• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.59-70
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• 2018

With the breakthrough of speech recognition technology, conversational agents have become pervasive through smartphones and smart speakers. The recognition accuracy of speech recognition technology has developed to the level of human beings, but it still shows limitations on understanding the underlying meaning or intention of words, or understanding long conversation. Accordingly, the users experience various errors when interacting with the conversational agents, which may negatively affect the user experience. In addition, in the case of smart speakers with a voice as the main interface, the lack of feedback on system and transparency was reported as the main issue when the users using. Therefore, there is a strong need for research on how users can better understand the capability of the conversational agents and mitigate negative emotions in error situations. In this study, we applied social strategies, "forewarning" and "apology", to conversational agent and investigated how these strategies affect users' perceptions of the agent in breakdown situations. For the study, we created a series of demo videos of a user interacting with a conversational agent. After watching the demo videos, the participants were asked to evaluate how they liked and trusted the agent through an online survey. A total of 104 respondents were analyzed and found to be contrary to our expectation based on the literature study. The result showed that forewarning gave a negative impression to the user, especially the reliability of the agent. Also, apology in a breakdown situation did not affect the users' perceptions. In the following in-depth interviews, participants explained that they perceived the smart speaker as a machine rather than a human-like object, and for this reason, the social strategies did not work. These results show that the social strategies should be applied according to the perceptions that user has toward agents.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.85-97
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• 2010

Internet communities are a typical space for knowledge creation and use on the Internet as people discuss their common interests within the internet communities. When we define 'Knowledge Communities' as internet communities that are related to knowledge creation and use, they are categorized into 4 different types such as 'Search Engine,' 'Open Communities,' 'Specialty Communities,' and 'Activity Communities.' Each type of knowledge community does not remain the same, for example. Rather, it changes with time and is also affected by the external business environment. Therefore, it is critical to develop processes for practical use of such changeable knowledge communities. Yet there is little research regarding a strategic framework for knowledge communities as a source of knowledge creation and use. The purposes of this study are (1) to find factors that can affect knowledge creation and use for each type of knowledge community and (2) to develop a strategic framework for practical use of the knowledge communities. Based on previous research, we found 7 factors that have considerable impacts on knowledge creation and use. They were 'Fitness,' 'Reliability,' 'Systemicity,' 'Richness,' 'Similarity,' 'Feedback,' and 'Understanding.' We created 30 different questions from each type of knowledge community. The questions included common sense, IT, business and hobbies, and were uniformly selected from various knowledge communities. Instead of using survey, we used these questions to ask users of the 4 representative web sites such as Google from Search Engine, NAVER Knowledge iN from Open Communities, SLRClub from Specialty Communities, and Wikipedia from Activity Communities. These 4 representative web sites were selected based on popularity (i.e., the 4 most popular sites in Korea). They were also among the 4 most frequently mentioned sitesin previous research. The answers of the 30 knowledge questions were collected and evaluated by the 11 IT experts who have been working for IT companies more than 3 years. When evaluating, the 11 experts used the above 7 knowledge factors as criteria. Using a stepwise linear regression for the evaluation of the 7 knowledge factors, we found that each factors affects differently knowledge creation and use for each type of knowledge community. The results of the stepwise linear regression analysis showed the relationship between 'Understanding' and other knowledge factors. The relationship was different regarding the type of knowledge community. The results indicated that 'Understanding' was significantly related to 'Reliability' at 'Search Engine type', to 'Fitness' at 'Open Community type', to 'Reliability' and 'Similarity' at 'Specialty Community type', and to 'Richness' and 'Similarity' at 'Activity Community type'. A strategic framework was created from the results of this study and such framework can be useful for knowledge communities that are not stable with time. For the success of knowledge community, the results of this study suggest that it is essential to ensure there are factors that can influence knowledge communities. It is also vital to reinforce each factor has its unique influence on related knowledge community. Thus, these changeable knowledge communities should be transformed into an adequate type with proper business strategies and objectives. They also should be progressed into a type that covers varioustypes of knowledge communities. For example, DCInside started from a small specialty community focusing on digital camera hardware and camerawork and then was transformed to an open community focusing on social issues through well-known photo galleries. NAVER started from a typical search engine and now covers an open community and a special community through additional web services such as NAVER knowledge iN, NAVER Cafe, and NAVER Blog. NAVER is currently competing withan activity community such as Wikipedia through the NAVER encyclopedia that provides similar services with NAVER encyclopedia's users as Wikipedia does. Finally, the results of this study provide meaningfully practical guidance for practitioners in that which type of knowledge community is most appropriate to the fluctuated business environment as knowledge community itself evolves with time.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.145-156
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• 2014

