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Categorizing Quality Features of Franchisees: In the case of Korean Food Service Industry (프랜차이즈 매장 품질요인의 속성분류: 국내 외식업을 중심으로)

  • Byun, Sook-Eun;Cho, Eun-Seong
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.1
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    • pp.95-115
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    • 2011
  • Food service is the major part of franchise business in Korea, accounting for 69.9% of the brands in the market. As the food service industry becomes mature, many franchisees have struggled to survive in the market. In general, consumers have higher levels of expectation toward service quality of franchised outlets compared that of (non-franchised) independent ones. They also tend to believe that franchisees deliver standardized service at the uniform food price, regardless of their locations. Such beliefs seem to be important reasons that consumers prefer franchised outlets to independent ones. Nevertheless, few studies examined the impact of qualify features of franchisees on customer satisfaction so far. To this end, this study examined the characteristics of various quality features of franchisees in the food service industry, regarding their relationship with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The quality perception of heavy-users was also compared with that of light-users in order to find insights for developing differentiated marketing strategy for the two segments. Customer satisfaction has been understood as a one-dimensional construct while there are recent studies that insist two-dimensional nature of the construct. In this regard, Kano et al. (1984) suggested to categorize quality features of a product or service into five types, based on their relation to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Must-be quality, Attractive quality, One-dimensional quality, Indifferent quality, and Reverse quality. According to the Kano model, customers are more dissatisfied when Must-be quality(M) are not fulfilled, but their satisfaction does not arise above neutral no matter how fully the quality fulfilled. In comparison, customers are more satisfied with a full provision of Attactive quality(A) but manage to accept its dysfunction. One-dimensional quality(O) results in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. For Indifferent quality(I), its presence or absence influences neither customer satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Lastly, Reverse quality(R) refers to the features whose high degree of achievement results in customer dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction. Meanwhile, the basic guidelines of the Kano model have a limitation in that the quality type of each feature is simply determined by calculating the mode statistics. In order to overcome such limitation, the relative importance of each feature on customer satisfaction (Better value; b) and dissatisfaction (Worse value; w) were calculated following the formulas below (Timko, 1993). The Better value indicates how much customer satisfaction is increased by providing the quality feature in question. In contrast, the Worse value indicates how much customer dissatisfaction is decreased by providing the quality feature. Better = (A + O)/(A+O+M+I) Worse = (O+M)/(A+O+M+I)(-1) An on-line survey was performed in order to understand the nature of quality features of franchisees in the food service industry by applying the Kano Model. A total of twenty quality features (refer to the Table 2) were identified as the result of literature review in franchise business and a pre-test with fifty college students in Seoul. The potential respondents of our main survey was limited to the customers who have visited more than two restaurants/stores of the same franchise brand. Survey invitation e-mails were sent out to the panels of a market research company and a total of 257 responses were used for analysis. Following the guidelines of Kano model, each of the twenty quality features was classified into one of the five types based on customers' responses to a set of questions: "(1) how do you feel if the following quality feature is fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit," and "(2) how do you feel if the following quality feature is not fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit." The analyses revealed that customers' dissatisfaction with franchisees is commonly associated with the poor level of cleanliness of the store (w=-0.872), kindness of the staffs(w=-0.890), conveniences such as parking lot and restroom(w=-0.669), and expertise of the staffs(w=-0.492). Such quality features were categorized as Must-be quality in this study. While standardization or uniformity across franchisees has been emphasized in franchise business, this study found that consumers are interested only in uniformity of price across franchisees(w=-0.608), but not interested in standardizations of menu items, interior designs, customer service procedures, and food tastes. Customers appeared to be more satisfied when the franchise brand has promotional events such as giveaways(b=0.767), good accessibility(b=0.699), customer loyalty programs(b=0.659), award winning history(b=0.641), and outlets in the overseas market(b=0.506). The results are summarized in a matrix form in Table 1. Better(b) and Worse(w) index indicate relative importance of each quality feature on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Meanwhile, there were differences in perceiving the quality features between light users and heavy users of any specific franchise brand in the food service industry. Expertise of the staffs was labeled as Must-be quality for heavy users but Indifferent quality for light users. Light users seemed indifferent to overseas expansion of the brand and offering new menu items on a regular basis, while heavy users appeared to perceive them as Attractive quality. Such difference may come from their different levels of involvement when they eat out. The results are shown in Table 2. The findings of this study help practitioners understand the quality features they need to focus on to strengthen the competitive power in the food service market. Above all, removing the factors that cause customer dissatisfaction seems to be the most critical for franchisees. To retain loyal customers of the franchise brand, it is also recommended for franchisor to invest resources in the development of new menu items as well as training programs for the staffs. Lastly, if resources allow, promotional events, loyalty programs, overseas expansion, award-winning history can be considered as tools for attracting more customers to the business.

