• Title/Summary/Keyword: Qualitative Data Analysis

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Influence of Chinese International Students' Family Strengths on Social Networking Services Addiction Tendency: Focusing on the Mediating Effect of Ego Resilience (중국 유학생의 가족건강성이 SNS 중독경향성에 미치는 영향: 자아탄력성의 매개효과를 중심으로)

  • JIANG, YUJING;Park, Jeoungyun
    • Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.19-33
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    • 2023
  • The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of ego resilience on the relationship between family strengths of Chinese international students and Social Networking Services(SNS) addiction tendency. The data were collected through a survey of 349 Chinese international students studying in Korea and analyzed using the SPSS Statistics version 28 program and SPSS Process Macro 4.3. The main results are as follows. First, Chinese international students exhibited higher-than-average levels of SNS addiction tendency, family strengths, and ego resilience. Second, the SNS addiction tendency of Chinese international students had a significant positive correlation with the average time spend on SNS per day. while demonstrating a negative correlation with family strengths and ego resilience. Third, the hierarchical regression analysis revelated that gender, frequency of contact with family, average time spend on SNS per day, qualitative bond as a sub variable of family strengths, and control as a sub variables of ego resilience were significant factors influencing SNS addiction tendency of Chinese international students. Fourth, the study confirmed the complete mediation of ego resilience in the effect of family strengths on SNS addiction tendency. Based on the research results, this study suggested specific directions for counseling interventions aimed at mitigating SNS addiction tendencies among Chinese international students.

Impact of Photon-Counting Detector Computed Tomography on Image Quality and Radiation Dose in Patients With Multiple Myeloma

  • Alexander Rau;Jakob Neubauer;Laetitia Taleb;Thomas Stein;Till Schuermann;Stephan Rau;Sebastian Faby;Sina Wenger;Monika Engelhardt;Fabian Bamberg;Jakob Weiss
    • Korean Journal of Radiology
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    • v.24 no.10
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    • pp.1006-1016
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    • 2023
  • Objective: Computed tomography (CT) is an established method for the diagnosis, staging, and treatment of multiple myeloma. Here, we investigated the potential of photon-counting detector computed tomography (PCD-CT) in terms of image quality, diagnostic confidence, and radiation dose compared with energy-integrating detector CT (EID-CT). Materials and Methods: In this prospective study, patients with known multiple myeloma underwent clinically indicated whole-body PCD-CT. The image quality of PCD-CT was assessed qualitatively by three independent radiologists for overall image quality, edge sharpness, image noise, lesion conspicuity, and diagnostic confidence using a 5-point Likert scale (5 = excellent), and quantitatively for signal homogeneity using the coefficient of variation (CV) of Hounsfield Units (HU) values and modulation transfer function (MTF) via the full width at half maximum (FWHM) in the frequency space. The results were compared with those of the current clinical standard EID-CT protocols as controls. Additionally, the radiation dose (CTDIvol) was determined. Results: We enrolled 35 patients with multiple myeloma (mean age 69.8 ± 9.1 years; 18 [51%] males). Qualitative image analysis revealed superior scores (median [interquartile range]) for PCD-CT regarding overall image quality (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), edge sharpness (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), image noise (4.0 [4.0-4.0] vs. 3.0 [3.0-4.0]), lesion conspicuity (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), and diagnostic confidence (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]) compared with EID-CT (P ≤ 0.004). In quantitative image analyses, PCD-CT compared with EID-CT revealed a substantially lower FWHM (2.89 vs. 25.68 cy/pixel) and a significantly more homogeneous signal (mean CV ± standard deviation [SD], 0.99 ± 0.65 vs. 1.66 ± 0.5; P < 0.001) at a significantly lower radiation dose (mean CTDIvol ± SD, 3.33 ± 0.82 vs. 7.19 ± 3.57 mGy; P < 0.001). Conclusion: Whole-body PCD-CT provides significantly higher subjective and objective image quality at significantly reduced radiation doses than the current clinical standard EID-CT protocols, along with readily available multi-spectral data, facilitating the potential for further advanced post-processing.

