• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.987-996
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• 1996

Background : We prospectively evaluated the applicability and effect of noninvasive ventilation (NIV) in acute respiratory failure and tried to find out the parameters that could predict successful application of NIV. Methods : Twenty-six out of 106 patients with either acute ventilatory failure (VF: $PaCO_2$ > 43 mm Hg with pH < 7.35) or oxygenation failure (OF: $PaO_2/AO_2$ < 300 mm Hg with $pH{\geq}7.35$) requiring mechanical ventilation were managed by NIV (CPAP + pressure suppon, or BiPAP) with face mask. Eleven out of 19 cases with VF (57.9%) (M : F=7 : $55.4{\pm}14.6$ yrs) and 15 out of 87 cases with OF (17.2%) (M : F=12 : 3, $50.6{\pm}15.6$ yrs) were s uilable for NIY. Respiratory rates, arterial blood gases and success rate of NIV were analyzed in each group. Results: 81.8% (9/11) of YF and 40% (6/15) of OF were successfully managed on NIV and were weruled from mechanical ventilator without resorting to endotracheal intubation. Complications were noted in 2 cases (nasal skin necrosis 1, gaseous gastric distension 1). In NIV for ventilatory failure, the respiration rate was significantly decreased at 12 hour of NIV ($34{\pm}9$ /min pre-NIV, $26{\pm}6$ /min at 12 hour of NIV, p=0.045), while $PaCO_2$ ($87.3{\pm}20.6$ mm Hg pre-NIV, $81.2{\pm}9.1$ mm Hg at 24 hour of NIV) and pH ($7.26{\pm}0.04$, $7.32{\pm}0.02$, respectively, p <0.05) were both significantly decreased at 24 hour of NIV In NIV for oxygenation failure, $PaCO_2$ were not different between the successful and the failed cases at pre-NIV and till 12 hours after NIV. The $PaO_2/FIO_2$ ratio, however, significantly improved at 0.5 hour of NIV in successful cases and were maintained at around 200 mm Hg (n=6 : at baseline, 0.5h, 6h, 12h : $120.0{\pm}19.6$, $218.9{\pm}98.3$, $191.3{\pm}55.2$, $232.8{\pm}17.6$ mm Hg, respectively, p=0.0211), but it did not rise in the failed cases (n=9 : $127.9{\pm}63.0$, $116.8{\pm}24.4$, $100.6{\pm}34.6$, $129.8{\pm}50.3$ mm Hg, respectively, p=0.5319). Conclusion : From the above results we conclude that NIV is effective for hypercapnic respiratory failure and its success was heralded by reduction of respiration rale before the reduction in $PaCO_2$ level. In hypoxic respiratory failure, NIV is much less effective, and the immediate improvement of $PaO_2/FIO_2$ ratio at 0.5h after application is thought to be a predictor of successful NIV.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.67-93
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange. The innovative SMEs is defined as the firms with high level of R&D intensity which is measured by (R&D investment/total sales) ratio, according to Chauvin and Hirschey (1993). The R&D investment plays an important role as the innovative driver that can increase the future growth opportunity and profitability of the firms. Therefore, the R&D investment have large, positive, and consistent influences on the market value of the firm. In this point of view, we expect that the innovative SMEs can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. And also, we expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Aivazian et al.(2006) exert that the financial unconstrained firms with the high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms. We collect the sample firms among the total SMEs listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange during the periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. The total number of firm-year observations of the total sample firms throughout the entire period is 5,544, the number of firm-year observations of the dividend firms is 2,919, and the number of firm-year observations of the non-dividend firms is 2,625. About 53%(or 2,919) of these total 5,544 observations involve firms that make a dividend payment. The dividend firms are divided into two groups according to the R&D intensity, such as the innovative SMEs with larger than median of R&D intensity and the noninnovative SMEs with smaller than median of R&D intensity. The number of firm-year observations of the innovative SMEs is 1,506, and the number of firm-year observations of the noninnovative SMEs is 1,413. Furthermore, the innovative SMEs are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints, such as the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms. The number of firm-year observations of the former is 894, and the number of firm-year observations of the latter is 612. Although all available firm-year observations of the dividend firms are collected, deletions are made in the case of financial industries such as banks, securities company, insurance company, and other financial services company, because their capital structure and business style are widely different from the general manufacturing firms. The stock repurchase was involved in dividend payment because Grullon and Michaely (2002) examined the substitution hypothesis between dividends and stock repurchases. However, our data structure is an unbalanced panel data since there is no requirement that the firm-year observations data are all available for each firms during the entire periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. We firstly estimate the classic Lintner(1956) dividend adjustment model, where the decision to smooth dividend or to adopt a residual dividend policy depends on financial constraints measured by market accessibility. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between current payout rato and target payout ratio each year. In the Lintner model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), and independent variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t). We hypothesized that firms adjust partially the gap between the current dividend per share(DPS_t) and the target payout ratio(Ω) each year, when the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) deviate from the target payout ratio(Ω). We secondly estimate the expansion model that extend the Lintner model by including the determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory. In the expansion model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), explanatory variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t), and control variables are the current capital expenditure ratio(CEA_t), the current leverage ratio(LEV_t), the current operating return on assets(ROA_t), the current business risk(RISK_t), the current trading volume turnover ratio(TURN_t), and the current dividend premium(DPREM_t). In these control variables, CEA_t, LEV_t, and ROA_t are the determinants suggested by the residual dividend theory and the agency theory, ROA_t and RISK_t are the determinants suggested by the dividend signaling theory, TURN_t is the determinant suggested by the transactions cost theory, and DPREM_t is the determinant suggested by the catering theory. Furthermore, we thirdly estimate the Lintner model and the expansion model by using the panel data of the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms, that are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints. We expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, because the former can finance more easily the investment funds through the market accessibility than the latter. We analyzed descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and median to delete the outliers from the panel data, conducted one way analysis of variance to check up the industry-specfic effects, and conducted difference test of firms characteristic variables between innovative SMEs and noninnovative SMEs as well as difference test of firms characteristic variables between financial unconstrained firms and financial constrained firms. We also conducted the correlation analysis and the variance inflation factors analysis to detect any multicollinearity among the independent variables. Both of the correlation coefficients and the variance inflation factors are roughly low to the extent that may be ignored the multicollinearity among the independent variables. Furthermore, we estimate both of the Lintner model and the expansion model using the panel regression analysis. We firstly test the time-specific effects and the firm-specific effects may be involved in our panel data through the Lagrange multiplier test that was proposed by Breusch and Pagan(1980), and secondly conduct Hausman test to prove that fixed effect model is fitter with our panel data than the random effect model. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. The determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory explain significantly the dividend policy of the innovative SMEs. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between the current payout ratio and the target payout ratio each year. In the core variables of Lintner model, the past dividend per share has more effects to dividend smoothing than the current earnings per share. These results suggest that the innovative SMEs maintain stable and long run dividend policy which sustains the past dividend per share level without corporate special reasons. The main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs is faster than that of the noninnovative SMEs. This means that the innovative SMEs with high level of R&D intensity can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. The other main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the financial unconstrained SMEs is faster than that of the financial constrained SMEs. This means that the financial unconstrained firms with high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Futhermore, the other additional results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs classified by the Small and Medium Business Administration is faster than that of the unclassified SMEs. They are linked with various financial policies and services such as credit guaranteed service, policy fund for SMEs, venture investment fund, insurance program, and so on. In conclusion, the past dividend per share and the current earnings per share suggested by the Lintner model explain mainly dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs, and also the financial constraints explain partially. Therefore, if managers can properly understand of the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative SMEs, they can maintain stable and long run dividend policy of the innovative SMEs through dividend smoothing. These are encouraging results for Korea government, that is, the Small and Medium Business Administration as it has implemented many policies to commit to the innovative SMEs. This paper may have a few limitations because it may be only early study about the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of the innovative SMEs. Specifically, this paper may not adequately capture all of the subtle features of the innovative SMEs and the financial unconstrained SMEs. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to expand sample firms and control variables, and use more elaborate analysis methods in the future studies.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.99-111
