• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.5-15
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• 2011

Research regarding corporate associations in marketing has generally been approached using the association theory. However, limited research investigates the effect of corporate associations on consumer loyalty to individual brands by examining the role of self connectedness with a corporate image. The activation of behavior-related constructs can influence individuals' behaviors without their intention or conscious awareness. A recently developed body of research suggests that self connection can play an important role in affecting subsequent behaviors. Although these effects have received considerable attention, the set of mechanisms involved in self connectedness and loyalty to individual brands is not clear. An active self account in which associative constructs can affect behavior by temporarily altering the active self-concept may lead to behavior or evaluation. If the exposure to a corporate brand can induce consumers' cognitive associations and goal-primed effects through the role of active self accounting, the connectedness between the consumer's self and the corporate brand could be developed and this connectedness could be explained by associative and connection models and the goal priming theory. Therefore, this study investigates the influence of corporate associations on loyalty to individual brands through connections between the corporate and the consumer's self. There are three main purposes of the research. First, theories regarding corporate associations will be explored. Second, theories of self-concept will be investigated and self connectedness with corporate brands will be explored. Third, the effects of the connectedness between the self and the corporation on corporate identification and loyalty to individual brands will be investigated. For the purposes of this research, the types of corporate associations are classified into corporate ability (CA) associations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) associations. Furthermore, the connectedness between the consumer's self and the corporate image are divided into two concepts: the connectedness between the individual self-concept and the corporate identity and the connectedness between social self-concept and the corporate identity. This study suggests the hypotheses that the types of consumer self connections with the corporate image could vary according to the types of corporate associations created and further that the connectedness between the corporate association and the consumer's self-concept have positive effects on loyalty to corporate individual brands. The results of testing these hypotheses are as follows. First, corporate ability associations enhance the connectedness between the consumer's individual self and corporate brands. That is, corporate ability associations influence individual connectedness between the corporate and individual self-concept positively from the viewpoint of the consumer's personal ability and branding success. In addition, corporate social responsibility associations have a positive effect on social connectedness between the corporation and the consumer's social self-concept. Second, the connectedness between the corporate brand and the consumer's self-concept affects identification with the corporation. The consumer's personal self and social self connectedness induces corporate identification. Third, individual self connectedness has a positive effect on loyalty to corporate individual brands, while social self connectedness does not. This also means that individual self connectedness with the corporate image or brand plays a more important role in forming individual brand loyalty than social self connectedness with the corporate does. In addition, social connectedness cannot influence individual brand loyalty until it passes through identification with the corporate. Fourth, consumers who experience identification with a corporate identity also show positive responses to corporate individual brands. That is, consumers also develop loyalties toward individual brands through the corporate identification because self-pursued goals that are induced by corporate associations can be achieved by consuming the individual brands that are sold by the corporate that the consumers identify with.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.243-251
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• 2005

Objective: Low-dose aspirin have been proposed to improving endometrial receptivity and pregnancy rate in COH-IVF by increasing endometrial perfusion. However, the effect of low-dose aspirin in COH-IVF could be negligible because there have been large quantity of other important factors responsible for changing endometrial perfusion accompanied by COH procedure. In contrast, in frozen-thawed embryo transfer cycles which were not accompanied by COH procedure, the effects of low-dose aspirin in endometrial blood flow seems to be more certain than in COH-IVF cycles. In this study, we analyzed the effect of low-dose aspirin treatment on implantation and pregnancy rates in patients undergoing frozen-thawed embryo transfer Methods: From January 2003 to December 2003, total 264 cycles from 264 patients who attended infertility clinic at Samsung Cheil Hospital were enrolled in this study. All cases included in this study, embryos were frozen and thawed at the pronuclear stage and three days after incubation, at least 2 or more good quality embryos were transferred into uterus. In study group, low dose aspirin (100 mg/day) was administrated from the first or second date of menstrual day to 9 days after embryo transfer. On the other hand, control group did not take any medicine except estradiol valerate for endometrial priming. Several variables including implantation and pregnancy rates were compared in both groups. After then, each groups were stratified by endometrial thickness checked at embryo transfer (ET) day such as (28 mm versus <8 mm) and same variables above described were compared between study and control groups. Results: The mean age, infertility duration, endometrial thickness at embryo transfer day and mean number of transferred embryo were not significantly different in both groups. Also, implantation rates (study group: 15.8%, control group: 20.5%) and pregnancy rate (study group: 45.1%, control group: 43.5%) were not significantly different between two groups. (p>0.05) After we analyzed same variables stratified by endometrial thickness checked at embryo transfer day, we could not found any significant difference between study and control groups. Conclusions: Low-dose aspirin treatment seems to have no advantage of improving implantation and pregnancy rates in patients undergoing frozen-thawed embryo transfer.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.39 no.5 s.262
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• pp.366-375
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• 2006

