• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.301-314
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• 2018

Objectives: The aim of this study was to introduce the overall progress of exposure assessment to humidifier disinfectant (HD); to present participants' demographic characteristics, exposure characteristics to humidifier disinfectant, and exposure classification; and furthermore to compare those characteristics between survivors and non-survivors. Methods: An assessment of environmental exposure to HD was conducted using modified HD-specific questionnaires that had been previously validated. We analyzed the data from 4,482 participants who had been potentially exposed to HD and had registered with the KEITI (Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute) from September 2016 to May 2018 (the fourth survey). Environmental exposure assessments were performed as follows: 1) contact with participants, 2) environmental exposure assessment though face-to-face interviews, 3) assessment review and coding, and 4) exposure rating. Results: Overall, survivors made up 77.1% (3,457 subjects) and non-survivors made up 22.9% (1,025 subjects). When compared with the survivors, non-survivors had a higher proportion of subjects aged >60 years and subjects who answered as suffering lung damage and having purchased HD because it is "Beneficial to health" (p<0.05). For the exposure characteristics compared to survivors, non-survivors had a higher proportion of cases of distance from humidifier to face being less that one meter and the spray direction being toward the face (p<0.05). Overall, respondents who used the "Oxy Ssak Ssak New Gaseupgi Dangbun", "Aekyung Gaseupgi Mate", "Homeplus Gaseupgi Chungjungje", and "E-Mart Gaseupgi Salgyunje" products made up 66.1, 12.3, 4.0, and 3.6%, respectively, and 72.5% of respondents used products with PHMG as the active chemical. When compared with survivors, non-survivors had a higher proportion of use of "Oxy Ssak Ssak New Gaseupgi Dangbun" but a lower proportion of use of products with CMIT/MIT, PGH, or PHMG as the active chemical. Conclusions: This study provided demographic characteristics and exposure assessment for applicants who have been injured by HD. In spite of the limitations of performing past exposure assessment through a questionnaire survey, such as recall bias, useful results may be obtained by comparing survivors with non-survivors. Further studies such as the exposure rating method and so on are necessary to assess past exposure to HD.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.135-135
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• 2017

The Gramene database (http://www.gramene.org) is a powerful online resource for agricultural researchers, plant breeders and educators that provides easy access to reference data, visualizations and analytical tools for conducting cross-species comparisons. Learn the benefits of using Gramene to enrich your lectures, accelerate your research goals, and respond to your organismal community needs. Gramene's genomes portal hosts browsers for 44 complete reference genomes, including crops and model organisms, each displaying functional annotations, gene-trees with orthologous and paralogous gene classification, and whole-genome alignments. SNP and structural diversity data, available for 11 species, are displayed in the context of gene annotation, protein domains and functional consequences on transcript structure (e.g., missense variant). Browsers from multiple species can be viewed simultaneously with links to community-driven organismal databases. Thus, while hosting the underlying data for comparative studies, the portal also provides unified access to diverse plant community resources, and the ability for communities to upload and display private data sets in multiple standard formats. Our BioMart data mining interface enable complex queries and bulk download of sequence, annotation, homology and variation data. Gramene's pathway portal, the Plant Reactome, hosts over 240 pathways curated in rice and inferred in 66 additional plant species by orthology projection. Users may compare pathways across species, query and visualize curated expression data from EMBL-EBI's Expression Atlas in the context of pathways, analyze genome-scale expression data, and conduct pathway enrichment analysis. Our integrated search database and modern user interface leverage these diverse annotations to facilitate finding genes through selecting auto-suggested filters with interactive views of the results.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.25-56
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• 2011

A shifting of marketing paradigms from transaction to relationship has shown in many studies. Although there are many researches about relationship marketing, few of them focuses on relationship marketing combined with retail mix. This study define and measure customer relationship, and find the antecedents and consequences of the customer relationship. For the research, data were collected from 540 persons who are currently customers of five branches of E-mart and Homeplus in Seoul, Korea. Data analysis was performed under the AMOS 6.0. The results are summarized as following; Firstly, the relationship among elements of retail marketing mix and the relationship quality appears significant except communication program. This finding means that communication effect decreases at some point when communication program is excessive. Secondly, the relationship of customer relationship and three factors (frequent shopping intention, up-buying intention and recommend intention) are significant. Thus, this result supports the reasoning why discount stores make an effort to improve customer relationship. Thirdly, the relationship between share of wallet and two factors (frequent shopping intention and recommend intention) appears insignificant. Fourthly, the relationship between share of wallet and up-buying intention is significant. This result implies that up-buying intention is an important factor for discount stores, because up-buying intention is directly linked to financial performance of discount stores. Finally, the direct path between customer relationship and share of wallet is significant relation. For this reason, customer relationship should be managed consistently by discount stores.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.79-86
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• 2015

