disappears from a consumers' decision when they face a choice set that includes a product from the country that was the target of the adverse action and a domestic product. This result suggests that collective guilt might be a viable factor for company originating from the country transgressed against if its competitors are foreign but not if they are local.

Automatic gasometer reading system using selective optical character recognition (관심 문자열 인식 기술을 이용한 가스계량기 자동 검침 시스템)

  • Lee, Kyohyuk;Kim, Taeyeon;Kim, Wooju
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.26 no.2
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    • pp.1-25
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    • 2020
  • In this paper, we suggest an application system architecture which provides accurate, fast and efficient automatic gasometer reading function. The system captures gasometer image using mobile device camera, transmits the image to a cloud server on top of private LTE network, and analyzes the image to extract character information of device ID and gas usage amount by selective optical character recognition based on deep learning technology. In general, there are many types of character in an image and optical character recognition technology extracts all character information in an image. But some applications need to ignore non-of-interest types of character and only have to focus on some specific types of characters. For an example of the application, automatic gasometer reading system only need to extract device ID and gas usage amount character information from gasometer images to send bill to users. Non-of-interest character strings, such as device type, manufacturer, manufacturing date, specification and etc., are not valuable information to the application. Thus, the application have to analyze point of interest region and specific types of characters to extract valuable information only. We adopted CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) based object detection and CRNN (Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network) technology for selective optical character recognition which only analyze point of interest region for selective character information extraction. We build up 3 neural networks for the application system. The first is a convolutional neural network which detects point of interest region of gas usage amount and device ID information character strings, the second is another convolutional neural network which transforms spatial information of point of interest region to spatial sequential feature vectors, and the third is bi-directional long short term memory network which converts spatial sequential information to character strings using time-series analysis mapping from feature vectors to character strings. In this research, point of interest character strings are device ID and gas usage amount. Device ID consists of 12 arabic character strings and gas usage amount consists of 4 ~ 5 arabic character strings. All system components are implemented in Amazon Web Service Cloud with Intel Zeon E5-2686 v4 CPU and NVidia TESLA V100 GPU. The system architecture adopts master-lave processing structure for efficient and fast parallel processing coping with about 700,000 requests per day. Mobile device captures gasometer image and transmits to master process in AWS cloud. Master process runs on Intel Zeon CPU and pushes reading request from mobile device to an input queue with FIFO (First In First Out) structure. Slave process consists of 3 types of deep neural networks which conduct character recognition process and runs on NVidia GPU module. Slave process is always polling the input queue to get recognition request. If there are some requests from master process in the input queue, slave process converts the image in the input queue to device ID character string, gas usage amount character string and position information of the strings, returns the information to output queue, and switch to idle mode to poll the input queue. Master process gets final information form the output queue and delivers the information to the mobile device. We used total 27,120 gasometer images for training, validation and testing of 3 types of deep neural network. 22,985 images were used for training and validation, 4,135 images were used for testing. We randomly splitted 22,985 images with 8:2 ratio for training and validation respectively for each training epoch. 4,135 test image were categorized into 5 types (Normal, noise, reflex, scale and slant). Normal data is clean image data, noise means image with noise signal, relfex means image with light reflection in gasometer region, scale means images with small object size due to long-distance capturing and slant means images which is not horizontally flat. Final character string recognition accuracies for device ID and gas usage amount of normal data are 0.960 and 0.864 respectively.

A comparison study of hygiene status in meals for poorly-fed children through microbiological analysis (결식아동이 이용하는 도시락의 미생물 검사를 통한 위생 상태 비교.분석)

  • Yu, Ok-Kyeong;Kim, Hyun-Suk;Byun, Moon-Sun;Kim, Mina;Cha, Youn-Soo
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
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    • v.47 no.3
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    • pp.214-220
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    • 2014
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess hygiene status of meals for poorly-fed children through microbiological quality. Methods: Meals were provided by two social enterprises, one franchise, and one convenience store. There were a total of six meal samples; two samples (social enterprise meal 1; SEM 1, social enterprise meal 2; SEM 2) from two social enterprises, respectively, two samples (franchise meal 1; FM 1, franchise meal 2; FM 2) from one franchise, and two samples (convenience store meal 1; CSM 1, convenience store meal 2; CSM 2) from one convenience store. Microbiological analysis and assessment were performed by Korean food standards codex (KFSC). Results: General bacteria and E. coli in SEM 1 were detected, but the levels were not over KFSC, and Coliform less than $9.2{\times}10$ CFU/g was also detected in seasoned bean sprouts of SEM 1. General bacteria was detected at $1.6{\times}10^6$ CFU/g in cabbage kimchi of SEM 2. Coliform was detected in cabbage kimchi, squid cutlet, stir-fried pork, and fried chicken of FM1 and 2, but the levels were not over KFSC. In addition, S. aureus was detected in cabbage kimchi and seasoned dried white radish of FM 1 and 2 ($9.8{\times}10^2$ CFU/g, $9.4{\times}10^3$ CFU/g respectively), thus was over KFSC. B. cereus was detected in stir-fried pork and fried chicken ($1.2{\times}10^3$ CFU/g, $1.5{\times}10^3$ CFU/g respectively) of FM 1 and 2, thus was over KFSC. Finally, S. aureus was detected in stir-fried dried squid, seasoned spicy chicken, and stir-fried kimchi of CSM 1 and 2, and was over KFSC too ($9.5{\times}10^4$ CFU/g, $2.4{\times}10^2$ CFU/g, $1.3{\times}10^3$ CFU/g respectively). Conclusion: Results of this study suggest that systemic management of hygiene is necessary to safely providing meals to poorly-fed children.