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Structure of Export Competition between Asian NIEs and Japan in the U.S. Import Market and Exchange Rate Effects (한국(韓國)의 아시아신흥공업국(新興工業國) 및 일본(日本)과의 대미수출경쟁(對美輸出競爭) : 환율효과(換率效果)를 중심(中心)으로)

  • Jwa, Sung-hee
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.3-49
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    • 1990
  • This paper analyzes U.S. demand for imports from Asian NIEs and Japan, utilizing the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) developed by Deaton and Muellbauer, with an emphasis on the effect of changes in the exchange rate. The empirical model assumes a two-stage budgeting process in which the first stage represents the allocation of total U.S. demand among three groups: the Asian NIEs and Japan, six Western developed countries, and the U.S. domestic non-tradables and import competing sector. The second stage represents the allocation of total U.S. imports from the Asian NIEs and Japan among them, by country. According to the AIDS model, the share equation for the Asia NIEs and Japan in U.S. nominal GNP is estimated as a single equation for the first stage. The share equations for those five countries in total U.S. imports are estimated as a system with the general demand restrictions of homogeneity, symmetry and adding-up, together with polynomially distributed lag restrictions. The negativity condition is also satisfied for all cases. The overall results of these complicated estimations, using quarterly data from the first quarter of 1972 to the fourth quarter of 1989, are quite promising in terms of the significance of individual estimators and other statistics. The conclusions drawn from the estimation results and the derived demand elasticities can be summarized as follows: First, the exports of each Asian NIE to the U.S. are competitive with (substitutes for) Japan's exports, while complementary to the exports of fellow NIEs, with the exception of the competitive relation between Hong Kong and Singapore. Second, the exports of each Asian NIE and of Japan to the U.S. are competitive with those of Western developed countries' to the U.S, while they are complementary to the U.S.' non-tradables and import-competing sector. Third, as far as both the first and second stages of budgeting are coneidered, the imports from each Asian NIE and Japan are luxuries in total U.S. consumption. However, when only the second budgeting stage is considered, the imports from Japan and Singapore are luxuries in U.S. imports from the NIEs and Japan, while those of Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are necessities. Fourth, the above results may be evidenced more concretely in their implied exchange rate effects. It appears that, in general, a change in the yen-dollar exchange rate will have at least as great an impact, on an NIE's share and volume of exports to the U.S. though in the opposite direction, as a change in the exchange rate of the NIE's own currency $vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ the dollar. Asian NIEs, therefore, should counteract yen-dollar movements in order to stabilize their exports to the U.S.. More specifically, Korea should depreciate the value of the won relative to the dollar by approximately the same proportion as the depreciation rate of the yen $vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ the dollar, in order to maintain the volume of Korean exports to the U.S.. In the worst case scenario, Korea should devalue the won by three times the maguitude of the yen's depreciation rate, in order to keep market share in the aforementioned five countries' total exports to the U.S.. Finally, this study provides additional information which may support empirical findings on the competitive relations among the Asian NIEs and Japan. The correlation matrices among the strutures of those five countries' exports to the U.S.. during the 1970s and 1980s were estimated, with the export structure constructed as the shares of each of the 29 industrial sectors' exports as defined by the 3 digit KSIC in total exports to the U.S. from each individual country. In general, the correlation between each of the four Asian NIEs and Japan, and that between Hong Kong and Singapore, are all far below .5, while the ones among the Asian NIEs themselves (except for the one between Hong Kong and Singapore) all greatly exceed .5. If there exists a tendency on the part of the U.S. to import goods in each specific sector from different countries in a relatively constant proportion, the export structures of those countries will probably exhibit a high correlation. To take this hypothesis to the extreme, if the U.S. maintained an absolutely fixed ratio between its imports from any two countries for each of the 29 sectors, the correlation between the export structures of these two countries would be perfect. Therefore, since any two goods purchased in a fixed proportion could be classified as close complements, a high correlation between export structures will imply a complementary relationship between them. Conversely, low correlation would imply a competitive relationship. According to this interpretation, the pattern formed by the correlation coefficients among the five countries' export structures to the U.S. are consistent with the empirical findings of the regression analysis.

