• Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.297-312
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• 2007

This study is conducted to evaluate economical value of Jeju grassland and validity of its preservation, and draw up several measures to support. To measure its economical value, this study examined its environmental value and social and cultural value. For environmental value, this study used replacement method while it applied CVM method, a widely used method, to assess social and cultural value and two-level two-best choice selection method, which ask questions by assuming virtual circumstances to avoid reflecting some biased opinions. Jeju grassland has multiple functions-environmental functions such as preventing soil corrosion and flood, handling animal excrement, and purifying air, and social and cultural functions such as promoting physical and mental health and providing recreation places. From the results of the feasibility study, Jeju grassland's annual multiple functions are assessed to have a total $397,115{\sim}418,995$ million won worth. In addition, it is found that Jeju visitors recognize Jeju grassland for its functions to contribute to public interests. That is, they think it can provide attractive views and educational and recreational places and promote emotional development. Especially, many people presented their ideas that it be continuously preserved since it is worthwhile for us and our next generations. To preserve grassland's cultural resource, which create a huge economic value like this, the Government has to support a certain amount of financial aid for turning to a better grassland environment and its maintenance to realize environment-friendly livestock farming on Jeju Island and promote its tourism industry and consequently, add more value to Jeju.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.75-94
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• 2021

The low birth rate and shortened military service period are causing concerns about selecting excellent military officers. The Republic of Korea entered a low birth rate society in 1984 and an aged society in 2018 respectively, and is expected to be in a super-aged society in 2025. In addition, the troop-oriented military is changed as a state-of-the-art weapons-oriented military, and the reduction of the military service period was implemented in 2018 to ease the burden of military service for young people and play a role in the society early. Some observe that the application rate for military officers is falling due to a decrease of manpower resources and a preference for shortened mandatory military service over military officers. This requires further consideration of the policy of securing excellent military officers. Most of the related studies have used social scientists' methodologies, but this study applies the methodology of text mining suitable for large-scale documents analysis. This study extracts words of discriminative characteristics from the Republic of Korea Air Force Non-Commissioned Officer Applicant cover letters and analyzes the polarity of pass and fail. It consists of three steps in total. First, the application is divided into general and technical fields, and the words characterized in the cover letter are ordered according to the difference in the frequency ratio of each field. The greater the difference in the proportion of each application field, the field character is defined as 'more discriminative'. Based on this, we extract the top 50 words representing discriminative characteristics in general fields and the top 50 words representing discriminative characteristics in technology fields. Second, the number of appropriate topics in the overall cover letter is calculated through the LDA. It uses perplexity score and coherence score. Based on the appropriate number of topics, we then use LDA to generate topic and probability, and estimate which topic words of discriminative characteristic belong to. Subsequently, the keyword indicators of questions used to set the labeling candidate index, and the most appropriate index indicator is set as the label for the topic when considering the topic-specific word distribution. Third, using L-LDA, which sets the cover letter and label as pass and fail, we generate topics and probabilities for each field of pass and fail labels. Furthermore, we extract only words of discriminative characteristics that give labeled topics among generated topics and probabilities by pass and fail labels. Next, we extract the difference between the probability on the pass label and the probability on the fail label by word of the labeled discriminative characteristic. A positive figure can be seen as having the polarity of pass, and a negative figure can be seen as having the polarity of fail. This study is the first research to reflect the characteristics of cover letters of Republic of Korea Air Force non-commissioned officer applicants, not in the private sector. Moreover, these methodologies can apply text mining techniques for multiple documents, rather survey or interview methods, to reduce analysis time and increase reliability for the entire population. For this reason, the methodology proposed in the study is also applicable to other forms of multiple documents in the field of military personnel. This study shows that L-LDA is more suitable than LDA to extract discriminative characteristics of Republic of Korea Air Force Noncommissioned cover letters. Furthermore, this study proposes a methodology that uses a combination of LDA and L-LDA. Therefore, through the analysis of the results of the acquisition of non-commissioned Republic of Korea Air Force officers, we would like to provide information available for acquisition and promotional policies and propose a methodology available for research in the field of military manpower acquisition.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.49-71
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• 2010

Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.13, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.07, p<.001)were significant. However, when participants divided into high and low self-efficacy groups, results of multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between achievement-oriented leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.14, p<.001) was significant in the high self-efficacy group. In the low self-efficacy group, the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.17, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.10, p<.001) were significant. The study focused on the franchisee's self-efficacy in order to explore the possibility that regulation, originally intended to protect the franchisee, may not be the most effective method to maintain the relationships in a franchise business. The key results of the data analysis regarding the moderating role of self-efficacy between leadership behavior style as proposed by path-goal and commitment theory were as follows. First, this study proposed that franchisor should apply the appropriate type of leadership behavior to strengthen the franchisees commitment because the results demonstrated that supportive and participative leadership styles by the franchisors have a positive influence on the franchisee's level of commitment. Second, it is desirable for franchisor to validate the franchisee's efforts, since the franchisee's characteristics such as self-efficacy had a substantial, positive effect on the franchisee's commitment as well as being a meaningful moderator between leadership and commitment. Third, the results as a whole imply that the government should provide institutional support, namely to put the franchisor in a position to clearly identify the characteristics of their franchisees and provide reasonable means to administer the franchisees to achieve the company's goal.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.117-127
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• 2012

Due to the recent expansion of the Web 2.0 -based services, along with the widespread of smartphones, online social network services are being popularized among users. Online social network services are the online community services which enable users to communicate each other, share information and expand human relationships. In the social network services, each relation between users is represented by a graph consisting of nodes and links. As the users of online social network services are increasing rapidly, the SNS are actively utilized in enterprise marketing, analysis of social phenomenon and so on. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is the systematic way to analyze social relationships among the members of the social network using the network theory. In general social network theory consists of nodes and arcs, and it is often depicted in a social network diagram. In a social network diagram, nodes represent individual actors within the network and arcs represent relationships between the nodes. With SNA, we can measure relationships among the people such as degree of intimacy, intensity of connection and classification of the groups. Ever since Social Networking Services (SNS) have drawn increasing attention from millions of users, numerous researches have made to analyze their user relationships and messages. There are typical representative SNA methods: degree centrality, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality. In the degree of centrality analysis, the shortest path between nodes is not considered. However, it is used as a crucial factor in betweenness centrality, closeness centrality and other SNA methods. In previous researches in SNA, the computation time was not too expensive since the size of social network was small. Unfortunately, most SNA methods require significant time to process relevant data, and it makes difficult to apply the ever increasing SNS data in social network studies. For instance, if the number of nodes in online social network is n, the maximum number of link in social network is n(n-1)/2. It means that it is too expensive to analyze the social network, for example, if the number of nodes is 10,000 the number of links is 49,995,000. Therefore, we propose a heuristic-based method for finding the shortest path among users in the SNS user graph. Through the shortest path finding method, we will show how efficient our proposed approach may be by conducting betweenness centrality analysis and closeness centrality analysis, both of which are widely used in social network studies. Moreover, we devised an enhanced method with addition of best-first-search method and preprocessing step for the reduction of computation time and rapid search of the shortest paths in a huge size of online social network. Best-first-search method finds the shortest path heuristically, which generalizes human experiences. As large number of links is shared by only a few nodes in online social networks, most nods have relatively few connections. As a result, a node with multiple connections functions as a hub node. When searching for a particular node, looking for users with numerous links instead of searching all users indiscriminately has a better chance of finding the desired node more quickly. In this paper, we employ the degree of user node vn as heuristic evaluation function in a graph G = (N, E), where N is a set of vertices, and E is a set of links between two different nodes. As the heuristic evaluation function is used, the worst case could happen when the target node is situated in the bottom of skewed tree. In order to remove such a target node, the preprocessing step is conducted. Next, we find the shortest path between two nodes in social network efficiently and then analyze the social network. For the verification of the proposed method, we crawled 160,000 people from online and then constructed social network. Then we compared with previous methods, which are best-first-search and breath-first-search, in time for searching and analyzing. The suggested method takes 240 seconds to search nodes where breath-first-search based method takes 1,781 seconds (7.4 times faster). Moreover, for social network analysis, the suggested method is 6.8 times and 1.8 times faster than betweenness centrality analysis and closeness centrality analysis, respectively. The proposed method in this paper shows the possibility to analyze a large size of social network with the better performance in time. As a result, our method would improve the efficiency of social network analysis, making it particularly useful in studying social trends or phenomena.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.81-103
