• Title/Summary/Keyword: Experience Factors

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An experimental study on the impact of an agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period of primiparous mothers and enhance their self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance (산욕초기 초산모의 간호목표달성방번 합의가 어머니 역할수행에 대한 자신감 및 만족도에 미치는 영향에 관한 실험적 연구)

  • 이영은
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.81-115
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    • 1992
  • The problem addressed by this study was to determine the effect of nurse - patient agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period of primiparous mothers. It was hypothesized that the experimental treatment would result in hegher self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance. This purpose was to contribute to the planning of nursing care to enhance self- confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance and to the development of relevant nursing theory. Especially, the early postpartum period is crucial toward in recovery from childbirth and attainment of the maternal role. Maternal role attaintment is a complex social and cognitive process of stimulus -response accomplished by learning. Most women attain the maternal role sucessfully. But, some primiparous mothers experience difficultites in attainment of the maternal role due to lack of experience and knowledge. Self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance are important factors in attainment and adjustment to the maternal role (Mercer, 1981a, 1981b ; Lederman, Weigarten, and Lederman, 1981 :Bobak and Jensen, 1985). Nursing is defined as behaviors of nurses add patients that attain nursing goals through action, reaction, interaction, and transaction. For attainment of nursing goals, active participating transactions must occur by agreement on the means to achieve those goals through nurse -patient mutual goal setting and establishment of their active relationships(King, 1981, Ha, 1977). Based on King's theory of goal attainment (1981), this stuy was planned as a non-equivalent control group, non -synchronized quasi -experimental design using agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in early postpartum as the experimental treatment. The data were collected from July 20 to Sep. 1, 1991 by questionnaires with 60 primiparous mothers planing to breast feed after normal deliveries at W hospital in Pusan, Korea. The subjects were divided into a control group(conventional group) -those admitted from July 20 to Aug. 12, and an experimental group(agreement group) - those admitted from Aug. 13 to Sep. 1. The instument for agreement on the means to nursing goals in the early postpartum period included five steps - identification of disturbances of problems through action, reaction, and interaction with primiparous mothers : mutual early postpartal nursing goal setting : exploration of the means to achieve goals ; agreement on the means (self- care, ealry maternal -infant contact, performance of mothering behavior, and communicating about the infant's behavior and health condition) : implementation of the means. This instrument was developed on the basis of King's elements that lead to transactions in nurse-patient interactions. Lederman et al's (1981) scale for Confidence in ability to cope with tasks of motherhood and Lederman et al's(1981) scale for Mother's satisfaction with motherhood and infant care were used to measure self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance ·with the subjects immediately after admission and on the day of discharge. Self-care performance in the experimental group was measured by self -evaluation tool developed by the investigator from the literature concerned. The tools to measure Pelf-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance, and the tool to measure self-evaluation of self-care performance were tested for internal reliability. Cronbach's Alphas were 0.94, 0.94, and 0.63. The data were analysed by using in S.P.S.S. computerized program and included percentage, x²-test, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson Correlation Coefficient. The conclusions obtained from this study are summerized as follows : 1. The degree of self-confidence in maternal role performance of the total subjects group measured before the experimental treatment was above average with a mean score of 2.77(range 2.14-3.64). Out of 14 items, those with relatively high mean scores were ‘I would like to be a better mother than I am’(3.95), and ‘I have my doubts about whether I am a good mother’(2.87). Those with low mean scores were ‘I know that my baby wants most of the times’(2.28), ‘When the baby cries, I can tell what she /he wants’(2.37), and ‘I have confidence in my ability to care for the baby’(2;50). That is, the self - confidence of Primiparous mothers was considerably high in mothering, but rather low in activities concerning the infant care and understanding of the infant behavior. The degree of satisfaction in maternal role performance of the total subjects group measured before the experimental treatment was high with a mean score of 3.18(range 1.92-3.92). Out of 13 items, those with relatively high mean scores were ‘I am glad 1 had this baby now’(3.75), ‘I play with the baby between feedings when s/he is awake and quiet’(3.67), and ‘I enjoy being a mother’(3.27). Those with low mean scores were ‘I am upset about having too many responsibilities as a mother’(2.78), ‘It bothers me to get up for the baby at night’(2.82), and ‘I get annoyed if the baby frequently interrupts my activities’.(2.82), That is, the satisfaction of primiparous mothers was considerably high in mothering and infant care, but rather low in restraints in time or on the mother's self accomplishment and development. 2. Agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period included process of mutual goal setting, exploration of the means to achieve goals, and ahreement in concert means to achieve goals based on the mothers' condition, concerns, self-perception of the nurse - patient interactions. In the process of agreement, there was agreement that the means to achieve goals should be through trust and establishment of active relationships with the nurse through identification of problems according to planned nursing goals and active interaction, such as explanations, teaching, changing of opinions, acceptance or rejection of explanations, and proposing of questions. Therefore agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period appears to be an effective nursing intervention for primiparous mothers. 3. The degree of self- confidence in maternal role performance of the exprimental group was higher than that of the control group(t=3.95, p<0.01). Out of 14 items, those with higher score in the experimental group were ‘I would like to be a better mother than I am’(t=1.93, p<0.05), ‘I know that my baby wants most of the times’(t=2.75, p<0.01), ‘When the baby cries, 1 can tell what she/he wants’(t=2.10, p<0.05), ‘I have confidence in my ability to care for the baby’(t=3.72, p<0.01), ‘I trust my own judement in deciding how to care for the baby’(t=1.96, p<0.05), ‘I feel that I know my baby and what to do for him /her’(t=2.44, p<0.01), ‘I am concerned about being able to meet the baby's needs’(t=2.87, p<0.01), ‘I know what my baby likes and dislikes’(t=3.26, p<0.01), ‘I don't know to care for the baby as well as I should’(t=2.07, p<0.05), and ‘I am unsure about whether I give enough attention to the baby’(t=3.04, p<0.01), That is, the degree of self-confidence in mothering, activities concerning infant care, and understanding of infant behavior of the experimental group was higher than that of the control group. Therefore, the first hypothesis, that the degree of self-confidence in maternal role performance of the experimental group would be higher than that of the control group, was supported(t=3.95, p<0.01). 4. The degree of satisfaction in the maternal role performance of the exprimental group was higer than that or the control group(t=2.31, p<0.05). Out of 13 items, those with higher score in the experimental group were ‘I am glad I had this baby now’(t=2.29, p<0.05), ‘I enjoy taking care of the baby’(t=2.4g, p<0.01), ‘It is boring for me to care for the baby and do the same thing over and over’(t=2.87, P<0.01), ‘I am unhappy with the amount of time I have for activities other than childcare’(t=2.51, p<0.01), and ‘When bathing and diapering the baby, I would like to be doing something else’(t=2.43, p<0.01). That is, the degree of satisfaction in mothering, infant care, and restraints in time of on the mother's self accomplishment and development in the experimental group was higher than that of the control group. Therefore, the second hypothesis, that the degree of satisfaction in maternal role performance of the experimental group would be higher than that of the control group, was supported(t=2.31, p<0.05). 5. The third hypothesis, that the higher the degree of satisfaction in materenal role performance, the higher the degree of self-confidence in materenal role performance in the experimental group, was supported (r=0.57, p<0.01)