Purpose - The cosmetics industry is a traditional high value-added industry in terms of the domestic demand, small batch production systems, exclusive competition, and raw materials highly dependent on overseas countries as well as an oligopolistic market structure. However, new foreign brands and growing consumer awareness of inexpensive products, has triggered a shift. In line with changing lifestyles and the polarization of consumption, the industry faces a new market structure. Among its key characteristics is the cosmetics industry's numerous distribution channels (i.e., department stores, door-to-door sales, online shopping malls, brand shops, and discount stores). Therefore, the study of its distribution channels is essential. Research design, data, and methodology - The study analyzed channel distribution power divided into coercive and non-coercive power. The factors of coercive power included: unilateral request of an increase in commissions, interference in sales by taking advantage of a superior status, unilateral buck-passing at the time of a problem, unilateral request to stop sales activities, and a unilateral business contract; the factors of non-coercive power included favorable payment conditions, offers of various kinds of information, policy on commission reduction, pride in market entrance, and promotion support. In addition, the mediating variable "interdependence" was applied to the execution of department store (or mart) power and their shop conflicts and satisfaction to examine direct and indirect influential power. The methodology was a survey of managers of cosmetics shops in department stores (or marts). The questionnaire, based on a five-point Likert scale, included questions about basic personal information, execution of power, interdependence, conflict, and satisfaction. The study distributed 198 questionnaires and collected 131. Ten questionnaires with missing or hard to analyze data were excluded. Thus, 121 copies were analyzed. Results - According to the analysis, the execution of coercive power by department stores (or marts) did not affect interdependence, but the execution of non-coercive power did. Interdependence did not influence conflict, but did affect satisfaction. Additionally, the analysis revealed direct influential power: the execution of coercive power positively affected conflict and negatively influenced satisfaction; the execution of non-coercive power positively affected satisfaction. Conclusions - To offer suggestions for distribution business relations in the cosmetics industry, this study investigated how the execution of power by department stores (or marts) affected their shops. More specifically, it examined how much the execution of both coercive power and non-coercive power influenced conflict and satisfaction, and analyzed the mediating role of interdependence. In line with previous study results in various areas, coercive power was shown to be the source of conflict, leading to a decrease in satisfaction, whereas non-coercive power significantly positively influenced satisfaction. Moreover, non-coercive power increased interdependence, which led to greater satisfaction. As a result, interdependence had a mediating effect on non-coercive power and satisfaction. Based on the results, department stores (or marts) should look for improvements plans that increase interdependence. Such plans could alleviate conflict with the shops, increasing their satisfaction.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.370-380
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• 2019

Objective: This study was performed to investigate the distribution of individual exposure characteristics according to an exposure assessment classification for humidifier disinfectant and to identify the factors that influence assessment classification. Methods: We examined the exposure characteristics of 4,482 subjects who applied for the 4-1 and 4-2 assessments of environmental exposure to humidifier disinfectant conducted by the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI). Environmental exposure assessment classification was assessed using the following seven criteria: 1) Distance from humidifier to face; 2) Spray direction; 3) Time used, daytime 4) Time used, during sleep; 5) Time used, cumulative; 6) Exposure intensity; and 7) Cumulative exposure level. Each criteria was then classified as 'high' or low'. When participants answered for more than four criteria, exposure assessment was determined as 'definite,' 'probable,' or 'possible' depending on the ratio of 'high' responses. If participants' responses were inconsistent, exposure assessment was listed as 'unlikely.' If participants answered for less than four criteria, exposure assessment was considered 'indeterminate.' Results: For the exposure assessment classes, definite was assigned to 38.5% (1,725 subjects), probable assigned to 32.9% (1,474 subjects), 25.0% (1,122 subjects) were assigned to as possible, unlikely assigned to 0.1% (3 subjects), and indeterminate assigned to 3.5% (158 subjects). Overall, participants who used 'Oxy Ssakssak New Gaseupgi Dangbun,' 'Aekyung Gaseupgi Mate,' 'Homeplus Gaseupgi Chungjungje,' and 'E-Mart Gaseupgi Salgyunje' totaled 2,996, 557, 176, and 162 subjects, respectively. There was a statistical difference in the type of humidifier disinfectant products between high-exposed and low-exposed participants. Based on the assessment criteria of humidifier disinfectant exposure, subjects were likely to be in the highly exposed classes (definite and probable) when the subjects were exposed 1) for more than ten hours per day and 2) for more than four hours at night 3) when the total cumulative exposure time was higher than the average, 4) when the direction of humidifier spray was toward the face, 5) when the respiratory position was less than 1 meter of distance from the humidifier, 6) when the concentration of indoor contaminants (ug/m3) was higher than the average exposure intensity, and 7) when overall exposure level ($ug/m3^*hr$) was higher than the average exposure level. Conclusion: This study suggests that each exposure assessment criteria was able to appropriately estimate cumulative exposure levels.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 2010

