• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.1-23
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• 2013

To discover significant social issues such as unemployment, economy crisis, social welfare etc. that are urgent issues to be solved in a modern society, in the existing approach, researchers usually collect opinions from professional experts and scholars through either online or offline surveys. However, such a method does not seem to be effective from time to time. As usual, due to the problem of expense, a large number of survey replies are seldom gathered. In some cases, it is also hard to find out professional persons dealing with specific social issues. Thus, the sample set is often small and may have some bias. Furthermore, regarding a social issue, several experts may make totally different conclusions because each expert has his subjective point of view and different background. In this case, it is considerably hard to figure out what current social issues are and which social issues are really important. To surmount the shortcomings of the current approach, in this paper, we develop a prototype system that semi-automatically detects social issue keywords representing social issues and problems from about 1.3 million news articles issued by about 10 major domestic presses in Korea from June 2009 until July 2012. Our proposed system consists of (1) collecting and extracting texts from the collected news articles, (2) identifying only news articles related to social issues, (3) analyzing the lexical items of Korean sentences, (4) finding a set of topics regarding social keywords over time based on probabilistic topic modeling, (5) matching relevant paragraphs to a given topic, and (6) visualizing social keywords for easy understanding. In particular, we propose a novel matching algorithm relying on generative models. The goal of our proposed matching algorithm is to best match paragraphs to each topic. Technically, using a topic model such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), we can obtain a set of topics, each of which has relevant terms and their probability values. In our problem, given a set of text documents (e.g., news articles), LDA shows a set of topic clusters, and then each topic cluster is labeled by human annotators, where each topic label stands for a social keyword. For example, suppose there is a topic (e.g., Topic1 = {(unemployment, 0.4), (layoff, 0.3), (business, 0.3)}) and then a human annotator labels "Unemployment Problem" on Topic1. In this example, it is non-trivial to understand what happened to the unemployment problem in our society. In other words, taking a look at only social keywords, we have no idea of the detailed events occurring in our society. To tackle this matter, we develop the matching algorithm that computes the probability value of a paragraph given a topic, relying on (i) topic terms and (ii) their probability values. For instance, given a set of text documents, we segment each text document to paragraphs. In the meantime, using LDA, we can extract a set of topics from the text documents. Based on our matching process, each paragraph is assigned to a topic, indicating that the paragraph best matches the topic. Finally, each topic has several best matched paragraphs. Furthermore, assuming there are a topic (e.g., Unemployment Problem) and the best matched paragraph (e.g., Up to 300 workers lost their jobs in XXX company at Seoul). In this case, we can grasp the detailed information of the social keyword such as "300 workers", "unemployment", "XXX company", and "Seoul". In addition, our system visualizes social keywords over time. Therefore, through our matching process and keyword visualization, most researchers will be able to detect social issues easily and quickly. Through this prototype system, we have detected various social issues appearing in our society and also showed effectiveness of our proposed methods according to our experimental results. Note that you can also use our proof-of-concept system in http://dslab.snu.ac.kr/demo.html.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.57-77
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• 2013

Social media has become one of the most popular media in web and mobile application. In 2011, social networks and blogs are still the top destination of online users, according to a study from Nielsen Company. In their studies, nearly 4 in 5active users visit social network and blog. Social Networks and Blogs sites rule Americans' Internet time, accounting to 23 percent of time spent online. Facebook is the main social network that the U.S internet users spend time more than the other social network services such as Yahoo, Google, AOL Media Network, Twitter, Linked In and so on. In recent trend, most of the companies promote their products in the Facebook by creating the "Facebook Page" that refers to specific product. The "Like" option allows user to subscribed and received updates their interested on from the page. The film makers which produce a lot of films around the world also take part to market and promote their films by exploiting the