• Information Systems Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.161-177
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• 2014

Corporate credit rating assessment consists of complicated processes in which various factors describing a company are taken into consideration. Such assessment is known to be very expensive since domain experts should be employed to assess the ratings. As a result, the data-driven corporate credit rating prediction using statistical and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. In particular, statistical methods such as multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) and multinomial logistic regression analysis (MLOGIT), and AI methods including case-based reasoning (CBR), artificial neural network (ANN), and multiclass support vector machine (MSVM) have been applied to corporate credit rating.2) Among them, MSVM has recently become popular because of its robustness and high prediction accuracy. In this study, we propose a novel optimized MSVM model, and appy it to corporate credit rating prediction in order to enhance the accuracy. Our model, named 'GAMSVM (Genetic Algorithm-optimized Multiclass Support Vector Machine),' is designed to simultaneously optimize the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection. Prior studies like Lorena and de Carvalho (2008), and Chatterjee (2013) show that proper kernel parameters may improve the performance of MSVMs. Also, the results from the studies such as Shieh and Yang (2008) and Chatterjee (2013) imply that appropriate feature selection may lead to higher prediction accuracy. Based on these prior studies, we propose to apply GAMSVM to corporate credit rating prediction. As a tool for optimizing the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection, we suggest genetic algorithm (GA). GA is known as an efficient and effective search method that attempts to simulate the biological evolution phenomenon. By applying genetic operations such as selection, crossover, and mutation, it is designed to gradually improve the search results. Especially, mutation operator prevents GA from falling into the local optima, thus we can find the globally optimal or near-optimal solution using it. GA has popularly been applied to search optimal parameters or feature subset selections of AI techniques including MSVM. With these reasons, we also adopt GA as an optimization tool. To empirically validate the usefulness of GAMSVM, we applied it to a real-world case of credit rating in Korea. Our application is in bond rating, which is the most frequently studied area of credit rating for specific debt issues or other financial obligations. The experimental dataset was collected from a large credit rating company in South Korea. It contained 39 financial ratios of 1,295 companies in the manufacturing industry, and their credit ratings. Using various statistical methods including the one-way ANOVA and the stepwise MDA, we selected 14 financial ratios as the candidate independent variables. The dependent variable, i.e. credit rating, was labeled as four classes: 1(A1); 2(A2); 3(A3); 4(B and C). 80 percent of total data for each class was used for training, and remaining 20 percent was used for validation. And, to overcome small sample size, we applied five-fold cross validation to our dataset. In order to examine the competitiveness of the proposed model, we also experimented several comparative models including MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, ANN and MSVM. In case of MSVM, we adopted One-Against-One (OAO) and DAGSVM (Directed Acyclic Graph SVM) approaches because they are known to be the most accurate approaches among various MSVM approaches. GAMSVM was implemented using LIBSVM-an open-source software, and Evolver 5.5-a commercial software enables GA. Other comparative models were experimented using various statistical and AI packages such as SPSS for Windows, Neuroshell, and Microsoft Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Experimental results showed that the proposed model-GAMSVM-outperformed all the competitive models. In addition, the model was found to use less independent variables, but to show higher accuracy. In our experiments, five variables such as X7 (total debt), X9 (sales per employee), X13 (years after founded), X15 (accumulated earning to total asset), and X39 (the index related to the cash flows from operating activity) were found to be the most important factors in predicting the corporate credit ratings. However, the values of the finally selected kernel parameters were found to be almost same among the data subsets. To examine whether the predictive performance of GAMSVM was significantly greater than those of other models, we used the McNemar test. As a result, we found that GAMSVM was better than MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, and ANN at the 1% significance level, and better than OAO and DAGSVM at the 5% significance level.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-36
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• 2012