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• 2001

This study was conducted to identify the health behavior of middle-aged rural women and the factors that have an effect on them. For the purpose of the study, examinations were made from March 01, 2000 to March 31, 2000 with 468 women aged 40 to 64 out of 2,263 people whom four Primary Health Posts located in Yechon County, Kyongsangbuk-do Province, are in charge of. The results are summarized as follows. 17.5% of the subjects responded that the extent of their own interest in health were high. For the subjects having a chronic disease, a nuclear family, or an open family atmosphere, the extent appeared to be relatively higher, 15.4% responded that the extent of family's interest in their health was high. It was significantly high if the extent of education was high or if the family atmosphere was open. The subjects' average score of self-efficacy was 49.9 out of 68. The score significantly varied depending on religion, education, living together with a spouse or not, and the extent of the subjects' interest in health. The family pattern, family atmosphere, family's interest in the subjects' health were the variables that significantly influenced the self-efficacy. The average score of family function was 5.51 out of 10. The score significantly varies depending on age, education, occupation, financial status, the extent of the subjects' own interest in health, family atmosphere and family's interest in the subjects' health. In the practice of health behavior, the nonsmoking rate was 89.5%, the nondrinking rate 63.0%, the rate of exercising practice 6.6%, the rate of normal sleeping 75.6%, the rate of eating breakfast 91.7%, the rate of not eating between meals 18.2%, and the standard BMI 69.2%. In the frequency of health behavior, the subjects with the Breslow Index of 0-3, 4-5 and 6-7 accounted for 4.5%, 53.2%, and 42.3%, respectively. The average score of health behavior was 5.20 out of 7, in which significant variables were living together with a spouse or not, financial status, absence or presence of a chronic disease, and family atmosphere. In the multiple regression analysis with health behavior as a dependent variable, it was shown that living together with a spouse or not, financial status, and family atmosphere were the significantly substantial variables. The subjects were found to do health behavior well if they had not a spouse, a good financial status, or an open family atmosphere. They were also found to do health behavior well if the extent of self-efficacy was high or if the extent of family function was low, but these were not the significant variables. It is needed to develop a standard measuring tool fit for our environment and perform more studies in the future because the measuring tool used in this study was a tool developed in a foreign county. In promoting community health projects, it is required not to provide all community people with a uniform health program but to identify the health behavior of individuals and other variables such as living together with a spouse or not, financial status and family atmosphere before arranging for a proper health program.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.115-139
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• 2008

Since financial crisis of IMF resulted in intensive competitiveness and adverse management environment, many hotel industries have responded it with restructuring. Since this restructuring is accompanied by reduction of employees, hence comes the recognition of justice in the procedure of restructuring. When the surviving employees in the restructuring process recognize unfairness in the procedure and practical operations, organization effectiveness can not be maintained due to losing trust of their employers. In this paper I will examine the relationship between validity of restructuring and compensatory programs for layoffs and surviving employees' trust of the employers. Also I will find out the relationship between remaining employees' trust of the employers and their job satisfaction and organization commitment. Through this relationship, we can prepare an alternative to reduce negative effect of restructuring. The hypotheses of this study are proposed as follows: H1: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H2: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H3: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H4: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H5: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H6: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H7: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H8: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. For the purposes of this study, employees working in luxury hotels located in Seoul were targeted. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to those who consented with the investigation after explaining the purpose of the survey. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed and 450 questionnaire were returned to the researcher for analysis. 