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish accreditation systems of reliable educational materials for nutrition and dietary life which could be used in schools, workplace, and health promotion. Methods: The study was conducted from April 2011 to October 2011. Literature reviews, institutional visits, and telephone interviews were conducted. Expert meetings and advisory councils were held in order to receive feedback on development of the accreditation systems. A survey was conducted for the accreditation procedures on 143 professionals, including professors, researchers, health and medical experts, teachers, nutrition teachers, dietitians, and clinical nutritionists. Results: The final procedure of the developed accreditation system was finalized as follows: 1) receiving application twice per year 2) complete desk review (written evaluation) by three reviewers within two months, 3) board review (all board members) and decision, and 4) notification of results. The accreditation system is set for printed materials, web-site, and materials for activities. The certificate and accreditation mark is issued to the final certified educational materials. Expiration date is established only for the web-site form. The accreditation length lasts for two years, and can be extended by renewal application. Conclusion: The dietary and nutrition related materials, which are certificated by this accreditation system, could impart reliable information and knowledge to both learners and educators, and help them in effective selection of educational materials. Therefore, this accreditation system might be expected to increase satisfaction for teaching and learning about nutrition and healthy dietary life.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.327-336
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• 2021

Objectives: This study was conducted to create a 3D printable snack dish model for the elderly with low food or fluid intake along with barriers towards eating. Methods: The decision was made by the hybrid-brainstorming method for creating the 3D model. Experts were assigned based on their professional areas such as clinical nutrition, food hygiene and chemical safety for the creation process. After serial feedback processes, the grape shape was suggested as the final model. After various concept sketching and making clay models, 3D-printing technology was applied to produce a prototype. Results: 3D design modeling process was conducted by SolidWorks program. After considering Dietary reference intakes for Koreans (KDRIs) and other survey data, appropriate supplementary water serving volume was decided as 285 mL which meets 30% of Adequate intake. To consider printing output conditions, this model has six grapes in one bunch with a safety lid. The FDM printer and PLA filaments were used for food hygiene and safety. To stimulate cognitive functions and interests of eating, numbers one to six was engraved on the lid of the final 3D model. Conclusions: The newly-developed 3D model was designed to increase intakes of nutrients and water in the elderly with dementia during snack time. Since dementia patients often forget to eat, engraving numbers on the grapes was conducted to stimulate cognitive function related to the swallowing and chewing process. We suggest that investigations on the types of foods or fluids are needed in the developed 3D model snack dish for future studies.

• Journal of vocational education research
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.77-103
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• 2017

The purposes of this study are 1) to analyse the importance and performance of the success factors in steps of Formation process Of Cooperation NetWork(FoCNW) of educational institutions and businesses, and 2) to draw the success factors that need improvement. To achieve these purposes a survey research was conducted with a group of 1,098 (professors, teachers and workers in charge of cooperation at universities, technical colleges, vocational high schools and businesses which are equipped with a cooperation system), and 339 questionnaires were analyzed. The major results of the study are as follows. Firstly, while cooperation workers showed high recognition on the importance of success factors in steps of FoCNW, their performance of those factors was relatively low. Secondly, both the recognition of importance and performance of success factors in steps of FoCNW was higher in educational institutions than in businesses. Thirdly, the success factors in need of improvements from both educational institutions and businesses are 'collecting outer information and consulting' and 'publicizing cooperation competency', 'setting cooperative activities (programs) and contents of agreements', 'managing cooperation quality formally', 'drawing plans for sustainable cooperation improvement' and 'diffusing cooperation network'. The success factors in need of improvements from educational institutions are 'perceiving necessity of and forming consensus on cooperation' and 'deciding and supporting the worker in charge of cooperation', and 'participating and sharing of organization members'. The success factors in need of improvements from businesses are 'deciding goals and performance strategies', 'developing mutual understanding and checking possibility of cooperation with potential partners', and 'evaluating cooperation activities and their outcomes and providing feedback' and 'adjusting contents of agreements and deciding whether to maintain cooperation'. Therefore, efforts from each partner to improve those factors and support from related organizations are necessary.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.139-161
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• 2019