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Impact of Semantic Characteristics on Perceived Helpfulness of Online Reviews (온라인 상품평의 내용적 특성이 소비자의 인지된 유용성에 미치는 영향)

  • Park, Yoon-Joo;Kim, Kyoung-jae
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.23 no.3
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    • pp.29-44
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    • 2017
  • In Internet commerce, consumers are heavily influenced by product reviews written by other users who have already purchased the product. However, as the product reviews accumulate, it takes a lot of time and effort for consumers to individually check the massive number of product reviews. Moreover, product reviews that are written carelessly actually inconvenience consumers. Thus many online vendors provide mechanisms to identify reviews that customers perceive as most helpful (Cao et al. 2011; Mudambi and Schuff 2010). For example, some online retailers, such as Amazon.com and TripAdvisor, allow users to rate the helpfulness of each review, and use this feedback information to rank and re-order them. However, many reviews have only a few feedbacks or no feedback at all, thus making it hard to identify their helpfulness. Also, it takes time to accumulate feedbacks, thus the newly authored reviews do not have enough ones. For example, only 20% of the reviews in Amazon Review Dataset (Mcauley and Leskovec, 2013) have more than 5 reviews (Yan et al, 2014). The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting the usefulness of online product reviews and to derive a forecasting model that selectively provides product reviews that can be helpful to consumers. In order to do this, we extracted the various linguistic, psychological, and perceptual elements included in product reviews by using text-mining techniques and identifying the determinants among these elements that affect the usability of product reviews. In particular, considering that the characteristics of the product reviews and determinants of usability for apparel products (which are experiential products) and electronic products (which are search goods) can differ, the characteristics of the product reviews were compared within each product group and the determinants were established for each. This study used 7,498 apparel product reviews and 106,962 electronic product reviews from Amazon.com. In order to understand a review text, we first extract linguistic and psychological characteristics from review texts such as a word count, the level of emotional tone and analytical thinking embedded in review text using widely adopted text analysis software LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). After then, we explore the descriptive statistics of review text for each category and statistically compare their differences using t-test. Lastly, we regression analysis using the data mining software RapidMiner to find out determinant factors. As a result of comparing and analyzing product review characteristics of electronic products and apparel products, it was found that reviewers used more words as well as longer sentences when writing product reviews for electronic products. As for the content characteristics of the product reviews, it was found that these reviews included many analytic words, carried more clout, and related to the cognitive processes (CogProc) more so than the apparel product reviews, in addition to including many words expressing negative emotions (NegEmo). On the other hand, the apparel product reviews included more personal, authentic, positive emotions (PosEmo) and perceptual processes (Percept) compared to the electronic product reviews. Next, we analyzed the determinants toward the usefulness of the product reviews between the two product groups. As a result, it was found that product reviews with high product ratings from reviewers in both product groups that were perceived as being useful contained a larger number of total words, many expressions involving perceptual processes, and fewer negative emotions. In addition, apparel product reviews with a large number of comparative expressions, a low expertise index, and concise content with fewer words in each sentence were perceived to be useful. In the case of electronic product reviews, those that were analytical with a high expertise index, along with containing many authentic expressions, cognitive processes, and positive emotions (PosEmo) were perceived to be useful. These findings are expected to help consumers effectively identify useful product reviews in the future.