Service failure is one of the major reasons for customer defection. As the business environment gets tougher and more competitive, a single service failure might bring about fatal consequences to a service provider or a firm. Sometimes a failure won't end up with an unsatisfied customer's simple complaining but with a wide-spread animosity against the service provider or the firm, leading to a threat to the firm's survival itself in the society. Therefore, we are in need of comprehensive understandings of complainants' attitudes and behaviors toward service failures and firm's recovery efforts. Even though a failure itself couldn't be fixed completely, marketers should repair the mind and heart of unsatisfied customers, which can be regarded as an successful recovery strategy in the end. As the outcome of recovery efforts exerted by service providers or firms, recovery of the relationship between customer and service provider need to put on the top in the recovery goal list. With these motivations, the study investigates how service failure and recovery makes the changes in dynamics of fundamental elements of customer-firm relationship, such as customer affection, customer trust and loyalty intention by comparing two time points, before the service failure and after the recovery, focusing on the effects of recovery satisfaction and the failure severity. We adopted La & Choi (2012)'s framework for development of the research model that was based on the previous research stream like Yim et al. (2008) and Thomson et al. (2005). The pivotal background theories of the model are mainly from relationship marketing and social relationships of social psychology. For example, Love, Emotional attachment, Intimacy, and Equity theories regarding human relationships were reviewed. As the results, when recovery satisfaction is high, customer affection and customer trust that were established before the service failure are carried over to the future after the recovery. However, when recovery satisfaction is low, customer-firm relationship that had already established in the past are not carried over but broken up. Regardless of the degree of recovery satisfaction, once a failure occurs loyalty intention is not carried over to the future and the impact of customer trust on loyalty intention becomes stronger. Such changes imply that customers become more prudent and more risk-aversive than the time prior to service failure. The impact of severity of failure on customer affection and customer trust matters only when recovery satisfaction is low. When recovery satisfaction is high, customer affection and customer trust become severity-proof. Interestingly, regardless of the degree of recovery satisfaction, failure severity has a significant negative influence on loyalty intention. Loyalty intention is the most fragile target when a service failure occurs no matter how severe the failure criticality is. Consequently, the ultimate goal of service recovery should be the restoration of customer-firm relationship and recovery of customer trust should be the primary objective to accomplish for a successful recovery performance. Especially when failure severity is high, service recovery should be perceived highly satisfied by the complainants because failure severity matters more when recovery satisfaction is low. Marketers can implement recovery strategies to enhance emotional appeals as well as fair treatments since the both impacts of affection and trust on loyalty intention are significant. In the case of high severity of failure, recovery efforts should be exerted to overreach customer expectation, designed to directly repair customer trust and elaborately designed in the focus of customer-firm communications during the interactional recovery process to affect customer trust rebuilding indirectly. Because it is a longer and harder way to rebuild customer-firm relationship for high severity cases, low recovery satisfaction cannot guarantee customer retention. To prevent customer defection due to service failure of high severity, unexpected rewards as a recovery will be likely to be useful since those will lead to customer delight or customer gratitude toward the service firm. Based on the results of analyses, theoretical and managerial implications are presented. Limitations and future research ideas are also discussed.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.17-27
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• 2011

As the world becomes more globalized, business competition becomes fiercer, while consumers' needs for less expensive quality products are on the increase. Business operations make an effort to secure a competitive edge in costs and services, and the logistics industry, that is, the industry operating the storing and transporting of goods, once thought to be an expense, begins to be considered as the third cash cow, a source of new income. Logistics centers are central to storage, loading and unloading of deliveries, packaging operations, and dispensing goods' information. As hubs for various deliveries, they also serve as a core infrastructure to smoothly coordinate manufacturing and selling, using varied information and operation systems. Logistics centers are increasingly on the rise as centers of