Background: Hypomagnesemia is a common complication after cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. The purpose of this study was to assess the clinical beneficial effect of administration of magnesium sulfate in cardiac surgery. Material and Method: Thirty five patients scheduled for elective cardiac surgery were randomly assigned to magnesium group (n=20) which received magnesium sulfate in priming solution (1 g) and cardioplegic solution (1 g) or control group (n=15) which did not receive it. Arterial blood samples were drawn for measuring $Mg^{++}$ and electrolytes contents, blood gas analysis, CBC, total protein, albumin, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin, tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$ $(TNF-{\alpha})$, interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-10 (IL-10), creatine phosphokinase (CpK), creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB), lactate dehydrogenase(LDH), troponin-1 (TNI), prothrombin time (PT) and activated pratial thromboplastin time level (aPTT). Venous blood samples were drawn before and after the operation for measuring activated clotting time level (ACT). Result: $Mg^{++}$ levels in magensium group were higher than those of control group at intraoperative and post-operative periods (p<0.05). dysrhythmias were lower in magnesium group (8 cases out of 17 patients, 46.4%) than in control group (10 cases out of 10, 100%, p=0.050). Conclusion: These results showed that administration of low dose magnesium sulfate during cardiac surgery prevented hypomagnesemia and lowered incidence of dysrhythmia.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.39 no.7 s.264
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• pp.505-510
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• 2006

Background: Small animal cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) model would be a valuable tool for investigating path-ophysiological and therapeutic strategies on bypass. The main advantages of a small animal model include the reduced cost and time, and the fact that it does not require a full scale operating environment. However the rat CPB models have a number of technical limitations. Effective maintenance and control of core temperature by a heat exchanger is among them. The purpose of this study is to confirm the effect of rectal temperature maintenance using a heat exchanger of cardioplegia system in cardiopulmonary bypass model for rats. Material and Method: The miniature circuit consisted of a reservoir, heat exchanger, membrane oxygenator, roller pump, and static priming volume was 40 cc, Ten male Sprague-Dawley rats (mean weight 530 gram) were divided into two groups, and heat exchanger (HE) group was subjected to CPB with HE from a cardioplegia system, and control group was subjected to CPB with warm water circulating around the reservoir. Partial CPB was conducted at a flow rate of 40 mg/kg/min for 20 min after venous cannulation (via the internal juglar vein) and arterial cannulation (via the femoral artery). Rectal temperature were measured after anesthetic induction, a ter cannulation, 5, 10, 15, 20 min after CPB. Arterial blood gas with hematocrit was also analysed, 5 and 15 min after CPB. Result: Rectal temperature change differed between the two groups (p<0.01). The temperatures of HE group were well maintained during CPB, whereas control group was under progressive hypothermia, Rectal temperature 20 min after CPB was $36.16{\pm}0.32^{\circ}C$ in the HE group and $34.22{\pm}0.36^{\circ}C$ in the control group. Conclusion: We confirmed the effect of rectal temperature maintenance using a heat exchanger of cardioplegia system in cardiopulmonary bypass model for rats. This model would be a valuable tool for further use in hypothermic CPB experiment in rats.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.89-97
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• 2010

