• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.101-123
• /
• 2012

Currently, Social Media, it has widely a renown keyword and its related social trends and businesses have been fastly applied into various contexts. Social media has become an important research area for scholars interested in online technologies and cyber space and their social impacts. Social media is not only including web-based services but also mobile-based application services that allow people to share various style information and knowledge through online connection. Social media users have tendency to common identity- and bond-attachment through interactions such as 'thumbs up', 'reply note', 'forwarding', which may have driven from various factors and may result in delivering information, sharing knowledge, and specific experiences et al. Even further, almost of all social media sites provide and connect unknown strangers depending on shared interests, political views, or enjoyable activities, and other stuffs incorporating the creation of contents, which provides benefits to users. As fast developing digital devices including smartphone, tablet PC, internet based blogging, and photo and video clips, scholars desperately have began to study regarding diverse issues connecting human beings' motivations and the behavioral results which may be articulated by the format of antecedents as well as consequences related to contents that people create via social media. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or Cyworld users are more and more getting close each other and build up their relationships by a different style. In this sense, people use social media as tools for maintain pre-existing network, creating new people socially, and at the same time, explicitly find some business opportunities using personal and unlimited public networks. In terms of theory in explaining this phenomenon, social capital is a concept that describes the benefits one receives from one's relationship with others. Thereby, social media use is closely related to the form and connected of people, which is a bridge that can be able to achieve informational benefits of a heterogeneous network of people and common identity- and bonding-attachment which emphasizes emotional benefits from community members or friend group. Social capital would be resources accumulated through the relationships among people, which can be considered as an investment in social relations with expected returns and may achieve benefits from the greater access to and use of resources embedded in social networks. Social media using for their social capital has vastly been adopted in a cyber world, however, there has been little explaining the phenomenon theoretically how people may take advantages or opportunities through interaction among people, why people may interactively give willingness to help or their answers. The individual consciously express themselves in an online space, so called, common identity- or bonding-attachments. Common-identity attachment is the focus of the weak ties, which are loose connections between individuals who may provide useful information or new perspectives for one another but typically not emotional support, whereas common-bonding attachment is explained that between individuals in tightly-knit, emotionally close relationship such as family and close friends. The common identify- and bonding-attachment are mainly studying on-offline setting, which individual convey an impression to others that are expressed to own interest to others. Thus, individuals expect to meet other people and are trying to behave self-presentation engaging in opposite partners accordingly. As developing social media, individuals are motivated to disclose self-disclosures of open and honest using diverse cues such as verbal and nonverbal and pictorial and video files to their friends as well as passing strangers. Social media context, common identity- and bond-attachment for self-presentation seems different compared with face-to-face context. In the realm of social media, social users look for self-impression by posting text messages, pictures, video files. Under the digital environments, people interact to work, shop, learn, entertain, and be played. Social media provides increasingly the kinds of intention and behavior in online. Typically, identity and bond social capital through self-presentation is the intentional and tangible component of identity. At social media, people try to engage in others via a desired impression, which can maintain through performing coherent and complementary communications including displaying signs, symbols, brands made of digital stuffs(information, interest, pictures, etc,). In marketing area, consumers traditionally show common-identity as they select clothes, hairstyles, automobiles, logos, and so on, to impress others in any given context in a shopping mall or opera. To examine these social capital and attachment, we combined a social capital theory with an attachment theory into our research model. Our research model focuses on the common identity- and bond-attachment how they are formulated through social capitals: cognitive capital, structural capital, relational capital, and individual characteristics. Thus, we examined that individual online kindness, self-rated expertise, and social relation influence to build common identity- and bond-attachment, and the attachment effects make an impact on both the willingness to help, however, common bond seems not to show directly impact on information sharing. As a result, we discover that the social capital and attachment theories are mainly applicable to the context of social media and usage in the individual networks. We collected sample data of 256 who are using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Cyworld and analyzed the suggested hypotheses through the Structural Equation Model by AMOS. This study analyzes the direct and indirect relationship between the social network service usage and outcomes. Antecedents of kindness, confidence of knowledge, social relations are significantly affected to the mediators common identity-and bond attachments, however, interestingly, network externality does not impact, which we assumed that a size of network was a negative because group members would not significantly contribute if the members do not intend to actively interact with each other. The mediating variables had a positive effect on toward willingness to help. Further, common identity attachment has stronger significant on shared information.