business supply activities, growing beyond their previous role of primarily storing goods. They are no longer just facilities; they have become logistics strongholds that encompass various features from demand forecast to the regulation of supply, manufacturing, and sales by realizing SCM, taking into account marketability and the operation of service and products. However, despite these changes in logistics operations, some centers have been unable to shed their past roles as warehouses. For the continuous development of logistics centers, various measures would be needed, including a revision of current supporting policies, formulating effective management plans, and establishing systematic standards for founding, managing, and controlling logistics centers. To this end, the research explored previous studies on the use and effectiveness of logistics centers. From a theoretical perspective, an evaluation of the overall introduction, purposes, and transitions in the use of logistics centers found issues to ponder and suggested measures to promote and further advance logistics centers. First, a fact-finding survey to establish demand forecast and standardization is needed. As logistics newspapers predicted that after 2012 supply would exceed demand, causing rents to fall, the business environment for logistics centers has faltered. However, since there is a shortage of fact-finding surveys regarding actual demand for domestic logistic centers, it is hard to predict what the future holds for this industry. Accordingly, the first priority should be to get to the essence of the current market situation by conducting accurate domestic and international fact-finding surveys. Based on those, management and evaluation indicators should be developed to build the foundation for the consistent advancement of logistics centers. Second, many policies for logistics centers should be revised or developed. Above all, a guideline for fair trade between a shipper and a commercial logistics center should be enacted. Since there are no standards for fair trade between them, rampant unfair trades according to market practices have brought chaos to market orders, and now the logistics industry is confronting its own difficulties. Therefore, unfair trade cases that currently plague logistics centers should be gathered by the industry and fair trade guidelines should be established and implemented. In addition, restrictive employment regulations for foreign workers should be eased, and logistics centers should be charged industry rates for the use of electricity. Third, various measures should be taken to improve the management environment. First, we need to find out how to activate value-added logistics. Because the traditional purpose of logistics centers was storage and loading/unloading of goods, their profitability had a limit, and the need arose to find a new angle to create a value added service. Logistic centers have been perceived as support for a company's storage, manufacturing, and sales needs, not as creators of profits. The center's role in the company's economics has been lowering costs. However, as the logistics' management environment spiraled, along with its storage purpose, developing a new feature of profit creation should be a desirable goal, and to achieve that, value added logistics should be promoted. Logistics centers can also be improved through cost estimation. In the meantime, they have achieved some strides in facility development but have still fallen behind in others, particularly in management functioning. Lax management has been rampant because the industry has not developed a concept of cost estimation. The centers have since made an effort toward unification, standardization, and informatization while realizing cost reductions by establishing systems for effective management, but it has been hard to produce profits. Thus, there is an urgent need to estimate costs by determining a basic cost range for each division of work at logistics centers. This undertaking can be the first step to improving the ineffective aspects of how they operate. Ongoing research and constant efforts have been made to improve the level of effectiveness in the manufacturing industry, but studies on resource management in logistics centers are hardly enough. Thus, a plan to calculate the optimal level of resources necessary to operate a logistics center should be developed and implemented in management behavior, for example, by standardizing the hours of operation. If logistics centers, shippers, related trade groups, academic figures, and other experts could launch a committee to work with the government and maintain an ongoing relationship, the constraint and cooperation among members would help lead to coherent development plans for logistics centers. If the government continues its efforts to provide financial support, nurture professional workers, and maintain safety management, we can anticipate the continuous advancement of logistics centers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.464-469
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• 2006

