• Childhood Kidney Diseases
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.8-17
• /
• 2006

Purpose : We describe the changes of rat glomerular epithelial cells when exposed to high levels of glucose and advanced glycosylation endproducts(AGE) in the in vitro diabetic condition. We expect morphological alteration of glomerular epithelial cells and permeability changes experimentally and we may correlate the results with a mechanism of proteinuria in DM. Methods : We made 0.2 M glucose-6-phsphate solution mixed with PBS(pH 7.4) containing 50 mg/mL BSA and pretense inhibitor for preparation of AGE. As control, we used BSA. We manufactured and symbolized five culture dishes as follows; B5 - normal glucose(5 mM) + BSA, B30 - high glucose(30 mM) + BSA, A5 - normal glucose(5 mM) + AGE, A30 - high glucose(30 mM) + AGE, A/B 25 - normal glucose(5 mM) + 25 mM of mannitol(osmotic control). After the incubation period of both two days and seven days, we measured the amount of heparan sulfate proteoglycan(HSPG) in each dish by ELISA and compared them with the B5 dish at 2nd and 7th incubation days. We observed the morphological changes of epithelial cells in each culture dish using scanning electron microscopy(SEM). We tried the permeability assay of glomerular epithelial cells using cellulose semi-permeable membrane measuring the amount of filtered BSA through the apical chamber for 2 hours by sandwich ELISA. Results : On the 2nd incubation day, there was no significant difference in the amount of HSPG between the 5 culture dishes. But on the 7th incubation day, the amount of HSPG increased by 10% compared with the B5 dish on the 2nd day except the A30 dish(P<0.05). Compared with the B5 dish on the 7th day the amount of HSPG in A30 and B30 dish decreased to 77.8% and 95.3% of baseline, respectively(P>0.05). In the osmotic control group (A/B 25) no significant correlation was observed. On the SEM, we could see the separated intercellular junction and fused microvilli of glomerular epithelial cells in the culture dishes where AGE was added. The permeability of BSA increased by 19% only in the A30 dish on the 7th day compared with B5 dish on the 7th day in the permeability assay(P<0.05). Conclusion: We observed not only the role of a high level of glucose and AGE in decreasing the production of HSPG of glomerular epithelial cells in vitro, but also their additive effect. However, the role of AGE is greater than that of glucose. These results seems to correlate with the defects in charge selective barrier. Morphological changes of the disruption of intercellular junction and fused microvilli of glomerular epithelial cells seem to correlate with the defects in size-selective barrier. Therefore, we can explain the increased permeability of glomerular epithelial units in the in vitro diabetic condition.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.171-196
• /
• 2018

With the development of the web, two-way communication and evaluation became possible and marketing paradigms shifted. In order to meet the needs of consumers, web design trends are continuously responding to consumer feedback. As the web becomes more and more important, both academics and businesses are studying consumer emotions and satisfaction on the web. However, some consumer characteristics are not well considered. Demographic characteristics such as age and sex have been studied extensively, but few studies consider psychological characteristics such as regulatory focus (i.e., emotional regulation). In this study, we analyze the effect of web style on consumer emotion. Many studies analyze the relationship between the web and regulatory focus, but most concentrate on the purpose of web use, particularly motivation and information search, rather than on web style and design. The web communicates with users through visual elements. Because the human brain is influenced by all five senses, both design factors and emotional responses are important in the web environment. Therefore, in this study, we examine the relationship between consumer emotion and satisfaction and web style and design. Previous studies have considered the effects of web layout, structure, and color on emotions. In this study, however, we excluded these web components, in contrast to earlier studies, and analyzed the relationship between consumer satisfaction and emotional indexes of web-style only. To perform this analysis, we collected consumer surveys presenting 40 web style themes to 204 consumers. Each consumer evaluated four themes. The emotional adjectives evaluated by consumers were composed of 18 contrast pairs, and the upper emotional indexes were extracted through factor analysis. The emotional indexes were 'softness,' 'modernity,' 'clearness,' and 'jam.' Hypotheses were established based on the assumption that emotional indexes have different effects on consumer satisfaction. After the analysis, hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 were accepted and hypothesis 4 was rejected. While hypothesis 4 was rejected, its effect on consumer satisfaction was negative, not positive. This means that emotional indexes such as 'softness,' 'modernity,' and 'clearness' have a positive effect on consumer satisfaction. In other words, consumers prefer emotions that are soft, emotional, natural, rounded, dynamic, modern, elaborate, unique, bright, pure, and clear. 