Nutritional Risks Analysis Based on the Food Intake Frequency and Health-related Behaviors of the Older Residents (50 Years and Over) in Andong Area (1) (안동주변 농촌지역 50세 이상 주민의 식품섭취빈도 및 건강행위에 따른 영양위험 분석 (1))

  • Lee, Hye-Sang;Kwun, In-Sook;Kwon, Chong-Suk
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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    • v.37 no.8
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    • pp.998-1008
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    • 2008
  • This study aimed to assess the nutritional status and the nutritional risks based on the food intake frequency and health-related behaviors of middle-aged and elderly people living in Andong area. Interviews were conducted with 1,384 subjects (532 males, 852 females) aged 50 years and over. Nutrient intakes, food intake frequency, and health-related behaviors including smoking, drinking, and exercise were investigated. The average energy intakes were 1410.5 kcal for males and 1279.2 kcal for females, and the percentages of the subjects consuming below the estimated energy requirement (EER) were 92.5% and 88.4%, respectively. The least consumed nutrients compared to the estimated average requirement (EAR) were riboflavin (92.5% for males, 89.6% for females), folic acid (89.7%, 88.5%), and calcium (78.9%, 85.8%), in order. According to the food intake frequency survey, the intakes of meat, fish and vegetable (except kimchi) were very poor, and this low intakes of meat and fish showed as poor status of protein, niacin, vitamin $B_6$, and zinc intakes. Health-related behaviors data showed that the ratio of cigarette smokers, especially male, was higher, while the ratio of the person exercising regularly was lower than that of the nationwide statistics, respectively. Cigarette smoking and drinking were not significantly related to the poor nutrition intake, while regular exercise positively influenced nutrient intakes in female subjects. These results showed that the nutritional status of the subjects was likely to be severely deficient and the low intakes of meat and fish to be highly related to the increase of nutritional risk. Therefore, in order to prevent the occurrence of the secondary disease related to the food intake and health-related behaviors of the subjects, the proper educational program on balanced dietary intake and the correction of health-related behaviors should be developed and applied to this area.

A New Exploratory Research on Franchisor's Provision of Exclusive Territories (가맹본부의 배타적 영업지역보호에 대한 탐색적 연구)