advantages of using the "Facebook Page". In addition, a great number of streaming service providers allows users to subscribe their service to watch and enjoy movies and TV program. They can instantly watch movies and TV program over the internet to PCs, Macs and TVs. Netflix alone as the world's leading subscription service have more than 30 million streaming members in the United States, Latin America, the United Kingdom and the Nordics. As the matter of facts, a million of movies and TV program with different of genres are offered to the subscriber. In contrast, users need spend a lot time to find the right movies which are related to their interest genre. Recent years there are many researchers who have been propose a method to improve prediction the rating or preference that would give the most related items such as books, music or movies to the garget user or the group of users that have the same interest in the particular items. One of the most popular methods to build recommendation system is traditional Collaborative Filtering (CF). The method compute the similarity of the target user and other users, which then are cluster in the same interest on items according which items that users have been rated. The method then predicts other items from the same group of users to recommend to a group of users. Moreover, There are many items that need to study for suggesting to users such as books, music, movies, news, videos and so on. However, in this paper we only focus on movie as item to recommend to users. In addition, there are many challenges for CF task. Firstly, the "sparsity problem"; it occurs when user information preference is not enough. The recommendation accuracies result is lower compared to the neighbor who composed with a large amount of ratings. The second problem is "cold-start problem"; it occurs whenever new users or items are added into the system, which each has norating or a few rating. For instance, no personalized predictions can be made for a new user without any ratings on the record. In this research we propose a clustering method according to the users' genre interest extracted from social network service (SNS) and user's movies rating information system to solve the "cold-start problem." Our proposed method will clusters the target user together with the other users by combining the user genre interest and the rating information. It is important to realize a huge amount of interesting and useful user's information from Facebook Graph, we can extract information from the "Facebook Page" which "Like" by them. Moreover, we use the Internet Movie Database(IMDb) as the main dataset. The IMDbis online databases that consist of a large amount of information related to movies, TV programs and including actors. This dataset not only used to provide movie information in our Movie Rating Systems, but also as resources to provide movie genre information which extracted from the "Facebook Page". Formerly, the user must login with their Facebook account to login to the Movie Rating System, at the same time our system will collect the genre interest from the "Facebook Page". We conduct many experiments with other methods to see how our method performs and we also compare to the other methods. First, we compared our proposed method in the case of the normal recommendation to see how our system improves the recommendation result. Then we experiment method in case of cold-start problem. Our experiment show that our method is outperform than the other methods. In these two cases of our experimentation, we see that our proposed method produces better result in case both cases.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2010

Due to the globalization across various industries and cultural trade among many countries, oriental concepts have been attracting world’s attentions. In fashion industry, one's traditional culture is often developed as fashion theme for designers' creation and became strong strategies to stand out among competitors. Because of the increase of preferences for oriental images, opportunities abound to introduce traditional fashion goods and expand culture based business to global fashion markets. However, global fashion brands that include Korean traditional culture are yet to be developed. In order to develop a global fashion brand with Korean taste, it is very important for native citizen to accept their own culture in domestic apparel market prior to expansion into foreign market. Loungewear is evaluated to be appropriate for adopting Korean traditional details into clothing since this wardrobe category embraces various purposes which will easily lead to natural adaptation and wide spread use. Also, this market is seeing an increased demand for multipurpose wardrobes and fashionable underwear (Park et al. 2009). Despite rapid growth in the loungewear market, specific studies of loungewear is rare; and among research on developing modernized-traditional clothing, fashion items and brands do not always include the loungewear category. Therefore, this study investigated the Korean loungewear market and studied consumer evaluation toward loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements. Relationship among antecedents of purchase intention for Korean traditional fashion design elements were analyzed and compared between lifestyle groups for consumer targeting purposes. Product quality, retail service quality, perceived value, and preference on loungewear with Korean traditional design elements were chosen as antecedents of purchase intention and a structural equation model was designed to examine their relationship as well as their influence on purchase intention. Product quality and retail service quality among marketing mixes were employed as factors affecting preference and perceived value of loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements. Also effects of preference and perceived value on purchase intention were examined through the same model. A total of 357 self-administered questionnaires were completed by female consumers via web survey system. A questionnaire was developed to measure samples' lifestyle, product and retail service quality as purchasing criteria, perceived value, preference and purchase intention of loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements. Also, loungewear purchasing and usage behavior were asked as well in order to examine Korean loungewear market status. Data was analyzed through descriptive analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis, ANOVA and structural equation model was tested via AMOS 7.0. As for the result of Korean loungewear market status investigation, loungewear was purchased by most of the consumers in our sample. Loungewear is currently recognized as clothes that are worn at home and consumers are showing comparably low involvement toward loungewear. Most of consumers in this study purchase loungewear only two to three times a year and they spend less than US$10. A total of 12 items and four factors of loungewear consumer lifestyle were found: traditional value oriented lifestyle, brand-affected lifestyle, pursuit of leisure lifestyle, and health oriented lifestyle. Drawing on lifestyle factors, loungewear consumers were classified into two groups; Well-being and Conservative. Relationships among constructs of purchasing behavior related to loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements were estimated. Preference and perceived value of loungewear were affected by both product quality and retail service quality. This study proved that high qualities in product and retail service develop positive preference toward loungewear. Perceived value and preference of loungewear positively influenced purchase intention. The results indicated that high preference and perceived value of loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements strengthen purchase intention and proved importance of developing preference and elevate perceived value in order to make sales. In a model comparison between two lifestyle groups: Well-being and Conservative lifestyle groups, results showed that product quality and retail service quality had positive influences on both preference and perceived value in case of Well-being group. However, for Conservative group, only retail service quality had a positive effect on preference and its influence to purchase intention. Since Well-being group showed more significant influence on purchase intention, loungewear brands with Korean traditional fashion design elements may want to focus on characteristics of Well-being group. However, Conservative group's relationship between preference and purchase intention of loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements was stronger, so that loungewear brands with Korean traditional fashion design elements should focus on creating conservative consumers' positive preference toward loungewear. The results offered information on Korean loungewear consumers' lifestyle and provided useful information for fashion brands that are planning to enter Korean loungewear market, particularly targeting female consumers similar to the sample of the present study. This study offers strategic and marketing insight for loungewear brands and also for fashion brands that are planning to create highly value-added fashion brands with Korean traditional fashion design elements. Considering different types of lifestyle groups that are associated with loungewear or traditional fashion goods, brand managers and marketers can use the results of this paper as a reference to positioning, targeting and marketing strategy buildings.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.278-283
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• 2003