'Jam' has a negative effect on consumer satisfaction. It means, consumer prefer the emotion which is empty, plain, and simple. Regulatory focus shows differences in motivation and propensity in various domains. It is important to consider organizational behavior and decision making according to the regulatory focus tendency, and it affects not only political, cultural, ethical judgments and behavior but also broad psychological problems. Regulatory focus also differs from emotional response. Promotion focus responds more strongly to positive emotional responses. On the other hand, prevention focus has a strong response to negative emotions. Web style is a type of service, and consumer satisfaction is affected not only by cognitive evaluation but also by emotion. This emotional response depends on whether the consumer will benefit or harm himself. Therefore, it is necessary to confirm the difference of the consumer's emotional response according to the regulatory focus which is one of the characteristics and viewpoint of the consumers about the web style. After MMR analysis result, hypothesis 5.3 was accepted, and hypothesis 5.4 was rejected. But hypothesis 5.4 supported in the opposite direction to the hypothesis. After validation, we confirmed the mechanism of emotional response according to the tendency of regulatory focus. Using the results, we developed the structure of web-style recommendation system and recommend methods through regulatory focus. We classified the regulatory focus group in to three categories that promotion, grey, prevention. Then, we suggest web-style recommend method along the group. If we further develop this study, we expect that the existing regulatory focus theory can be extended not only to the motivational part but also to the emotional behavioral response according to the regulatory focus tendency. Moreover, we believe that it is possible to recommend web-style according to regulatory focus and emotional desire which consumers most prefer.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.27-52
• /
• 2010

It is not new that today's business organizations are expected to exhibit ethical and moral management and to carry out social responsibility as a good corporate citizen. Since South Korea emerged as a newly industrialized country during the 1980s, Korean corporations have become active in carrying out their social responsibility as a good corporate citizen to society. In spite of the short history of corporate social responsibility, Korean companies have actively participated in corporate philanthropy. Corporations' significant donations to various social causes, no-lay-off policies, corporate volunteerism and green marketing are evidences of their commitment to corporate citizenship. Corporate social responsibility is now an essential management practice whereby corporation can strengthen its sustainable value creation processes by enhancing the trust assets underlying the relationships between the business and the stakeholders. Much of the conceptual work in the area of corporate social responsibility(CSR) has originated from researches conducted in the management field. Carroll(1979) proposed that corporations have four types of social responsibilities: economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility. Most past research has investigated CSR and its impact on consumers' attitudes toward the corporations and corporate performances. Although there exists a large body of literature on how consumers perceive and respond to CSR, the majority of past studies were conducted in the United States. The stability and applicability of past findings need to be tested across different national/cultural settings, especially since corporate social responsibility is a reflection of implicit conformation with the expectations and criticism that society may have toward a corporation(Matten and Moon, 2004). In this study, we explored whether people in Korea perceive CSR of Korean corporations in the same four dimensions as done in the United States and what were the measurement items tapping each of these four dimensions. In order to investigate the dimensions of CSR and the measurement items for CSR perceived by Korean people, nine focus group interviews were conducted with several stakeholder groups(two with undergraduate students, two with graduate students, three with general consumers, and two with NGO groups). Scripts from the interviews revealed that the Korean stakeholders perceived four types of CSR which are the same as those proposed by Carroll(1979). However we found CSR issues unique to Korean corporations. For example for the economic responsibility, Korean people mentioned that the corporation needed to contribute to the economic development of the country by generating corporate profits. For the legal responsibility, Koreans included the "corporation need to follow the consumer protection law." For the ethical responsibility, they considered that the corporation needed to not promote false advertisement. In addition, Koreans thought that an ethical company should do transparent management. For the philanthropic responsibility, people in Korea thought that a corporation needed to return parts of its profits to the society for the betterment of society. The 28 items were developed based on the results of the nine focus group interviews, while considering the scale developed by Maignan and Ferrell(2001). Following the procedure proposed by Churchill(1979), we started by developing an item poll consisting of 28 items and purified the initial pool of items through exploratory, confirmatory factor analyses. 176 samples were sued for this analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the 28 items in order to verify the underlying four factor structure. Study 1 provided new measurement items for tapping the Korean CSR dimensions, which can be useful for the future studies exploring the effects of CSR on Korean consumers' attitudes toward the corporations and corporate performances. And we found the CSR scale(17 items) has good reliability, discriminant validity and nomological validity. Economic Responsibility: "XYZ company continuously improves the quality of our products", "XYZ company has a procedure in place to respond to customer complaint", "XYZ company contributes to the economic development of our country by generating profits", "XYZ company is eager to hire people". Legal Responsibility: "XYZ company's products meet legal standards", "XYZ company seeks to comply with all laws regulating hiring and employee benefits", "XYZ company honors contractual obligations to its suppliers", "XYZ company's managers try to comply with the law related to the business operation". Ethical Responsibility: "XYZ company has a comprehensive code of conduct", "XYZ company does not promote a false or misleading advertisement", "XYZ company seems to conduct a transparent business", "XYZ company does a fair business with its suppliers or sub-contractors". Philanthropic Responsibility: "XYZ company encourages partnerships with local businesses and schools", "XYZ company supports sports and cultural activities", "XYZ company gives adequate contributions to charities considering its business size", "XYZ company encourages employees to support our community". Study 2 was condusted for comprehensive validity. 