  • Lim, Young-Kyun;Lee, Su-Dong;Kim, Ju-Young
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.37-63
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    • 2012
  • In franchise business, exclusive sales territory (sometimes EST in table) protection is a very important issue from an economic, social and political point of view. It affects the growth and survival of both franchisor and franchisee and often raises issues of social and political conflicts. When franchisee is not familiar with related laws and regulations, franchisor has high chance to utilize it. Exclusive sales territory protection by the manufacturer and distributors (wholesalers or retailers) means sales area restriction by which only certain distributors have right to sell products or services. The distributor, who has been granted exclusive sales territories, can protect its own territory, whereas he may be prohibited from entering in other regions. Even though exclusive sales territory is a quite critical problem in franchise business, there is not much rigorous research about the reason, results, evaluation, and future direction based on empirical data. This paper tries to address this problem not only from logical and nomological validity, but from empirical validation. While we purse an empirical analysis, we take into account the difficulties of real data collection and statistical analysis techniques. We use a set of disclosure document data collected by Korea Fair Trade Commission, instead of conventional survey method which is usually criticized for its measurement error. Existing theories about exclusive sales territory can be summarized into two groups as shown in the table below. The first one is about the effectiveness of exclusive sales territory from both franchisor and franchisee point of view. In fact, output of exclusive sales territory can be positive for franchisors but negative for franchisees. Also, it can be positive in terms of sales but negative in terms of profit. Therefore, variables and viewpoints should be set properly. The other one is about the motive or reason why exclusive sales territory is protected. The reasons can be classified into four groups - industry characteristics, franchise systems characteristics, capability to maintain exclusive sales territory, and strategic decision. Within four groups of reasons, there are more specific variables and theories as below. Based on these theories, we develop nine hypotheses which are briefly shown in the last table below with the results. In order to validate the hypothesis, data is collected from government (FTC) homepage which is open source. The sample consists of 1,896 franchisors and it contains about three year operation data, from 2006 to 2008. Within the samples, 627 have exclusive sales territory protection policy and the one with exclusive sales territory policy is not evenly distributed over 19 representative industries. Additional data are also collected from another government agency homepage, like Statistics Korea. Also, we combine data from various secondary sources to create meaningful variables as shown in the table below. All variables are dichotomized by mean or median split if they are not inherently dichotomized by its definition, since each hypothesis is composed by multiple variables and there is no solid statistical technique to incorporate all these conditions to test the hypotheses. This paper uses a simple chi-square test because hypotheses and theories are built upon quite specific conditions such as industry type, economic condition, company history and various strategic purposes. It is almost impossible to find all those samples to satisfy them and it can't be manipulated in experimental settings. However, more advanced statistical techniques are very good on clean data without exogenous variables, but not good with real complex data. The chi-square test is applied in a way that samples are grouped into four with two criteria, whether they use exclusive sales territory protection or not, and whether they satisfy conditions of each hypothesis. So the proportion of sample franchisors which satisfy conditions and protect exclusive sales territory, does significantly exceed the proportion of samples that satisfy condition and do not protect. In fact, chi-square test is equivalent with the Poisson regression which allows more flexible application. As results, only three hypotheses are accepted. When attitude toward the risk is high so loyalty fee is determined according to sales performance, EST protection makes poor results as expected. And when franchisor protects EST in order to recruit franchisee easily, EST protection makes better results. Also, when EST protection is to improve the efficiency of franchise system as a whole, it shows better performances. High efficiency is achieved as EST prohibits the free riding of franchisee who exploits other's marketing efforts, and it encourages proper investments and distributes franchisee into multiple regions evenly. Other hypotheses are not supported in the results of significance testing. Exclusive sales territory should be protected from proper motives and administered for mutual benefits. Legal restrictions driven by the government agency like FTC could be misused and cause mis-understandings. So there need more careful monitoring on real practices and more rigorous studies by both academicians and practitioners.

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Stock-Index Invest Model Using News Big Data Opinion Mining (뉴스와 주가 : 빅데이터 감성분석을 통한 지능형 투자의사결정모형)

