• Title/Summary/Keyword: Practice performance

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A Study on the legal position of the carrier under the right of stoppage in transit of CISG (국제물품매매계약(CISG)의 운송유보권 하에서 운송인의 법적지위에 관한 연구)

  • Lim, Jaewook
    • International Commerce and Information Review
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.159-182
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    • 2014
  • CISG Article 71 (1) states that a party may suspend the performance of his obligations if, after the conclusion of the contract, it becomes apparent that the other party will net perform a substantial part of his obligations as a result of a serious deficiency in his ability to perform or in his creditworthiness or his conduct in preparing to perform or in perfoming the contract. CISG Article 71 (2) states a 'right of stoppage in transit' that if the seller has already dispatched the goods before the grounds described in the preceding paragraph become evident, he may prevent the handing over of the goods to the buyer even though the buyer holds a document which entitles him to obtain them. The present paragraph relates only to the rights in the goods as between the buyer and the seller. Under the right of stoppage in transit, the carrier copes with risks that the seller may claim damages arose from the handing over the goods, if he hand over the goods to the buyer and that the buyer may claim damages, if he deny handing over the goods to the buyer who has the document which entitles him to obtain the goods. Therefore the legal position of the carrier may become weak. This paper purpose to point out the legal weakness of the carrier under the right of stoppage in transit and to provide the proper legal act of the carrier and possible practice related to various characters of the contract of sale of the goods. Although there is the opinion it prevent from handing over the goods to the buyer actually under the interpretation that the buyer should take claim damages to the seller, if the goods are handed over to the buyer under the right of stoppage in transit, it is not appropriate because the opinion may disable the right of stoppage in transit. The right of stoppage in transit could be carried out under any payment conditions except letter of credit and under any mode of transportation except the cases that carrier is the buyer himself or the agent of the buyer. It could be executed regardless the forms of the transport document.

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Air Carrier's Civil Liability for Overbooking (항공권의 초과예약(Overbooking)에 관한 항공사의 민사책임)

  • Kwon, Chang-Young
    • The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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    • v.31 no.1
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    • pp.99-144
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    • 2016
  • The summary of the case is as follows: a Korean passenger booked and purchased a business class ticket from Air France that was scheduled to depart from Paris and arrive in Seoul. When the passenger arrived at the check-in counter, he was told that all business class seats were occupied. It was because the flight was overbooked by Air France. The passenger cancelled the Air France flight and took another air carrier. After arriving in Korea, he brought suit against Air France for damages. The purpose of this article is to discuss the governing law when interpreting the contract of international air carriage in accordance with the Korean Private International Act (2001) and to analyze air carrier's civil liability for the bumped passenger in the overbooking case. If the parties have not chosen the applicable law the contract shall be governed by the law of the habitual residence of the consumer in the following situations: prior to the conclusion of the contract, the opposite party of the consumer conducted solicitation of transactions and other occupational or business activities by an advertisement in that country or conducted solicitation of transactions and other occupational or business activities by an advertisement into that country from the areas outside that country and the consumer took all the steps necessary for the conclusion of the contract in that country or in case the opposite party of the consumer received an order of the consumer in that country [Article 27 (1), (2) of the Private International Act]. Since the contract of international carriage falls into the consumer contract, the Supreme Court viewed that the governing law of the contract in this case would be the law of the habitual residence of the consumer (Supreme Court Decision 2013Da8410 decided on Aug. 28, 2014). This interpretation differs from the article 5 (4) of Rome Convention(80/934/EEC) which declares that the consumer contract article shall not apply to neither a contract of carriage nor a contract for the supply of services where the services are to be supplied to the consumer exclusively in a country other than that in which he has his habitual residence. Even though overbooking can be considered as a common industry practice, an air carrier must burden civil liability in case of breach of contract for the involuntary bumped passenger(Seoul Central District Court Decision 2014Na48391 decided on Jan. 29, 2015). In case of involuntary bumping, an air carrier must offer re-routing to passenger's final destination by an alternative flight. If an air carrier fails to effect performance in accordance with the tenor and purport of the obligation, the involuntary bumped passenger may claim damages(Article 390 of the Civil Code).

