• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.97-115
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• 2008

Introduction The e-government is concerned with using Internet and Web technologies to exchange information and services with citizens, businesses and other related organizations, and it centers on three functions, namely informational, interactive, and transactional [UN, 2001]. Many developed countries like the U.S. have been actively involved in e-government projects, since they enable both more effective public services for citizens and more efficient internal operations. Korea is among these leading countries that are planning to leverage computer and communication technologies to provide for integration of work processes and information as well as convenient access to information and services. For this reason, evaluating e-government projects is becoming a crucial issue for both researchers and policy-makers. However, most research to date has primarily focused on a model of success of an e-government system designed for citizens, overlooking internal systems specifically created for employees working in a public organization. This paper is intended to propose a model to measure the success of a Web-based information system designed for use by internal users at Chungwadae, the executive branch of Korea's central government. The paper is also aimed at applying the model to the assessment of the present system being used at Chungwadae in comparison with the preceding system. Evaluating an e-Government System The most widely cited model of information systems success today is that of DeLone and McLean[1992, 2003, 2004]. The original model states that the success of an information system can be measured using six dimensions, including system quality, information quality, use, user satisfaction, individual impact, and organizational impact. Although the ultimate success of an information system may be reflected in the impact that the system has upon individuals as well as an organization, aspects of using the system such as system use and user satisfaction can play an important role in determining the system success, because the system would be a sheer failure if users don't like and use the system. As a response to criticisms given by numerous researchers, the authors adapted their model to fit the emerging Web-based environment. The revised model[DeLone and McLean, 2003] they offered included an additional quality dimension, namely service quality, and combined individual and organizational impacts into net benefits which can also influence user satisfaction. The e-government system success model can be built around this updated model. Our model incorporates information quality, system quality, and service quality as in the DeLone and McLean model. However, the 'system use' dimension has been replaced by perceived usefulness, as suggested by Seddon[1998]. In addition, because the e-government systems that this paper focuses on are internal public systems used in government agencies, the 'net benefits' dimension has been replaced by perceived work efficiency. Based on the proposed model, a total of nine hypotheses have been formulated which we tested using an empirical analysis. Methods A questionnaire form has been created with items that are designed to examine the relationships among the variables in the model. The questionnaire has been handed over, in person, to 65 members of Chungwadae staff who are now actively using the E-Support System, the present information system created to support internal work at Chungwadae. We made arrangements to meet with each individual who agreed to participate in our survey, and helped to fill out the survey form with explanations. Of the 65 copies that were delivered, only 33 were returned, and 30 responses of these have been adopted for our analysis, since three were not valid. The extremely small sample size was due to the limited number of staff members who had adequate experience required of this study. Results We gathered data from the questionnaire survey and analyzed them using a regression analysis to test the hypotheses. As shown in the table below, the results indicated that all three dimensions of an information system’s quality are positively related to user satisfaction. However, information quality and system quality were found to be positively related to perceived usefulness, while service quality was not. In addition, perceived usefulness is not positively related to user satisfaction, implying that a user may find a system useful, but may not be satisfied with it. Finally, user satisfaction and perceived usefulness both are positively related to perceived work efficiency. This suggests that workers' positive experience with the system is important to guarantee favorable work efficiency. Conclusions We conclude that the proposed model proved useful in measuring the success of an internal information system used by a government agency. To demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the model in the paper, we applied the model to the assessment of the present internal system used at Chungwadae in comparison with the preceding system. The results showed that the present system outperforms the preceding one in a statistically significant way. Future research will have to focus on applying the model to Korea's governmental agencies other than Chungwadae and examine whether it proves applicable in different types of governmental organizations.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.145-162
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• 2008

