• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.869-875
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• 2020

As a basic element for sustainable development, the residential housing industry is vital and fundamental for every country in the world. Therefore, this study examines the impacts of financial considerations on house purchase decisions by housing investors in Auckland, New Zealand. 110 completed questionnaires were statistically analyzed. For testing the proposed hypotheses, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used. The results show that house prices, income, and credit accessibility significantly influence housing investors' purchase decisions in a positive direction. It appears that more expensive houses offer more promising returns such that housing investors having higher levels of income and access to loans are brave enough to invest in such houses. This study aims to present the key factors influencing house purchase decisions from the viewpoint of housing investors as fundamental groups of stakeholders in the property market, which is rarely examined in previous studies. The implication of this study is to provide guidelines for housing regulators in New Zealand to develop affordable housing prices through the availability of land banks. This study also offers practical contributions to housing investors, particularly by providing key guidelines to make effective investment decisions.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.1-19
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• 2020

Purpose - This study analyzes the intertemporal patterns in personnel decisions made between a supervisor and a subordinate to understand potential supervisor bias in the decisions. A correlation between the current and the most recent personnel decisions made for a subordinate by a current supervisor captures certain relationship-embedded and time-invariant factors in effect. The characteristics speak to the nature of a supervisor bias arising from a relationship, or favoritism. Design/methodology/approach - This study manually collects the executive profile data from annual reports of key Samsung Group affiliates and compile a longitudinal sample of 3,675 executive-years. It mainly explores the logistic regression analysis. Findings - The study finds that a supervisor' previous promotion award to a subordinate does not improve but decreases the likelihood of promotions in ensuing years, suggesting the containment of favoritism; and that the time since the last promotion award to a subordinate by the current supervisor increases the likelihood of both promotions and dismissals of the subordinate. Research implications or Originality - The findings are generally consistent with the theory suggesting that incentive schemes that align interests between an individual and an organization will contain the form of a supervisor bias.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.115-136
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• 2014

The game industry has grown steadily and the online game has become one of the most attractive game segments for its remarkable growth. Customer management in the online game industry, however, has received little attention from the academic field. The purpose of this study is to analyze the drivers of customer defection in the online game setting and suggest not only theoretical but also managerial insights into increasing customer retention rates. Prior to empirical analysis, the authors hypothesized that 3 variables of interests (Learning, Playing, Achievement) would explain the customer defection according to preceeding researches. To demonstrate these hypotheses, the authors obtained data from one of the biggest game publishers in Korea, and the empirical analysis model was developed considering context of research settings. The results of analyses provide the following insights. First, the key behavioral variables of Learning, Playing, and Achievement play substantial roles in explaining the customer defection. Next, the effects of these variables vary between customer types: novice and experienced customers. The defection decisions by novice customers are predicted by all key behavioral variables and Playing serves as the most influential indicator of the defection decisions. However, experienced customers are influenced by Playing and Achievement, while Learning has no impact on the defection decisions. Finally, the authors investigated hypothetical customer retention strategies, using the empirical results. The market outcomes indicate that the customer retention strategies work well with novice customers and it is hard-to-impossible to prevent experienced customers from defection using their behavioral data. These findings together deliver several meaningful insights to management as follow. First, the management should support customers to get involved in Learning activities at the very first stage. Second, customer's Achievement and appropriate compensation for it would work as defection barriers. Last, to optimize the outcomes of firm's marketing investments, it is better to focus on retention of novice users not experienced ones.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2018

Purpose - With the worldwide aging problem and the development of globalization, customers prefer to seek affordable medical services with the higher quality overseas. This new trend has urged some destination countries to improve their services for the more competitive advantages over other countries. Literature research indicate that medical quality and cost may be the key factors influencing global patients' decisions. In the international environment, however, medical tourism destinations are selected due to cultural similarity between the hosting country and the customers' own country. The more similarity perceived between the two countries leads foreign patients to choose the considering country as the destination for medical tourism. However, little research has been conducted on this topic. Thus, we empirically investigate how cultural similarity influences Chinese medical customers' choice of the destinations. We also consider the factors related to medical competency and travel attribute which might affect customers' decisions along with some moderating roles of disease types. Research design, data, and methodology - We proposed a research model in order to confirm the relations among different variables of cultural similarity, medical competency, travel attractiveness, disease types, and destination choice. The questionnaire survey is processed in the more economically developed regions of China such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. Conditional logit regression is applied to analyze the data of 881. Results - Results indicate that cultural similarity is the important predictor of Chinese customers' decision to select a medical country. However, the effects of cultural similarity vary according to the disease types. We also find that medical competency and travel attractiveness influence their decisions with the moderating role of disease types. Conclusions - Cultural similarity is the important factor that influences Chinese potential medical tourists' decisions to select a destination. Marketing managers should consider the effects of cultural similarity when developing strategies for attracting Chinese medical tourists. Since medical competency and travel attractiveness are still the critical key elements for them to evaluate the destination countries, it is necessary to continuously improve medical service quality and facilities. The results also recommend that medical managers should sharpen their marketing strategies by segmenting Chinese potential customers in terms of disease types.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.69-79
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the involvement of patients who died from hematologic neoplasms in the decision-making process surrounding the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment (LST). Methods: A total of 255 patients diagnosed with hematologic neoplasms who ultimately died following decisions related to LST during their end-of-life period at a university hospital were included in the study. Data were retrospectively obtained from electronic medical records and analyzed utilizing the chi-square test, independent t-test, and logistic regression. Results: In total, 42.0% of patients participated in the decision-making process regarding LST for their hematologic neoplasms, while 58.0% of decisions were made with family involvement. Among these patients, 65.1% died in general wards and 34.9% in intensive care units (ICUs) as a result of decisions such as the suspension of LST. The period from the LST decision to death was longer when the decision was made by the patient (average, 27.15 days) than when it was made by the family (average, 7.48 days). Most decisions were made by doctors and family members in the ICU, where only 20.6% of patients exercised their right to make decisions regarding LST, a rate considerably lower than 79.4% observed in general wards. Decisions to withhold or withdraw LST were more commonly made by patients themselves than by their families. Conclusion: The key to discussing the decision to suspend hospice care and LST is respecting the patient's self-determination. If a patient is lucid prior to admission to the ICU, considerations about suspending LST should involve the patient input.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2008