  • Kim, Yoo-Sin;Kim, Nam-Gyu;Jeong, Seung-Ryul
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.143-156
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    • 2012
  • People easily believe that news and stock index are closely related. They think that securing news before anyone else can help them forecast the stock prices and enjoy great profit, or perhaps capture the investment opportunity. However, it is no easy feat to determine to what extent the two are related, come up with the investment decision based on news, or find out such investment information is valid. If the significance of news and its impact on the stock market are analyzed, it will be possible to extract the information that can assist the investment decisions. The reality however is that the world is inundated with a massive wave of news in real time. And news is not patterned text. This study suggests the stock-index invest model based on "News Big Data" opinion mining that systematically collects, categorizes and analyzes the news and creates investment information. To verify the validity of the model, the relationship between the result of news opinion mining and stock-index was empirically analyzed by using statistics. Steps in the mining that converts news into information for investment decision making, are as follows. First, it is indexing information of news after getting a supply of news from news provider that collects news on real-time basis. Not only contents of news but also various information such as media, time, and news type and so on are collected and classified, and then are reworked as variable from which investment decision making can be inferred. Next step is to derive word that can judge polarity by separating text of news contents into morpheme, and to tag positive/negative polarity of each word by comparing this with sentimental dictionary. Third, positive/negative polarity of news is judged by using indexed classification information and scoring rule, and then final investment decision making information is derived according to daily scoring criteria. For this study, KOSPI index and its fluctuation range has been collected for 63 days that stock market was open during 3 months from July 2011 to September in Korea Exchange, and news data was collected by parsing 766 articles of economic news media M company on web page among article carried on stock information>news>main news of portal site Naver.com. In change of the price index of stocks during 3 months, it rose on 33 days and fell on 30 days, and news contents included 197 news articles before opening of stock market, 385 news articles during the session, 184 news articles after closing of market. Results of mining of collected news contents and of comparison with stock price showed that positive/negative opinion of news contents had significant relation with stock price, and change of the price index of stocks could be better explained in case of applying news opinion by deriving in positive/negative ratio instead of judging between simplified positive and negative opinion. And in order to check whether news had an effect on fluctuation of stock price, or at least went ahead of fluctuation of stock price, in the results that change of stock price was compared only with news happening before opening of stock market, it was verified to be statistically significant as well. In addition, because news contained various type and information such as social, economic, and overseas news, and corporate earnings, the present condition of type of industry, market outlook, the present condition of market and so on, it was expected that influence on stock market or significance of the relation would be different according to the type of news, and therefore each type of news was compared with fluctuation of stock price, and the results showed that market condition, outlook, and overseas news was the most useful to explain fluctuation of news. On the contrary, news about individual company was not statistically significant, but opinion mining value showed tendency opposite to stock price, and the reason can be thought to be the appearance of promotional and planned news for preventing stock price from falling. Finally, multiple regression analysis and logistic regression analysis was carried out in order to derive function of investment decision making on the basis of relation between positive/negative opinion of news and stock price, and the results showed that regression equation using variable of market conditions, outlook, and overseas news before opening of stock market was statistically significant, and classification accuracy of logistic regression accuracy results was shown to be 70.0% in rise of stock price, 78.8% in fall of stock price, and 74.6% on average. This study first analyzed relation between news and stock price through analyzing and quantifying sensitivity of atypical news contents by using opinion mining among big data analysis techniques, and furthermore, proposed and verified smart investment decision making model that could systematically carry out opinion mining and derive and support investment information. This shows that news can be used as variable to predict the price index of stocks for investment, and it is expected the model can be used as real investment support system if it is implemented as system and verified in the future.

A Study on the Actual Conditions of and Satisfaction with the Existed Female Dress Forms Usage (국내 여성용 인대 사용 실태 및 만족도에 관한 연구)

  • Park Gin-Ah;Lee Hye-Young;Choi Jin-Hee
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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    • v.30 no.3 s.151
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    • pp.378-385
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    • 2006
  • To release fashion trends in an efficient way, many of the apparel business and fashion educational institutes in land adopt fashion shows employing fashion models. Modeling rather than flat pattern making realizes the majority of the complicated design works for the fashion shows. However, for the different measurements between the dress form and the real human model, problems often occur during the modeling and fitting processes. Researches on the standard dress form development representing professional fashion models' features are therefore in urgent need to enable the related apparel business and fashion institutes to make appropriate use of the dress form in their jobs. The study has been conducted as a preliminary study using a questionnaire method ultimately to develop the female dress form. A questionnaire in the research aimed at an investigation into the actual conditions of and satisfaction with the usage and the body measurements of existed dress forms. Approximately 30 fashion-related educational institutes and 10 apparel companies responded to the survey. Data derived from the survey was analyzed using SPSS version 10.1, the statistics tool. The results throughout the research were discussed in terms of largely three categories that are; (1) the general conditions of the usage of the dress form to prepare fashion shows: e.g. the frequency of holding the fashion show in an annual term, the proportion of professional and amateur models employed for the fashion show, the methods to construct garments, types and number of dress forms utilized and etc.; (2) factors considered to purchase the dress form e.g. its functionality, shapes, sizes, duration, price, A/S condition and etc.; and(3) satisfaction with the similarity between the dress form and the human body in the relation to the body measurements. Measurements in length wise, front and back waist lengths, neck to bust point on the dress forms were apparently differed from the ones of the actual body. In particular, differed torso length measurements cause the problem to have to alter the whole silhouette, consequently, the resultant patterns as well. In girth measurements, in order of bust and waist girths, the satisfaction was low.