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• 1973

Percentage recovery or fertilizer nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium by rice plant(Oriza sativa L.) were investigated at 8, 10, 12, 14 kg/10a of N, 6 kg of $P_2O_5$ and 8 kg of $K_2O$ application level in 1967 (51 places) and 1968 (32 places). Two types of nutrient contribution for the yield, that is, P type in which phosphorus firstly increases silicate uptake and secondly silicate increases nitrogen uptake, and K type in which potassium firstly increases P uptake and secondly P increases nitrogen uptake were postulated according to the following results from the correlation analyses (linear) between percentage recovery of fertilizer nutrient and grain or dry matter yields and nutrient uptake. 1. Percentage frequency of minus or zero recovery occurrence was 4% in nitrogen, 48% in phosphorus and 38% in potassium. The frequency distribution of percentage recovery appeared as a normal distribution curve with maximum at 30 to 40 recovery class in nitrogen, but appeared as a show distribution with maximum at below zero class in phosphorus and potassium. 2. Percentage recovery (including only above zero) was 33 in N (above 10kg/10a), 27 in P, 40 in K in 1967 and 40 in N, 20 in P, 46 in Kin 1968. Mean percentage recovery of two years including zero for zero or below zero was 33 in N, 13 in P and 27 in K. 3. Standard deviation of percentage recovery was greater than percentage recovery in P and K and annual variation of CV (coefficient of variation) was greatest in P. 4. The frequency of significant correlation between percentage recovery and grain or dry matter yield was highest in N and lowest in P. Percentage recovery of nitrogen at 10 kg level has significant correlation only with percentage recovery of P in 1967 and only with that of potassium in 1968. 5. The correlation between percentage recovery and dry matter yield of all treatments showed only significant in P in 1967, and only significant in K in 1968, Negative correlation coefficients between percentage recovery and grain or dry matter yield of no or minus fertilizer plots were shown only in K in 1967 and only in P in 1968 indicating that phosphorus fertilizer gave a distinct positive role in 1967 but somewhat' negative role in 1968 while potassium fertilizer worked positively in 1968 but somewhat negatively in 1967. 6. The correlation between percentage recovery of nutrient and grain yield showed similar tendency as with dry matter yield but lower coefficients. Thus the role of nutrients was more precisely expressed through dry matter yield. 7. Percentage recovery of N very frequently had significant correlation with nitrogen uptake of nitrogen applied plot, and significant negative correlation with nitrogen uptake of minus nitrogen plot, and less frequently had significant correlation with P, K and Si uptake of nitrogen applied plot. 8. Percentage recovery of P had significant correlation with Si uptake of all treatments and with N uptake of all treatments except minus phosphorus plot in 1967 indicating that phosphorus application firstly increases Si uptake and secondly silicate increases nitrogen uptake. Percentage recovery of P also frequently had significant correlation with P or K uptake of nitrogen applied plot. 9. Percentage recovery of K had significant correlation with P uptake of all treatments, N uptake of all treatments except minus phosphorus plot, and significant negative correlation with K uptake of minus K plot and with Si uptake of no fertilizer plot or the highest N applied plot in 1968, and negative correlation coefficient with P uptake of no fertilizer or minus nutrient plot in 1967. Percentage recovery of K had higher correlation coefficients with dry matter yield or grain yield than with K uptake. The above facts suggest that K application firstly increases P uptake and secondly phosphorus increases nitrogen uptake for dry matter yied. 10. Percentage recovery of N had significant higher correlation coefficient with grain yield or dry matter yield of minus K plot than with those of minus phosphorus plot, and had higher with those of fertilizer plot than with those of minus K plot. Similar tendency was observed between N uptake and percentage recovery of N among the above treatments. Percentage recovery of K had negative correlation coefficient with grain or-dry matter yield of no fertilizer plot or minus nutrient plot. These facts reveal that phosphorus increases nitrogen uptake and when phosphorus or nitrogen is insufficient potassium competatively inhibits nitrogen uptake. 11. Percentage recovery of N, Pand K had significant negative correlation with relative dry matter yield of minus phosphorus plot (yield of minus plot x 100/yield of complete plot; in 1967 and with relative grain yield of minus K plot in 1968. These results suggest that phosphorus affects tillering or vegetative phase more while potassium affects grain formation or Reproductive phase more, and that clearly show the annual difference of P and K fertilizer effect according to the weather. 12. The correlation between percentage recovery of fertilizer and the relative yield of minus nutrient plat or that of no fertilizer plot to that of minus nutrient plot indicated that nitrogen is the most effective factor for the production even in the minus P or K plot. 13. From the above facts it could be concluded that about 40 to 50 percen of paddy fields do rot require P or K fertilizer and even in the case of need the application amount should be greatly different according to field and weather of the year, especially in phosphorus.