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Effect of Service Convenience on the Relationship Performance in B2B Markets: Mediating Effect of Relationship Factors (B2B 시장에서의 서비스 편의성이 관계성과에 미치는 영향 : 관계적 요인의 매개효과 분석)

  • Han, Sang-Lin;Lee, Seong-Ho
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.65-93
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    • 2011
  • As relationship between buyer and seller has been brought closer and long-term relationship has been more important in B2B markets, the importance of service and service convenience increases as well as product. In homogeneous markets, where service offerings are similar and therefore not key competitive differentiator, providing greater convenience may enable a competitive advantage. Service convenience, as conceptualized by Berry et al. (2002), is defined as the consumers' time and effort perceptions related to buying or using a service. For this reason, B2B customers are interested in how fast the service is provided and how much save non-monetary cost like time or effort by the service convenience along with service quality. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of service convenience on relationship factors such as relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The purpose of this study is to find out whether service convenience can be a new antecedent of relationship quality and relationship performance. In addition, this study tries to examine how five-dimensional service convenience constructs (decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affect customers' relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The service convenience comprises five fundamental components - decision convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with service purchase or use decisions), access convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with initiating service delivery), transaction convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with finalizing the transaction), benefit convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with experiencing the core benefits of the offering) and post-benefit convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with reestablishing subsequent contact with the firm). Earlier studies of perceived service convenience in the industrial market are none. The conventional studies that have dealt with service convenience have usually been made in the consumer market, or they have dealt with convenience aspects in the service process. This service convenience measure for consumer market can be useful tool to estimate service quality in B2B market. The conceptualization developed by Berry et al. (2002) reflects a multistage, experiential consumption process in which evaluations of convenience vary at each stage. For this reason, the service convenience measure is good for B2B service environment which has complex processes and various types. Especially when categorizing B2B service as sequential stage of service delivery like Kumar and Kumar (2004), the Berry's service convenience measure which reflect sequential flow of service deliveries suitable to establish B2B service convenience. For this study, data were gathered from respondents who often buy business service and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study is 119. Composite reliability values and average variance extracted values were examined for each variable to have reliability. We determine whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity by CFA, and discriminant validity was assessed by examining the correlation matrix of the constructs. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the Smart PLS 2.0 and we calculated the PLS path values and followed with a bootstrap re-sampling method to test the hypotheses. Among the five dimensional service convenience constructs, four constructs (decision convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affected customers' positive relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. This result means that service convenience is important cue to improve relationship between buyer and seller. One of the five service convenience dimensions, access convenience, does not affect relationship quality and performance, which implies that the dimension of service convenience is not important factor of cumulative satisfaction. The Cumulative satisfaction can be distinguished from transaction-specific customer satisfaction, which is an immediate post-purchase evaluative judgment or an affective reaction to the most recent transactional experience with the firm. Because access convenience minimizes the physical effort associated with initiating an exchange, the effect on relationship satisfaction similar to cumulative satisfaction may be relatively low in terms of importance than transaction-specific customer satisfaction. Also, B2B firms focus on service quality, price, benefit, follow-up service and so on than convenience of time or place in service because it is relatively difficult to change existing transaction partners in B2B market compared to consumer market. In addition, this study using partial least squares methods reveals that customers' satisfaction and commitment toward relationship has mediating role between the service convenience and relationship performance. The result shows that management and investment to improve service convenience make customers' positive relationship satisfaction, and then the positive relationship satisfaction can enhance the relationship commitment and relationship performance. And to conclude, service convenience management is an important part of successful relationship performance management, and the service convenience is an important antecedent of relationship between buyer and seller such as the relationship commitment and relationship performance. Therefore, it has more important to improve relationship performance that service providers enhance service convenience although competitive service development or service quality improvement is important. Given the pressure to provide increased convenience, it is not surprising that organizations have made significant investments in enhancing the convenience aspect of their product and service offering.