One of the big concerns in e-society is privacy issue. In special, in developing robust ubiquitous smart space and corresponding services, user profile and preference are collected by the service providers. Privacy issue would be more critical in context-aware services simply because most of the context data themselves are private information: user's current location, current schedule, friends nearby and even her/his health data. To realize the potential of ubiquitous smart space, the systems embedded in the space should corporate personal privacy preferences. When the users invoke a set of services, they are asked to allow the service providers or smart space to make use of personal information which is related to privacy concerns. For this reason, the users unhappily provide the personal information or even deny to get served. On the other side, service provider needs personal information as rich as possible with minimal personal information to discern royal and trustworthy customers and those who are not. It would be desirable to enlarge the allowable personal information complying with the service provider's request, whereas minimizing service provider's requiring personal information which is not allowed to be submitted and user's submitting information which is of no value to the service provider. In special, if any personal information required by the service provider is not allowed, service will not be provided to the user. P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences) has been regarded as one of the promising alternatives to preserve the personal information in the course of electronic transactions. However, P3P mainly focuses on preserving the buyers' personal information. From time to time, the service provider's business data should be protected from the unintended usage from the buyers. Moreover, even though the user's privacy preference could depend on the context happened to the user, legacy P3P does not handle the contextual change of privacy preferences. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to propose a mutual P3P-based negotiation mechanism. To do so, service provider's privacy concern is considered as well as the users'. User's privacy policy on the service provider's information also should be informed to the service providers before the service begins. Second, privacy policy is contextually designed according to the user's current context because the nomadic user's privacy concern structure may be altered contextually. Hence, the methodology includes mutual privacy policy and personalization. Overall framework of the mechanism and new code of ethics is described in section 2. Pervasive platform for mutual P3P considers user type and context field, which involves current activity, location, social context, objects nearby and physical environments. Our mutual P3P includes the privacy preference not only for the buyers but also the sellers, that is, service providers. Negotiation methodology for mutual P3P is proposed in section 3. Based on the fact that privacy concern occurs when there are needs for information access and at the same time those for information hiding. Our mechanism was implemented based on an actual shopping mall to increase the feasibility of the idea proposed in this paper. A shopping service is assumed as a context-aware service, and data groups for the service are enumerated. The privacy policy for each data group is represented as APPEL format. To examine the performance of the example service, in section 4, simulation approach is adopted in this paper. For the simulation, five data elements are considered: $\cdot$ UserID $\cdot$ User preference $\cdot$ Phone number $\cdot$ Home address $\cdot$ Product information $\cdot$ Service profile. For the negotiation, reputation is selected as a strategic value. Then the following cases are compared: $\cdot$ Legacy P3P is considered $\cdot$ Mutual P3P is considered without strategic value $\cdot$ Mutual P3P is considered with strategic value. The simulation results show that mutual P3P outperforms legacy P3P. Moreover, we could conclude that when mutual P3P is considered with strategic value, performance was better than that of mutual P3P is considered without strategic value in terms of service safety.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2008

As managing customer relationship gets more important, companies are strengthening information service using multi-channels to their customers as a part of their customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives. It means companies are now accepting such information services not as simple information -delivering tools, but as strategic initiatives for acquiring and maintaining customer loyalty. In this paper, we attempt to validate whether or not such various information services would impact on organizational performance in terms of CRM strategy. More specifically, our research objective is to answer the next three questions: first, how to construct the instruments to measure not information quality but information service quality?; second, which attributes of information service quality can influence corporate image and customer loyalty?; finally, does each information service type have unique characteristics compared with others in terms of influencing corporate image and customer loyalty? With respect to providing answers to those questions, the previous studies had been limited in that those studies failed to consider the variety of types of information service or restricted the quality of information service to information quality. An appropriate research model answering the above questions should consider the fact that most companies are utilizing multi channels for their information services, and include the recent strategic information service such as customer online community. Moreover, since corporate information service could be regarded as a type of products or services delivered to customer, it is necessary to adopt the criteria for assessing customer's perceived value when to measure the quality of information service. Therefore, considering both multi-channels and multi-traits may enable us to tell the detailed causal routes showing which quality attributes of which information service would affect corporate image and customer loyalty. As information service channels, we include not only homepage