Dehumidification and Temperature Control for Green Houses using Lithium Bromide Solution and Cooling Coil (리튬브로마이드(LiBr) 용액의 흡습성질과 냉각코일을 이용한 온실 습도 및 온도 제어)

  • Lee, Sang Yeol;Lee, Chung Geon;Euh, Seung Hee;Oh, Kwang Cheol;Oh, Jae Heun;Kim, Dea Hyun
    • Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.337-341
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    • 2014
  • Due to the nature of the ambient air temperature in summer in korea, the growth of crops in greenhouse normally requires cooling and dehumidification. Even though various cooling and dehumidification methods have been presented, there are many obstacles to figure out in practical application such as excessive energy use, cost, and performance. To overcome this problem, the lab scale experiments using lithium bromide(LiBr) solution and cooling coil for dehumidification and cooling in greenhouses were performed. In this study, preliminary experiment of dehumidification and cooling for the greenhouse was done using LiBr solution as the dehumidifying materials, and cooling coil separately and then combined system was tested as well. Hot and humid air was dehumidified from 85% to 70% by passing through a pad soaked with LiBr, and cooled from 308K to 299K through the cooling coil. computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) analysis and analytical solution were done for the change of air temperature by heat transfer. Simulation results showed that the final air temperature was calculated 299.7K and 299.9K respectively with the deviation of 0.7K comparing the experimental value having good agreement. From this result, LiBr solution with cooling coil system could be applicable in the greenhouse.

The Effects of Psychological Contract Violation on OS User's Betrayal Behaviors: Window XP Technical Support Ending Case (심리적 계약 위반이 OS이용자의 배신 행동에 미치는 영향: 윈도우 XP 기술적 지원서비스 중단 사례)

  • Lee, Un-Kon
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.325-344
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    • 2014
  • Technical support of Window XP ended in March, 8, 2014, and it makes OS(Operating System) users fall in a state of confusion. Sudden decision making of OS upgrade and replacement is not a simple problem. Firms need to change the long term capacity plan in enterprise IS management, but they are pressed for time and cost to complete it. Individuals can not help selecting the second best plan, because the following OSs of Window XP are below expectations in performances, new PC sales as the opportunities of OS upgrade decrease, and the potential risk of OS technical support ending had not announced to OS users at the point of purchase. Microsoft as the OS vendors had not presented precaution or remedy for this confusion. Rather, Microsoft announced that the technical support of the other following OSs of Wndow XP such as Window 7 would ended in two years. This conflict between OS vendor and OS users could not happen in one time, but could recur in recent future. Although studies on the ways of OS user protection policy would be needed to escape from this conflict, few prior studies had conducted this issue. This study had challenge to cautiously investigate in such OS user's reactions as the confirmation with OS user's expectation in the point of purchase, three types of justice perception on the treatment of OS vendor, psychological contract violation, satisfaction and the other betrayal behavioral intention in the case of Window XP technical support ending. By adopting the justice perception on this research, and by empirically validating the impact on OS user's reactions, I could suggest the direction of establishing OS user protection policy of OS vendor. Based on the expectation-confirmation theory, the theory of justice, literatures about psychological contract violation, and studies about consumer betrayal behaviors in the perspective of Herzberg(1968)'s dual factor theory, I developed the research model and hypothesis. Expectation-confirmation theory explain that consumers had expectation on the performance of product in the point of sale, and they could satisfied with their purchase behaviors, when the expectation could have confirmed in the point of consumption. The theory of justice in social exchange argues that treatee could be willing to accept the treatment by treater when the three types of justice as distributive, procedural, and interactional justice could be established in treatment. Literatures about psychological contract violation in human behaviors explains that contracter in a side could have the implied contract (also called 'psychological contract') which the contracter in the other side would sincerely execute the contract, and that they are willing to do vengeance behaviors when their contract had unfairly been broken. When the psychological contract of consumers had been broken, consumers feel distrust with the vendors and are willing to decrease such beneficial attitude and behavior as satisfaction, loyalty and repurchase intention. At the same time, consumers feel betrayal and are willing to increase such retributive attitude and behavior as negative word-of-mouth, complain to the vendors, complain to the third parties for consumer protection. We conducted a scenario survey in order to validate our research model at March, 2013, when is the point of news released firstly and when is the point of one year before the acture Window XP technical support ending. We collected the valid data from 238 voluntary participants who are the OS users but had not yet exposed the news of Window OSs technical support ending schedule. The subject had been allocated into two groups and one of two groups had been exposed this news. The data had been analyzed by the MANOVA and PLS. MANOVA results indicate that the OSs technical support ending could significantly decrease all three types of justice perception. PLS results indicated that it could significantly increase psychological contract violation and that this increased psychological contract violation could significantly reduce the trust and increase the perceived betrayal. Then, it could significantly reduce satisfaction, loyalty, and repurchase intention, and it also could significantly increase negative word-of-month intention, complain to the vendor intention, and complain to the third party intention. All hypothesis had been significantly approved. Consequently, OS users feel that the OSs technical support ending is not natural value added service ending, but the violation of the core OS purchase contract, that it could be the posteriori prohibition of OS user's OS usage right, and that it could induce the psychological contract violation of OS users. This study would contributions to introduce the psychological contract violation of the OS users from the OSs technical support ending in IS field, to introduce three types of justice as the antecedents of psychological contract violation, and to empirically validate the impact of psychological contract violation both on the beneficial and retributive behavioral intentions of OS users. For practice, the results of this study could contribute to make more comprehensive OS user protection policy and consumer relationship management practices of OS vendor.