This study researches the effects of common features on a no-choice option with respect to regulatory focus theory. The primary interest is in three factors and their interrelationship: common features, no-choice option, and regulatory focus. Prior studies have compiled vast body of research in these areas. First, the "common features effect" has been observed bymany noted marketing researchers. Tversky (1972) proposed the seminal theory, the EBA model: elimination by aspect. According to this theory, consumers are prone to focus only on unique features during comparison processing, thereby dismissing any common features as redundant information. Recently, however, more provocative ideas have attacked the EBA model by asserting that common features really do affect consumer judgment. Chernev (1997) first reported that adding common features mitigates the choice gap because of the increasing perception of similarity among alternatives. Later, however, Chernev (2001) published a critically developed study against his prior perspective with the proposition that common features may be a cognitive load to consumers, and thus consumers are possible that they are prone to prefer the heuristic processing to the systematic processing. This tends to bring one question to the forefront: Do "common features" affect consumer choice? If so, what are the concrete effects? This study tries to answer the question with respect to the "no-choice" option and regulatory focus. Second, some researchers hold that the no-choice option is another best alternative of consumers, who are likely to avoid having to choose in the context of knotty trade-off settings or mental conflicts. Hope for the future also may increase the no-choice option in the context of optimism or the expectancy of a more satisfactory alternative appearing later. Other issues reported in this domain are time pressure, consumer confidence, and alternative numbers (Dhar and Nowlis 1999; Lin and Wu 2005; Zakay and Tsal 1993). This study casts the no-choice option in yet another perspective: the interactive effects between common features and regulatory focus. Third, "regulatory focus theory" is a very popular theme in recent marketing research. It suggests that consumers have two focal goals facing each other: promotion vs. prevention. A promotion focus deals with the concepts of hope, inspiration, achievement, or gain, whereas prevention focus involves duty, responsibility, safety, or loss-aversion. Thus, while consumers with a promotion focus tend to take risks for gain, the same does not hold true for a prevention focus. Regulatory focus theory predicts consumers' emotions, creativity, attitudes, memory, performance, and judgment, as documented in a vast field of marketing and psychology articles. The perspective of the current study in exploring consumer choice and common features is a somewhat creative viewpoint in the area of regulatory focus. These reviews inspire this study of the interaction possibility between regulatory focus and common features with a no-choice option. Specifically, adding common features rather than omitting them may increase the no-choice option ratio in the choice setting only to prevention-focused consumers, but vice versa to promotion-focused consumers. The reasoning is that when prevention-focused consumers come in contact with common features, they may perceive higher similarity among the alternatives. This conflict among similar options would increase the no-choice ratio. Promotion-focused consumers, however, are possible that they perceive common features as a cue of confirmation bias. And thus their confirmation processing would make their prior preference more robust, then the no-choice ratio may shrink. This logic is verified in two experiments. The first is a $2{\times}2$ between-subject design (whether common features or not X regulatory focus) using a digital cameras as the relevant stimulus-a product very familiar to young subjects. Specifically, the regulatory focus variable is median split through a measure of eleven items. Common features included zoom, weight, memory, and battery, whereas the other two attributes (pixel and price) were unique features. Results supported our hypothesis that adding common features enhanced the no-choice ratio only to prevention-focus consumers, not to those with a promotion focus. These results confirm our hypothesis - the interactive effects between a regulatory focus and the common features. Prior research had suggested that including common features had a effect on consumer choice, but this study shows that common features affect choice by consumer segmentation. The second experiment was used to replicate the results of the first experiment. This experimental study is equal to the prior except only two - priming manipulation and another stimulus. For the promotion focus condition, subjects had to write an essay using words such as profit, inspiration, pleasure, achievement, development, hedonic, change, pursuit, etc. For prevention, however, they had to use the words persistence, safety, protection, aversion, loss, responsibility, stability etc. The room for rent had common features (sunshine, facility, ventilation) and unique features (distance time and building state). These attributes implied various levels and valence for replication of the prior experiment. Our hypothesis was supported repeatedly in the results, and the interaction effects were significant between regulatory focus and common features. Thus, these studies showed the dual effects of common features on consumer choice for a no-choice option. Adding common features may enhance or mitigate no-choice, contradictory as it may sound. Under a prevention focus, adding common features is likely to enhance the no-choice ratio because of increasing mental conflict; under the promotion focus, it is prone to shrink the ratio perhaps because of a "confirmation bias." The research has practical and theoretical implications for marketers, who may need to consider common features carefully in a practical display context according to consumer segmentation (i.e., promotion vs. prevention focus.) Theoretically, the results suggest some meaningful moderator variable between common features and no-choice in that the effect on no-choice option is partly dependent on a regulatory focus. This variable corresponds not only to a chronic perspective but also a situational perspective in our hypothesis domain. Finally, in light of some shortcomings in the research, such as overlooked attribute importance, low ratio of no-choice, or the external validity issue, we hope it influences future studies to explore the little-known world of the "no-choice option."