The utilization of the e-commerce market has become a common life style in today. It has become important part to know where and how to make reasonable purchases of good quality products for customers. This change in purchase psychology tends to make it difficult for customers to make purchasing decisions in vast amounts of information. In this case, the recommendation system has the effect of reducing the cost of information retrieval and improving the satisfaction by analyzing the purchasing behavior of the customer. Amazon and Netflix are considered to be the well-known examples of sales marketing using the recommendation system. In the case of Amazon, 60% of the recommendation is made by purchasing goods, and 35% of the sales increase was achieved. Netflix, on the other hand, found that 75% of movie recommendations were made using services. This personalization technique is considered to be one of the key strategies for one-to-one marketing that can be useful in online markets where salespeople do not exist. Recommendation techniques that are mainly used in recommendation systems today include collaborative filtering and content-based filtering. Furthermore, hybrid techniques and association rules that use these techniques in combination are also being used in various fields. Of these, collaborative filtering recommendation techniques are the most popular today. Collaborative filtering is a method of recommending products preferred by neighbors who have similar preferences or purchasing behavior, based on the assumption that users who have exhibited similar tendencies in purchasing or evaluating products in the past will have a similar tendency to other products. However, most of the existed systems are recommended only within the same category of products such as books and movies. This is because the recommendation system estimates the purchase satisfaction about new item which have never been bought yet using customer's purchase rating points of a similar commodity based on the transaction data. In addition, there is a problem about the reliability of purchase ratings used in the recommendation system. Reliability of customer purchase ratings is causing serious problems. In particular, 'Compensatory Review' refers to the intentional manipulation of a customer purchase rating by a company intervention. In fact, Amazon has been hard-pressed for these "compassionate reviews" since 2016 and has worked hard to reduce false information and increase credibility. The survey showed that the average rating for products with 'Compensated Review' was higher than those without 'Compensation Review'. And it turns out that 'Compensatory Review' is about 12 times less likely to give the lowest rating, and about 4 times less likely to leave a critical opinion. As such, customer purchase ratings are full of various noises. This problem is directly related to the performance of recommendation systems aimed at maximizing profits by attracting highly satisfied customers in most e-commerce transactions. In this study, we propose the possibility of using new indicators that can objectively substitute existing customer 's purchase ratings by using RFM multi-dimensional analysis technique to solve a series of problems. RFM multi-dimensional analysis technique is the most widely used analytical method in customer relationship management marketing(CRM), and is a data analysis method for selecting customers who are likely to purchase goods. As a result of verifying the actual purchase history data using the relevant index, the accuracy was as high as about 55%. This is a result of recommending a total of 4,386 different types of products that have never been bought before, thus the verification result means relatively high accuracy and utilization value. And this study suggests the possibility of general recommendation system that can be applied to various offline product data. If additional data is acquired in the future, the accuracy of the proposed recommendation system can be improved.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.103-120
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• 2009