655 samples were used for this anlysis. Collected samples were tested by factor analysis and Crnbach's Alpha coefficiednts and were found to be satisfactory in terms of validity and reliability. Furthermore, fitness of the measurement model was tested by using conformatory factor analysis. χ²=880.73(df=160), GFI=0.891, AGFI=0.854, NFI=0.908, NNFI=0.913, RMR=0.059, RMESA=0.070. We hope that CSR scale could greatly facilitate research on Corporate social resposibility, it is by no means the final answer.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.59-87
• /
• 2014

In MIS field, the researches on payment services are focused on adoption factors of payment service using behavior theories such as TRA(Theory of Reasoned Action), TAM(Technology Acceptance Model), and TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior). The previous researches presented various adoption factors according to types of payment service, nations, culture and so on even though adoption factors of identical payment service were presented differently by researchers. The payment service industry relatively has strong path dependency to the existing payment methods so that the research results on the identical payment service are different due to payment culture of nation. This paper aims to suggest a successful adoption factor of noble payment service regardless of nation's culture and characteristics of payment and prove it. In previous researches, common adoption factors of payment service are convenience, ease of use, security, convenience, speed etc. But real cases prove the fact that adoption factors that the previous researches present are not always critical to success to penetrate a market. For example, PayByPhone, NFC based parking payment service, successfully has penetrated to early market and grown. In contrast, Google Wallet service failed to be adopted to users despite NFC based payment method which provides convenience, security, ease of use. As shown in upper case, there remains an unexplained aspect. Therefore, the present research question emerged from the question: "What is the more essential and fundamental factor that should takes precedence over factors such as provides convenience, security, ease of use for successful penetration to market". With these cases, this paper analyzes four cases predicted on the following hypothesis and demonstrates it. "To successfully penetrate a market and sustainably grow, new payment service should find non-customer of the existing payment service and provide noble payment method so that they can use payment method". We give plausible explanations for the hypothesis using multiple case studies. Diners club, Danal, PayPal, Square were selected as a typical and successful cases in each category of payment service. The discussion on cases is primarily non-customer analysis that noble payment service targets on to find the most crucial factor in the early market, we does not attempt to consider factors for business growth. We clarified three-tier non-customer of the payment method that new payment service targets on and elaborated how new payment service satisfy them. In case of credit card, this payment service target first tier of non-customer who can't pay for because they don't have any cash temporarily but they have regular income. So credit card provides an opportunity which they can do economic activities by delaying the date of payment. In a result of wireless phone payment's case study, this service targets on second of non-customer who can't use online payment because they concern about security or have to take a complex process and learn how to use online payment method. Therefore, wireless phone payment provides very convenient payment method. Especially, it made group of young pay for a little money without a credit card. Case study result of PayPal, online payment service, shows that it targets on second tier of non-customer who reject to use online payment service because of concern about sensitive information leaks such as passwords and credit card details. Accordingly, PayPal service allows users to pay online without a provision of sensitive information. Final Square case result, Mobile POS -based payment service, also shows that it targets on second tier of non-customer who can't individually transact offline because of cash's shortness. Hence, Square provides dongle which function as POS by putting dongle in earphone terminal. As a result, four cases made non-customer their customer so that they could penetrate early market and had been extended their market share. Consequently, all cases supported the hypothesis and it is highly probable according to 'analytic generation' that case study methodology suggests. We present for judging the quality of research designs the following. Construct validity, internal validity, external validity, reliability are common to all social science methods, these have been summarized in numerous textbooks(Yin, 2014). In case study methodology, these also have served as a framework for assessing a large group of case studies (Gibbert, Ruigrok & Wicki, 2008). Construct validity is to identify correct operational measures for the concepts being studied. To satisfy construct validity, we use multiple sources of evidence such as the academic journals, magazine and articles etc. Internal validity is to seek to establish a causal relationship, whereby certain conditions are believed to lead to other conditions, as distinguished from spurious relationships. To satisfy internal validity, we do explanation building through four cases analysis. External validity is to define the domain to which a study's findings can be generalized. To satisfy this, replication logic in multiple case studies is used. Reliability is to demonstrate that the operations of a study -such as the data collection procedures- can be repeated, with the same results. To satisfy this, we use case study protocol. In Korea, the competition among stakeholders over mobile payment industry is intensifying. Not only main three Telecom Companies but also Smartphone companies and service provider like KakaoTalk announced that they would enter into mobile payment industry. Mobile payment industry is getting competitive. But it doesn't still have momentum effect notwithstanding positive presumptions that will grow very fast. Mobile payment services are categorized into various technology based payment service such as IC mobile card and Application payment service of cloud based, NFC, sound wave, BLE(Bluetooth Low Energy), Biometric recognition technology etc. Especially, mobile payment service is discontinuous innovations that users should change their behavior and noble infrastructure should be installed. These require users to learn how to use it and cause infra-installation cost to shopkeepers. Additionally, payment industry has the strong path dependency. In spite of these obstacles, mobile payment service which should provide dramatically improved value as a products and service of discontinuous innovations is focusing on convenience and security, convenience and so on. We suggest the following to success mobile payment service. First, non-customers of the existing payment service need to be identified. Second, needs of them should be taken. Then, noble payment service provides non-customer who can't pay by the previous payment method to payment method. In conclusion, mobile payment service can create new market and will result in extension of payment market.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.19-41
• /
• 2016

Recently, the proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet personal computers and the development of information communication technologies (ICT) have led to a big trend of a shift from single-channel shopping to multi-channel shopping. With the emergence of a "smart" group of consumers who want to shop in more reasonable and convenient ways, the boundaries apparently dividing online and offline shopping have collapsed and blurred more than ever before. Thus, there is now fierce competition between online and offline channels. Ever since the emergence of online shopping, a major type of multi-channel shopping has been "showrooming," where consumers visit offline stores to examine products before buying them online. However, because of the growing use of smart devices and the counterattack of offline retailers represented by omni-channel marketing strategies, one of the latest huge trends of shopping is "webrooming," where consumers visit online stores to examine products before buying them offline. This has become a threat to online retailers. In this situation, although it is very important to examine the influencing factors for switching from online shopping to webrooming, most prior studies have mainly focused on a single- or multi-channel shopping pattern. Therefore, this study thoroughly investigated the influencing factors on customers switching from online shopping to webrooming in terms of both the "search" and "purchase" processes through the application of a push-pull-mooring (PPM) framework. In order to test the research model, 280 individual samples were gathered from undergraduate and graduate students who had actual experience with webrooming. The results of the structural equation model (SEM) test revealed that the "pull" effect is strongest on the webrooming intention rather than the "push" or "mooring" effects. This proves a significant relationship between "attractiveness of webrooming" and "webrooming intention." In addition, the results showed that both the "perceived risk of online search" and "perceived risk of online purchase" significantly affect "distrust of online shopping." Similarly, both "perceived benefit of multi-channel search" and "perceived benefit of offline purchase" were found to have significant effects on "attractiveness of webrooming" were also found. Furthermore, the results indicated that "online purchase habit" is the only influencing factor that leads to "online shopping lock-in." The theoretical implications of the study are as follows. First, by examining the multi-channel shopping phenomenon from the perspective of "shopping switching" from online shopping to webrooming, this study complements the limits of the "channel switching" perspective, represented by multi-channel freeriding studies that merely focused on customers' channel switching behaviors from one to another. While extant studies with a channel switching perspective have focused on only one type of multi-channel shopping, where consumers just move from one particular channel to different channels, a study with a shopping switching perspective has the advantage of comprehensively investigating how consumers choose and navigate among diverse types of single- or multi-channel shopping alternatives. In this study, only limited shopping switching behavior from online shopping to webrooming was examined; however, the results should explain various phenomena in a more comprehensive manner from the