This study was conducted to evaluate a knowledge on food components of muscle and adductor muscle of pearl oyster (Pinctada fucata martensii) as pearl processing byproducts. The concentrations of mercury and chromium as heavy metal were not detected in both pearl oyster muscle and adductor muscle, and those of cadmium and lead were 0.06 ppm and 0.11 ppm in only pearl oyster muscle, respectively. Thus, the heavy metal levels of pearl processing byproducts were below the reported safety limits. The volatile basic nitrogen (VBN) content and pH of pearl oyster muscle were 11.6 mg/100g and 6.31 and those of abductor muscle were 8.6 mg/100 g and 6.33, respectively. It was concluded that pearl oyster muscle and adductor muscle might not invoke health risk in using food resource. The contents of crude protein (16.5%) and total amino acid (15,691 mg/100 g) of adductor muscle were higher than those of muscle (11.2% and 10,131 mg/100 g) and oyster (12.1% and 11,213 mg/100 g) as a control. The contents of calcium and phosphorus were 95.4 mg/100 g and 116.0 mg/100 g in muscle, 75.2 mg/100g and 148.1 mg/100 g in adductor muscle, respectively. The calcium level based on phosphorus was a good ratio for absorbing calcium. The free amino acid contents and taste values were 635.5 mg/100 g and 40.2 in muscle, and 734.9 mg/100 g and 24.1 in adductor muscle, respectively, but that (882.8 mg/100 g and 40.2) of oyster was higher than those of pearl processing byproducts. Based on the results of physicochemical and nutritional properties, pearl oyster muscle and adductor muscle can be utilized as a food resource.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.1-19
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• 2013

This study tries to review 'Sakuteiki(作庭記)', the Book of Garden Making, compiled at the end of the 11th Century during the Heian Period of Japan, from the East-Asian perspective. 'Sakuteiki' is a Garden Theory Book, the oldest in the world as well as in Asia, and it contains the traditional knowledge of Japanese ancient garden culture, which originated from the continent(Korea and China). Traditional knowledge related to East-Asian garden culture reviewed in this paper is "Fungsu Theory"(風水, Asian traditional ecology: Fengshui in Chinese; Fusui in Japanese), stemmed from the culture to seek sound and blessed places to live in. Viewed from modern landscape architecture, the Fungsu Theory corresponds to ecology(science). The Fungsu Theory was established around the Han Dynasty of China together with the Yinyangwuxing(陰陽五行) Theory and widely used for making human residences including gardens. It was transmitted to Japan via Korea as well as through direct transaction between Japan and China. This study reinterprets garden design principles represented in Sakuteiki, which were selected in 5 key words according to the Fungsu Theory. The 5 key words for the Fungsu Theory are "the place in harmony of four guardian gods(四神相應地)", "planting trees in the four cardinal directions", "flow of Chi(氣)", "curved line and asymmetry", and "mountain is the king, water is the people". Garden design principles of "the place in harmony of four guardian gods(四神相應地)" and "planting trees in the four cardinal directions" are corresponding to "Myeongdang-ron(明堂論, Theory of propitious site)". The place in harmony of four guardian gods mentioned in Sakuteiki is a landform surrounded by the flow of water to the east, the great path to the west, the pond to the south, and the hill to the north. And the Theory originated from Zhaijing(宅經, Classic of dwelling Sites) of China. According to this principle, the city was planned and as a miniature model, the residence of the aristocrat during the Heian period was made. At the residence the location of the garden surrounded by the four gods(the flow of water, the great path, the pond, and the hill) is the Myeongdang(明堂, the propitious site: Mingtang in Chinese; Meido in Japanese). Sakuteiki explains how to substitute for the four gods by planting trees in the four cardinal directions when they were not given by nature. This way of planting originated from Zhaijing(宅經) and also goes back to Qiminyaoshu (齊民要術), compiled in the 6th Century of China. In this way of planting, the number of trees suggested in Sakuteiki is related to Hetu(河圖) and Luoshu(洛書), which are iconography of Yi(易), the philosophy of change, in ancient China. Such way of planting corresponds to that of Yongdoseo(龍圖墅, the villa based on the principle of Hetu) presented in Sanrimgyeongje (山林經濟), an encyclopedia on agriculture and living in the 17th Century of Korea. And garden design principles of "the flow of Chi(氣)", "curved line and asymmetry" is connected to "Saenggi Theory(生氣論, Theory of vitality)". Sakuteiki explains the right flow of Chi(氣) through the proper flow and the reverse flow of the garden stream and also suggests the curved line of the garden stream, asymmetric arrangement of bridges and stones in the garden, and indented shape of pond edges, which are ways of accumulating Chi(氣) and therefore lead to "Saenggi Theory" of the Fungsu Theory. The last design principle, "mountain is the king, water is the people", is related to "Hyeongguk Theory(形局論, Theory of form)" of the Fungsu Theory. Sakuteiki