and DM (direct mail), which are the most frequently applied information service channels, but also online community, which is getting more strategic importance in recent years. With respect to information service quality, we abstract information quality, convenience of information service, and timeliness of information service through a wide range of relevant literature reviews. As our dependant variables, we consider corporate image and customer loyalty that both of them are the critical determinants of organizational performance, and also attempt to grasp the relationship between the two constructs. We conducted a huge online survey at the homepage of one of representative dairy companies in Korea, and gathered 367 valid samples from 407 customers. The reliability and validity of our measurements were tested by using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and principal factor analysis respectively, and seven hypotheses were tested through performing correlation test and multiple regression analysis. The results from data analysis demonstrated that timeliness and convenience of homepage have positive effects on both corporate image and customer loyalty. In terms of DM, its' information quality was represented to influence both corporate image and customer loyalty, but we found its' convenience have a positive effect only on corporate image. With respect to online community, we found its timeliness contribute significantly both to corporate image and customer loyalty. Finally, as we expected, corporate image was revealed to provide a great influence to customer loyalty. This paper provides several academic and practical implications. Firstly, we think our research reinforces CRM literatures by developing the instruments for measuring information service quality. The previous relevant studies have mainly depended on the measurements of information quality or service quality which were developed independently. Secondly, the fact that we conducted our research in a real situation may enable academics and practitioners to understand the effects of information services more clearly. Finally, since our study involved three different types of information service which are most frequently applied in recent years, the results from our study might provide operational guidelines to the companies that are delivering their customers information by multi-channel. In other words, since we found that, in terms of customer loyalty, the key areas would be different from each other according to the types of information services, our analysis would help to make decisions such as selecting strengthening points or allocating resources by information service channels.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.25-51
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• 2008

Researchers have been continuously interested in the adoption of information technology (IT) since it is of great importance to the information systems success and it is also an important stage to the success. Adoption alone, however, does not ensure information systems success because it does not necessarily lead to achieving organizational or individual objectives. When an organization or an individual decide to adopt certain information technologies, they have objectives to accomplish by using those technologies. Adoption itself is not the ultimate goal. The period after adoption is when users continue to use IT and intended objectives can be accomplished. Therefore, continued IT use in the post-adoption period accounts more for the accomplishment of the objectives and thus information systems success. Previous studies also suggest that continued IT use in the post-adoption period is one of the important factors to improve long-term productivity. Despite the importance there are few empirical studies focusing on the user behavior of continued IT use in the post-adoption period. User behavior in the post-adoption period is different from that in the pre-adoption period. According to the technology acceptance model, which explains well about the IT adoption, users decide to adopt IT assessing the usefulness and the ease of use. After adoption, users are exposed to new experiences and they shape new beliefs different from the thoughts they had before. Users come to make decisions based on their experiences of IT use whether they will continue to use it or not. Most theories about the user behaviors in the pre-adoption period are limited in describing them after adoption since they do not consider user's experiences of using the adopted IT and the beliefs formed by those experiences. Therefore, in this study, we explore user's experiences and beliefs in the post-adoption period and examine how they affect user's intention to continue to use IT. Through deep literature reviews on the construction of subjective beliefs by experiences, we draw three meaningful constructs which theoretically have great impacts on the continued use of IT: perceived habit, confirmation, and computer self-efficacy. Then, we examine the role of the subjective beliefs on the cognitive/affective attitudes and intention to continue to use that IT. We set up a research model and conducted survey research. Since IT use implies interactions among a user, IT, and a task, we carefully selected the sample of users using same/similar IT to perform same/similar tasks, to exclude unwanted influences of other factors than subjective beliefs on the IT use. We also considered that the sample of users were able to make decisions to continue to use IT volitionally or at least quasi-volitionally. For each construct, we used measurement items recognized for reliability and widely used in the previous research. We slightly modified some items proper to the research context and a pilot test was carried out for forty users of a portal service in a university. We performed a full-scale survey after verifying the reliability of the measurement. The results show that the intention to continue to use