perspective of shopping switching. Second, this study extends the scope of application of the push-pull-mooring framework, which is quite commonly used in marketing research to explain consumers' product switching behaviors. Through the application of this framework, it is hoped that more diverse shopping switching behaviors can be examined in future research. This study can serve a stepping stone for future studies. One of the most important practical implications of the study is that it may help single- and multi-channel retailers develop more specific customer strategies by revealing the influencing factors of webrooming intention from online shopping. For example, online single-channel retailers can ease the distrust of online shopping to prevent consumers from churning by reducing the perceived risk in terms of online search and purchase. On the other hand, offline retailers can develop specific strategies to increase the attractiveness of webrooming by letting customers perceive the benefits of multi-channel search or offline purchase. Although this study focused only on customers switching from online shopping to webrooming, the results can be expanded to various types of shopping switching behaviors embedded in single- and multi-channel shopping environments, such as showrooming and mobile shopping.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study was to categorize the gap between coffee shop 'importance' (as perceived by customers before patronizing the coffee shop) and 'satisfaction' (perception of customers after patronizing the coffee shop) as positive or negative and to analyze the effect of these gaps on purchasing behavior. To do this, I used the gap between importance and satisfaction regarding the choice of a coffee shop as the explanatory variable and performed an empirical analysis of the direction and size of the effect of the gap on purchasing behavior (overall satisfaction, willingness-to-revisit) by applying the Ordered Probit Model (OPM). A previous study that used IPA to evaluate the effects of gaps estimated the direction and size of a quadrant but failed to analyze the effect of gaps on customers. In this study, I evaluated the effects of positive and negative gaps on customer satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. Using OPM, I quantified the effect of positive and negative gaps on overall customer satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. Per-head expenditure, frequency of visits, and coffee-purchasing place had the most positive effects on overall customer satisfaction. Frequency of visits, followed by per-head expenditure and then coffee-purchasing place, had the most positive impact on willingness-to-visit. Thus per-head expenditure and frequency of visits had the greatest positive effects on overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. This finding implies that the higher the actual satisfaction (gap) of customers who spend KRW5,000 or more once or more per week at coffee shops is, the higher their overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit are. Despite the fact that economical efficiency had a significant effect on overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit, college and university students still use coffee shops and are willing to spend KRW5,000 because they do not only purchase coffee as a product itself, but use the coffee shop for other activities, such as working, meeting friends, or relaxing. College and university students also access the Internet in coffee shops via personal laptops, watch movies, and study; thus, coffee shops should provide their customers with the appropriate facilities and services. The fact that a positive gap for coffee shop brand had a positive effect on willingness-to-revisit implies that the higher the level of customer satisfaction, the greater the willingness-to-revisit. A negative gap for this factor, on the other hand, implies that the lower the level of customer satisfaction, the lower the willingness-to-revisit. Thus, the brand factor has a comparatively greater effect on satisfaction than the other factors evaluated in this study. Given that the domestic coffee culture is becoming more upscale and college/university students are sensitive to this trend, students are attentive to brands. In most upscale coffee shops in Korea, the outer wall is built out of glass that can be opened, the interiors are exotic with an open kitchen. These upscale coffee shops function as landmarks and match the taste of college/university students. Coffee shops in Korea have become a cultural brand. To make customers feel that coffee shops are upscale, good quality establishments and measures to provide better services in terms of brand factor should be instituted. The intensified competition among coffee shop brands in Korea as a result of the booming industry indicates that provision of additional services is needed to differentiate competitors. These customers can also use a scanner free of charge. Another strategy that can be used to boost brands could be to provide and operate a seminar room for seminars and group study. If coffee shops adopt these types of strategies, college/university students would be more likely to consider the expenses they incur worthwhile and, subsequently, they would be more likely to be satisfied with the brands of these coffee shops, with an associated increase in their willingness-to-revisit. Gender and study year had the most negative effects on overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. Female students were more likely to be satisfied and be willing to return than male students, and third and fourth-year students were more likely to be satisfied and willing-to-return than first or second-year students. Students who drink coffee, read books, and use laptops alone at coffee shops are easily noticeable. High-grade students tend to visit coffee shops alone in order to use their