Favorable Outcome in Elderly Asian Patients with Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma Treated with Everolimus: The Osaka Urologic Oncology Group

  • Inamoto, Teruo;Azuma, Haruhito;Nonomura, Norio;Nakatani, Tatsuya;Matsuda, Tadashi;Nozawa, Masahiro;Ueda, Takeshi;Kinoshita, Hidefumi;Nishimura, Kazuo;Kanayama, Hiro-Omi;Miki, Tsuneharu;Tomita, Yoshihiko;Yoshioka, Toshiaki;Tsujihata, Masao;Uemura, Hirotsugu
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.1811-1815
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    • 2014
  • Background: In clinical trials with no upper age limit, the proportion of older patients is usually small, probably reflecting the more conservative approach adopted by clinicians when treating the elderly. An exploratory analysis of elderly patients in the RECORD-1 Trial showed that patients ${\geq}$ 65 y.o. had superior median PFS than overall RECORD-1 population (5.4 months and 4.9 months, respectively). We investigated the efficacy, relative benefit and safety of Everolimus (EVE) as sequential therapy after failure of VEGFr-TKI therapy for older patients with metastatic renal cell cancer (mRCC), in daily practice. Materials and Methods: 172 consecutive IRB approved patients with mRCC (median age 65, M:F 135/37, 78% clear cell) who received salvage EVE at 39 tertiary institutions between October 2009 and August 2011 were included in this analysis. Some 31% had progressed on sunitinib, 22% on sorafenib, 1% on axitinib, 41% on sequential therapy, and 5% had received other therapy. Patients with brain metastases were not included and 95% of the patients had a ECOG (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group) performance status (PS) of 0 or 1. Previous radiotherapy was an exclusion criterion, but prior chemotherapy was permitted. Adequate organ function and hematologic parameters were mandatory. EVE administration was approved by the institutional review board at each participating institution and signed informed consent was obtained from all patients. Results: Median time of the whole cohort to last follow-up was 3.5 months (range 0.4-15.2 months). Forty four percent were continuing to take EVE at last followup. There were 86 (50%) patients ${\geq}$ 65 y.o. and 86 (50%) <65 y.o. The percentage of patients who showed PR/SD was higher in the older group than in the younger one (5.9%/61.2% vs 1.2%/46.5%, respectively). Median survival of older patients was also significantly longer (3.5 +/- 0.31 vs 3.1 +/- 0.34, hazard ratio=0.45, CI; 0.255-0.802). Analysis using Cox regression model adjusted for gender, PS, number of metastases, site of metastases, histology, smoking history and age detected an association between age and PFS (p=0.011). The frequency of adverse events in elderly patients treated with EVE was no greater than that in younger patients, although such toxicity may have had a greater impact on their quality of life. Conclusions: Older patients should not generally be excluded from accepted therapies (mTOR inhibitors after failure of VEGFr-TKI therapy) for mRCC.