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The Impact of Market Environments on Optimal Channel Strategy Involving an Internet Channel: A Game Theoretic Approach (시장 환경이 인터넷 경로를 포함한 다중 경로 관리에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 게임 이론적 접근방법)

  • Yoo, Weon-Sang
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.2
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    • pp.119-138
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    • 2011
  • Internet commerce has been growing at a rapid pace for the last decade. Many firms try to reach wider consumer markets by adding the Internet channel to the existing traditional channels. Despite the various benefits of the Internet channel, a significant number of firms failed in managing the new type of channel. Previous studies could not cleary explain these conflicting results associated with the Internet channel. One of the major reasons is most of the previous studies conducted analyses under a specific market condition and claimed that as the impact of Internet channel introduction. Therefore, their results are strongly influenced by the specific market settings. However, firms face various market conditions in the real worlddensity and disutility of using the Internet. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of various market environments on a firm's optimal channel strategy by employing a flexible game theory model. We capture various market conditions with consumer density and disutility of using the Internet.

    shows the channel structures analyzed in this study. Before the Internet channel is introduced, a monopoly manufacturer sells its products through an independent physical store. From this structure, the manufacturer could introduce its own Internet channel (MI). The independent physical store could also introduce its own Internet channel and coordinate it with the existing physical store (RI). An independent Internet retailer such as Amazon could enter this market (II). In this case, two types of independent retailers compete with each other. In this model, consumers are uniformly distributed on the two dimensional space. Consumer heterogeneity is captured by a consumer's geographical location (ci) and his disutility of using the Internet channel (${\delta}_{N_i}$).
    shows various market conditions captured by the two consumer heterogeneities.
    (a) illustrates a market with symmetric consumer distributions. The model captures explicitly the asymmetric distributions of consumer disutility in a market as well. In a market like that is represented in
    (c), the average consumer disutility of using an Internet store is relatively smaller than that of using a physical store. For example, this case represents the market in which 1) the product is suitable for Internet transactions (e.g., books) or 2) the level of E-Commerce readiness is high such as in Denmark or Finland. On the other hand, the average consumer disutility when using an Internet store is relatively greater than that of using a physical store in a market like (b). Countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria, or the market for "experience goods" such as shoes, could be examples of this market condition. summarizes the various scenarios of consumer distributions analyzed in this study. The range for disutility of using the Internet (${\delta}_{N_i}$) is held constant, while the range of consumer distribution (${\chi}_i$) varies from -25 to 25, from -50 to 50, from -100 to 100, from -150 to 150, and from -200 to 200.
    summarizes the analysis results. As the average travel cost in a market decreases while the average disutility of Internet use remains the same, average retail price, total quantity sold, physical store profit, monopoly manufacturer profit, and thus, total channel profit increase. On the other hand, the quantity sold through the Internet and the profit of the Internet store decrease with a decreasing average travel cost relative to the average disutility of Internet use. We find that a channel that has an advantage over the other kind of channel serves a larger portion of the market. In a market with a high average travel cost, in which the Internet store has a relative advantage over the physical store, for example, the Internet store becomes a mass-retailer serving a larger portion of the market. This result implies that the Internet becomes a more significant distribution channel in those markets characterized by greater geographical dispersion of buyers, or as consumers become more proficient in Internet usage. The results indicate that the degree of price discrimination also varies depending on the distribution of consumer disutility in a market. The manufacturer in a market in which the average travel cost is higher than the average disutility of using the Internet has a stronger incentive for price discrimination than the manufacturer in a market where the average travel cost is relatively lower. We also find that the manufacturer has a stronger incentive to maintain a high price level when the average travel cost in a market is relatively low. Additionally, the retail competition effect due to Internet channel introduction strengthens as average travel cost in a market decreases. This result indicates that a manufacturer's channel power relative to that of the independent physical retailer becomes stronger with a decreasing average travel cost. This implication is counter-intuitive, because it is widely believed that the negative impact of Internet channel introduction on a competing physical retailer is more significant in a market like Russia, where consumers are more geographically dispersed, than in a market like Hong Kong, that has a condensed geographic distribution of consumers.
    illustrates how this happens. When mangers consider the overall impact of the Internet channel, however, they should consider not only channel power, but also sales volume. When both are considered, the introduction of the Internet channel is revealed as more harmful to a physical retailer in Russia than one in Hong Kong, because the sales volume decrease for a physical store due to Internet channel competition is much greater in Russia than in Hong Kong. The results show that manufacturer is always better off with any type of Internet store introduction. The independent physical store benefits from opening its own Internet store when the average travel cost is higher relative to the disutility of using the Internet. Under an opposite market condition, however, the independent physical retailer could be worse off when it opens its own Internet outlet and coordinates both outlets (RI). This is because the low average travel cost significantly reduces the channel power of the independent physical retailer, further aggravating the already weak channel power caused by myopic inter-channel price coordination. The results implies that channel members and policy makers should explicitly consider the factors determining the relative distributions of both kinds of consumer disutility, when they make a channel decision involving an Internet channel. These factors include the suitability of a product for Internet shopping, the level of E-Commerce readiness of a market, and the degree of geographic dispersion of consumers in a market. Despite the academic contributions and managerial implications, this study is limited in the following ways. First, a series of numerical analyses were conducted to derive equilibrium solutions due to the complex forms of demand functions. In the process, we set up V=100, ${\lambda}$=1, and ${\beta}$=0.01. Future research may change this parameter value set to check the generalizability of this study. Second, the five different scenarios for market conditions were analyzed. Future research could try different sets of parameter ranges. Finally, the model setting allows only one monopoly manufacturer in the market. Accommodating competing multiple manufacturers (brands) would generate more realistic results.