time efficiently for self-development and to find jobs. The economical efficiency factor had the greatest effect on overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit in terms of a positive gap. The higher the actual satisfaction (gap) of students with the price of the coffee, the greater their overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. Economical efficiency with a negative gap had a negative effect on willingness-to-revisit, which implies that a less negative gap will result in a greater willingness-to-revisit. Amid worsening market conditions, coffee shops located around colleges/universities are using strategies, such as a point or membership card, strategic alliances with credit-card companies, development of a set menu or seasonal menu, and free coffee-shot services to increase their competitive edge. Product power also had a negative effect in terms of a negative gap, which indicates that a higher negative gap will result in a lower willingness-to-revisit. Because there are many more customers that enjoy coffee in this decade, as compared to previous decades, the new generation of customers, namely college/university students, want various menu items in addition to coffee, and coffee shops should, therefore, add side menu items, such as waffles, rice cakes, cakes, sandwiches, and salads. For example, Starbucks Korea is making efforts to enhance product power by selling rice cakes flavored in strawberry, wormwood, and pumpkin, and providing coffee or cream free of charge. In summary, coffee shops should focus on increasing their economical efficiency, brand, and product power to enhance the satisfaction of college/university students. Because shops adjacent to colleges or universities enjoy a locational advantage, providing differentiated services in terms of economical efficiency, brand, and product power, is likely to increase customer satisfaction and return visits. Coffee shop brands should, therefore, be innovative and embrace change to meet their customers' desires. Because this study only targeted college/university students in Seoul, comparative studies targeting diverse regions and age groups are required to generalize the findings and recommendations of this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.371-383
• /
• 1999

This report gave analysis of food demand both in Korea and Japan through introducing the concept of cohort analysis to the conventional demand model. This research was done to clarify the factors which determine food demand of the household. The traits of the new model for demand analysis are to consider and quantify those effects on food demand not only of economic factors such as expenditure and price but also of non-economic factors such as the age and birth cohort of the householder. The results of the analysis can be summarized as follows: 1) The comparison of the item-wise elasticities of food demand demonstrates that the expenditure elasticity is higher in Korea than in Japan and that the expenditure elasticity is -0.1 for cereal and more than 1 for eating-out in both countries. In respect to price elasticity, the absolute values of all the items except alcohol and cooked food are higher in the Korea than in Japan, and especially the price elasticities of beverages, dairy products and fruit are predominantly higher in Japan. In this way, both expenditure and price elasticities of a large number of items are higher in Korea than in Japan, which may be explained from the fact that the level of expenditure is higher in Japan than in Korea. 2) In both of Korea and Japan, as the householder grows older, the expenditure for each item increases and the composition of expenditure changes in such a way that these moves may be regarded as due to the age effect. However, there are both similarities and differences in the details of such moves between Korea and Japan. Those two countries have this trait in common that the young age groups of the householder spend more on dairy products and middle age groups spend more on cake than other age groups. In the Korea, however, there can be seen a certain trend that higher age groups spend more on a large number of items, reflecting the fact that there are more two-generation families in higher age groups. Japan differs from Korea in that expenditure in Japan is diversified, depending upon the age group. For example, in Japan, middle age groups spend more on cake, cereal, high-caloric food like meat and eating-out while older age groups spend more for Japanese-style food like fish/shellfish and vegetable/seaweed, and cooked food. 3) The effect of the birth cohort effect was also demonstrated. The birth cohort effect was introduced under the supposition that the food circumstances under which the householder was born and brought up would determine the current expenditure. Thus, the following was made clear: older generations in both countries placed more emphasis upon stable food in their composition of food consumption; the share of livestock products, oil/fats and externalized food was higher in the food composition of younger generation; differences in food composition among generations were extremely large in Korea while they were relatively small in Japan; and Westernization and externalization of diet made rapid increases simultaneously with generation changes in Korea while they made any gradual increases in Japan during the same time period. 4) The four major factors which impact the long-term change of food demand of the household are expenditure, price, the age of the householder, and the birth cohort of the householder. Investigations were made as to which factor had the largest impact. As a result, it was found that the price effect was the smallest in both countries, and that the relative importance of the factor-by-factor effects differed among the two countries: in Korea the expenditure effect was greater than the effects of age and birth cohort while in Japan the effects of non-economic factors such as the age and birth cohort of householder were greater than those of economic factors such as expenditures.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.29-44