Overview of Major Oil Spill at Sea and Details of Various Response Actions -1. Number and Volume of Marine Oil Spills in Korea and in the World (대형 기름유출사고와 방제조치에 관한 연구 -1. 국내외 해양기름오염사고 건수와 유출량)

  • Kim, Kwang-Soo
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.129-137
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    • 2013
  • In order to obtain quantitative basic data for marine oil pollution prevention, the statistics of oil spill incidents in Korea and in the world for 20 years from 1993 to 2012 were collected and analyzed with relation to the number of oil spills and the amount of oil spilt. In Korea for 20 years, total number and average annual number of oil spills were 6,608 cases and nearly 330 cases/year, respectively, and total volume and average annual volume of oils spilt were 57,328 kL and nearly 2,866 kL/year, respectively. Due to major oil spills from oil tankers, annual volumes of oils spilt in Korea were sharply increased to 15,388 kL in 1993, 15,773 kL in 1995, 3,428 kL in 1997 and 13,008 kL in 2007. In case of worldwide oil spills for 20 years, total number and average annual number of oil spills of 8 kL (or 7 tonnes) and above were 420 cases and 21 cases/year, respectively, and total amount and average annual amount of oils spilt 8 kL (or 7 tonnes) and above were about 800,000 kL (or 704,000 tonnes) and about 40,000 kL/year (or 35,200 tonnes/year), respectively. Major oil spills from oil tankers increased massively annual amounts of oils spilt worldwide to about 159,000 kL (or 140,000 tonnes) in 1993, about 147,600 kL (or 130,000 tonnes) in 1994, about 90,900 kL (80,000 tonnes) in 1996, about 81,800 kL (72,000 tonnes) in 1997 and about 76,100 kL (or 67,000 tonnes) in 2002. Obvious correlation between annual number of oil spills and annual amount of oil spilt was not found in both Korea and the world, while both annual number and annual volume tended to decrease with the lapse of year in both Korea and the world, though there were wide fluctuations from year to year in both annual number of oil spills and annual amount of oils spilt worldwide and in Korea for 20 years. From 2008 to 2012 worldwide, there were sharp decreases in both annual number and annual amount of oil spills. In particular, no oil spill of 800 kL (or 700 tonnes) and above occurred in the year of 2012.

The Survey of Dentists: Updated Knowledge about Basic Life support and Experiences of Dental Emergency in Korea