IT is strongly influenced by cognitive/affective attitudes, perceived habits, and computer self-efficacy. Confirmation affects the intention to continue indirectly through cognitive/affective attitudes. All the constructs representing the subjective beliefs built by the experiences of IT use have direct and/or indirect impacts on the intention of users. The results also show that the attitudes in the post-adoption period are formed, at least partly, by the experiences of IT use and newly shaped beliefs after adoption. The findings suggest that subjective beliefs built by the experiences have deep impacts on the continued use. The results of the study signify that while experiencing IT in the post-adoption period users form new beliefs, attitudes, and intentions which may be different from those of the pre-adoption period. The results of this study partly demonstrate that the beliefs shaped by the behaviors, those are the experiences of IT use, influence users' attitudes and intention. The results also suggest that behaviors (experiences) also change attitudes while attitudes shape behaviors. If we combine the findings of this study with the results of the previous research on IT adoption, we can propose a cycle of IT adoption and use where behavior shapes attitude, the attitude forms new behavior, and that behavior shapes new attitude. Different from the previous research, the study focused on the user experience after IT adoption and empirically demonstrated the strong influence of the subjective beliefs formed in the post-adoption period on the continued use. This partly confirms the differences between attitudes in the pre-adoption and in the post-adoption period. Users continuously change their attitudes and intentions while experiencing (using) IT. Therefore, to make users adopt IT and to make them use IT after adoption is a different problem. To encourage users to use IT after adoption, experiential variables such as perceived habit, confirmation, and computer self-efficacy should be managed properly.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.45-62
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• 2011

The notion of information systems (IS) continuance has recently emerged as one of the most important research issues in the field of IS. A great deal of research has been conducted thus far on the basis of theories adapted from various disciplines including consumer behaviors and social psychology, in addition to theories regarding information technology (IT) acceptance. This previous body of knowledge provides a robust research framework that can already account for the determination of IS continuance; however, this research points to other, thus-far-unelucidated determinant factors such as habit, which were not included in traditional IT acceptance frameworks, and also re-emphasizes the importance of emotion-related constructs such as satisfaction in addition to conscious intention with rational beliefs such as usefulness. Experiences should also be considered one of the most important factors determining the characteristics of information system (IS) continuance and the features distinct from those determining IS acceptance, because more experienced users may have more opportunities for IS use, which would allow them more frequent use than would be available to less experienced or non-experienced users. Interestingly, experience has dual features that may contradictorily influence IS use. On one hand, attitudes predicated on direct experience have been shown to predict behavior better than attitudes from indirect experience or without experience; as more information is available, direct experience may render IS use a more salient behavior, and may also make IS use more accessible via memory. Therefore, experience may serve to intensify the relationship between IS use and conscious intention with evaluations, On the other hand, experience may culminate in the formation of habits: greater experience may also imply more frequent performance of the behavior, which may lead to the formation of habits, Hence, like experience, users' activation of an IS may be more dependent on habit-that is, unconscious automatic use without deliberation regarding the IS-and less dependent on conscious intentions, Furthermore, experiences can provide basic information necessary for satisfaction with the use of a specific IS, thus spurring the formation of both conscious intentions and unconscious habits, Whereas IT adoption Is a one-time decision, IS continuance may be a series of users' decisions and evaluations based on satisfaction with IS use. Moreover. habits also cannot be formed without satisfaction, even when a behavior is carried out repeatedly. Thus, experiences also play a critical role in satisfaction, as satisfaction is the consequence of direct experiences of actual behaviors. In particular, emotional experiences such as enjoyment can become as influential on IS use as are utilitarian experiences such as usefulness; this is especially true in light of the modern increase in membership-based hedonic systems - including online games, web-based social network services (SNS), blogs, and portals-all of which attempt to provide users with self-fulfilling value. Therefore, in order to understand more clearly the role of experiences in IS continuance, analysis must be conducted under a research framework that includes intentions, habits, and satisfaction, as experience may not only have duration-based moderating effects on the relationship between both intention and habit and the activation of IS use, but may also have content-based positive effects on satisfaction. This is consistent with the basic assumptions regarding the determining factors in IS continuance as suggested by Oritz de Guinea and Markus: consciousness, emotion, and habit. The principal objective of this study was to explore and assess the effects of experiences in IS continuance, with special consideration given to conscious intentions and unconscious