430 of the returned questionnaires were used for analysis. As for the education for this survey, 250 junior college graduates or under (58.1%), 143 college graduates (33.3%) and 37 graduate school graduates (8.6%). As for the marital status, 315 persons (73.3%) are single and 115 are married (26.7%). As for the monthly income, 49 people (11.48%) are less than 2 million won, 148 (34.4%) are between 2 million and less than 2.5 million won, 153 (35.6%) are between 2.5 million to less than 3 million won, 80 (18.6%) are more than 3 million won. As for the workplace, 293 people (68.1%) work for the F&B department, 73 (17.0%) for rooms department, 41 (9.5%) for operation/ marketing department, 23 (5.3%) for account/ general affair department. As for the period of employment, 85 people (19.8%) are less than 5 years, 150 (34.9%) are between 6 to 9 years, 143 (33.3%) are between 10 to 14 years. and 52 (3.%) are more than 15 years. An exploratory factor analysis was used to survey validity and reliability of calculating tool on perceived values. This study used correlation between individual items and whole items and Cronbach's alpha value of multiple-item scale which is usually used to assess scale and reliability. Reliability of conceptual sub-dimension was assessed by basing on repeated procedure of correlation between individual items and whole items and factor loading. 1. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and trust This research showed that procedural and distributive justice of restructuring affects trust positively. The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and trust is 0.719(t=10.135, p=0.000), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher trust. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and trust is 0.160(t=3.291, p=0.001), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher trust. Hence H1 and H2 are accepted. 2. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and job satisfaction The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.179(t=2.202, p=0.028), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher job satisfaction. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.074(t=1.620, p=0.105), and thereby distributive justice of restructuring has no relationship with job satisfaction. Hence H3 is accepted, but H4 is removed. 3. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.188(t=2.466, p=0.014), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher organization commitment. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.118(t=2.720, p=0.007), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher organization commitment. Hence H5 and H6 are accepted. 4. Verification of correlation between trust and job satisfaction The path coefficient between trust and job satisfaction is 0.610(t=6.736, p=0.000), and thereby the correlation has a meaningful result. Since the higher trust of the employer results in higher job satisfaction, H7 is accepted. 5. Verification of correlation between trust and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.446(t=5.547 p=0.000), and thereby the higher trust of the employer results in higher organization commitment. Hence H8 is accepted. This research aimed to help the employers of hotel industries by analyzing the effects of validity of restructuring on employees' trust, job satisfaction and organization commitment. The research found that employer's validity of restructuring has significant affects on the degree of employee's trust with a manager, thereby reducing the negative effects of restructuring and enhancing organization commitment and job satisfaction. The principal purpose of this research is to confirm the correlation between employees' perceived validity of restructuring and their trust with a manager. Also whether this correlation results in competitive edge of the company is also investigated. It is also pointed out that employees had to participated the procedure of restructuring, sharing the philosophy and reason of restructuring. This participation and furthermore compensatory methods can reduce employees' anxiety of organization operations. Variable of trust appeared to have impact on intermediation effect between perceived variable of validity and job satisfaction, organization commitment, so that increase of trust with a manager plays an crucial role in increasing organization effectiveness. Since this research did not cover whole hotel industries which underwent restructuring, it showed a limit. Unlike previous studies which dealt with validity and trust of superior bosses, this research focussed on employers. Also the organization citizenship which is not considered in this study will be dealt with in the future study.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.4 s.59
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• pp.669-685
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• 1997

Previous studies, reporting the inverse relationship between osteoarthritis and osteoporosis suggest the existence of possible pathophysiologic mechanisms between them. To examinine the hypothesis that 'bone mineral densities of women with osteoarthritis are significantly higher than that of women without osteoarthritis in Korea', subjects from the health and nutritional examination survey in Kuri city were sampled. Samples were selected through multi-stage sampling frame using established clusters in Kuri city. From August 18 to September 10,1997, the survey was conducted. Among the. total number of selected sample population (1,656 people), response .ate was 52.4 percent (348 men and 519 women). 420 women who took BMD measurement, radiologic exam, and anthropometric exam were selected for the analysis. The analytic results are as follows. 