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.471-478
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• 1997

Introduction: The use of rabbits as a cardiopulmonary bypass(CPB) animal model is extremely dif%cult mainly due to technical problems. On the other hand, deep hypothermic circulatory arrest(CA) is used to facilitate surgical repair in a variety of cardiac diseases. Although steroids are generally known to be effective in the treatment of cerebral edema, the protective effects of steroids on the brain during CA are not conclusively established. Objectives of this study are twofold: the establishment of CPB technique in rabbits and the evaluation of preventive effect of steroid on the development of brain edema during CA. Material '||'&'||' Methods: Fifteen New Zealan white rabbits(average body weight 3.5kg) were divided into three experimental groups; control CA group(n=5), CA with Trendelenberg position group(n=5), and CA with Trendelenberg position + steroid(methylprednisolone 30 mglkg) administration group(n=5). After anesthetic induction and tracheostomy, a median sternotomy was performed. An aortic cannula(3.3mm) and a venous ncannula(14 Fr) were inserted, respectively in the ascending aorta and the right atrium. The CPB circuit consisted of a roller pump and a bubble oxygenator. Priming volume of the circuit was approximately 450m1 with 120" 150ml of blood. CPB was initiated at a flow rate of 80~85ml/kg/min, Ten min after the start of CPB, CA was established with duration of 40min at $20^{\circ}C$ of rectal temperature. After CA, CPB was restarted with 20min period of rewarming. Ten min after weaning, the animal was sacrif;cod. One-to-2g portions of the following tissues were rapidly d:ssected and water contents were examined and compared among gr ups: brain, cervical spinal cord, kidney, duodenum, lung, heart, liver, spleen, pancreas. stomach. Statistical significances were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric test. Results: CPB with CA was successfully performed in all cases. Flow rate of 60-100 mlfkgfmin was able to be maintained throughout CPB. During CPB, no significant metabolic acidosis was detected and aortic pressure ranged between 35-55 mmHg. After weaning from CPB, all hearts resumed normal beating spontaneously. There were no statistically significant differences in the water contents of tissues including brain among the three experimental groups. Conclusion: These results indicate (1) CPB can be reliably administered in rabbits if proper technique is used, (2) the effect of steroid on the protection of brain edema related to Trendelenburg position during CA is not established within the scope of this experiment.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.66-78
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• 2004

The objective of this study was to apply the vibration technique to reduce the viscosity of bonding adhesives and thereby compare the bond strength and resin penetration in enamel and dentin achieved with those gained using the conventional technique and vibration technique. For enamel specimens, thirty teeth were sectioned mesio-distally. Sectioned two parts were assigned to same adhesive system but different treatment(vibration vs. non-vibration). Each specimen was embedded in 1-inch inner diameter PVC pipe with a acrylic resin. The buccal and lingual surfaces were placed so that the tooth and the embedding medium were at the same level. The samples were subsequently polished silicon carbide abrasive papers. Each adhesive system was applied according to its manufacture's instruction. Vibration groups were additionally vibrated for 15 seconds before curing. For dentin specimen, except removing the coronal part and placing occlusal surface at the mold level, the remaining procedures were same as enamel specimen. Resin composite(Z250. 3M. U.S.A.) was condensed on to the prepared surface in two increments using a mold kit(Ultradent Inc., U.S.A.). Each increments was light cured for 40 seconds. After 24 hours in tap water at room temperature, the specimens were thermocycled for 1000cycles. Shear bond strengths were measured with a universal testing machine(Instron 4465, England). To investigate infiltration patterns of adhesive materials, the surface of specimens was examined with scanning electron microscope. The results were as follows: 1. In enamel the mean values of shear bond strengths in vibration groups(group 2, 4, 6) were greater than those of non-vibration group(group 1, 3, 5). The differences were statistically significant except AQ bond group. 2. In dentin, the mean values of shear bond strengths in vibration groups(group 2, 4, 6) were greater than those of non-vibration groups(group 1, 3, 5). But the differences were not statistically significant except One-Up Bond F group. 3. The vibration group showed more mineral loss in enamel and longer resin tag and greater number of lateral branches in dentin under SEM examination.