habits, as well as satisfaction. IN service of this goal, along with a review of the relevant literature regarding the effects of experiences and habit on continuous IS use, this study suggested a research model that represents the roles of experience: its moderating role in the relationships of IS continuance with both conscious intention and unconscious habit, and its antecedent role in the development of satisfaction. For the validation of this research model. Korean university student users of 'Cyworld', one of the most influential social network services in South Korea, were surveyed, and the data were analyzed via partial least square (PLS) analysis to assess the implications of this study. In result most hypotheses in our research model were statistically supported with the exception of one. Although one hypothesis was not supported, the study's findings provide us with some important implications. First the role of experience in IS continuance differs from its role in IS acceptance. Second, the use of IS was explained by the dynamic balance between habit and intention. Third, the importance of satisfaction was confirmed from the perspective of IS continuance with experience.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2011

Internet-based commerce has undergone an explosive growth over the past decade as consumers today find it more economical as well as more convenient to shop online. Nevertheless, the shift in the common mode of shopping from offline to online commerce has caused consumers to have worries over such issues as private information leakage, online fraud, discrepancy in product quality and grade, unsuccessful delivery, and so forth, Numerous studies have been undertaken to examine the role of perceived risk as a chief barrier to online purchases and to understand the theoretical relationships among perceived risk, trust and purchase intentions, However, most studies focus on empirically investigating the effects of trust on perceived risk, with little attention devoted to the effects of perceived risk on trust, While the influence trust has on perceived risk is worth studying, the influence in the opposite direction is equally important, enabling insights into the potential of perceived risk as a prohibitor of trust, According to Pavlou (2003), the primary source of the perceived risk is either the technological uncertainty of the Internet environment or the behavioral uncertainty of the transaction partner. Due to such types of uncertainty, an increase in the worries over the perceived risk may negatively affect trust, For example, if a consumer who sends sensitive transaction data over Internet is concerned that his or her private information may leak out because of the lack of security, trust may decrease (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), By the same token, if the consumer feels that the online merchant has the potential to profit by behaving in an opportunistic manner taking advantage of the remote, impersonal nature of online commerce, then it is unlikely that the merchant will be trusted, That is, the more the probable danger is likely to occur, the less trust and the greater need to control the transaction (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), In summary, a review of the related studies indicates that while some researchers looked at the influence of overall perceived risk on trust level, not much attention has been given to the effects of different types of perceived risk, In this context the present research aims at addressing the need to study how trust is affected by different types of perceived risk, We classified perceived risk into six different types based on the literature, and empirically analyzed the impact of each type of perceived risk upon consumer trust in an online merchant and further its impact upon purchase intentions. To meet our research objectives, we developed a conceptual model depicting the nomological structure of the relationships among our research variables, and also formulated a total of seven hypotheses. The model and hypotheses were tested using an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire survey of 206 college students. The reliability was evaluated via Cronbach's alphas, the minimum of which was found to be 0.73, and therefore the questionnaire items are all deemed reliable. In addition, the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) designed to check the validity of the measurement model indicate that the convergent, discriminate, and nomological validities of the model are all acceptable. The structural equation modeling analysis to test the hypotheses yielded the following results. Of the first six hypotheses (H1-1 through H1-6) designed to examine the relationships between each risk type and trust, three hypotheses including H1-1 (performance risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust), H1-2 (psychological risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) and H1-5 (online payment risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) were supported with path coefficients of -0.30, -0.27 and -0.16 respectively. Finally, H2 (trust ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intentions) was supported with relatively high path coefficients of 0.73. Results of the empirical study offer the following findings and implications. First. it was found that it was performance risk, psychological risk and online payment risk that have a statistically significant influence upon consumer trust in an online merchant. It implies that a consumer may find an online merchant untrustworthy if either the product quality or the product grade does not match his or her expectations. For that reason, online merchants including digital storefronts and e-marketplaces are suggested to pursue a strategy focusing on identifying the target customers and offering products that they feel best meet performance and psychological needs of those customers. Thus, they should do their best to make it widely known that their products are of as good quality and grade as those purchased from offline department stores. In addition, it may be inferred that today's online consumers remain concerned about the security of the online commerce environment due to the repeated occurrences of hacking or private information leakage. Online merchants should take steps to remove potential vulnerabilities and provide online notices to emphasize that their website is secure. Second, consumer's overall trust was found to have a statistically significant influence on purchase intentions. This finding, which is consistent with the results of numerous prior studies, suggests that increased sales will become a reality only with enhanced consumer trust.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.53-77