  • Cho, Kyoung-Ah;Kim, Hyuk;Lee, Brian Seonghwa;Kwon, Woon-Yong;Kim, Mi-Seon;Seo, Kwang-Suk;Kim, Hyun-Jeong
    • Journal of The Korean Dental Society of Anesthesiology
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.17-27
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    • 2014
  • Background: Various medical emergency situations can occur during dental practices. Cardiac arrest is known to comprise approximately 1% of emergency situation. Thus, it is necessary for dentists to be able to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to increase the chance of saving patient's life in emergency situation. In this paper, we conducted a survey study to evaluate to what extent dentists actually understood CPR practice and if they had experience in handling emergency situations in practice. Method: The survey was done for members of the Korean Dental Society of Anesthesiology (KDSA), who had great interest in CPR and for whom survey-by-mail was convenient. We had selected 472 members of the KDSA with a dental license and whose office address and contact information were appropriate, and sent them a survey questionnaire by mail asking about the degree of their CPR understanding and if they had experience of handling emergency questions before. Statistical analyses -frequency analysis, chi-square test, ANOVA, and so on- were performed by use of IBM SPSS Statistics 19 for each question. Result: Among 472 people, 181 responded (38.4% response rate). Among the respondents were 134 male and 47 female dentists. Their average age was $40.4{\pm}8.4$. In terms of practice type, there were 123 private practitioners (68.0%), 20 professors (11.0%), 16 dentists-in-service (8.8%), 13 residents (specialist training) (7.2%) and 9 military doctors (5%). There were 125 dentists (69.1%) who were specialists or receiving training to be specialist, most of whom were oral surgeon (57, 31.5%) and pediatric dentists (56, 30.9%). There were 153 people (85.0%) who received CPR training before, and 65 of them (35.9%) were receiving regular training. When asked about the ratio of chest pressure vs mouth-to-mouth respiration when conducting CPR, 107 people (59.1%) answered 30:2. However, only 27.1% of them answered correctly for a question regarding CPR stages, C(Circulation)- A(Airway)- B(Breathing)- D(Defibrillation), which was defined in revised 2010 CPR practice guideline. Dentists who had experience of handling emergency situations in their practice were 119 (65.6%). The kinds of emergency situations they experienced were syncope (68, 37.6%), allergic reactions to local anesthetic (44, 24.3%), hyperventilation (43, 23.8%), seizure (25, 13.8%), hypoglycemia (15, 8.3%), breathing difficulty (14, 7.8%), cardiac arrest (11, 6.1%), airway obstruction (6, 3.3%), intake of foreign material and angina pectoris (4, 2.2%), in order of frequency. Most respondents answered that they handled the situation appropriately under the given emergency situation. In terms of emergency equipment they had blood pressure device (70.2%), pulse oximetry (69.6%), Bag-Valve-Mask (56.9%), emergency medicine (41.4%), intubation kit (29.8%), automated external defibrillator (23.2%), suction kit (19.3%) and 12 people (6.6%) did not have any equipment. In terms of confidence in handling emergency situation, with 1-10 point scale, their response was $4.86{\pm}2.41$ points. The average point of those who received regular training was $5.92{\pm}2.20$, while those who did not was $4.29{\pm}2.29$ points (P<0.001) Conclusion: The result showed they had good knowledge of CPR but the information they had was not up-to-date. Also, they were frequently exposed to the risk of emergency situation during their dental practice but the level of confidence in handling the emergency situation was intermediate. Therefore, regular training of CPR to prepare them for handling emergency situation is deemed necessary.

Analysis of Land Cover Classification and Pattern Using Remote Sensing and Spatial Statistical Method - Focusing on the DMZ Region in Gangwon-Do - (원격탐사와 공간통계 기법을 이용한 토지피복 분류 및 패턴 분석 - 강원도 DMZ일원을 대상으로 -)

  • NA, Hyun-Sup;PARK, Jeong-Mook;LEE, Jung-Soo
    • Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.100-118
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    • 2015
  • This study established a land-cover classification method on objects using satellite images, and figured out distributional patterns of land cover according to categories through spatial statistics techniques. Object-based classification generated each land cover classification map by spectral information, texture information, and the combination of the two. Through assessment of accuracy, we selected optimum land cover classification map. Also, to figure out spatial distribution pattern of land cover according to categories, we analyzed hot spots and quantified them. Optimal weight for an object-based classification has been selected as the Scale 52, Shape 0.4, Color 0.6, Compactness 0.5, Smoothness 0.5. In case of using the combination of spectral information and texture information, the land cover classification map showed the best overall classification accuracy. Particularly in case of dry fields, protected cultivation, and bare lands, the accuracy has increased about 12 percent more than when we used only spectral information. Forest, paddy fields, transportation facilities, grasslands, dry fields, bare lands, buildings, water and protected cultivation in order of the higher area ratio of DMZ according to categories. Particularly, dry field sand transportation facilities in Yanggu occurred mainly in north areas of the civilian control line. dry fields in Cheorwon, forest and transportation facilities in Inje fulfilled actively in south areas of the civilian control line. In case of distributional patterns according to categories, hot spot of paddy fields, dry fields and protected cultivation, which is related to agriculture, was distributed intensively in plains of Yanggu and in basin areas of Cheorwon. Hot spot areas of bare lands, waters, buildings and roads have similar distribution patterns with hot spot areas related to agriculture, while hot spot areas of bare lands, water, buildings and roads have different distributional patterns with hot spot areas of forest and grasslands.