A Study on the Perception of Predatory Journals among Members of the Korea Researcher Communities (국내 연구자 커뮤니티 구성원의 부실 학술지 인식에 대한 연구)

  • Myoung-A Hong;Wonsik Shim
    • Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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    • v.41 no.2
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    • pp.97-130
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    • 2024
  • The current debate in the academic community is on the criteria for predatory journals. Researchers are perplexed about what constitutes a predatory journal. The purpose of this study is to investigate how South Korean researchers discover and evaluate predatory journals. In order to achieve this, we collected 2,484 statements, comprising posts and comments, from Korean researcher communities, namely the Biological Research Information Center (BRIC), Hibrain.net, Phdkim.net, and the Scholarly Ecosystem Against Fake Publication Environment (SAFE). We divided the data into three primary categories-journals, publishers, and researchers-for the topic analysis. For each statement, we assigned 11 in-depth subtopic tags based on these categories. Six main points of contention emerged from the combinations of these sub-topic tags: (1) researchers' confusion about predatory journals and discussions about research performance; (2)(3) researchers' positive and negative perceptions of predatory journals; (4) researchers' evaluation criteria for journal quality and problems associated with the quality of Korean journals; (5) changes in publishing brought about by the introduction of open access (OA) and associated issues; and (6) discussions on broader issues within the academic ecosystem. By using a qualitative approach to examine how South Korean researchers view predatory journals, this study aims to advance basic knowledge of the discourse around them in the communities of domestic researchers.

What Pre-service Elementary School Teachers Focus on When Developing Assessment Items: Focusing on the Unit 'Weather and Our Lives' (초등 예비교사가 평가 문항 제작 시 주목하는 것은 무엇인가? : 날씨와 우리 생활 단원을 중심으로)

  • Sung-Man Lim;Seong-Un Kim
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.181-193
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    • 2024
  • Summative assessment provides information on how well students have achieved learning objectives, making the development of high-quality assessment items essential for accurate evaluation. This is one of the competencies that teachers must possess. This study aims to analyze summative assessment items created by pre-service elementary teachers, examining their intentions and the difficulties encountered in the item development process. The study involved 45 second-year students enrolled in an elementary teacher training university. They were grouped into teams of three and tasked with developing ten items, documenting the purpose of each item, the answer key, and the challenges faced during item creation. The collected summative assessment items were analyzed using a two-dimensional purpose classification table that includes Klopfer's taxonomy of educational objectives. The intentions behind the summative assessments and the difficulties faced during item development were inductively organized and analyzed through qualitative data analysis. The results revealed that pre-service elementary teachers adequately reflected scientific content elements but did not evenly cover assessment domains. The most challenging aspect for them was adjusting the difficulty level. Although they considered most factors that should be taken into account during item development, these considerations were not reflected in the actual items. These findings suggest that knowledge and experience are crucial in developing summative assessment items, and systematic lectures are necessary for pre-service elementary teachers.

College Students' Writing Self-Efficacy in Reflective Writing Classes Utilizing ChatGPT (ChatGPT를 활용한 성찰적 글쓰기 수업에서 대학생의 쓰기 효능감 고찰)

  • Jeon-Gu Kang;Si-Yeon Pyo
    • Journal of Practical Engineering Education
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.471-479
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    • 2024
  • This study aims to examine the cognitive and affective changes in university students' writing self-efficacy when engaging in reflective writing classes utilizing ChatGPT. Over ten sessions, reflective writing classes using ChatGPT were conducted for students enrolled in a mandatory writing course at S University in Gyeonggi Province. The reflective journals written by the students during these sessions were meticulously reviewed as qualitative data with statistical analysis of pre- and post-surveys on writing self-efficacy. The results confirmed that utilizing ChatGPT in reflective writing classes positively impacted students' writing self-efficacy. Participants showed increased interest and confidence in their writing abilities when using ChatGPT. It was reported that they received cognitive assistance in outlining and paragraph structuring from samples generated by ChatGPT. Although survey results showed an overall increase in writing self-efficacy, the only statistically significant change was in the 'plagiarism response' category, which means a clear awareness of plagiarism issues. The process of personalizing the ChatGPT-generated samples requires consistent practice, and systematic guidelines on using such helpful tool effectively should be reinforced as a future task.