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• 2008

In recent years, although numbers of corporations are bringing in PMO, they seem to be indifferent to PMO performance measurement. This demonstrates that there are also other reasons beside performance measurement of information systems (IS) project being ambiguous by introducing PMO; the lack of acknowledging the concrete function of PMO, and the scarcity of empirical study about the effect of PMO on the project members and project performance. In this sense, this study is aimed at proposing a new research model in which project success factors (i.e., standardization, management advocacy, and staff expertise) affect PMO capability (i.e., knowledge management, resources management, and problem solving competency) positively, leading to project performance (i.e., task outcomes, psychological outcomes, and organizational outcomes) eventually. To empirically test the research model, data are surveyed from PMO department and IS department. To prove the validity of the proposed research model, PLS analysis is applied with valid 132 questionnaires. By employing PLS technique, the measurement reliability and validity of research variables are tested and the path analysis is conducted to do the hypothesis testing. The path analysis results can be organized into 7 ways in large scale. First, standardization of project success factors has a positive association with knowledge management, resources management, and problem solving competency of PMO capabilities. The findings of this result indicate that the multiple or single project management should satisfy standardization in order to operate an effective PMO. Second, management advocacy of project success factors has a positive association with knowledge management, resources management, and problem solving competency. Management advocacy refers to the willingness of management to provide the required resources and authority for project success. There is agreement among researchers regarding the importance of management advocacy for favorable PMO capability. Third, staff expertise of project success factors has a positive association with knowledge management, resources management, and problem solving competency. The findings of this result indicate that the formation of an exceptional consultant or members with a proficient knowledge for staff expertise of project member is the key factor to elevate the PMO capability. Past research suggests that experience and knowledge and the resultant familiarity with the problem faced can be an important determinant of PMO capability. A capable project with appropriate staff expertise means that it enjoys a diversity of abilities and experiences. Fourth, knowledge management competency of PMO capabilities has a positive impact on psychological outcomes but has no direct effect on task outcomes and organizational outcomes. In domestic case of S. Korea, PMO was finally introduced to many other corporations in 2005 though it started bringing in 2000. Therefore, it had neither a significant impact on the task outcomes nor organizational outcomes by lacking the contents and the infrastructure of the knowledge management because the knowledge consolidation and management period of PMO is comparatively shorter by terms than other foreign nations. Fifth, resources management competency of PMO capabilities has a positive association with task outcomes, psychological outcomes, and organizational outcomes. In addition, problem solving competency of PMO capabilities has a positive association with task outcomes, psychological outcomes, and organizational outcomes. Therefore, the findings of this results stress that PMO capabilities has a positive impact on project performance. Sixth, according to the path analysis of the hypothesis, which suggested in this research, problem solving competency is the PMO capability which is the key success factor for task, psychological, and organizational outcomes as an integrated performance model. Further, the analysis reveals that problem solving competency is an important factor for integrated performance model. The finding is in line with past IS research, which affirms that the work of IS projects is essentially a problem solving endeavor. Seventh, in the path analysis of the hypothesis in this research, the path of the management advocacy $\rightarrow$ problem solving competency $\rightarrow$ organizational outcomes appears to be the most important and strongest path. In brief, the finding of this study suggests that project success factors influence PMO capability positively, and project performance as well. From the results, it can be concluded that PMO helped great improve the project success rate and project performance. This study advances research on PMO capability in three important aspects. First, the findings of our study have implications for IS theory and future research. Our study contributes to IS theory by synthesizing concepts from PMO research and project management research with those in IS research. We proposed and tested PMO capability of IS projects and the findings of our investigation provided some preliminary answers to some of the questions raised. Secondly, this thesis does not only help depicting the concept of IT governance but also approaches empirically. It makes a gradual approach to the main content, step by step, in contrary of simple standard, scholastic way of thinking. Finally, we argued that this task-oriented(technical) view is not sufficient to adequately conceptualize IS project performance. Hence, we applied that the research on organization teams, which provides a flip viewpoint to that of project management research in that it gives more weight for psychological outcomes of organizational work groups, can be very helpful in reconceptualizing the IS project performance construct. The limitations of this study are also discussed to provide research directions for future research.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.62-67