explains the meaning of garden through a metaphor, which views mountain as king, water as the people, and stones as king's retainers. It compares the situation in which the king governs the people with the help of his retainers to the ecological phenomena in which mountain(earth) controls water with the help of stones. This principle befits "Hyeongguk Theory(形局論, Theory of form)" of the Fungsu Theory which explains landform on the analogy of social systems, people, animals and things. As above, major garden design principles represented in Sakuteiki can be interpreted in the context of the Fungsu Theory, the traditional knowledge system in East Asia. Therefore, we can find the significance of Sakuteiki in that the wisdom of ancient garden culture in East-Asia was integrated in it, although it described the knowhow of a specific garden style in a specific period of Japan.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.14-23
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to contribute in building credibility of the methodology of the appearance of the traditional colors and the interpretation of the meaning of those appearances by analyzing the spatial construction and configuration and the traditional colors that appear in spatial elements about the scenery component that appear in Seyeonjeong. We conducted a literature research about the traditional colors, the background of the creation of Seyeonjeong, and etc. For the contents for the empirical analysis, we took the scenery and space elements in the poems, such as Eobusasisa and O-u-ga, and the contents of poems related to ojeongsaek (five Korean traditional colors) based on the Yin-Yang and the Five Elements ideology Particularly, after dividing the spatial elements appearing in Seyoenjeong into visual, synesthetic, symbolic/cognitive spatial element, we further distinguished the visual space into positions and directions of the of the spaces and the scenery of the season; the synesthetic space into seasons, time and five senses; and the symbolic/cognitive space into chiljeong (or the seven passions) and sadan (or the four clues). Then we carried out the study by analyzing the correlation between the intention of the garden creation and the meaning of the spaces, through the analysis of ojeongsaek system for each spatial element. Firstly, spatial structure and format that appear in Seyeonjeong can be divided into two directional axes of southeast and northwest according to the flat form of the Seyeongjeong's rectangular palace, with Seyeongjoeng as the center. Secondly, in spatial component element, the frequencies of appearance of the traditional colors of Seyoenjeong are 33.2% for white, 20.8% for blue, 20.8% for black, 18.7% for red and 6.3% for yellow. Thirdly, based on the analysis of the traditional colors the most frequent appearance of 'white' left a room for interpretation like the creation of Seyeonjeong was to enjoy secular living without lingering political feelings so that the high mountains remain clear and clean. Also, the predominant frequency of appearance of blue, similar frequency of appearance of black and red, and the least frequent appearance of yellow is in agreement with or can be at least interpreted related to Yun Seon-do's intention for creating Seyeonjeong not for political rank or power but as a place to enjoy nature, through which he can build on his knowledge, and to lead rest of his life as a noble being through plays, like dancing and writing poems. Fourthly, these interpretations of the analysis of the frequency of appearance of the traditional colors of Seyeongjong shows the reliability, validity, and consistency of the methodology of the analysis of the frequency of appearance of the traditional colors and the interpretation of the meanings in the context that the color white appears most frequently in Soswewon as well and that the background life of the Soswewon's creator Yangsanbo can be interpreted in a similarly way. Above all, this study is significant from the fact that we proposed a theory about the method of analysis and interpretation of the traditional colors in a traditional landscape space. Moreover, there is a great significance of discovering that traditional colors appear in traditional spaces and this can be used as a methodological framework to interpret things like, intention for creation of (buildings/architectures).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.1-19
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• 2013