Perspective of breaking stagnation of soybean yield under monsoon climate

  • Shiraiwa, Tatsuhiko
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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    • 2017.06a
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    • pp.8-9
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    • 2017
  • Soybean yield has been low and unstable in Japan and other areas in East Asia, despite long history of cultivation. This is contrasting with consistent increase of yield in North and South America. This presentation tries to describe perspective of breaking stagnation of soybean yield in East Asia, considering the factors of the different yields between regions. Large amount of rainfall with occasional dry-spell in the summer is a nature of monsoon climate and as frequently stated excess water is the factor of low and unstable soybean yield. For example, there exists a great deal of field-to-field variation in yield of 'Tanbaguro' soybean, which is reputed for high market value and thus cultivated intensively and this results in low average yield. According to our field survey, a major portion of yield variation occurs in early growth period. Soybean production on drained paddy fields is also vulnerable to drought stress after flowering. An analysis at the above study site demonstrated a substantial field-to-field variation of canopy transpiration activity in the mid-summer, but the variation of pod-set was not as large as that of early growth. As frequently mentioned by the contest winners of good practice farming, avoidance of excess water problem in the early growth period is of greatest importance. A series of technological development took place in Japan in crop management for stable crop establishment and growth, that includes seed-bed preparation with ridge and/or chisel ploughing, adjustment of seed moisture content, seed treatment with mancozeb+metalaxyl and the water table control system, FOEAS. A unique success is seen in the tidal swamp area in South Sumatra with the Saturated Soil Culture (SSC), which is for managing acidity problem of pyrite soils. In 2016, an average yield of $2.4tha^{-1}$ was recorded for a 450 ha area with SSC (Ghulamahdi 2017, personal communication). This is a sort of raised bed culture and thus the moisture condition is kept markedly stable during growth period. For genetic control, too, many attempts are on-going for better emergence and plant growth after emergence under excess water. There seems to exist two aspects of excess water resistance, one related to phytophthora resistance and the other with better growth under excess water. The improvement for the latter is particularly challenging and genomic approach is expected to be effectively utilized. The crop model simulation would estimate/evaluate the impact of environmental and genetic factors. But comprehensive crop models for soybean are mainly for cultivations on upland fields and crop response to excess water is not fully accounted for. A soybean model for production on drained paddy fields under monsoon climate is demanded to coordinate technological development under changing climate. We recently recognized that the yield potential of recent US cultivars is greater than that of Japanese cultivars and this also may be responsible for different yield trends. Cultivar comparisons proved that higher yields are associated with greater biomass production specifically during early seed filling, in which high and well sustained activity of leaf gas exchange is related. In fact, the leaf stomatal conductance is considered to have been improved during last a couple of decades in the USA through selections for high yield in several crop species. It is suspected that priority to product quality of soybean as food crop, especially large seed size in Japan, did not allow efficient improvement of productivity. We also recently found a substantial variation of yielding performance under an environment of Indonesia among divergent cultivars from tropical and temperate regions through in a part biomass productivity. Gas exchange activity again seems to be involved. Unlike in North America where transpiration adjustment is considered necessary to avoid terminal drought, under the monsoon climate with wet summer plants with higher activity of gas exchange than current level might be advantageous. In order to explore higher or better-adjusted canopy function, the methodological development is demanded for canopy-level evaluation of transpiration activity. The stagnation of soybean yield would be broken through controlling variable water environment and breeding efforts to improve the quality-oriented cultivars for stable and high yield.

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A Survey on the Workplace Environment and Personal Protective Equipment of Poultry Farmers (양계 농업인의 작업장 환경 및 개인보호구 착용 실태조사)

  • Kim, Insoo;Kim, Kyung-Ran;Lee, Kyung-Suk;Chae, Hye-Seon;Kim, Sungwoo
    • Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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    • v.40 no.6
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    • pp.454-468
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    • 2014
  • Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the actual condition of the farm work environment and personal protective equipment as part of the effort to improve livestock work for the safety and health of poultry farmers and provide basic data for establishing plans to improve and develop personal protective equipment. Methods: For this purpose, a questionnaire survey on general information about stables, the poultry work environment, accidents, the wearing of work clothes and personal protective equipment, and the level of awareness related to personal protective equipment was conducted among 148 poultry farmers. Results: As a result, it was found that poultry workplace environment was exposed to such risks as fine dusts; organic dusts; poisonous gases; odorous substances; chicken excrement; contact with chickens, bacteria or viruses; and accidents related to machine operation. Thirteen percent of respondents suffered severe respiratory diseases, and the most frequently injured sites due to accidents were the hands (25.7%), knees (23.8%), arms (17.3%), and head (10.9%). The most frequent type of accident was collisions between the body and obstacles or machinery during movement (36.4%), followed by erroneous machine operation such as feeders and electric shocks (8.5%). Regarding the wearing of work clothes and personal protective equipment, 51.7% of the respondents wore worn-out clothing or everyday clothes, whereas only 32.0% wore work clothes. The percentage of farmers who wore proper protective equipment for the work environment during poultry work was 48.4%. The most frequently used type of protective equipment was boots (38.9%), followed by mask (36.7%), gloves (36.3%), appropriate work clothes (22.6%), quarantine clothes (17.6%), helmets (13.4%), and goggles (12.6%). The rate of wearing goggles was low because they were considered inconvenient and lowered work efficiency. Furthermore, they purchased everyday products available on the market for their personal protective equipment which were not appropriate for maintaining safety in an actual harmful environment and its consequent risks. As a result of the survey of the awareness level related to personal protective equipment, their levels of awareness of accidents and attitude proved to be average or higher, but the practice of wearing protective equipment and the level of knowledge and management of personal protective equipment were lower. Conclusion: This survey found that the wearing status of personal protective equipment among poultry farmers was insufficient even though they were exposed to risks. Most respondents were aware of the necessity of wearing personal protective equipment and of the potential for accidents, but they did not wear proper protective equipment. Their wearing rate was low due to a lack of knowledge about protective equipment, as well as the inconvenience of wearing it. Therefore there is a need to improve and develop specialized personal protective equipment for respiration, hands, and eyes, as well as work clothes that can protect farmers from major harmful matter that is generated in the poultry workplace. Based on the results of this investigation, we will conduct further studies on the required performance and design directions of personal protective equipment while collecting more objective data through field-oriented assessments.

