Inferential Structure and Reality Problem in Diagnosis of Oriental Medicine (한의 진단의 추론형식과 실재성)
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- Journal of The Association for Neo Medicine
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- v.2 no.1
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- pp.55-84
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- 1997
Inferential structure and reality problem is a serious issue to O.M.(oriental medicine). The study will analyze this issue through a philosophical and historical comparative study of W.M.M(Western modern medicine) and O.M. First, I presuppose some basic ideas. The first is the division of the 'the philosophy of medicine' and 'the medicine itself'. Second, there is a 'visibility' that discriminate between 'the abstractive concept' and 'the concrete object' in diagnostic terminology. The third is the separation of disease, the entity and disease, the phenomenon. Finally, the distinction between the cause of disease and the nature of disease. Through these basic concepts, this study will analyze O.M's diagnostic methodology, 'Pattern identification of the S.A.S(sign and symptom)'. The results are follows: 1. O.M's views disease as a phenomenon. So, the S.A.S, which is visible, is the disease itself. Tough the analysis and inference of the S.A.S, 證(zheng) the essence is derived. 2. 證(zheng) can be considered as 'the abstractive concept' reflecting the essence of a disease. 3. 證(zheng) is not arrived through causal sequence reasoning but rather by analogical reasoning. 4. 證(zheng) is 'the non-random correlative combination of S.A.S', pattern. These patterns secure the abstractive deduction in reality. that is, The causality, the positivism, the view of disease as entity, and anatomical knowledge are the traits peculiar to W.M.M. But, these properties can not be applied universally to every medical systems. Also, these properties do not indicate the superiority or inferiority of any medical system. 5. 證(zheng) summarizes the patients condition simultaneously with the S.A.S. However, 證(zheng) doesn't necessarily indicate the knowledge about the actual internal organ. That is, Early in O.M.'s history, the diagnostic terminologies including 證(zheng) were analogical reflections of a naive knowledge of internal organs and external environmental factors. Later, the naive knowledge in 證(zheng) changed int new nature, an abstractive concept. The confusion of the concept of disease, the indiscriminate acceptance of Western anatomical knowledge, and the O.M.'s theoretical evolution et are the challenge facing modern O.M. To find solutions, this study looks at the sequence of the birth of W.M.M. and then compares it's system with the O.M. system. The confusion of the concept of disease, the indiscriminate acceptance of Western anatomical knowledge, and the O.M.'s theoretical evolution et are the challenge facing modern O.M. To find solutions, this study looks at the sequence of the birth of W.M.M. and then compares it's system with the O.M. system. It is recommended that O.M. diagnostics should pay close attention to the ambiguity of the diagnostic methodology in order to further development. At present time, the concept and the system peculiar to O.M. can not be explained by common language. but O.M.'s practitioner can not persist in this manner an: longer. Along with the internal development of O.M., the adjustment of O.M.'s diagnostic terminology needs to be adopted.
Our society has long been talking about necessity for innovation. Since companies in particular need to carry out business innovation in their overall processes, they have attempted to apply many innovation factors on sites and become to pay more attention to their innovation. In order to achieve this goal, companies has applied various information technologies (IT) on sites as a means of innovation, and consequently IT have been greatly developed. It is natural for the field of IT to have faced another revolution which is called cloud computing, which is expected to result in innovative changes in software application via the Internet, data storing, the use of devices, and their operations. As a vehicle of innovation, cloud computing is expected to lead the changes and advancement of our society and the business world. Although many scholars have researched on a variety of topics regarding the innovation via IT, few studies have dealt with the issue of could computing as IT. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to set the variables of innovation attributes based on the previous articles as the characteristic variables and clarify how these variables affect "Performance Expectancy" of companies and the intention of using cloud computing. The result from the analysis of data collected in this study is as follows. The study utilized a research model developed on the innovation diffusion theory to identify influences on the adaptation and spreading IT for cloud computing services. Second, this study summarized the characteristics of cloud computing services as a new concept that introduces innovation at its early stage of adaptation for companies. Third, a theoretical model is provided that relates to the future innovation by suggesting variables for innovation characteristics to adopt cloud computing services. Finally, this study identified the factors affecting expectation and the intention to use the cloud computing service for the companies that consider adopting the cloud computing service. As the parameter and dependent variable respectively, the study deploys the independent variables that are aligned with the characteristics of the cloud computing services based on the innovation diffusion model, and utilizes the expectation for performance and Intention to Use based on the UTAUT theory. Independent variables for the research model include Relative Advantage, Complexity, Compatibility, Cost Saving, Trialability, and Observability. In addition, 'Acceptance for Adaptation' is applied as an adjustment variable to verify the influences on the expected performances from the cloud computing service. The validity of the research model was secured by performing factor analysis and reliability analysis. After confirmatory factor analysis is conducted using AMOS 7.0, the 20 hypotheses are verified through the analysis of the structural equation model, accepting 12 hypotheses among 20. For example, Relative Advantage turned out to have the positive effect both on Individual Performance and on Strategic Performance from the verification of hypothesis, while it showed meaningful correlation to affect Intention to Use directly. This indicates that many articles on the diffusion related Relative Advantage as the most important factor to predict the rate to accept innovation. From the viewpoint of the influence on Performance Expectancy among Compatibility and Cost Saving, Compatibility has the positive effect on both Individual Performance and on Strategic Performance, while it showed meaningful correlation with Intention to Use. However, the topic of the cloud computing service has become a strategic issue for adoption in companies, Cost Saving turns out to affect Individual Performance without a significant influence on Intention to Use. This indicates that companies expect practical performances such as time and cost saving and financial improvements through the adoption of the cloud computing service in the environment of the budget squeezing from the global economic crisis from 2008. Likewise, this positively affects the strategic performance in companies. In terms of effects, Trialability is proved to give no effects on Performance Expectancy. This indicates that the participants of the survey are willing to afford the risk from the high uncertainty caused by innovation, because they positively pursue information about new ideas as innovators and early adopter. In addition, they believe it is unnecessary to test the cloud computing service before the adoption, because there are various types of the cloud computing service. However, Observability positively affected both Individual Performance and Strategic Performance. It also showed meaningful correlation with Intention to Use. From the analysis of the direct effects on Intention to Use by innovative characteristics for the cloud computing service except the parameters, the innovative characteristics for the cloud computing service showed the positive influence on Relative Advantage, Compatibility and Observability while Complexity, Cost saving and the likelihood for the attempt did not affect Intention to Use. While the practical verification that was believed to be the most important factor on Performance Expectancy by characteristics for cloud computing service, Relative Advantage, Compatibility and Observability showed significant correlation with the various causes and effect analysis. Cost Saving showed a significant relation with Strategic Performance in companies, which indicates that the cost to build and operate IT is the burden of the management. Thus, the cloud computing service reflected the expectation as an alternative to reduce the investment and operational cost for IT infrastructure due to the recent economic crisis. The cloud computing service is not pervasive in the business world, but it is rapidly spreading all over the world, because of its inherited merits and benefits. Moreover, results of this research regarding the diffusion innovation are more or less different from those of the existing articles. This seems to be caused by the fact that the cloud computing service has a strong innovative factor that results in a new paradigm shift while most IT that are based on the theory of innovation diffusion are limited to companies and organizations. In addition, the participants in this study are believed to play an important role as innovators and early adapters to introduce the cloud computing service and to have competency to afford higher uncertainty for innovation. In conclusion, the introduction of the cloud computing service is a critical issue in the business world.
Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.