• Journal of Distribution Research
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.95-115
• /
• 2011

Food service is the major part of franchise business in Korea, accounting for 69.9% of the brands in the market. As the food service industry becomes mature, many franchisees have struggled to survive in the market. In general, consumers have higher levels of expectation toward service quality of franchised outlets compared that of (non-franchised) independent ones. They also tend to believe that franchisees deliver standardized service at the uniform food price, regardless of their locations. Such beliefs seem to be important reasons that consumers prefer franchised outlets to independent ones. Nevertheless, few studies examined the impact of qualify features of franchisees on customer satisfaction so far. To this end, this study examined the characteristics of various quality features of franchisees in the food service industry, regarding their relationship with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The quality perception of heavy-users was also compared with that of light-users in order to find insights for developing differentiated marketing strategy for the two segments. Customer satisfaction has been understood as a one-dimensional construct while there are recent studies that insist two-dimensional nature of the construct. In this regard, Kano et al. (1984) suggested to categorize quality features of a product or service into five types, based on their relation to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Must-be quality, Attractive quality, One-dimensional quality, Indifferent quality, and Reverse quality. According to the Kano model, customers are more dissatisfied when Must-be quality(M) are not fulfilled, but their satisfaction does not arise above neutral no matter how fully the quality fulfilled. In comparison, customers are more satisfied with a full provision of Attactive quality(A) but manage to accept its dysfunction. One-dimensional quality(O) results in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. For Indifferent quality(I), its presence or absence influences neither customer satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Lastly, Reverse quality(R) refers to the features whose high degree of achievement results in customer dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction. Meanwhile, the basic guidelines of the Kano model have a limitation in that the quality type of each feature is simply determined by calculating the mode statistics. In order to overcome such limitation, the relative importance of each feature on customer satisfaction (Better value; b) and dissatisfaction (Worse value; w) were calculated following the formulas below (Timko, 1993). The Better value indicates how much customer satisfaction is increased by providing the quality feature in question. In contrast, the Worse value indicates how much customer dissatisfaction is decreased by providing the quality feature. Better = (A + O)/(A+O+M+I) Worse = (O+M)/(A+O+M+I)(-1) An on-line survey was performed in order to understand the nature of quality features of franchisees in the food service industry by applying the Kano Model. A total of twenty quality features (refer to the Table 2) were identified as the result of literature review in franchise business and a pre-test with fifty college students in Seoul. The potential respondents of our main survey was limited to the customers who have visited more than two restaurants/stores of the same franchise brand. Survey invitation e-mails were sent out to the panels of a market research company and a total of 257 responses were used for analysis. Following the guidelines of Kano model, each of the twenty quality features was classified into one of the five types based on customers' responses to a set of questions: "(1) how do you feel if the following quality feature is fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit," and "(2) how do you feel if the following quality feature is not fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit." The analyses revealed that customers' dissatisfaction with franchisees is commonly associated with the poor level of cleanliness of the store (w=-0.872), kindness of the staffs(w=-0.890), conveniences such as parking lot and restroom(w=-0.669), and expertise of the staffs(w=-0.492). Such quality features were categorized as Must-be quality in this study. While standardization