• /
• 2017

In Internet commerce, consumers are heavily influenced by product reviews written by other users who have already purchased the product. However, as the product reviews accumulate, it takes a lot of time and effort for consumers to individually check the massive number of product reviews. Moreover, product reviews that are written carelessly actually inconvenience consumers. Thus many online vendors provide mechanisms to identify reviews that customers perceive as most helpful (Cao et al. 2011; Mudambi and Schuff 2010). For example, some online retailers, such as Amazon.com and TripAdvisor, allow users to rate the helpfulness of each review, and use this feedback information to rank and re-order them. However, many reviews have only a few feedbacks or no feedback at all, thus making it hard to identify their helpfulness. Also, it takes time to accumulate feedbacks, thus the newly authored reviews do not have enough ones. For example, only 20% of the reviews in Amazon Review Dataset (Mcauley and Leskovec, 2013) have more than 5 reviews (Yan et al, 2014). The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting the usefulness of online product reviews and to derive a forecasting model that selectively provides product reviews that can be helpful to consumers. In order to do this, we extracted the various linguistic, psychological, and perceptual elements included in product reviews by using text-mining techniques and identifying the determinants among these elements that affect the usability of product reviews. In particular, considering that the characteristics of the product reviews and determinants of usability for apparel products (which are experiential products) and electronic products (which are search goods) can differ, the characteristics of the product reviews were compared within each product group and the determinants were established for each. This study used 7,498 apparel product reviews and 106,962 electronic product reviews from Amazon.com. In order to understand a review text, we first extract linguistic and psychological characteristics from review texts such as a word count, the level of emotional tone and analytical thinking embedded in review text using widely adopted text analysis software LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). After then, we explore the descriptive statistics of review text for each category and statistically compare their differences using t-test. Lastly, we regression analysis using the data mining software RapidMiner to find out determinant factors. As a result of comparing and analyzing product review characteristics of electronic products and apparel products, it was found that reviewers used more words as well as longer sentences when writing product reviews for electronic products. As for the content characteristics of the product reviews, it was found that these reviews included many analytic words, carried more clout, and related to the cognitive processes (CogProc) more so than the apparel product reviews, in addition to including many words expressing negative emotions (NegEmo). On the other hand, the apparel product reviews included more personal, authentic, positive emotions (PosEmo) and perceptual processes (Percept) compared to the electronic product reviews. Next, we analyzed the determinants toward the usefulness of the product reviews between the two product groups. As a result, it was found that product reviews with high product ratings from reviewers in both product groups that were perceived as being useful contained a larger number of total words, many expressions involving perceptual processes, and fewer negative emotions. In addition, apparel product reviews with a large number of comparative expressions, a low expertise index, and concise content with fewer words in each sentence were perceived to be useful. In the case of electronic product reviews, those that were analytical with a high expertise index, along with containing many authentic expressions, cognitive processes, and positive emotions (PosEmo) were perceived to be useful. These findings are expected to help consumers effectively identify useful product reviews in the future.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.71-76
• /
• 1973

1. This survey is somewhat different from that conducted by Yonsei University, although being in many respects, very similar. We found the average per capita caloric intake to be 7 or 8% of what it should be. Of that caloric intake, 84.5% in the model village here and 82.2% in the compared village Bupyong, by and large depends on cereal grains. Since such grains tend to distend the stomach, the farmers, it seems,should substitute fat for a part of their diet so as to dimish digestive pain and still receive the necessary calories. 2. Protein is the most important nutrient for the development of physical strength and improvement of health, but the average daily intake is only 68.3% of the necessary amount. It is desirable that the ratio of vegetable protein to that of animal be one to three for maintaining one's health. Most of the villager's protein, however, comes from plants: the intake of animal protein, at a level of only 13.6 g, is far below such a one to three ratio. 3. In the model village, 497.6 mg, of inorganic calcium is the daily intake level. In the compared village it is 505.5 mg, making a difference of only 8mg. This, however, is 35% less than the recommended intake. More than 50% of this calcium comes from cereals and other plants. Moreover, plant calcium which has much oxakuc acud us not as nutritional as animal calcium, so their calcium diet is less than it would appear. We must, therefore, make efforts to receive as good nutritional calcium as possible. 