This study was carried out to analyze distribution situation of alien plants and to propose management plan in the 3 Folk village in Gyeongsangbuk-do which is Cultural property designated by the State; Hahoe, Yangdong and Hangae. This research is for improve of sincerity of historical site and provide basic information which use about administration of preservation. The results are as follows. 1. Overall flora and alien plants appearance The total flora in the 3 folk villages were listed total 752 taxa including 127 families, 430 genera, 614 species, 5 subspecies, 100 varieties and 33 forms. Among them, woody plants take 263 taxa(35.0%) and herbaceous plants take 489 taxa (65.0%). Flora in the Hahoe, Yangdong and Hangae village were total 534, 479 taxa and 408 taxa and exotic plant index was 30.1%, 38.2% and 37.0% respectively. In types of exotic plants, ornamental exotic plants were 135 taxa, deciduous exotic plants were 21 taxa, cultivating exotic plants were 64 taxa, and naturalized exotic plants were 80 taxa and those result lead that the ornamental exotic plants is the highest ratio. According to the villages, Hahoe village had 161 taxa(30.1%), Yangdong Village had 183 taxa(38.2%), and Hangae village had 151 taxa(37.0%) that Yangdong village showed the most number of exotic plants. 2. Planting of landscape exotic plants in the unit cultural assets Meanwhile, Ornamental exotic plants in old house's gardens in Andong Hahoe village which is designated as a unit assets, those are total 30 taxa; followed by the Okyeon house(8 taxa) is highest and the Yangjindang(7), the Hadong house(6) and the Chunghyodang(5). Magnolia denudata appears the most as for 4 times and Campsis grandiflora etc. each took 2 times. Based on the Yangdong village, Gyeongju, that are found total 51 taxa; followed by the Dugok house(16 taxa) the Sujoldang(14), the Mucheondang(13), and the Sangchunheon (12). High appearance rate of ornamental exotic plants were Viburnum opulus for. hydrangeoides, Lycoris squamigera, Caragagna sinica and Magnolia denudata etc. Based on the Hangae village, Seongju, that are designated total 62 taxa; followed by the Jinsa house(35 taxa), the Gyori house(25), the Hanju head family house(20), and the Hahoe house(16). Taxa with high appearance rates were Caragana sinica, Juniperus chinensis var. horizontalis, Magnolia denudata, Viburnum opulus for. hydrangeoides, Chaenomeles speciosa etc. 3. Problems of exotic plant landscapes in the outer spaces of the folk villages Problems of exotic plant landscapes in the outer spaces of the Hahoe village are as follows. In lower of the Mansongjeong forest, Ambrosia artemisifolia, which are ecosystem disturbance plants designated by the Ministry of Environment, live with high dominance value. This should be have a remove with Sicyos angulatus immediately. In the Nakdong river bed around the Mansongjeong forest is covered with a riparian vegetation forest belt of Robinia pseudoacacia L. forest, Populus nigra var. italic community, and Populus x tomentiglandulosa community colony. Based on the Yangdong village, the planted or naturally distributed Ailanthus altissima colony, sporadically distributed Robinia pseudoacacia as well as Amorpha fruticosa are detected all over the village and ecotones. Based on the Hangae village, Ailanthus altissima and Robinia pseudoacacia are sporadically distributed around the village and there is a sign of spreading. similarity of exotic plantsis 47.0% to 48.6% and a reason why this happened is all of research site in Gyeongsanbuk-do and that is why growth norm of plant is similar, exotic plant which is sales for ornamental and it infer to require related countermeasure of each villages and joint related countermeasure.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.66-73
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• 2001

Purpose : For the research of Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT), fast neutrons generated from the MC-50 cyclotron with maximum energy of 34.4 MeV in Korea Cancer Center Hospital were moderated by 70 cm paraffin and then the dose characteristics were investigated. Using these results, we hope to establish the protocol about dose measurement of epi-thermal neutron, to make a basis of dose characteristic of epi-thermal neutron emitted from nuclear reactor, and to find feasibility about accelerator-based BNCT. Method and Materials : For measuring the absorbed dose and dose distribution of fast neutron beams, we used Unidos 10005 (PTW, Germany) electrometer and IC-17 (Far West, USA), IC-18, ElC-1 ion chambers manufactured by A-150 plastic and used IC-l7M ion chamber manufactured by magnesium for gamma dose. There chambers were flushed with tissue equivalent gas and argon gas and then the flow rate was S co per minute. Using Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code, transport program in mixed field with neutron, photon, electron, two dimensional dose and energy fluence distribution was calculated and there results were compared with measured results. Results : The absorbed dose of fast neutron beams was $6.47\times10^{-3}$ cGy per 1 MU at the 4 cm depth of the water phantom, which is assumed to be effective depth for BNCT. The magnitude of gamma contamination intermingled with fast neutron beams was $65.2{\pm}0.9\%$ at the same depth. In the dose distribution according to the depth of water, the neutron dose decreased linearly and the gamma dose decreased exponentially as the depth was deepened. The factor expressed energy level, $D_{20}/D_{10}$, of the total dose was 0.718. Conclusion : Through the direct measurement using the two ion chambers, which is made different wall materials, and computer calculation of isodose distribution using MCNP simulation method, we have found the dose characteristics of low fluence fast neutron beams. If the power supply and the target material, which generate high voltage and current, will be developed and gamma contamination was reduced by lead or bismuth, we think, it may be possible to accelerator-based BNCT.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.371-380