This study was carried out to examine the nitrogen removal rate of a subsurface-flow treatment wetland system which was constructed on floodplain of the Kwangju River from May to June 2001. Its dimensions were 29m in length, 9m in width and 0.65m in depth. A bottom layer of 45cm in depth was filled with crushed granite with about $15{\sim}30\;mm$ in diameter and a middle layer of 10cm in depth had pea pebbles with about 10 mm in diameter. An upper layer of 5 cm in depth contained course sand. Reeds (Phragmites australis) were transplanted on the surface of the system. They were dug out of natural wetlands and stems were cut at about 40 cm height from their bottom ends. Water of the Kwangju River flowed into it via a pipe by gravity flow and its effluent was funneled back into the river. The height of reed stems was 44.2 cm in July 2001 and 75.3cm in September 2001. The number of stems was increased from $80\;stems/m^2$ in July 2001 to $136\;stems/m^2$ in September 2001. Volume and water quality of inflow and outflow were analyzed from July 2001 through December 2001. Inflow and outflow averaged 40.0 and $39.2\;m^3/day$, respectively. Hydraulic detention time was about 1.5 days. Average nitrogen uptake by reeds was $69.31\;N\;mg/m^2/day$. Removal rate of $NO_3-N$, $NH_3-N$, T-N averaged 195.58, 53.65, and $628.44\;mg/m^2/day$, respectively. Changes of $NO_3-N$ and $NH_3-N$ abatement rates were closely related to those of wetland temperatures. The lower removal rate of nitrogen species compared with that of subsurface-flow wetlands operating in North America could be attributed to the initial stage of the system and inclusion of two cold months into the six-month monitoring period. Increase of standing density of reeds within a few years will develop both root zones suitable for the nitrification of ammonia and surface layer substrates beneficial to the denitrification of nitrates into nitrogen gases, which may lead to increment in the nitrogen retention rate.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.25-57
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• 2012

This study identified motives for writing apparel product reviews in online stores, and determined what motives increase the behavior of writing reviews. It also classified store customers based on the type of writing motives, and clarified the characteristics of internet purchase behavior and of a demographic profile. Data were collected from 252 females aged 20s' and 30s' who have experience of reading and writing reviews on online shopping. The five types of writing motives were altruistic information sharing, remedying of a grievance and vengeance, economic incentives, helping new product development, and the expression of satisfaction feelings. Among five motives, altruistic information sharing, economic incentives, and helping new product development stimulate writing reviews. Store customers who write reviews were classified into three groups based on their writing motive types: Other consumer advocates(29.8%), self-interested shoppers(40.5%) and shoppers with moderate motives(29.8%). There were significant differences among three groups in writing behavior (the frequency of writing reviews, writing intent of reviews, duration of writing reviews, and frequency of online shopping) and age. Based on results, managerial implications were suggested. Long Abstract : The purpose of present study is to identify the types of writing motives on online shopping, and to clarify the motives affecting the behavior of writing reviews. This study also classifies online shoppers based on the motive types, and identifies the characteristics of the classified groups in terms of writing behavior, frequency of online shopping, and demographics. Use and Gratification Theory was adopted in this study. Qualitative research (focus group interview) and quantitative research were used. Korean women(20 to 39 years old) who reported experience with purchasing clothing online, and reading and writing reviews were selected as samples(n=252). Most of the respondents were relatively young (20-34yrs., 86.1%,), single (61.1%), employed(61.1%) and residents living in big cities(50.9%). About 69.8% of respondents read and 40.5% write apparel reviews frequently or very frequently. 24.6% of the respondents indicated an "average" in their writing frequency. Based on the qualitative result of focus group interviews and previous studies on motives for online community activities, measurement items of motives for writing after-purchase reviews were developed. All items were used a five-point Likert scale with endpoints 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). The degree of writing behavior was measured by items concerning experience of writing reviews, frequency of writing reviews, amount of writing reviews, and intention of writing reviews. A five-point scale(strongly disagree-strongly agree) was employed. SPSS 18.0 was used for exploratory factor analysis, K-means cluster analysis, one-way ANOVA(Scheffe test) and ${\chi}^2$-test. Confirmatory factor analysis and path model analysis were conducted by AMOS 18.0. By conducting principal components factor analysis (varimax rotation, extracting factors with eigenvalues above 1.0) on the measurement items, five factors were identified: Altruistic information sharing, remedying of a grievance and vengeance, economic incentives, helping new product development, and expression of satisfaction feelings(see Table 1). The measurement model including these final items was analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis. The measurement model had good fit indices(GFI=.918, AGFI=.884, RMR=.070, RMSEA=.054, TLI=.941) except