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  • A Study on Hoslital Nurses' Preferred Duty Shift and Duty Hours (병원 간호사의 선호근무시간대에 관한 연구)

    • Lee, Gyeong-Sik;Jeong, Geum-Hui
      • The Korean Nurse
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      • v.36 no.1
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      • pp.77-96
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      • 1997
    • The duty shifts of hospital nurses not only affect nurses' physical and mental health but also present various personnel management problems which often result in high turnover rates. In this context a study was carried out from October to November 1995 for a period of two months to find out the status of hospital nurses' duty shift patterns, and preferred duty hours and fixed duty shifts. The study population was 867 RNs working in five general hospitals located in Seoul and its vicinity. The questionnaire developed by the writer was used for data collection. The response rate was 85.9 percent or 745 returns. The SAS program was used for data analysis with the computation of frequencies, percentages and Chi square test. The findings of the study are as follows: 1. General characteristics of the study population: 56 percent of respondents was (25 years group and 76.5 percent were "single": the predominant proportion of respondents was junior nursing college graduates(92.2%) and have less than 5 years nursing experience in hospitals(65.5%). For their future working plan in nursing profession, nearly 50% responded as uncertain The reasons given for their career plan was predominantly 'personal growth and development' rather than financial reasons. 2. The interval for rotations of duty stations was found to be mostly irregular(56.4%) while others reported as weekly(16.1%), monthly(12.9%), and fixed terms(4.6%). 3. The main problems related to duty shifts particularly the evening and night duty nurses reported were "not enough time for the family, " "afraid of security problems after the work when returning home late at night." and "lack of leisure time". "problems in physical and physiological adjustment." "problems in family life." "lack of time for interactions with fellow nurses" etc. 4. The forty percent of respondents reported to have '1-2 times' of duty shift rotations while all others reported that '0 time'. '2-3 times'. 'more than 3 times' etc. which suggest the irregularity in duty shift rotations. 5. The majority(62.8%) of study population found to favor the rotating system of duty stations. The reasons for favoring the rotation system were: the opportunity for "learning new things and personal development." "better human relations are possible. "better understanding in various duty stations." "changes in monotonous routine job" etc. The proportion of those disfavor the rotating 'system was 34.7 percent. giving the reasons of"it impedes development of specialization." "poor job performances." "stress factors" etc. Furthermore. respondents made the following comments in relation to the rotation of duty stations: the nurses should be given the opportunity to participate in the. decision making process: personal interest and aptitudes should be considered: regular intervals for the rotations or it should be planned in advance. etc. 6. For the future career plan. the older. married group with longer nursing experiences appeared to think the nursing as their lifetime career more likely than the younger. single group with shorter nursing experiences ($x^2=61.19.{\;}p=.000;{\;}x^2=41.55.{\;}p=.000$). The reason given for their future career plan regardless of length of future service, was predominantly "personal growth and development" rather than financial reasons. For further analysis, the group those with the shorter career plan appeared to claim "financial reasons" for their future career more readily than the group who consider the nursing job as their lifetime career$(x^2$= 11.73, p=.003) did. This finding suggests the need for careful .considerations in personnel management of nursing administration particularly when dealing with the nurses' career development. The majority of respondents preferred the fixed day shift. However, further analysis of those preferred evening shift by age and civil status, "< 25 years group"(15.1%) and "single group"(13.2) were more likely to favor the fixed evening shift than > 25 years(6.4%) and married(4.8%)groups. This differences were statistically significant ($x^2=14.54, {\;}p=.000;{\;}x^2=8.75, {\;}p=.003$). 7. A great majority of respondents(86.9% or n=647) found to prefer the day shifts. When the four different types of duty shifts(Types A. B. C, D) were presented, 55.0 percent of total respondents preferred the A type or the existing one followed by D type(22.7%). B type(12.4%) and C type(8.2%). 8. When the condition of monetary incentives for the evening(20% of salary) and night shifts(40% of. salary) of the existing duty type was presented. again the day shift appeared to be the most preferred one although the rate was slightly lower(66.4% against 86.9%). In the case of evening shift, with the same incentive, the preference rates for evening and night shifts increased from 11.0 to 22.4 percent and from 0.5 to 3.0 percent respectively. When the age variable was controlled. < 25 yrs group showed higher rates(31.6%. 4.8%) than those of > 25 yrs group(15.5%. 1.3%) respectively preferring the evening and night shifts(p=.000). The civil status also seemed to operate on the preferences of the duty shifts as the single group showed lower rate(69.0%) for day duty against 83. 6% of the married group. and higher rates for evening and night duties(27.2%. 15.1%) respectively against those of the married group(3.8%. 1.8%) while a higher proportion of the married group(83. 6%) preferred the day duties than the single group(69.0%). These differences were found to be statistically all significant(p=.001). 9. The findings on preferences of three different types of fixed duty hours namely, B, C. and D(with additional monetary incentives) are as follows in order of preference: B type(12hrs a day, 3days a wk): day shift(64.1%), evening shift(26.1%). night shift(6.5%) C type(12hrs a day. 4days a wk) : evening shift(49.2%). day shift(32.8%), night shift(11.5%) D type(10hrs a day. 4days a wk): showed the similar trend as B type. The findings of higher preferences on the evening and night duties when the incentives are given. as shown above, suggest the need for the introductions of different patterns of duty hours and incentive measures in order to overcome the difficulties in rostering the nursing duties. However, the interpretation of the above data, particularly the C type, needs cautions as the total number of respondents is very small(n=61). It requires further in-depth study. In conclusion. it seemed to suggest that the patterns of nurses duty hours and shifts in the most hospitals in the country have neither been tried for different duty types nor been flexible. The stereotype rostering system of three shifts and insensitiveness for personal life aspect of nurses seemed to be prevailing. This study seems to support that irregular and frequent rotations of duty shifts may be contributing factors for most nurses' maladjustment problems in physical and mental health. personal and family life which eventually may result in high turnover rates. In order to overcome the increasing problems in personnel management of hospital nurses particularly in rostering of evening and night duty shifts, which may related to eventual high turnover rates, the findings of this study strongly suggest the need for an introduction of new rostering systems including fixed duties and appropriate incentive measures for evenings and nights which the most nurses want to avoid, In considering the nursing care of inpatients is the round-the clock business. the practice of the nursing duty shift system is inevitable. In this context, based on the findings of this study. the following are recommended: 1. The further in-depth studies on duty shifts and hours need to be undertaken for the development of appropriate and effective rostering systems for hospital nurses. 2. An introduction of appropriate incentive measures for evening and night duty shifts along with organizational considerations such as the trials for preferred duty time bands, duty hours, and fixed duty shifts should be considered if good quality of care for the patients be maintained for the round the clock. This may require an initiation of systematic research and development activities in the field of hospital nursing administration as a part of permanent system in the hospital. 3. Planned and regular intervals, orientation and training, and professional and personal growth should be considered for the rotation of different duty stations or units. 4. In considering the higher degree of preferences in the duty type of "10hours a day, 4days a week" shown in this study, it would be worthwhile to undertake the R&D type studies in large hospital settings.