4. Among the vitamin group, the daily average intake of vitamin A and vitamin $B_{2}$ are respectively 40% and 32% less than the desired intake, while vitamin $B_{1}$ happens to be taken in sufficient quantities and more niacin is taken than which is even necessary. The intake of vitamin C is much more than the necessary quantity. However, this figure was calculated from uncooked food; if the loss from cooking were to be considered, the real intake might well be a little less. Also, as this survey was carried out in May, some of these results were influenced by the fact that lettuce and spinach are seasonally popular. In conclusion, except for a few nutrients which are in abundance, the normal food intake in a day is, on the whole, less than the average recommended. Furthermore despite the fact that both of these places are model villages in the development of nutrition, it seems that they have not gotten out of such conventional eating habiys as the almost dependancy on cereal grains. Cow's milk, sheep's milk, eggs and so on produced by each farmhouse are not used for their own families but are taken to the market for the purpose of making money. Accordingly, I think from now we must seek to improve, guide and enlighten the farmers as to how to correct their eating habits and implement changes in their lives so that our firm purpose may be achieved.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.77-110
• /
• 2017

Recently, the diversification and individualization of consumption patterns through the web and mobile devices based on the Internet have been rapid. As this happens, the efficient operation of the offline store, which is a traditional distribution channel, has become more important. In order to raise both the sales and profits of stores, stores need to supply and sell the most attractive products to consumers in a timely manner. However, there is a lack of research on which SKUs, out of many products, can increase sales probability and reduce inventory costs. In particular, if a company sells products through multiple in-store stores across multiple locations, it would be helpful to increase sales and profitability of stores if SKUs appealing to customers are recommended. In this study, the recommender system (recommender system such as collaborative filtering and hybrid filtering), which has been used for personalization recommendation, is suggested by SKU recommendation method of a store unit of a distribution company that handles a homogeneous brand through a plurality of sales stores by country and region. We calculated the similarity of each store by using the purchase data of each store's handling items, filtering the collaboration according to the sales history of each store by each SKU, and finally recommending the individual SKU to the store. In addition, the store is classified into four clusters through PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and cluster analysis (Clustering) using the store profile data. The recommendation system is implemented by the hybrid filtering method that applies the collaborative filtering in each cluster and measured the performance of both methods based on actual sales data. Most of the existing recommendation systems have been studied by recommending items such as movies and music to the users. In practice, industrial applications have also become popular. In the meantime, there has been little research on recommending SKUs for each store by applying these recommendation systems, which have been mainly dealt with in the field of personalization services, to the store units of distributors handling similar brands. If the recommendation method of the existing recommendation methodology was 'the individual field', this study expanded the scope of the store beyond the individual domain through a plurality of sales stores by country and region and dealt with the store unit of the distribution company handling the same brand SKU while suggesting a recommendation method. In addition, if the existing recommendation system is limited to online, it is recommended to apply the data mining technique to develop an algorithm suitable for expanding to the store area rather than expanding the utilization range offline and analyzing based on the existing individual. The significance of the results of this study is that the personalization recommendation algorithm is applied to a plurality of sales outlets handling the same brand. A meaningful result is derived and a concrete methodology that can be constructed and used as a system for actual companies is proposed. It is also meaningful that this is the first attempt to expand the research area of the academic field related to the existing recommendation system, which was focused on the personalization domain, to a sales store of a company handling the same brand. From 05 to 03 in 2014, the number of stores' sales volume of the top 100 SKUs are limited to 52 SKUs by collaborative filtering and the hybrid filtering method SKU recommended. We compared the performance of the two recommendation methods by totaling the sales results. The reason for comparing the two recommendation methods is that the recommendation method of this study is defined as the reference model in which offline collaborative filtering is applied to demonstrate higher performance than the existing recommendation method. The results of this model are compared with the Hybrid filtering method, which is a model that reflects the characteristics of the offline store view. The proposed method showed a higher performance than the existing recommendation method. The proposed method was proved by using actual sales data of large Korean apparel companies. In this study, we propose a method to extend the recommendation system of the individual level to the group level and to efficiently approach it. In addition to the theoretical framework, which is of great value.