for the probability value associated with the ${\chi}^2$ test(${\chi}^2$=189.078, df=109, p=.00). Convergent validities of all variables were confirmed using composite reliability. All SMC values were found to be lower than AVEs confirming discriminant validity. The path model's goodness-of-fit was greater than the recommended limits based on several indices(GFI=.905, AGFI=.872, RMR=.070, RMSEA=.052, TLI=.935; ${\chi}^2$=260.433, df=155, p=.00). Table 2 shows that motives of altruistic information sharing, economic incentives and helping new product development significantly increased the degree of writing product reviews of online shopping. In particular, the effect of altruistic information sharing and pursuit of economic incentives on the behavior of writing reviews were larger than the effect of helping new product development. As shown in table 3, online store shoppers were classified into three groups: Other consumer advocates (29.8%), self-interested shoppers (40.5%), and moderate shoppers (29.8%). There were significant differences among the three groups in the degree of writing reviews (experience of writing reviews, frequency of writing reviews, amount of writing reviews, intention of writing reviews, and duration of writing reviews, frequency of online shopping) and age. For five aspects of writing behavior, the group of other consumer advocates who is mainly comprised of 20s had higher scores than the other two groups. There were not any significant differences between self-interested group and moderate group regarding writing behavior and demographics.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.22 no.1 s.25
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• pp.29-44
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• 1989

A household survey was conducted to determine the utilization rate of medical facilities and to identify the factors related with the utilization in the South District of Taegu from July 3 to July 15, 1988. Study population included 1,723 family members of 431 households which were selected by one-stage simple cluster random sampling. Well trained medical college students interviewed mainly housewives with a structurized questionnaire. Morbidity rate of acute illness during the 2-week period was 101 per 1,000 persons and it was highest in the age group of 9 years below. The rate for chronic illness was 77 per 1,000 persons, increasing with age, low income and medicaid benefit. During the 2-week period, 689 of 1,000 persons utilized the medical facilities. Of the facilities, most number, 294, used hospital and clinic, and the order ran as pharmacy, health center, and herb medical clinic. The utilization rate was higher in the female, 70-year and older group, medicaid group, the lowest income class and self-employed group than other groups. The average number of visits among users of medical facilities during the 2-week period was 3.25. those who visited medical facilities most frequently were females, the 70-year and older group, the lowest income class and blue collar worker group. During one-year period, admission rate of 1,000 persons was 27.6 and that of female was 38.9, higher than that of male. the eldest group had the highest admission rate. Admission rate of medical insurance beneficiaries was twice or higher than non-beneficiaries. The higher the family monthly income, the more frequently they admitted. During one-year period, average admission days of the persons hospitalized were 22.5 days and males were hospitalized longer than females. The groups which were hospitalized longest were those between the ages of 40 and 49, medical insurance beneficiaries, the lowest income group and unemployed group. During one-year period, average admission days of 1,000 persons were 560 days and those of female were 661 days, more than those of male. The guoups which had the longest admission days were those above 70 years of age, the lowest income and unemployed groups. The medical insurance beneficiaries were three times or longer than non-beneficiaries. In logistic regression analysis of utilization of physician significant independent variables were the 9-year and younger group(+), the 70-year and older group(+), acute illness episode(+), chronic illness episode(+), medical insurance beneficiary(+) and white collar workers(-). Acute and chronic illness episode(+), and medical insurance for government employees and private school teacher(-) were significant variables in analysis of utilization of pharmacy. In multiple regression analysis of the number of physician visits, siginificant variables were acute illnes episode(+), chronic illness episode(+), industrial, occupational and regional medical insurance beneficiary(+), white collar workers(-). Acute and chronic illness episode(+), and medical insurance beneficiary(-) were significant variables in analysis of the number of pharmacy visits. In logistic regression analysis of admission event, significant independent variables were the 9-year and younger group(+), the 70-year and older group(+) , chronic illness episode(+), and medical insurance beneficiary(+).