Middle school Home Economics teachers' perception and actual performance of self-supervision at school related to Home Economics (중학교 가정과 교사의 교과 관련 교내 자율장학에 대한 인식과 실태)

  • Go, Mi-Young;Chae, Jung-Hyun
    • Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.91-107
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    • 2010
  • The purpose of this study was to investigate what middle school Home Economics(HE) teachers perceive, practice and need for self-supervision at school related to HE. Questionnaires were sent by E-mail and 150 were collected. Descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, average, standard deviation, t-test and ANOVA analysis were reported using SPSS/win 10.1. The results of this research were as follows: First, middle school HE teachers perceived that self-supervision at school was essential since it promoted self reflection of teachers themselves and improved professional skills. Furthermore, peer-coaching was highly preferred. Second, negative responses to the supervision of principal, vice-principal, and peer teachers overwhelmed positive answers. Information exchange among peer teachers was frequent, yet, approximately 22.6% of middle school HE teachers were still avoiding sharing information process for several reasons. About half of the teachers answered that all teachers needed to participate in this process. Third, they pointed out that self-supervision at school was not implemented well because of the lack of time due to the heavy work load, negative and passive attitude for the improvement of teaching-learning activities, administration-centered supervision that did not reflect teachers' opinion, and shortage of economical, and environmental support.. HE teachers perceived that peer teachers who were doing good practices were most helpful for the supervision. Also, they preferred self-evaluation at the end of the self-supervision at school. Forth, to improve self-supervision at school, there were very high demands for reduction of administrative work, additional time, fundamental philosophy toward HE education. Fifth, the purpose and detailed plans of self-supervision were recognized as the results that were democratically derived by the HE teachers. Sixth, class inspection and informal inspection were operated once in a year, and self-training was rarely operated. Peer coaching and self-coaching were operated occasionally. Self-coaching and peer coaching were reported as the most helpful types of supervision. In addition, HE teachers answered that supervision was helpful to teaching method followed by contents, evaluation, and philosophy of education.

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Why Your Manuscripts Were Rejected or Required a Major Revision: An Analysis of Asia Pacific Journal if Information Systems (MIS 논문의 '게재 불가' 및 '수정 후 재심사' 사유: Asia Pacific Journal of Information Systems 심사소견서 분석)