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    A Survey on the Status of Health Examination among Farmers in a Rural Area (일부 농촌지역 농업종사자들의 건강진단 수검 실태)

    • Park, Soon-Woo
      • Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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      • v.22 no.1
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      • pp.1-18
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      • 1997
    • This study was carried out to reveal the status of health examination among farmers and to attract more attention to the health care system for farmers. Ten pre-trained medical students interviewed the rural residents 18 years of age and older in eight villages which were randomly selected from a county near Taegu city in Korea, in August 1996. Finally 751 persons were interviewed of whom the percentages of male and female were 41.8%, 58.2% respectively. Among the subjects, 361(48.3%) were fully engaged in farming, 184(24.4%) were partly engaged, and the remaining 206(27.3%) were not engaged in farming at all. The overall prevalence of farmer's disease was 23.0% and there was no significant difference between the group of fully engaged in farming(23.3%) and the group of not-fully engaged(22.9%). But the prevalence of farmer's disease in female subjects(27.8%) was significantly higher than that in male(16.2%)(p<0.01). Among the 288 farmer engaged in spraying pesticide, 113(39.2%) had experienced one or more pesticide related symptoms during last one year, but only 18(15.9%) of them had visited medical facilities due to their symptoms. The experience of receiving education about pesticide was significantly correlated with the degree of wearing protectors during pesticide spraying(p<0.001). Among the 736 persons excluding non-respondents, 281(38.2%) received health examination during last one year ; 176(62.6%) of them received free health examination, and 105(37.4%) received charged one. Among the 533 persons 40 years age and older, only 124(23.3%) had received the 'health examination for the elderly' during last one year, which is provided for the 40 years age and older by Korea medical insurance corporation and medical insurance societies. Most of all beneficiaries of self-employed medical insurance thought the imposed contributions as very expensive(77.4%) or moderately expensive(13.2%). The great majority of farmers are exposed to various health risk factors including pesticide, high temperature, overwork etc. comparable to industrial workers. But farmers are excluded from the regular yearly worker's health examination because of not belonging to a company despite they pay relatively more medical insurance contributions compared with the industrial workers and the urban self-employed medical insureds. It is necessary to develop special health management program for farmers such as the special health examination for the industrial workers exposed harmful agents.