As business incubation centers (BICs) have been operating for more than 10 years in Korea, many early stage startups tend to use the services provided by the incubating centers. BICs in Korea have accumulated the knowledge and experience in the past ten years and their services have been considerably improved. The business incubating service has three facets : (1) business infrastructure service, (2) direct service, and (3) indirect service. The mission of BICs is to provide the early stage entrepreneurs with the incubating service in a limited period time to help them grow strong enough to survive the fierce competition after graduating from the incubation. However, the incubating services sometimes fail to foster the independence of new startup companies, and raise the dependence of many companies on BICs. Thus, the dependence on BICs is a very important factor to understand the survival of the incubated startup companies after graduation from BICs. The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors that influence the firm's dependence on BICs and to characterize the relationships among the identified factors. The business incubating service is a core construct of this study. It includes various activities and resources, such as offering the physical facilities, legal service, and connecting them with outside organizations. These services are extensive and take various forms. They are provided by BICs directly or indirectly. Past studies have identified various incubating services and classify them in different ways. Based on the past studies, we classify the business incubating service into three categories as mentioned above : (1) business infrastructure support, (2) direct support, and (3) networking support. The business infrastructure support is to provide the essential resources to start the business, such as physical facilities. The direct support is to offer the business resources available in the BICs, such as human, technical, and administrational resources. Finally, the indirect service was to support the resource in the outside of business incubation center. Dependence is generally defined as the degree to which a client firm needs the resources provided by the service provider in order to achieve its goals. Dependence is generated when a firm recognizes the benefits of interacting with its counterpart. Hence, the more positive outcomes a firm derives from its relationship with the partner, the more dependent on the partner the firm must inevitably become. In business incubating, as a resident firm is incubated in longer period, we can predict that her dependence on BICs would be stronger. In order to foster the independence of the incubated firms, BICs have to be able to manipulate the provision of their services to control the firms' dependence on BICs. Based on the above discussion, the research model for relationships between dependence and its affecting factors was developed. We surveyed the companies residing in BICs to test our research model. The instrument of our study was modified, in part, on the basis of previous relevant studies. For the purposes of testing reliability and validity, preliminary testing was conducted with firms that were residing in BICs and incubated by the BICs in the region of Gwangju and Jeonnam. The questionnaire was modified in accordance with the pre-test feedback. We mailed to all of the firms that had been incubated by the BICs with the help of business incubating managers of each BIC. The survey was conducted over a three week period. Gifts (of approximately ₩10,000 value) were offered to all actively participating respondents. The incubating period was reported by the business incubating managers, and it was transformed using natural logarithms. A total of 180 firms participated in the survey. However, we excluded 4 cases due to a lack of consistency using reversed items in the answers of the companies, and 176 cases were used for the analysis. We acknowledge that 176 samples may not be sufficient to conduct regression analyses with 5 research variables in our study. Each variable was measured through multiple items. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis to assess their unidimensionality. In an effort to test the construct validity of the instruments, a principal component factor analysis was conducted with Varimax rotation. The items correspond well to each singular factor, demonstrating a high degree of convergent validity. As the factor loadings for a variable (or factor) are higher than the factor loadings for the other variables, the instrument's discriminant validity is shown to be clear. Each factor was extracted as expected, which explained 70.97, 66.321, and 52.97 percent, respectively, of the total variance each with eigen values greater than 1.000. The internal consistency reliability of the variables was evaluated by computing Cronbach's alphas. The Cronbach's alpha values of the variables, which ranged from 0.717 to 0.950, were all securely over 0.700, which is satisfactory. The reliability and validity of the research variables are all, therefore, considered acceptable. The effects of dependence were assessed using a regression analysis. The Pearson correlations were calculated for the variables, measured by interval or ratio scales. Potential multicollinearity among the antecedents was evaluated prior to the multiple regression analysis, as some of the variables were significantly correlated with others (e.g., direct service and indirect service). Although several variables show the evidence of significant correlations, their tolerance values range between 0.334 and 0.613, thereby demonstrating that multicollinearity is not a likely threat to the parameter estimates. Checking some basic assumptions for the regression analyses, we decided to conduct multiple regression analyses and moderated regression analyses to test the given hypotheses. The results of the regression analyses indicate that the regression model is significant at p < 0.001 (F = 44.260), and that the predictors of the research model explain 42.6 percent of the total variance. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 address the relationships between the dependence of the incubated firms and the business incubating services. Business infrastructure service, direct service, and indirect service are all significantly related with dependence (β = 0.300, p < 0.001; β = 0.230, p < 0.001; β = 0.226, p < 0.001), thus supporting Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. When the incubating period is the moderator and dependence is the dependent variable, the addition of the interaction terms with the antecedents to the regression equation yielded a significant increase in R2 (F change = 2.789, p < 0.05). In particular, direct service and indirect service exert different effects on dependence. Hence, the results support Hypotheses 5 and 6. This study provides several strategies and specific calls to action for BICs, based on our empirical findings. Business infrastructure service has more effect on the firm's dependence than the other two services. The introduction of an additional high charge rate for a graduated but allowed to stay in the BIC is a basic and legitimate condition for the BIC to control the firm's dependence. We detected the differential effects of direct and indirect services on the firm's dependence. The firms with long incubating period are more sensitive to indirect service positively, and more sensitive to direct service negatively, when assessing their levels of dependence. This implies that BICs must develop a strategy on the basis of a firm's incubating period. Last but not least, it would be valuable to discover other important variables that influence the firm's dependence in the future studies. Moreover, future studies to explain the independence of startup companies in BICs would also be valuable.