Market segmentation is a key strategic factor in increasing the expected profits, especially in the practice of revenue management. A manufacturing firm should manage both manufacturing quantities and pricing decisions over its segmented markets to maximize the expected profits, setting different price for each different segment. Also, market segments should be kept separate in order to prevent demand leakages between different market segments. In fact, even though the markets for different products are firmly segmented, it is not easy to keep separate segmentation because many products might be substitutable by customer buying behavior. That is, customers respond to price changes by purchasing other market's products instead of purchasing the originally requested products, which causes demand substitution effect ; This kind of substitution is referred to as price-driven substitution. Therefore, decisions on optimal prices should take into account the differences in customers' valuation of the different products. We consider a deterministic model for deciding optimal prices in the presence of price-driven substitution, and we compare both symmetrical-and asymmetrical-type demand substitutions between two segmented markets. The objective of this study is to develop analytical and numerical models to examine the impact of price-driven substitution on the optimal price levels and the total expected profits.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.361-374
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• 2010

Using the first wave of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this research examines the effect of elderly parent's financial structure on private income transfers from their adult children. The results show that low income elderly households are more likely to receive income transfers from their children. Generally, Korean elderly households were found to have very low liquidity in their asset structure, as the average household holds over 90% of their assets in real estate. However, it seems that the parents' potential income based on their real estate assets is unimportant in determining children's transfer decisions. Rather, the parents' labor income is found to be a key factor in children's income transfer decisions.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.137-163
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• 2018

Efficiency in the arbitration proceedings and finality of arbitral awards have been key attractive features of arbitration. While finality of awards is due to the fact that there is no appeals mechanism in arbitration, other recourses that are available against arbitral awards threaten the integrity of finality of arbitral awards. This article examines some of these recourses, such as, setting aside of arbitral awards pursuant to the UNCITRAL Model Law, scrutiny of draft awards by arbitration institutions, and annulment proceedings of ICSID Convention awards and discusses the implications of these measures in relation to assuring finality of arbitral awards in international commercial and investment arbitration cases. In order to more effectively respect the disputing parties' autonomy in choosing arbitration, and also to give as much deference to arbitral tribunals' decisions and their discretion in reaching their decisions, it is proposed that an official appellate mechanism would be preferred over the undermining of finality of arbitral awards that have been taking place through the currently available exclusive recourses against arbitral awards.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.244-247
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• 2012

To remediate lead (Pb)-contaminated soils, it is proposed that microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) would provide the best alternative to other remediation technologies. In this study, Pb bioremediation in soils was investigated using the calcite-precipitating bacterium Kocuria flava. Results indicate that the Pb is primarily associated with the carbonate fraction in bioremediated soil samples. The bioavailability of Pb in contaminated soil was reduced so that the potential stress of Pb was alleviated. This research provides insight into the geochemistry occurring in the MICP-based Pb-remediated soils, which will help in remediation decisions.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.1199-1210
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• 2015

Automatic emotion recognition based on facial cues, such as facial action units (AUs), has received huge attention in the last decade due to its wide variety of applications. Current computer-based automated two-phase facial emotion recognition procedures first detect AUs from input images and then infer target emotions from the detected AUs. However, more robust AU detection and AU-to-emotion mapping methods are required to deal with the error accumulation problem inherent in the multiphase scheme. Motivated by our key observation that a single AU detector does not perform equally well for all AUs, we propose a novel two-phase facial emotion recognition framework, where the presence of AUs is detected by group decisions of multiple AU detectors and a target emotion is inferred from the combined AU detection decisions. Our emotion recognition framework consists of three major components - multiple AU detection, AU detection fusion, and AU-to-emotion mapping. The experimental results on two real-world face databases demonstrate an improved performance over the previous two-phase method using a single AU detector in terms of both AU detection accuracy and correct emotion recognition rate.