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.51-63
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• 2000

Ten Dongs were selected according to the systematic cluster sampling in Koryong Gun, and the survey was conducted on 571 women in the age between 30-69 years. The first survey was performed for 6 days between August 27 to September 1, 1999 with the investigation rate of 60.3%, and the second survey was performed in November with the investigation rate of 91.8%. The contents of survey included demographic characteristics, health behaviors, dyspepsia symptom score, sleeping induction time and the degree of sleep satisfaction, and degree of stress in the subjects. The dyspepsia symptom score was in the average 13.4 points out of a total 44 points and was the highest in the 50-59 year-old age group with 13.9 points. The sleep induction time was in the average of 35 minutes and was the highest in the 50-59 year-old age group with 40.9 minutes; the degree of sleep satisfaction was in the average of 7.9 points and was the lowest in the 50-59 year-old age group with 7.5 points. The stress score was in the average of 18.3 points and was highest in those subjects in their 40's and 50's with 18.7 points. When the correlation among the stress score, the degree of sleep satisfaction and dyspepsia symptom score was analyzed, the results showed that he stress score and the degree of sleep satisfaction showed a significant negative correlation and that the stress score and dyspepsia symptom score showed a significant positive correlation. Also, a significant negative correlation was found between the degree of sleep satisfaction and dyspepsia symptom score. According to each age group, a significant correlation was revealed among the stress score, dyspepsia symptom score and the degree of sleep satisfaction in those subjects over 40 years of age compared to those subjects who were younger than 40 years of age. As for educational level, the correlation among the stress score, the degree of sleep satisfaction and dyspepsia symptom score was higher in those subjects with less than middle school education compared to those subjects with more than high school education. When those factors that effects on the dyspepsia symptom score were analyzed with multiple regression, the results showed that the level of stress and chronic diseases were selected as significant variables. When those factors that affected on the degree of sleep satisfaction were analyzed, the sleep induction time and presence of chronic diseases and stress were selected as significant variables. Those women in their 50's who live in rural areas showed the highest level of stress, lowest the degree of sleep satisfaction, and highest level of dyspepsia, indicating that they need stress management. Also, since stress was showed to be a significant variable effecting on dyspepsia or the degree of sleep satisfaction, it is concluded that health promotion is possible through stress management. More studies are needed in the future on coping resources that would strengthen coping against stress, and by conducting studies on stress and related factors on community people, the measures of mental health promotion need to be developed.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.91-108
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• 2020

Korea's famous soccer players are steadily performing well in international leagues, which led to higher interests of Korean fans in the international leagues. Reflecting the growing social phenomenon of rising interests on international leagues by Korean fans, the study examined the overall consumer perception in the consumption of uniform by domestic soccer fans and compared the changes in perception following the transfers of the players. Among others, the paper examined the consumer perception and purchase factors of soccer fans shown in social media, focusing on periods before and after the recruitment of Heung-Min Son to English Premier League's Tottenham Football Club. To this end, the EPL uniform is the collection keyword the paper utilized and collected consumer postings from domestic website and social media via Python 3.7, and analyzed them using Ucinet 6, NodeXL 1.0.1, and SPSS 25.0 programs. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the uniform of the club that consistently topped the league, has been gaining attention as a popular uniform, and the players' performance, and the players' position have been identified as key factors in the purchase and search of professional football uniforms. In the case of the club, the actual ranking and whether the league won are shown to be important factors in the purchase and search of professional soccer uniforms. The club's emblem and the sponsor logo that will be attached to the uniform are also factors of interest to consumers. In addition, in the decision making process of purchase of a uniform by professional soccer fan, uniform's form, marking, authenticity, and sponsors are found to be more important than price, design, size, and logo. The official online store has emerged as a major purchasing channel, followed by gifts for friends or requests from acquaintances when someone travels to the United Kingdom. Second, a classification of key control categories through the convergence of iteration correlation analysis and Clauset-Newman-Moore clustering algorithm shows differences in the classification of individual groups, but groups that include the EPL's club and player keywords are identified as the key topics in relation to professional football uniforms. Third, between 2002 and 2006, the central theme for professional football uniforms was World Cup and English Premier League, but from 2012 to 2015, the focus has shifted to more interest of domestic and international players in the English Premier League. The subject has changed to the uniform itself from this time on. In this context, the paper