or uniformity across franchisees has been emphasized in franchise business, this study found that consumers are interested only in uniformity of price across franchisees(w=-0.608), but not interested in standardizations of menu items, interior designs, customer service procedures, and food tastes. Customers appeared to be more satisfied when the franchise brand has promotional events such as giveaways(b=0.767), good accessibility(b=0.699), customer loyalty programs(b=0.659), award winning history(b=0.641), and outlets in the overseas market(b=0.506). The results are summarized in a matrix form in Table 1. Better(b) and Worse(w) index indicate relative importance of each quality feature on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Meanwhile, there were differences in perceiving the quality features between light users and heavy users of any specific franchise brand in the food service industry. Expertise of the staffs was labeled as Must-be quality for heavy users but Indifferent quality for light users. Light users seemed indifferent to overseas expansion of the brand and offering new menu items on a regular basis, while heavy users appeared to perceive them as Attractive quality. Such difference may come from their different levels of involvement when they eat out. The results are shown in Table 2. The findings of this study help practitioners understand the quality features they need to focus on to strengthen the competitive power in the food service market. Above all, removing the factors that cause customer dissatisfaction seems to be the most critical for franchisees. To retain loyal customers of the franchise brand, it is also recommended for franchisor to invest resources in the development of new menu items as well as training programs for the staffs. Lastly, if resources allow, promotional events, loyalty programs, overseas expansion, award-winning history can be considered as tools for attracting more customers to the business.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
• /
• v.41 no.6
• /
• pp.20-28
• /
• 2013

The purpose of this study was to compare the ultra-violet(UV) radiation under the landscaping shade facilities and tree with natural solar UV of the outdoor space at summer middays. The UVA+B and UVB were recorded every minute from the $20^{th}$ of June to the $26^{th}$ of September 2012 at a height of 1.1m above in the four different shading conditions, with fours same measuring system consisting of two couple of analog UVA+B sensor(220~370nm, Genicom's GUVA-T21GH) and UVB sensor(220~320nm, Genicom's GUVA-T21GH) and data acquisition systems(Comfile Tech.'s Moacon). Four different shading conditions were under an wooden shelter($W4.2m{\times}L4.2m{\times}H2.5m$), a polyester membrane structure ($W4.9m{\times}L4.9m{\times}H2.6m$), a Salix koreensis($H11{\times}B30$), and a brick-paved plot without any shading material. Based on the 648 records of 17 sunny days, the time serial difference of natural solar UVA+B and UVB for midday periods were analysed and compared, and statistical analysis about the difference between the four shading conditions was done based on the 2,052 records of daytime period from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M.. The major findings were as follows; 1. The average UVA+B under the wooden shelter, the membrane and the tree were $39{\mu}W/cm^2$(3.4%), $74{\mu}W/cm^2$(6.4%), $87{\mu}W/cm^2$(7.6%) respectively, while the solar UVA+B was $1.148{\mu}W/cm^2$. Which means those facilities and tree screened at least 93% of solar UV+B. 2. The average UVB under the wooden shelter, the membrane and the tree were $12{\mu}W/cm^2$(5.8%), $26{\mu}W/cm^2$(13%), $17{\mu}W/cm^2$(8.2%) respectively, while the solar UVB was $207{\mu}W/cm^2$. The membrane showed the highest level and the wooden shelter lowest. 3. According to the results of time serial analysis, the difference between the three shaded conditions around noon was very small, but the differences of early morning and late afternoon were apparently big. Which seems caused by the matter of the formal and structural characteristics of the shading facilities and tree, not by the shading materials itself. In summary, the performance of the four landscaping shade facilities and tree were very good at screening the solar UV at outdoor of summer middays, but poor at screening the lateral UV during early morning and late afternoon. Therefore, it can be apparently said that the more delicate design of shading facilities and big tree or forest to block the additional lateral UV, the more effective in conditioning the outdoor space reducing the useless or even harmful radiation for human activities.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.50 no.4