1. General characteristics: Mean BMD was $0.493g/cm^2$, mean age was 43.0, mean BMI was $23.9kg/m^2$. The number of women who experienced menopause was 106, hysterectomy was 19. There were 0 case of osteoarthritis of hip, 64 cases of osteoarthritis of knee, and 2 cases of osteoarthritis of hand. 2. Univariate analysis results: Mean BMD of women with the osteoarthritis of knee was significantly lower than that of women without the osteoarthritis of knee(0.4269 vs. $0.5057g/cm^2$). But, there were too few cases of osteoarthritis of hip and hand, so comparative studies of BMD in osteoarthritis of hip and hand could not be conducted. There were significant differences of BMD among pre-menopause group(0.5204), post-menopause group(0.4206), and hysterectomy group(0.4881). Additionally, there were significant differences of BMD among diabetes group(0.4297), impaired glucose tolerance group(0.4874), and normal group(0.5057). Furthermore, age, parity, BMI, bioimpedance were significantly related with BMD. 3. Multivariate analysis results: To examinine the relationship between osteoarthritis and BMD while controlling the other variables' effects which were significant in the univariate analyses, multiple linear regression analysis was done. But, it was found that osteoarthritis of knee was not a significant variable to BMD anymore. While age and menopause had significant negative relationship with BMD. Diabetes, parity, BMI, and bioimpedance did not have significant relationships with BMD. After stratification of subjects according to menopause, multiple linear regression analyses were done to each strata. Consequently, age in post-menopause group, age and osteoarthritis of knee in hysterectomy group showed significant negative relationship with BMD. The results did not support the many results of other previous studies done with white men and women. further studies of biological plausibility to Korean women are recommended. Also it is suggested that longitudinal study to verify the relationship between osteoarthritis and BMD will be valuable.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.231-238
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• 2010

The anthropomorphism of brands, defined as seeing human beings in brands (Puzakova, Kwak, and Rosereto, 2008) is the focus of this study. Specifically, the research objective is to understand the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike. By analyzing consumer readings of stories found on food product packages we intend to show how marketers and consumers humanize a spectrum of brands and create meanings. Our research question considers the possibility that a single brand may host multiple or single meanings, associations, and personalities for different consumers. We start by highlighting the theoretical and practical significance of our research, explain why we turn our attention to packages as vehicles of brand meaning transfer, then describe our qualitative methodology, discuss findings, and conclude with a discussion of managerial implications and directions for future studies. The study was designed to directly expose consumers to potential vehicles of brand meaning transfer and then engage these consumers in free verbal reflections on their perceived meanings. Specifically, we asked participants to read non-nutritional stories on selected branded food packages, in order to elicit data about received meanings. Packaging has yet to receive due attention in consumer research (Hine, 1995). Until now, attention has focused solely on its utilitarian function and has generated a body of research that has explored the impact of nutritional information and claims on consumer perceptions of products (e.g., Loureiro, McCluskey and Mittelhammer, 2002; Mazis and Raymond, 1997; Nayga, Lipinski and Savur, 1998; Wansik, 2003). An exception is a recent study that turns its attention to non-nutritional packaging narratives and treats them as cultural productions and vehicles for mythologizing the brand (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). The next step in this stream of research is to explore how such mythologizing activity affects brand personality perception and how these perceptions relate to consumers. These are the questions that our study aimed to address. We used in-depth interviews to help overcome the limitations of quantitative studies. Our convenience sample was formed with the objective of providing demographic and psychographic diversity in order to elicit variations in consumer reflections to food packaging stories. Our informants represent middle-class residents of the US and do not exhibit extreme alternative lifestyles described by Thompson as "cultural creatives" (2004). Nine people were individually interviewed on their food consumption preferences and behavior. Participants were asked to have a look at the twelve displayed food product packages and read all the textual information on the package, after which we continued with questions that focused on the consumer interpretations of the reading material (Scott and Batra, 2003). On average, each participant reflected on 4-5 packages. Our in-depth interviews lasted one to one and a half hours each. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed, providing 140 pages of text. The products came from local grocery stores on the West Coast of the US and represented a basic range of food product categories, including snacks, canned foods, cereals, baby foods, and tea. The data were analyzed using procedures for developing grounded theory delineated by Strauss and Corbin (1998). As a result, our study does not support the notion of one brand/one personality as assumed by prior work. Thus, we reveal multiple brand personalities peacefully cohabiting in the same brand as seen by different consumers, despite marketer attempts to create more singular brand personalities. We extend Fournier's (1998) proposition, that one's life projects shape the intensity and nature of brand relationships. We find that these life projects also affect perceived brand personifications and meanings. While Fournier provides a conceptual framework that links together consumers’ life themes (Mick and Buhl, 1992) and relational roles assigned to anthropomorphized brands, we find that consumer life projects mold both the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike and the ways in which brands connect to consumers' existential