I. Introduction The industry of domestic discount store was reorganized with 2 bigs and 1 middle, and then Home Plus took over Home Ever in 2008. In present, Oct, 2008, E-Mart has 118 outlets, Home Plus 112 outlets, and Lotte Mart 60 stores. With total number of 403 outlets, they are getting closer to a saturation point. We know that the industry of discount store has been getting through the mature stage in retail life cycle. There are many efforts to maintain existing customers rather than to get new customers. These competitions in this industry lead firms to acknowledge 'store loyalty' to be the first strategic tool for their sustainable competitiveness. In other words, the strategic goal of discount store is to boost up the repurchase rate of customers throughout increasing store loyalty. If owners of retail shops can figure out main factors for store loyalty, they can easily make more efficient and effective retail strategies which bring about more sales and profits. In this practical sense, there are many papers which are focusing on the antecedents of store loyalty. Many researchers have been inspecting causal relationships between antecedents and store loyalty; store characteristics, store image, atmosphere in store, sales promotion in store, service quality, customer characteristics, crowding, switching cost, trust, satisfaction, commitment, etc., In recent times, many academic researchers and practitioners have been interested in 'dual path model for service loyalty'. There are two paths in store loyalty. First path has an emphasis on symbolic and emotional dimension of service brand, and second path focuses on quality of product and service. We will call the former an extrinsic path and call the latter an intrinsic path. This means that consumers' cognitive path for store loyalty is not single but dual. Existing studies for dual path model are as follows; First, in extrinsic path, some papers in domestic settings show that there is 'store personality-identification-loyalty' path. Second, service quality has an effect on loyalty, which is a behavioral variable, in the mediation of customer satisfaction. But, it's very difficult to find out an empirical paper applied to domestic discount store based on this mediating model. The domestic research for store loyalty concentrates on not only intrinsic path but also extrinsic path. Relatively, an attention for intrinsic path is scarce. And then, we acknowledge that there should be a need for integrating extrinsic and intrinsic path. Also, in terms of retail industry, this study is meaningful because retailers want to achieve their competitiveness by using store loyalty. And so, the purpose of this paper is to integrate and complement two existing paths into one specific model, dual path model. This model includes both intrinsic and extrinsic path for store loyalty. With this research, we would expect to understand the full process of forming customers' store loyalty which had not been clearly explained. In other words, we propose the dual path model for discount store loyalty which has been originated from store personality and service quality. This model is composed of extrinsic path, discount store personality$\rightarrow$store identification$\rightarrow$store loyalty, and intrinsic path, service quality of discount store$\rightarrow$customer satisfaction$\rightarrow$store loyalty. II. Research Model Dual path model integrates intrinsic path and extrinsic path into one specific model. Intrinsic path put an emphasis on quality characteristics and extrinsic path focuses on brand characteristics. Intrinsic path is based on information processing perspective, and extrinsic path emphasizes symbolic and emotional dimension of brand. This model is composed of extrinsic path, discount store personality$\rightarrow$store identification$\rightarrow$store loyalty, and intrinsic path, service quality of discount store$\rightarrow$customer satisfaction$\rightarrow$store loyalty. Hypotheses are as follows; Hypothesis 1: Service quality perceived by customers in discount store has an positive effect on customer satisfaction Hypothesis 2: Store personality perceived by customers in discount store has an positive effect on store identification Hypothesis 3: Customer satisfaction in discount store has an positive effect on store loyalty. Hypothesis 4: Store identification has an positive effect on store loyalty. III. Results and Implications We examined consumers who patronize discount stores for samples of this study. With the structural equation model(SEM) analysis, we empirically tested the validity and fitness of the dual path model for store loyalty in discount stores. As results, the fitness indices of this model were well fitted to data obtained. In an intrinsic path, service quality(SQ) is positively related to customer satisfaction(CS), customer satisfaction(CS) has very significantly positive effect on store loyalty(SL). Also, in an extrinsic path, the store personality(SP) is positively related to store identification(SI), it shows significant effect on store loyalty. Table 1 shows the results as follows; There are some theoretical and practical implications. First, Many studies on discount store loyalty have been executed from various perspectives. But there has been no integrative view on this issue. And so, this research was theoretically designed to integrate various and controversial arguments into one systematic model. We empirically tested dual path model forming store loyalty, and brought up a systematic and integrative framework for future studies. We want to expect creative and aggressive research activities. Second, a few established papers are focused on the relationship between antecedents and store loyalty; store characteristics, atmosphere, sales promotion in store, service quality, trust, commitment, etc., There has been some limits in understanding thoroughly the formation process of store loyalty with a singular path, intrinsic or extrinsic. Beyond these limits in single path, we could propose the new path for store loyalty. This is meaningful. Third, discount store firms make and execute marketing strategies for increasing store loyalty. This research provides real practitioners with reference framework needed for actual strategy formation. Because this paper shows integrated and systematic path for store loyalty. A special feature of this study is to represent 6 sub dimensions of service quality in intrinsic path and 4 sub dimensions of store personality in extrinsic path. Marketers can make more analytic marketing planning with concrete sub dimensions of service quality and store personality. When marketers of discount stores make strategic planning like MPR, Ads, campaign, sales promotion, they can use many items which are more competitive than competitors.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.5-12
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• 2010