• /
• pp.402-414
• /
• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the status of safety accidents and importance-performance analysis (IPA) between regular and non-regular employees in industry foodservices. Methods: The participants were regular employees (n = 119) and non-regular employees (n = 163) in industry foodservices in the Jeonbuk area. Demographic characteristics, status of safety accidents, safety education, and importance and performance status were assessed using a self-administered questionnaire. Results: Approximately 66.4% of regular employees and 53.4% of non-regular employees experienced safety accidents (p < 0.05). Types of safety accidents of regular and non-regular employees were mostly burns, and causes were mostly from their own negligence. Approximately 98.3% of regular employees and 95.1% of non-regular employees experienced safety education. Approximately 88.9% of regular employees and 96.8% of non-regular employees received safety education from dietitians. Approximately 41.9% of regular employees and 50.0% of non-regular employees had difficulty applying the contents of safety education due to lack of time during work. As a result of IPA, regular and non-regular employees were aware of the importance of the following and performed them well: 'Clean the floor of the work place', 'Arrange in the work area', 'Wear safety shoes', 'Check for heater cord', and 'Safety cooking when using oil'. On the other hand, they were not aware of the importance of the following and performed them insufficiently: 'Check for the MSDS', 'Aware of chemical signs', 'Wear protection gloves etc.', 'Do stretching exercise', and 'Using ancillary tools'. Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary to improve the consciousness of dietitians for effective application of safety education contents, development of contents, especially MSDS, and related things.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.25-37
• /
• 1993

This study was conducted to investigate an attitude related to physical therapy students's clinical practice, a questionnaire survey was carried out for 101 third grader(Taegu Junior Health College 66, Andong Junior College 35) from 11th of January to 22th of March. The results are as follow : A. Frequency classified by item 1. Among preconception and anxiety on the clinical practice, a shortage of knowledge$(83.2\%)$ was the highest. 2. Among expectation on the clime practice, the chance to meet patients directly$(94.1\%)$ was the highest. 3. Among anxiety after students experienced clinical practice, a shortage of knowledge$(82.2\%)$ was the highest. 4. Among satisfaction after students experienced clinical practice, after students graduated college, they will maintain physical therapist's life continuously$(71.3\%)$ was the highest. B. The variables that showed statistical difference between general characteristics and variables classified by item are as follow : 1. Between sex and anxiety after students experienced clinical practice, girl-students$(86.7\%)$ showed higher rate than man-students$(61.1\%)$ in, a shortage of knowledge(P<0.01). 2. Between religion and expectation on clinical practice, religionists$(65.1\%)$ showed higher rate than nonreligionists $(44.8\%)$ in the chance to practice love for humanity(P<0.05). 3. Between religion and anxiety after students experienced clinical practice, religionist$(65.1\%)$ showed higher rate than nonreligionist$(56.9\%)$ in not unskillful counsel patients(P<0.01). 4. Between religion and satisfaction after students experienced clinical practice, religionist$(81.4\%)$ showed higher rate than nonreligionists$(63.3\%)$ in pride of major choice(P<0.01). 5. Between hospitalization experience of family and exportation on clinical practice, students who had hospitalization experience of family$(79.7\%)$ were higher rate than unexperienced students's$(62.2\%)$ in the chance to apply knowledge(P<0.05). 6. Between hospitalization experience and satisfaction after students experienced dime practice, students who had hospitalization experience$(68.4\%)$ were higher rate than unexperienced students's$(45.1\%)$ in settlement of anxiety(P<0.05). 