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    Attitude Confidence and User Resistance for Purchasing Wearable Devices on Virtual Reality: Based on Virtual Reality Headgears (가상현실 웨어러블 기기의 구매 촉진을 위한 태도 자신감과 사용자 저항 태도: 가상현실 헤드기어를 중심으로)

    • Sohn, Bong-Jin;Park, Da-Sul;Choi, Jaewon
      • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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      • v.22 no.3
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      • pp.165-183
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      • 2016
    • Over the past decade, there has been a rapid diffusion of technological devices and a rising number of various devices, resulting in an escalation of virtual reality technology. Technological market has rapidly been changed from smartphone to wearable devices based on virtual reality. Virtual reality can make users feel real situation through sensing interaction, voice, motion capture and so on. Facebook.com, Google, Samsung, LG, Sony and so on have investigated developing platform of virtual reality. the pricing of virtual reality devices also had decreased into 30% from their launched period. Thus market infrastructure in virtual reality have rapidly been developed to crease marketplace. However, most consumers recognize that virtual reality is not ease to purchase or use. That could not lead consumers to positive attitude for devices and purchase the related devices in the early market. Through previous studies related to virtual reality, there are few studies focusing on why the devices for virtual reality stayed in early stage in adoption & diffusion context in the market. Almost previous studies considered the reasons of hard adoption for innovative products in the viewpoints of Typology of Innovation Resistance, MIR(Management of Innovation Resistant), UTAUT & UTAUT2. However, product-based antecedents also important to increase user intention to purchase and use products in the technological market. In this study, we focus on user acceptance and resistance for increasing purchase and usage promotions of wearable devices related to virtual reality based on headgear products like Galaxy Gear. Especially, we added a variables like attitude confidence as a dimension for user resistance. The research questions of this study are follows. First, how attitude confidence and innovativeness resistance affect user intention to use? Second, What factors related to content and brand contexts can affect user intention to use? This research collected data from the participants who have experiences using virtual rality headgears aged between 20s to 50s located in South Korea. In order to collect data, this study used a pilot test and through making face-to-face interviews on three specialists, face validity and content validity were evaluated for the questionnaire validity. Cleansing the data, we dropped some outliers and data of irrelevant papers. Totally, 156 responses were used for testing the suggested hypotheses. Through collecting data, demographics and the relationships among variables were analyzed through conducting structural equation modeling by PLS. The data showed that the sex of respondents who have experience using social commerce sites (male=86(55.1%), female=70(44.9%). The ages of respondents are mostly from 20s (74.4%) to 30s (16.7%). 126 respondents (80.8%) have used virtual reality devices. The results of our model estimation are as follows. With the exception of Hypothesis 1 and 7, which deals with the two relationships between brand awareness to attitude confidence, and quality of content to perceived enjoyment, all of our hypotheses were supported. In compliance with our hypotheses, perceived ease of use (H2) and use innovativeness (H3) were supported with its positively influence for the attitude confidence. This finding indicates that the more ease of use and innovativeness for devices increased, the more users' attitude confidence increased. Perceived price (H4), enjoyment (H5), Quantity of contents (H6) significantly increase user resistance. However, perceived price positively affect user innovativeness resistance meanwhile perceived enjoyment and quantity of contents negatively affect user innovativeness resistance. In addition, aesthetic exterior (H6) was also positively associated with perceived price (p<0.01). Also projection quality (H8) can increase perceived enjoyment (p<0.05). Finally, attitude confidence (H10) increased user intention to use virtual reality devices. however user resistance (H11) negatively affect user intention to use virtual reality devices. The findings of this study show that attitude confidence and user innovativeness resistance differently influence customer intention for using virtual reality devices. There are two distinct characteristic of attitude confidence: perceived ease of use and user innovativeness. This study identified the antecedents of different roles of perceived price (aesthetic exterior) and perceived enjoyment (quality of contents & projection quality). The findings indicated that brand awareness and quality of contents for virtual reality is not formed within virtual reality market yet. Therefore, firms should developed brand awareness for their product in the virtual market to increase market share.

    Steel Plate Faults Diagnosis with S-MTS (S-MTS를 이용한 강판의 표면 결함 진단)