The Effects of Self-regulatory Resources and Construal Levels on the Choices of Zero-cost Products (자아조절자원 및 해석수준이 공짜대안 선택에 미치는 영향)

  • Lee, Jinyong;Im, Seoung Ah
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.55-76
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    • 2012
  • Most people prefer to choose zero-cost products they may get without paying any money. The 'zero-cost effect' can be explained with a 'zero-cost model' where consumers attach special values to zero-cost products in a different way from general economic models (Shampanier, Mazar and Ariely 2007). If 2 different products at the regular prices of ₩200 and ₩400 simultaneously offer ₩200 discounts, the prices will be changed to ₩0 and ₩200, respectively. In spite of the same price gap of the two products after the ₩200 discounts, people are much more likely to select the free alternative than the same product at the price of ₩200. Although prior studies have focused on the 'zero-cost effect' in isolation of other factors, this study investigates the moderating effects of a self-regulatory resource and a construal level on the selection of free products. Self-regulatory resources induce people to control or regulate their behavior. However, since self-regulatory resources are limited, they are to be easily depleted when exerted (Muraven, Tice, and Baumeister 1998). Without the resources, consumers tend to become less sensitive to price changes and to spend money more extravagantly (Vohs and Faber 2007). Under this condition, they are also likely to invest less effort on their information processing and to make more intuitive decisions (Pocheptsova, Amir, Dhar, and Baumeister 2009). Therefore, context effects such as price changes and zero cost effects are less likely in the circumstances of resource depletion. In addition, construal levels have profound effects on the ways of information processing (Trope and Liberman 2003, 2010). In a high construal level, people tend to attune their minds to core features and desirability aspects, whereas, in a low construal level, they are more likely to process information based on secondary features and feasibility aspects (Khan, Zhu, and Kalra 2010). A perceived value of a product is more related to desirability whereas a zero cost or a price level is more associated with feasibility. Thus, context effects or reliance on feasibility (for instance, the zero cost effect) will be diminished in a high level construal while those effects may remain in a low level construal. When people make decisions, these 2 factors can influence the magnitude of the 'zero-cost effect'. This study ran two experiments to investigate the effects of self-regulatory resources and construal levels on the selection of a free product. Kisses and Ferrero-Rocher, which were adopted in the prior study (Shampanier et al. 2007) were also used as alternatives in Experiments 1 and 2. We designed Experiment 1 in order to test whether self-regulatory resource depletion will moderate the zero-cost effect. The level of self-regulatory resources was manipulated with two different tasks, a Sudoku task in the depletion condition and a task of drawing diagrams in the non-depletion condition. Upon completion of the manipulation task, subjects were randomly assigned to one of a decision set with a zero-cost option (i.e., Kisses ₩0, and Ferrero-Rocher ₩200) or a set without a zero-cost option (i.e., Kisses ₩200, and Ferrero-Rocher ₩400). A pair of alternatives in the two decision sets have the same price gap of ₩200 between a low-priced Kisses and a high-priced Ferrero-Rocher. Subjects in the no-depletion condition selected Kisses more often (71.88%) over Ferrero-Rocher when Kisses was free than when it was priced at ₩200 (34.88%). However, the zero-cost effect disappeared when people do not have self-regulatory resources. Experiment 2 was conducted to investigate whether constual levels influence the magnitude of the 'zero-cost effect'. To manipulate construal levels, 4 different 'why (in the high construal level condition)' or 'how (in the low construal level condition)' questions about health management were asked. They were presented with 4 boxes connected with downward arrows. In a box at the top, there was one question, 'Why do I maintain good physical health?' or 'How do I maintain good physical health?' Subjects inserted a response to the question of why or how they would maintain good physical health. Similar tasks were repeated for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th responses. After the manipulation task, subjects were randomly assigned either to a decision set with a zero-cost option, or to a set without it, as in Experiment 1. When a low construal level is primed with 'how', subjects chose free Kisses (60.66%) more often over Ferrero-Rocher than they chose ₩200 Kisses (42.19%) over ₩400 FerreroRocher. On contrast, the zero-cost effect could not be observed any longer when a high construal level is primed with 'why'.

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