1. Between choice motive of physiotherapy(PT) department and expectation on clinical practice, self-will students $(80.5\%)$ showed higher rate than other-will students's $(66.7\%)$ in rejoining participate in treatment(P<0.01). 8. Between choice motive of physiotherapy department and anxiety after students experienced clinical practice, self-will students$(74.0\%)$ showed higher rate than lither-will students's $(58.3\%)$ in the wish PT-job in the future(P<0.05). 9. Between choice motive of physiotherapy department and satisfaction after students experienced clinical practice, self-will students$(75.3\%)$ showed higher rate than other-will students's$(58.3\%)$ in pride on major in physical therapy(P<0.05). It was revealed by this survey that girl-students had higher anxiety than man-students in anxiety after students experiences clinical practice, self-will student had higher satisfaction higher than other-will student in the choice of physiotherapy department.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.265-275
• /
• 1985

Present studies were carried out to investigate the distribution and formation of organic tiers contained paddy soils in Honam area characteristics to give basic informations on the effective utilization, management and improvement of the soils. The results obtained were summarized as follows; 1. The extent of organic tiers contained paddy soils in Honam area were 6.538㏊ and the amount of peat deposits were presumed about 2.41 million M/T. 2. Out of the total extent of the organic tiers contained paddy soils, about 97.6% was distributed in Honam plains (water-sheds of Mangyeong-Dongjin river), while about 1.5% in the Naju plains (water-sheds of Yeongsan river), and 0.9% in the Wando and Yeocheon areas. 3. The period of peat formation was presumed to be about the early of Seung Moon period (B.C. 4,250), and the Gongdeog series and the Bongnam series were formed in the bog conditions close to the valley mouth of near rolling and hill with small steram channels, and the Gimje series was formed in the out-skirts plains of the Gongdeog and Bongnam soils. 4. In the casue of peat formation, it was presumed to be the Gimje series that accumulated the fibrous peat out of the autochthonous peat such as reeds and grasses etc, to be the Gongdeog and Bongnam series that accumulated the autochtonous peat and the xylem and fibrous peat out of first allochthonous peat. 5. In the Organic horizons of these soils, the range of muck and peat horizons were in 62-68cm and 68-137cm of soil profile in the Gongdeog series, 52-84cm and 84-113cm in the Bongnam series respectively, one of muck horizon was in 46-71cm in the Gimje series. 6. The marks of soil horizons of the soils were expressed that the lower soils than the horizon of muck and peat were formed Cg, Aag for the muck horizon, 0 for the peat horizon, 0 of peat horizon were distingushed with Oag and Oig according to Organic forms. 7. The depthe occurred the muck and peat horizons were positively correlated with the width of local in the Gongdeog series ($r=0.881^{**}$, $r=0.827^{**}$), but not in the Bongnam series and Gimje series.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.44 no.5
• /
• pp.413-431
• /
• 2011

An Epithemal Au-Ag mineralized zone is developed in the Moisan area of Hwangsan-myeon, Haenam-gun, Jeol-lanam-do, Korea, which is located in the southwestern part of the Ogcheon metamorphic zone. It is hosted in the Hwangsan volcaniclastics of the Haenam Formation of the Late Cretaceous Yucheon Group. This research investigated the characteristics of bedding arrangement, fold, fault, fracture system, quartz vein and the time-relationship of the fracture system to understand the geological structure related to the formation of the mineralized zone. On the basis of this result, the tectonic environment at the time of the mineralization was considered. Beds mainly trend east-northeast and gently dip into north-northwest or south-southeast. Their poles have been rearranged by subhorizontal-upright open fold of (east)-northeast trend as well as dip-slip fault. Fracture system was formed through at least 6~7 different deformation events. D1 event; formation phase of the main fracture set of EW (D1-1) and NS (D1-2) trends with a good extensity, D2 event; that of the extension fracture of NW trend, and conjugate shear fracturing of the EW (dextral) and NS (sinistral) trends, D3 event; that of the extension fracture of NE trend, and