can confirm that the major issues regarding the uniforms of professional soccer players have changed since Ji-Sung Park's transfer to Manchester United, and Sung-Yong Ki, Chung-Yong Lee, and Heung-Min Son's good performances in these leagues. The paper also identified that the uniforms of the clubs to which the players have transferred to are of interest. Fourth, both male and female consumers are showing increasing interest in Son's league, the English Premier League, which Tottenham FC belongs to. In particular, the increasing interest in Son has shown a tendency to increase interest in football uniforms for female consumers. This study presents a variety of researches on sports consumption and has value as a consumer study by identifying unique consumption patterns. It is meaningful in that the accuracy of the interpretation has been enhanced by using a cluster analysis via convergence of iteration correlation analysis and Clauset-Newman-Moore clustering algorithm to identify the main topics. Based on the results of this study, the clubs will be able to maximize its profits and maintain good relationships with fans by identifying key drivers of consumer awareness and purchasing for professional soccer fans and establishing an effective marketing strategy.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.640-647
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• 2013

This study was conducted to provide exportation strategy by surveying on preference of Japanese consumers on cut chrysanthemum exported. The survey was conducted two times by a local survey company in Japan, and the surveys were conducted largely on chrysanthemums for casual flowers and the altar. After departmentalizing Japanese consumers per groups the result were analyzed through conjoint and cluster methods, flower colors and shape were used relatively higher rate for selection criteria of flowers in every group in the case of casual flowers. Group 1 comprised of 60 year-old housewives who reside in a small city with high school diploma and annual income less than 300 million yen, and group 2 of 40 year-old housewives who are small city residents with high school diplomas and annual income of 300 million yen show higher rate of use in flower shape than colors. Another group 3 whose members are 50 year-old housewives, small city residents with high school diplomas and annual income of 600 million yen showed higher rate of use colors than the shape for selection criteria of flowers. The consumption characteristics according to the ages of the consumers showed a pronounced tendency. The 40-50 year-old housewives preferred single flowers packed with other flowers, and the 60 year-old housewives double flowers packed with only chrysanthemums. In flower color, the 50-60 year-old housewives preferred white and yellow flowers, and the 40 year-old housewives pink and yellow flowers. Therefore, there are needs for development strategy of new products considering the consumption characteristics of flower shape and color according to the ages of consumer. After analyzing the chrysanthemums for altar by departmentalization of Japanese consumers, every group showed relative higher rate of use for flower shape for selection criteria of flowers. According to the analysis on the consumption characteristics, group 1 which is comprised of 30-40 year-old housewives who reside in small city with high school diplomas and income less than 300 million yen, and the group 2 of 20 year-old housewives who reside in small city with college diplomas and annual income less than 300 million yen. They are very sensitive to the price of the products while the group 3 of 50 year-old housewives who reside in small city with high school diplomas and annual income less than 300 million yen are insensitive to the price. The 30-50 year-old housewives preferred white and pink flowers, and the 20 year-old housewives yellow and pink flowers. In flower shape, the 50 year-old housewives preferred anemone shape, the 30-40 year-old housewives double shape, and the 20 year-old housewives pompon shapes. Therefore, the white, double flowers for the 30-40 year-old housewives and the yellow, pompon flowers for the 20 year-old housewives are needed to be created at the lowest cost, while the white, anemone flowers are needed to created at higher cost with high quality. In light of these results, it is considered that we should understand the types of purchasing products through consumption characteristics of Japanese consumers. Also we should plan, create market-oriented and consumer-oriented products, and should export them in order to expand more exportation.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2010

Green or an environmental consciousness has been a major issue for businesses and government offices, as well as consumers, worldwide. In response to this movement, the Korean government announced, in the early 2000s, the era of "Green Growth" as a way to encourage green-related business activities. The Korean fashion industry, in various levels of involvement, presents diverse eco-friendly products as a part of the green movement. These apparel products include organic products and recycled clothing. For these companies to be successful, they need information about who are the consumers who consider green issues (e.g., environmental sustainability) as part of their personal values when making a decision for product purchase, use, and disposal. These consumers can be considered as eco-sumers. Previous studies have examined consumers' purchase intention for or with eco-friendly products. In addition, studies have examined influential factors used to identify the eco-sumers or green consumers. However, limited attention was paid to eco-sumers' disposal or recycling behavior of clothes in comparison with their green product purchases. Clothing disposal behaviors are ways that consumer can get rid of unused clothing and in clue