  • Lee, Choong-C.;Yun, Hae-Jung;Hwang, Seong-Hoon
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.179-193
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    • 2009
  • As the common saying attests, a publish-or-perish world, publishing is absolutely critical for academic researchers' successful careers. It is the most objectively-accepted academic performance criteria and the most viable way to attain public and academic recognition. Asia Pacific Journal of Information Systems(APJIS) has been recognized as the most influential domestic journal in Korean MIS field since July, 1991. Therefore, publishing in APJIS means your research is original, valid, and contributive. While most researchers learn how to publish an article in APJIS through a repetitive review process, thereby improving their chance of the' accepted' through their personal trial and error experiences, such valuable lessons and know-how tend to be kept personally and rarely shared. However, useful insights into research and publication skills could be also gained from sharing others' errors, neglect, and misjudgments which are equally critical in improving researchers' knowledge in the field (Murthy and Wiggins, 2002). For this reason, other academic disciplines make systematic efforts to examine the paper review process of major journals and share the findings from these studies with the rest of the research community members (Beyer et al., 1995; Cummings et al, 1985; Daft, 1995; Jauch and Wall, 1989; Murthy and Wiggins, 2002). Recognizing the urgent need to provide such type of information to MIS research community in Korea, we have chosen the most influential academic journal, APJIS with an intention to share the answer to the following research question: "What are the common problems found in the manuscripts either 'rejected' or 'required a major revision' by APJIS reviewers?" This study analyzes the review results of manuscripts submitted to APJIS (from January, 2006 to October, 2008), particularly those that were 'rejected' or required a 'major revision' at the first round. Based on Daft's(1995) study, twelve most-likelihood problems were defined and used to analyze the reviews. The twelve criteria for classification, or "twelve problems", are as follows: No theory, Concepts and operationalization not in alignment, Insufficient definition--theory, Insufficient rationale--design, Macrostructure--organization and flow, Amateur style and tone, Inadequate research design, Not relevant to the field, Overengineering, Conclusions not in alignment, Cutting up the data, and Poor editorial practice. Upon the approval of the editorial board of APJIS, the total 252 reviews, including 11 cases of 2005 and 241 cases from July, 2006 to October, 2008, were received without any information about manuscripts, authors, or reviewers. Eleven cases of 2005 were used in the pilot test because the data of 2005 were not in complete enumeration, and the 241 reviews (113 cases of 'rejection' and 128 ones of 'major revision') of 2006, 2007, and 2008 were examined in this study. Our findings show that insufficient rationale-design(20.25%), no theory(18.45%), and insufficient definition--theory(15.69%) were the three leading reasons of 'rejection' and 'major revision.' Between these two results, the former followed the same order of three major reasons as an overall analysis (insufficient rationale-design, no theory, and insufficient definition-theory), but the latter followed the order of insufficient rationale--design, insufficient definition--theory, and no theory. Using Daft's three major skills-- 'theory skills', 'design skills', and 'communication skills'-- twelve criteria were reclassified into 'theory problems', 'design problems', and 'communication problems' to derive more practical implications of our findings. Our findings show that 'theory problems' occupied 43.48%, 'design problems' were 30.86%, and 'communication problems' were 25.86%. In general, the APJIS reviewers weigh each of these three problem areas almost equally. Comparing to other disciplines like management field shown in Daft's study, the portion of 'design problems' and 'communication problems' are much higher in manuscripts submitted to the APJIS than in those of Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal even though 'theory problems' are the most predominant in both disciplines.

Development an Artificial Neural Network to Predict Infectious Bronchitis Virus Infection in Laying Hen Flocks (산란계의 전염성 기관지염을 예측하기 위한 인공신경망 모형의 개발)

  • Pak Son-Il;Kwon Hyuk-Moo
    • Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.105-110
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    • 2006
  • A three-layer, feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) with sixteen input neurons, three hidden neurons, and one output neuron was developed to identify the presence of infectious bronchitis (IB) infection as early as possible in laying hen flocks. Retrospective data from flocks that enrolled IB surveillance program between May 2003 and November 2005 were used to build the ANN. Data set of 86 flocks was divided randomly into two sets: 77 cases for training set and 9 cases for testing set. Input factors were 16 epidemiological findings including characteristics of the layer house, management practice, flock size, and the output was either presence or absence of IB. ANN was trained using training set with a back-propagation algorithm and test set was used to determine the network's capability to predict outcomes that it has never seen. Diagnostic performance of the trained network was evaluated by constructing receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve with the area under the curve (AUC), which were also used to determine the best positivity criterion for the model. Several different ANNs with different structures were created. The best-fitted trained network, IBV_D1, was able to predict IB in 73 cases out of 77 (diagnostic accuracy 94.8%) in the training set. Sensitivity and specificity of the trained neural network was 95.5% (42/44, 95% CI, 84.5-99.4) and 93.9% (31/33, 95% CI, 79.8-99.3), respectively. For testing set, AVC of the ROC curve for the IBV_D1 network was 0.948 (SE=0.086, 95% CI 0.592-0.961) in recognizing IB infection status accurately. At a criterion of 0.7149, the diagnostic accuracy was the highest with a 88.9% with the highest sensitivity of 100%. With this value of sensitivity and specificity together with assumed 44% of IB prevalence, IBV_D1 network showed a PPV of 80% and an NPV of 100%. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that neural network can be successfully applied to the development of a screening model for identifying IB infection in laying hen flocks.