conjugate shear refracturing of the EW (sinistral) and NS (dextral) trends, D4 event; that of the extension fracture of NS trend showing a poor extensity, D5 event; that of the extension fracture of NW trend, and conjugate shear refracturing of the EW (dextral) and NS (sinistral) trends, D6 event; that of the extension fracture of EW trend showing a poor extensity. Frequency distribution of fracture sets of each deformation event is D1-1 (19.73 %)> D1-2 (16.44 %)> D3=D5 (14.79 %)> D2 (13.70 %)> D4 (12.33 %)> D6 (8.22 %) in descending order. The average number of fracture sets within 1 meter at each deformation event is D6 (5.00)> D5 = D4 (4.67)> D2 (4.60)> D3 (4.13)> D1-1 (3.33)> D1-2 (2.83) in descending order. The average density of all fractures shows 4.20 fractures/1 m, that is, the average spacing of all fractures is more than 23.8 cm. The frequency distribution of quartz veins at each orientation is as follows: EW (52 %)> NW (28 %)> NS (12 %)> NE (8 %) trends in descending order. The average density of all quartz veins shows 4.14 veins/1 m, that is, the average spacing of all quartz veins is more than 24.2 cm. Microstructural data on the quartz veins indicate that the epithermal Au-Ag mineralization (ca. 77.9~73.1 Ma) in the Moisan area seems to occur mainly along the existing D1 fracture sets of EW and NS trends with a good extensity not under tectonic stress but non-deformational environment directly after epithermal rupture fracturing. The D1 fracturing is considered to occur under the unstable tectonic environment which alternates compression and tension of NS trend due to the oblique northward subduction of the Izanagi plate resulting in the igneous activity and deformation of the Yucheon Group and the Bulguksa igneous rocks during Late Cretaceous time.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.40 no.5
• /
• pp.605-622
• /
• 2007

Elemental, Rock-Eval pyrolysis and isotopic analysis of the core sediments from the northwestern and eastern Ulleung Basin of the East were carried out to identify their geochemical characteristics, spatial and vertical variation and origin of organic matter in Upper Quaternary sediments from the northwestern and eastern Ulleung Basin of the East Sea. TOC, m and TS did not show spatial variation between the sampling locations whereas they showed systematic vertical variation associated with MIS stages related to the sea-level change of the East Sea. It is suggested that these past changes of sea-level influenced the sedimentary depositional environments and/or diagenesis which resulted the patterns observed in this study. Based on the results of TOC/N, TS/TOC, ${\delta}^{13}C_{org}\;and\;{\delta}^{15}N_{org}$ analysis, organic matters in the study area appears to be predominantly originated from the marine algae rather than land plant and deposited under normal marine oxic condition during MIS I and MIS III period, and under euxinic/anoxic condition during MIS II period. TOC/N, ${\delta}^{13}C_{org}\;and\;{\delta}^{15}N_{org}$ have a relatively constant value irrespective of MIS stages, implying that the organic matter source does not change by the sea-level fluctuations. However, the results of Rock-Eval pyrolysis indicates that the organic matter is in immature stage and originated from land-plant (Type III), locating in the immature stage land plant (Type III). Similar differences were reported from other areas such as the Atlantic Ocean, Iberia Abyssal Plain, Mediterranean Sea, suggesting that Rock-Eval method does not exactly reflect the characteristic of immature organic matters. Accordingly, the application of Rock-Eval pyrolysis for delineating the source of immature organic matters should be approached with caution and all other geochemical proxies should be considered altogether at the same time.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.530-542
• /
• 2000