The retail business of drugstore was introduced to Korea for the first time 10 years ago. Since Olive Young introduced a retail store in the name of drugstore in 1999 for the first time in Korea, new distribution channel combining drugstore, cosmetic products and dairy products, etc has been made. At initial stage, the new distribution channel grew up slowly because of low specialty and economic stagnation. However, the three big distribution channels, that is to say, Olive Young (CJ), Watsons (GS) and W Store (Kolon Well Care), etc, were established to produce new distribution system following large-scaled discount stores as well as convenience stores. The purpose of the study is to investigate ways making Korean style drugstore be new retail business in addition to traditional markets, department stores, E-Mart and other general super markets and to examine problems preventing the drugstore from being promoted and to find out solutions. The speciality retailers that is called a category killer attacking department stores as well as marts is expanding market quickly. New consumption trend that gives priority to wellbeing is being expanded in accordance with high level of standards of living life: The drugstore is thought to be new alternative of distribution because it keeps special products. Young ladies who are main customers of drugstores respond to the trend sensitively to have more buying power that is thought to be promising. And, consumers' desire has become concrete and special. This is because consumers want not only convenient shopping but also special shopping system that is current trend. These days, so called Multi-shop and Total shop and other special shops have been recently opened. Special multi-shop has been concentrated on fashion product and miscellaneous goods so far: Health total wellbeing shop shall be popular in accordance with wellbeing trends. Drugstores can play an important role. Drugstores were opened for the first time ten years ago. In particular, Olive Young succeeded in going into the black after making efforts for a long time by many persons. Drugstores could succeed in the business owing to many persons in the past as well as customers who liked drugstores. However, drugstores once lost ways and recorded poor business results. The three drugstores, that is to say, Olive Young, Watsons making efforts to go into the black and W-Store pursuing traditional drugstore shall compete each other and make effort to satisfy customers' desire. In that way, the three drugstores can be assured of present business as well as future business. The consumers' demand trend has become special at sub-division so that drugstores that can satisfy the demand can succeed in the business. Large businesses may be more interested in the 4th generation retail business to produce good income and to have bright future. Drugstore business and market are likely to expand and develop owing to large business' participation in drugstore business. Drugstores expanded shop at Seoul and Gyeonggi-do until middle of 2000. Drugstore business at station sphere in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do that have high ratio of temporary population has low customer loyalty to have limitation on continuous growth. Since 2009, drugstores have opened new shops at local towns: From the year of 2010, drugstores need to establish multiple shop strategy by accelerating business speed and to allow customers to drop in the shop anywhere in the nation and to enter consumers' life deeply, so that they can strengthen business base definitely. Drugstores need to have price competitiveness to have multiple shop opening strategy and to satisfy consumers and to supply high quality services that is future subject to solve. And, Olive Young and Watsons that are Korean style drugstore need to keep system in order and to strengthen substance as Korean style drugstore and to expand marketing, so that they can get business outcome within 5 years that was done 10 years before and they become the 4th generation retail business. The study had difficulties at collecting material from the three drugstore because of poor cooperation. And, the author had great difficulty at collecting statistical material that was made in disorder. Further effort is needed considering such problems.