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• 2015

Myelophycus simplex Papenfuss is distributed over the northern Pacific and southern coast of Korea, and is a member of the brown algae family. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of M. simplex methanol extract on adipocyte differentiation and adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. Treatment with M. simplex methanol extract significantly suppressed terminal differentiation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes in a dose-dependent manner, as confirmed by a decrease in lipid droplet content observed by Oil Red O staining. Also, the M. simplex methanol extract significantly suppressed the triglyceride content of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes in a dose-dependent manner. Treatment with 300 and $500{\mu}g/ml$ of M. simplex methanol extract caused a 42% and 76% reduction in lipid droplet content, respectively. In order to understand the anti-adipogenic effects of M. simplex methanol extract, the changes in the expression of several adipogenic transcription factors, including peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) ${\gamma}$-cytidine-cytidine-adenosine-adenosine-thymidine (CCAAT)/enhancer binding protein (C/EBP) ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$, were investigated using immunoblotting. M. simplex suppressed the expression of $PPAR{\gamma}$, $C/EBP{\alpha}$, and $C/EBP{\beta}$ proteins compared with control. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that M. simplex methanol extract inhibits adipocyte differentiation and thus may have applications as a potential source for an anti-obesity functional food agent.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.371-382
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• 2010

TSP and PM2.5 atmospheric aerosols have been collected at Gosan site of Jeju Island, and their compositions were analyzed to understand the pollution characteristics. The composition ratios of nss (non-sea salt)-$SO_4^{2-}$ and $NH_4^+$ were higher in Gosan site than those in other Korean background and urban sites. However the composition ratio of $NO_3^-$ was conversely lower in Gosan site. From the study of aerosol components according to particle sizes, the anthropogenic nss-$SO_4^{2-}$, $NO_3^-$ and $NH_4^+$ components were mostly existed in the fine particles. But the nss-$Ca^{2+}$, $Na^+$, $Cl^-$ and $Mg^{2+}$ originated from soil and marine sources were distributed relatively in the coarse particles. In the seasonal comparison, the concentrations of nss-$Ca^{2+}$, Al, Fe, Ca and $NO_3^-$ increased in spring season, and nss-$SO_4^{2-}$ showed higher concentration in summer and spring seasons. Based on the factor analysis, the atmospheric aerosols in Gosan site have been found to be influenced largely by anthropogenic sources, and next by marine and soil sources. The backward trajectory analyses showed that the concentrations of nss-$SO_4^{2-}$, $NO_3^-$, Pb and nss-$Ca^{2+}$ increased when the air mass moved from Chinese continent to Jeju area. On the other hand, their concentrations decreased when the air mass moved in from the North Pacific Ocean.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.41 no.8
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• pp.818-831
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dietary behavior, health-related lifestyles and nutrient intake status of college students according to physical activity levels. The physical activity levels were measured using the Korean version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) short form. The subjects of this study were 438 college students (243 males and 195 females) in Incheon area and were divided by gender and by physical activity levels, which included low, moderate and high physical activity groups. The average age of male and female students were 23.7 and 21.0 years old, respectively. The prevalence of the low physical activity group was 11.5% for males and 30.8% for females and that of the high physical activity group was 38.7% for males and 22.6% for females. According to the criteria for obesity in Asia-Pacific region, 39.1% of the males and 64.1% of the female students investigated were in the normal range of BMI and 30.9% of the males and 4.6% of the female students were in the obesity category. However, percent of body fat in the female students was significantly higher than that of the male students. The soft lean mass of the high physical activity group was higher compared to the other groups. In the low physical activity group, frequency of “eating out” was lower compared to the other groups. The average consumption of energy was 74.4% for males and 80.1% for females of the estimated energy requirement (EER). The mean intakes of vitamin C, vitamin B2, folic acid and Ca were 67.3%, 84%, 52.7% and 36.7% for males and 64.8%, 99.9%, 51.1% and 40.1% for females of recommended intake (RI), respectively. Therefore, it was necessary for obesity prevention as well as health promotion to increase physical activity and to eat an adequate, balanced diet in female college students.