concerns. We find two modes through which brands are anthropomorphized by our participants. First, brand personalities are created by seeing them through perceived demographic, psychographic, and social characteristics that are to some degree shared by consumers. Second, brands in our study further relate to consumers' existential concerns by either being blended with consumer personalities in order to connect to them (the brand as a friend, a family member, a next door neighbor) or by distancing themselves from the brand personalities and estranging them (the brand as a used car salesman, a "bunch of executives.") By focusing on food product packages, we illuminate a very specific, widely-used, but little-researched vehicle of marketing communication: brand storytelling. Recent work that has approached packages as mythmakers, finds it increasingly challenging for marketers to produce textual stories that link the personalities of products to the personalities of those consuming them, and suggests that "a multiplicity of building material for creating desired consumer myths is what a postmodern consumer arguably needs" (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). Used as vehicles for storytelling, food packages can exploit both rational and emotional approaches, offering consumers either a "lecture" or "drama" (Randazzo, 2006), myths (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007; Holt, 2004; Thompson, 2004), or meanings (McCracken, 2005) as necessary building blocks for anthropomorphizing their brands. The craft of giving birth to brand personalities is in the hands of writers/marketers and in the minds of readers/consumers who individually and sometimes idiosyncratically put a meaningful human face on a brand.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.182-194
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• 2013

Objectives: To identify and compare the health behaviors and health status of the elderly between urban and rural areas using the data of the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). Methods: The study population comprised 3,823 elderly people aged 65 years or older who participated in the $4^{th}$ KNHANES (2007-2009). The areas were classified into "large cities," "cities," and "rural areas" using the administrative and residential areas. The health behaviors and health status of the elderly between the rural and urban areas were compared using a complex sample design with the Rao-Scott chi-square test and weighted multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: Compared to large cities, the odds ratios (ORs) (95% confidence interval [CI]) of rural areas were as high as 1.58 (1.25-2.01) for the influenza vaccination and as low as 0.47 (0.37-0.59) for flexibility exercises, 0.56 (0.38-0.81) for muscular exercises, and 0.76 (0.62-0.92) for obesity. The ORs (CI) for osteoarthritis and diabetes mellitus were as low as 0.81 (0.66-0.99) and 0.70 (0.55-0.89), respectively. Conclusions: The health behaviors and health status of the elderly are better in rural areas than in urban areas despite the fact that the socioeconomic conditions in rural areas are poorer that those in urban areas. These findings suggest that programs suitable for residential areas should be developed and that studies to explain the differences in residential areas are needed.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.285-296
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• 2020

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the characteristics of exposure to humidifier disinfectants (HDs) and their association with the presence of a person who experienced the adverse health effects in general households in Korea. Methods: During the month of December 2016, a nationwide online survey was conducted on adults over 20 years of age who had experience of using HDs. It provided information on exposure characteristics and the experience of health effects. The final survey respondents consisted of 1,555 people who provided information on themselves and their household members during the use of HD. Exposure characteristics at the household level included average days of HD use per week, average hours of HD use per day, the duration within which one bottle of HD was emptied, average input frequency of HD, amount of HD (cc) per one time used, and active ingredients of HD products (PHMG, CMIT/MIT, PGH, or others). The risk of the presence of a person who experienced adverse health effects in the household was evaluated by estimating odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) adjusted for monthly income and region using a multiple logistic regression model. Subgroup analyses were conducted for households with a child (≤7 years) and households with a newborn infant during HD use. Results: The level of exposure to HD tended to be higher for households with a child or newborn infant for several variables including average days of HD use per week (P<0.0001) and average hours of HD use per day (P<0.0001). The proportion of households in which there was at least one person who experienced adverse health effects such as rhinitis, asthma, pneumonia, atopy/skin disease, etc. was 20.6% for all households, 25.3% for households with children, and 29.9% for households with newborn infants. The presence of a person who experienced adverse health effects in the household was significantly associated with average hours of HD use per day (P_trend<0.001), duration within which one bottle of HD was emptied (P_trend<0.001), average input frequency of HD (P_trend<0.001), amount of HD per one use (P_trend=0.01), and use of HDs containing PHMG (OR=2.23, 95% CI=1.45-3.43). Similar results were observed in subgroup analyses. Conclusion: Our results suggest that level of exposure to HD tended to be higher for households with a child or newborn infant and that exposure to HD is significantly associated with the presence of a person who experienced adverse health effects in the household.