temporarily lending the item or permanently eliminating the item by "handing down" (e.g., giving it to a younger sibling), donating, exchanging, selling, or simply throwing it away. Accordingly, examining purchasing behaviors of eco-friendly fashion items in conjunction with clothing disposal behaviors should improve understanding of a consumer's clothing consumption behavior from the environmental perspective. The purpose of this exploratory study is to provide descriptive information about Korean eco-sumers who have ecologically-favorable lifestyles and behaviors when buying and disposing of clothes. The objectives of this study are to (a) categorize Koreans on the basis of clothing disposal behaviors; (b) investigate the differences in demographics, lifestyles, and clothing consumption values among segments; and (c) compare the purchase intention of eco-friendly fashion items and influential factors among segments. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. The questionnaire included 10 items of clothing disposal behavior, 22 items of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) characteristics, and 19 items of consumption values, measured by five-point Likert-type scales. In addition, the purchase intention of two eco-friendly fashion items and 11 attributes of each item were measured by seven-point Likert type scales. Two polyester fleece pullovers, made from fabric created from recycled bottles with the PET identification code, were selected from one Korean brand and one US imported brand among outdoor sportswear brands. A brief description of each product with a color picture was provided in the survey. Demographic variables (i.e., gender, age, marital status, education level, income, occupation) were also included. The data were collected through a professional web survey agency during May 2009. A total of 600 final usable questionnaires were analyzed. The age of respondents ranged from 20 to 49 years old with a mean age of 34 years. Fifty percent of the respondents were males and about 58% were married, and 62% reported having earned university degrees. Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to identify the underlying dimensions of the clothing disposal behavior scale, and three factors were generated (i.e., reselling behavior, donating behavior, non-recycling behavior). To categorize the respondents on the basis of clothing disposal behaviors, k-mean cluster analysis was used, and three segments were obtained. These consumer segments were labeled as 'Resale Group', 'Donation Group', and 'Non-Recycling Group.' The classification results indicated approximately 98 percent of the original cases were correctly classified. With respect to demographic characteristics among the three segments, significant differences were found in gender, marital status, occupation, and age. LOHAS characteristics were reduced into the following five factors: self-satisfaction, family orientation, health concern, environmental concern, and voluntary service. Significant differences were found in the LOHAS factors among the three clusters. Resale Group and Donation Group showed a similar predisposition to LOHAS issues while the Non-Recycling Group presented the lowest mean scores on the LOHAS factors compared to the other segments. The Resale and Donation Groups described themselves as enjoying or being satisfied with their lives and spending spare-time with family. In addition, these two groups cared about health and organic foods, and tried to conserve energy and resources. Principal components factor analysis generated clothing consumption values into the following three factors: personal values, social value, and practical value. The ANOVA test with the factors showed differences primarily between the Resale Group and the other two groups. The Resale Group was more concerned about personal value and social value than the other segments. In contrast, the Non-Recycling Group presented the higher level of social value than did Donation Group. In a comparison of the intention to purchase eco-friendly products, the Resale Group showed the highest mean score on intent to purchase Product A. On the other hand, the Donation Group presented the highest intention to purchase for Product B among segments. In addition, the mean scores indicated that the Korean product (Product B) was more preferable for purchase than the U.S. product (Product A). Stepwise regression analysis was used to identify the influence of product attributes on the purchase intention of eco product. With respect to Product A, design, price and contribution to environmental preservation were significant to predict purchase intention for the Resale Group, while price and compatibility with my image factors were significant for the Donation Group. For the Non-Recycling Group, design, price compatibility with the factors of my image, participation to eco campaign, and contribution to environmental preservation were significant. Price appropriateness was significant for each of the three clusters. With respect to Product B, design, price and compatibility with my image factors were important, but different attributes were associated significantly with purchase intention for each of the three groups. The influence of LOHAS characteristics and clothing consumption values on intention to purchase Products A and B were also examined. The LOHAS factor of health concern and the personal value factor were significant in the relationships with the purchase intention; however, the explanatory powers were low in the three segments. Findings showed that each group as classified by clothing disposal behaviors showed differences in the attributes of a product, personal values, and the LOHAS characteristics that influenced their purchase intention of eco-friendly products. Findings would enable organizations to understand eco-friendly behavior and to design appropriate strategic decisions to appeal eco-sumers.