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• 2009

This study was conducted to assess effects of supplying different types of nitrogen sources as fertilizers on productivity and feed values of barley and rye as winter forage crops, and ultimately done to get good quality of organic forages with higher fertilization of soil. For barley, N+P+K plots were significantly (P<0.05) higher in annual dry matter (DM) and total digestible nutrients (TDN) yields than other plots. However, cattle manure plots had significantly (P<0.05) higher annual DM and TDN than P+K and non-fertilizer plots. Plots of 50%-cattle manure and mixed sowing with hairy vetch or forage pea were higher than only 50%-cattle manure plot, particularly, these were significantly higher than non-fertilizer, and their crude protein (CP) yields were much higher than other plots. Crude protein contents were significantly higher in N+P+K and 50%-cattle manure slurry plots than non-fertilizer and P+K plots, and plots of mixed sowing with hairy vetch or forage pea in application of 50%-cattle manure had higher CP content than other plots. ADF content was lowest in 50%-cattle manure+forage pea plots, but highest in 100%-cattle manure plots. NDF content was lowest in legumes-mixed sowing, but highest in 100%-cattle manure plots. TDN content was the highest in forage pea plots, and plots of 50%-cattle manure and legumes-mixed sowing had high RFV, but cattle manure plots rich in ADF and NDF content had the lowest TDN and RFV. For rye, plots of 50%-cattle manure+hairy vetch mixed sowing, and N+P+K application had significantly higher annual DM, CP and TDN than other plots except for cattle manure. DM productive efficiency to nitrogen fertilization was markedly higher for cattle manure plots than for chemical fertilizer. This tendency was more conspicuous in plots of 50% cattle manure+legumes-mixed sowing. CP content was higher for N+P+K plot than for all plots, and plots of 50%-cattle manure + legumes-mixed sowing were significantly higher than other plots. On the contrary, forage pea-mixed sowing plot had the lowest ADF and NDF, but TDN and RFV were significantly (P<0.05) higher than other plots. Grass crop cultivation together with legumes by applying livestock manure to soil may lead to higher palatability of livestock, and better quality of forage. Furthermore, cattle manure application increased production yield per ha and CP contents. Thus, when applying forage crops produced by cattle manure application and mixed sowing to organic livestock production, it was conceived that forages produced might become a substitute for foreign organic grain as protein sources.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.125-134
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• 2003

Purpose: To report the early results of preopeartive concurrent radio-chemotherapy (CRCT) for treating rectal cancer. Materials and Methods: From June 1999 to April 2002, 40 rectal cancer patients who either had lesions with a questionable resectability or were candidates for sphincter-sacrificing surgery received preoperative CRCT. Thirty-seven patients completed the planned CRCT course. 45 Gy by 1.8 Gy daily fraction over 5 weeks was delivered to the whole pelvis in the prone position. The chemotherapy regimens were oral UFT plus oral leucovorin (LV) in 12 patients, intravenous bolus 5-FU plus LV in 10 patients, and intravenous 5-FU alone in 15 patients (bolus infusion in 10, continuous infusion in 5). Surgery was planned in 4$\~$6 weeks of the completion of the preoperative CRCT course, and surgery was attempted in 35 patients. Results: The compliance to the current preoperative CRCT protocol was excellent, where 92.5$\%$ (37/40) completed the planned treatment. Among 35 patients, in whom surgery was attempted after excluding two patients with new metastatic lesions in the liver and the lung, sphincter-preservation was achieved in 22 patients (62.9$\%$), while resection was abandoned during laparotomy in two patients (5.7$\%$). Gross complete resection was peformed in 30 patients, gross incomplete resection was peformed in one patient, and no detailed information on the extent of surgery was available in two patients. Based on the surgical and pathological findings, the down-staging rate was 45.5$\%$ (15/33), and the complete resection rate with the negative resection margin 78.8$\%$ (26/33). During the CRCT course, grade 3 $\~$4 neutropenia developed in four patients (10.8$\%$). Local recurrence after surgical resection developed in 12.1$\%$ (4/33), and distant metastases after the preoperative CRCT start developed in 21.6$\%$ (8/37). The overall 3-years survival rate was 87$\%$. Conclusion: Preoperative CRCT in locally advanced rectal cancer is well tolerated and can lead to high resection rate, down-staging rate, sphincter preservation rate, however, longer term follow-up will be necessary to confirm these results.