    • Kim, Joon-Young;Cha, Jae-Min;Shin, Junguk;Yeom, Choongsub
      • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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      • v.23 no.1
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      • pp.47-67
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      • 2017
    • Steel plate faults is one of important factors to affect the quality and price of the steel plates. So far many steelmakers generally have used visual inspection method that could be based on an inspector's intuition or experience. Specifically, the inspector checks the steel plate faults by looking the surface of the steel plates. However, the accuracy of this method is critically low that it can cause errors above 30% in judgment. Therefore, accurate steel plate faults diagnosis system has been continuously required in the industry. In order to meet the needs, this study proposed a new steel plate faults diagnosis system using Simultaneous MTS (S-MTS), which is an advanced Mahalanobis Taguchi System (MTS) algorithm, to classify various surface defects of the steel plates. MTS has generally been used to solve binary classification problems in various fields, but MTS was not used for multiclass classification due to its low accuracy. The reason is that only one mahalanobis space is established in the MTS. In contrast, S-MTS is suitable for multi-class classification. That is, S-MTS establishes individual mahalanobis space for each class. 'Simultaneous' implies comparing mahalanobis distances at the same time. The proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system was developed in four main stages. In the first stage, after various reference groups and related variables are defined, data of the steel plate faults is collected and used to establish the individual mahalanobis space per the reference groups and construct the full measurement scale. In the second stage, the mahalanobis distances of test groups is calculated based on the established mahalanobis spaces of the reference groups. Then, appropriateness of the spaces is verified by examining the separability of the mahalanobis diatances. In the third stage, orthogonal arrays and Signal-to-Noise (SN) ratio of dynamic type are applied for variable optimization. Also, Overall SN ratio gain is derived from the SN ratio and SN ratio gain. If the derived overall SN ratio gain is negative, it means that the variable should be removed. However, the variable with the positive gain may be considered as worth keeping. Finally, in the fourth stage, the measurement scale that is composed of selected useful variables is reconstructed. Next, an experimental test should be implemented to verify the ability of multi-class classification and thus the accuracy of the classification is acquired. If the accuracy is acceptable, this diagnosis system can be used for future applications. Also, this study compared the accuracy of the proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system with that of other popular classification algorithms including Decision Tree, Multi Perception Neural Network (MLPNN), Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Tree Bagger Random Forest, Grid Search (GS), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The steel plates faults dataset used in the study is taken from the University of California at Irvine (UCI) machine learning repository. As a result, the proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system based on S-MTS shows 90.79% of classification accuracy. The accuracy of the proposed diagnosis system is 6-27% higher than MLPNN, LR, GS, GA and PSO. Based on the fact that the accuracy of commercial systems is only about 75-80%, it means that the proposed system has enough classification performance to be applied in the industry. In addition, the proposed system can reduce the number of measurement sensors that are installed in the fields because of variable optimization process. These results show that the proposed system not only can have a good ability on the steel plate faults diagnosis but also reduce operation and maintenance cost. For our future work, it will be applied in the fields to validate actual effectiveness of the proposed system and plan to improve the accuracy based on the results.

    Psychotherapy for Somatoform Disorder (신체형 장애의 정신치료)

    • Lee, Moo-Suk
      • Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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      • v.4 no.2
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      • pp.269-276
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      • 1996
    • A theroretical study was made on the psychodynamism of somatoform disorder. Somatoform disorder is caused by a defense mechanism of somatization. Somatization is the tendency to react to stimuli(drives, defenses, and conflict between them) physically rather than psychically(Moore, 1990). Ford(1983) said it is a way of life, and Dunbar(1954) said it is the shift of psychic energy toward expression in somatic symptoms. As used by Max Shur(1955), somatization links symptom formation to the regression that may occur in response to acute and chronic conflict. In the neurotic individual psychic conflict often provokes regressive phenomena that may include somatic manifestations characteristic of an earlier developmental phase. Schur calls this resomatization. Pain is the most common example of a somatization reaction to conflict. The pain has an unconscious significance derived from childhood experiences. It is used to win love, to punish misdeeds, as well as a means to amend. Among all pains, chest pain has a special meaning. Generally speaking, 'I have pain in my chest' is about the same as 'I have pain in my mind'. The chest represent the mind, and the mind reminds us about the heart. So we have a high tendency to recognize mental pain as cardiac pain. Kellner(1990) said rage and hostility, especially repressed hostility, are important factors in somatization. In 'Psychoanalytic Observation on Cardiac Pain', psychoanalyst Bacon(1953) presented clinical cases of patients who complained of cardiac pain in a psychoanalytic session that spread from the left side of their chests down their left arms. The pain was from rage and fear which came after their desire to be loved was frustrated by the analyet. She said desires related to cardiac pain were dependency needs and aggressions. Empatic relationship and therapeutic alliances are indispensable to psychotherapy in somatoform disorder. The beginning of therapy is to discover a precipitating event from the time their symptoms have started and to help the patient understand a relation between the symptom and precipitating event. Its remedial process is to find and interpret a intrapsychic conflict shown through the symptoms of the patient. Three cases of somatoform disorder patients treated based on this therapeutic method were introduced. The firt patient, Mr. H, had been suffering from hysterical aphasia with repressed rage as ie psychodynamic cause. An interpretation related to the precipitating event was given by written communication, and he recovered from his aphasia after 3 days of the session. The second patient was a dentist in a cardiac neurosis with agitation and hypochondriasis, whose psychodynamism was caused by a fear that he might lose his father's love. His symptom was also interpreted in relation to the precipitating event. It showed the patient a child-within afraid of losing his father's love. His condition improved after getting a didactic interpretation which told him, to be master of himself, The third patient was a lady transferred from the deparment of internal medicine. She had a frequent and violent fit of chest pains, whose psychodynamic cause was separation anxiety and a rage due to the frustration of dependency needs. Her symptom vanished dramatically when she wore a holler EKG monitor and did not occur during monitoring. By this experience she found her symptom was a psychogenic one, and a therapeutic alliance was formed. later in reguar psychotherapy sessions, she was told the relaton between symptoms and precipitating events. Through this she understood that her separation anxiety was connected to the symptom and she became less terrifide when it occurred. Now she can travel abroad and take well part in social activities.