Background : Nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) has been reported recently to have shown much better response to medical treatment and better prognosis compared with idiopathic UIP. However, clinical characteristics of idiopathic NSIP discriminating it from UIP have not been clearly defined. Method : Among 120 patients with biopsy-proven diffuse interstitial lung diseases admitted to the Samsung Medical Center between July 1996 and March 2000, 18 patients with idiopathic NSIP were included in this study. Retrospective chart review and radiographic analysis were performed. Results : 1) At diagnosis, 17 patients were female and the average age was $55.2{\pm}8.4$ years (44~73 years). The average duration from development of respiratory symptom to surgical lung biopsy was $9.9{\pm}17.1$ months. Increase in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid lymphocytes ($23.0{\pm}13.1%$) was noted. On HRCT, ground glass and irregular linear opacity were observed, but honeycombing was absent in all patients. 2) Corticosteroids were initially given to 13 patients, but the medication was stopped in 3 patients due to severe side effects. Further medical therapy was not possible in 1 patient who experienced streroid-induced psychosis. Herpes zoster (n=3), tuberculosis (n=1), avascular necrosis of the hip (n=1), cataract (n=2) and diabetes mellitus (n=1) developed during prolonged corticosteroid administration. Of the 7 patients receiving oral cyclophosphamide therapy, hemorrhagic cystitis hindered one patient from continuing with the medication. 3) After medical treatment, 14 of 17 patients improved, and 3 patients remained stable (mean follow-up ; $24.1{\pm}11.2$ months). FVC increased by $20.2{\pm}11.2%$ of predicted value and the extent of ground glass opacity on HRCT decreased significantly ($15.7{\pm}14.7%$). 4) Of the 14 patients who had stopped medication, 5 showed recurrence of NSIP and 2 became aggravated during steroid tapering. All patients with recurrence showed deterioration within one year after completion of initial treatment. Conclusion : Since idiopathic NSIP has unique clinical profiles and shows good prognosis, diagnosis different from UIP, and aggressive medical treatment are needed.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.478-486
• /
• 2000

Background : In acute lung injury, alveolar macrophages play a pivotal role in the inflammatory process during the initiation phase and in the reconstruction and fibrosis process during the later phase. Recently, it has been proven that alveolar macrophages are constituted by morphologically, biochemically and immunologically heterogenous cell subpopulations. The possibility of alterations to these characteristics of the alveolar macrophage population during lung disease has been raised. To investigate such a possibility a hyperoxic rat lung model was made to check the distributional and morphological changes of rat alveolar macrophage subpopulation in acute hyperoxic lung injury. Method : Alveolar macrophage were lavaged from normal and hyperoxic lung injury rats and separated by discontinuous gradients of percoll. After cell counts of each density fraction were accessed, the morphomeric analysis of alveolar macrophages was performed on cytocentrifuged preparations by transmission electron micrograph. Result : 1. The total alveolar macrophage cell count significantly increased up to 24 hours after hyperoxic challenge (normal control group $171.6{\pm}24.1{\times}10^5$, 12 hour group $194.8{\pm}17.9{\times}10^5$, 24 hour group $207.6{\pm}27.1{\times}10^5$, p<0.05). oHoHH However the 48 hour group ($200.0{\pm}77.8{\times}10^5$) did not show a significant difference. 2. Alveolar septal thickness significantly increased up to 24 hours after hyperoxic challenge(normal control group $0.7{\pm}0.2{\mu}m$, 12 hour group $1.5{\pm}0.4{\mu}m$, 24 hour group $2.3{\pm}0.4{\mu}m$, p<0.05). However the 48 hour group did not show further change ($2.5{\pm}0.4{\mu}m$). Number of interstitial macrophage markedly increased at 24 hour group. 3. Hypodense fraction(fraction 1 and fraction 2) of alveolar macrophage showed a significant increase following hyperoxic challenge ($\beta=0.379$.$\beta=0.694$. p<0.05) ; however, fraction 3 was rather decreased following the hyperoxic challenge($\beta=0.815$. p<0.05), and fraction 4 showed an irregular pattern. 4. Electron microscopic observation of alveolar macrophage from each fraction revealed considerable morphologic heterogeneity. Cells of the most dense subfraction(fraction 4) were small, round, and typically highly ruffled with small membrane pseudopods. Cells of the least dense fraction (fraction 1) were large and showed irregular eccentric nucleus and high number of heterogenous inclusions. Conclusion : In conclusion, these results suggest that specific hypodense alveolar macrophage subpopulation may play a an important role in an acute hyperoxic lung injury model But further study, including biochemical and immunological function of these subpopulations, is needed.