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    The Effect of a Bypass Operation for Atherosclerotic Arterial Obstructive Disease at the Lower Extremity (동맥경화성 하지 동맥 폐색증에 대한 우회로 수술의 효과)

    • Choi, Won-Suk;Park, Jae-Min;Lee, Yang-Haeng;Han, Il-Yong;Jun, Hee-Jae;Yoon, Young-Chul;Hwang, Youn-Ho;Cho, Kwang-Hyun
      • Journal of Chest Surgery
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      • v.41 no.5
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      • pp.610-618
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      • 2008
    • Background: There are various treatment modalities for atherosclerotic arterial obstructive disease at the lower limbs, for example, conservative physical therapy, medication, operation etc. Yet it has been established that an arterial bypass operation is the most effective treatment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of arterial bypass operation within our experience and to determine the indicators of treatment. Material and Method: Ninety six patients received arterial bypass operation for atherosclerotic arterial obstructive disease from June 2002 to April 2006. We evaluated the feasibility of arterial bypass operation based on the improvement of symptoms and the ankle-brachial index (ABI) and the surgical outcomes, as based on the complications, the amputation rates and the patency rates. We also assessed the possible risk factors such as gender, age, a smoking history, co-morbidities, the anastomotic sites, the graft size and the graft type. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of the patients. The total mean follow-up period was $29.4{\pm}13.1$ months. Result: The mean age was $65.95{\pm}9.61$ and there were 88 male patients. The most common clinical manifestation was ischemic resting pain in the lower extremities. The underlying combined diseases were hypertension (61%), diabetes (43%), cardiac problems (35%) and smoking (91.7%). The most frequent site of arterial obstruction was the superficial femoral artery (44 cases, 40%). A femoropopliteal artery bypass operation with a Polytetrafluoroethylene(PTFE) synthetic graft was done in 44 cases (40%) and the great saphenous vein graft was used in 11 cases. The postoperative ABI increased significantly from $0.30{\pm}0.11$ preoperatively to $0.63{\pm}0.11$ (p<0.001) postoperatively. In 8 cases, amputations above the ankle level were necessary. The graft patency rates were 86.4% and 68.0% after 1 and 3 years, respectively. There were 29 cases (30.21%) of patency failure; the male gender, smokers and hypertension were significantly more frequent in the failure group. Of these, hypertension was the most powerful risk factor (p=0.042). Conclusion: The arterial bypass operation is an effective treatment modality for controlling the symptoms such as pain and claudication, and for preventing major amputations for the patients with atherosclerotic arterial obstructive disease. This study suggests quitting smoking, strict blood pressure control, selection of an appropriate graft, regular outpatient follow up and proper medication would offer higher patency rates and more favorable outcomes.

    Developmental Plans and Research on Private Security in Korea (한국 민간경비 실태 및 발전방안)

    • Kim, Tea-Hwan;Park, Ok-Cheol
      • Korean Security Journal
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      • no.9
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      • pp.69-98
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      • 2005
    • The security industry for civilians (Private Security), was first introduced to Korea via the US army's security system in the early 1960's. Shortly after then, official police laws were enforced in 1973, and private security finally started to develop with the passing of the 'service security industry' law in 1976. Korea's Private Security industry grew rapidly in the 1980's with the support of foreign funds and products, and now there are thought to be approximately 2000 private security enterprises currently running in Korea. However, nowadays the majority of these enterprises are experiencing difficulties such as lack of funds, insufficient management, and lack of control over employees, as a result, it seems difficult for some enterprises to avoid the low production output and bankruptcy. As a result of this these enterprises often settle these matters illegally, such as excessive dumping or avoiding problems by hiring inappropriate employees who don't have the right skills or qualifications for the jobs. The main problem with the establishment of this kind of security service is that it is so easy to make inroads into this private service market. All these hindering factors inhibit the market growth and impede qualitative development. Based on these main reasons, I researched this area, and will analyze and criticize the present condition of Korea's private security. I will present a possible development plan for the private security of Korea by referring to cases from the US and Japan. My method of researching was to investigate any related documentary records and articles and to interview people for necessary evidence. The theoretical study, involves investigation books and dissertations which are published from inside and outside of the country, and studying the complete collection of laws and regulations, internet data, various study reports, and the documentary records and the statistical data of many institutions such as the National Police Office, judicial training institute, and the enterprises of private security. Also, in addition, the contents of professionals who are in charge of practical affairs on the spot in order to overcomes the critical points of documentary records when investigating dissertation. I tried to get a firm grasp of the problems and difficulties which people in these work enterprises experience, this I thought would be most effective by interviewing the workers, for example: how they feel in the work places and what are the elements which inpede development? And I also interviewed policemen who are in charge of supervising the private escort enterprises, in an effort to figure out the problems and differences in opinion between domestic private security service and the police. From this investigation and research I will try to pin point the major problems of the private security and present a developmental plan. Firstly-Companies should unify the private police law and private security service law. Secondly-It is essential to introduce the 'specialty certificate' system for the quality improvement of private security service. Thirdly-must open up a new private security market by improving old system. Fourth-must build up the competitive power of the security service enterprises which is based on an efficient management. Fifth-needs special marketing strategy to hold customers Sixth-needs positive research based on theoretical studies. Seventh-needs the consistent and even training according to effective market demand. Eighth-Must maintain interrelationship with the police department. Ninth-must reinforce the system of Korean private security service association. Tenth-must establish private security laboratory. Based on these suggestions there should be improvement of private security service.

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