Research Framework for International Franchising (국제프랜차이징 연구요소 및 연구방향)

  • Kim, Ju-Young;Lim, Young-Kyun;Shim, Jae-Duck
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.61-118
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    • 2008
  • The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

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A Phenomenological Study for Hospitalized Elderly무s Powerlessness (병원에 입원한 노인의 무력감 현상 연구)

  • 최영희;김경은
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.26 no.1
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    • pp.223-247
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    • 1996
  • This study was done to provide information which would lead to nursing care of the elderly being more holistically through an understanding of the phenomena of powerlessness based on the lived experience of powerlessness by the elderly, the meaning the elderly give to such phenomena, and what essence of powerlessness is. The methodology used in this study was Max Van Manen's phenomenological method based on the philosophy of Merleu-Ponty and a concerted approach was realized through the 11 steps suggested in the Van Manen's method. Data collection was done from March 2, 1995 to December 30, 1995. The subjects for this study were four elderly persons who lived with their families and who were over 60 years of age. Data were collected about the lived experience of the elderly, this researcher's experience of powerlessness, the linguistic meaning of powerlessness, idioms of the word or a feeling of powerlessness, and descriptions of powerlessness in the elderly as they appeared in the literature, are works, and phenomenological literature. All data were used to provide insights into the phenomena of powerlessness. Data about the experience of powerlessness by the elderly were collected through open interviews, participation, and observation. In the analysis of the theme of this study, the aspects of the theme, powerlessness in the elderly were clarified, thereby abstracting and finding meaningful statements by the elderly about their feeling of powerlessness, and then those significant statements were expressed as linguistic transformations. The summarized findings from the study are as follows : 1. Five meanings of powerlessness in the elderly were defined. 〈weakness〉, 〈dependence〉, 〈frustration〉, 〈worthlessness〉 and 〈giving up〉. 2. 〈Weakness〉 means that the elderly experience, not only their aging but also, their becoming weak and the loss of physical function frequently caused by diseases. 〈Dependence〉 means that the elderly experience dependence without any influence from the surroundings and that elderly patients who are hospitalized lose their autonomy, follow entirely their doctor's prescriptions, use aid equipment and directions, and depend only on those things. 〈Frustration〉 means that the elderly experience the loss of their roles from the past, there by feeling that there is no work for them to do anymore and therefore feel unable to do anything. 〈Worthlessness〉 means that the elderly experience the feeling of losing their social roles from the past, having no financial ability, thereby being a burden to their children or the people around them, and therefore regarding themselves useless. 〈Giving up〉 means that the elderly experience the feeling of closeness to death in the final stage of their lifetime, lose hope to be healed from their disease, and recognize the incontrollability of their own body. 3. From a general view of the meaning of the theme the powerlessness in the elderly-the most essential meaning of the theme is the 〈sense of loss〉. For the elderly are experiencing a sense of loss in the situation of being elderly and therefore being often hospitalized. Brief definitions of the five phenomena could be 〈weakness〉 meaning the loss of physical strength, 〈dependence〉 the loss of mentality caused by disease and hospitalization, 〈frustration〉 and 〈worthlessness〉 the loss of social performance caused by the loss of social functions from the past, and lastly 〈giving up〉 the loss of the controllability of such situations of aging and suffering disease. In light of the discussion above, it is understandable that the hospitalized elderly experience powerlessness not only as it related to their diseases but also to their normal aging, and this related to other characteristics of being elderly means that the 〈sense of loss〉 is the very essence of their powerlessness. 4. While most cases are of the normal elderly experiencing powerlessness in relation to their social network, cases of elderly who are hospitalized are of those experiencing powerlessness in relation to the loss of their physical desire. 5. The findings discussed above can serve as guidelines for nurses who take care of the ill elderly who are hospitalized and that can provide cues to appropriate nursing service, recognizing that the subjective experience of the objective age of the elderly is so important. Nurses can provide highly qualitative nursing service, based on their deep understanding of the suffering of the elderly due to feelings of powerlessness.

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The Case Study of Emotional Marketing by Visual Design (감성디자인을 통한 감성마케팅의 실증적 사례 연구 - 마블 프라이팬 사례 조사를 통한 -)

  • Kang, Bum-Kyu;Go, Jung-Wook;Ye, Min-Ju
    • Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.355-366
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    • 2007
  • The human's emotion has been used as a key factor in the design area and a marketing technique in a company. Therefore, a company is very interesting in human' emotional factor for the marketing and the design development recently. There have been very few studies carried out on enhancing how to use the emotional design and the emotional marketing in the kitchenware industry. Besides, almost all of the research works, which attempted to encourage how to use emotional factor for the design and the marketing, was carried out in the theory research level rather than a practical research. This research has been conducted both a qualitative research and a quantitative research in the field. The research methods were as follows; first, this research studied what is the emotional design and the emotional marketing through the previous literature research works. second, the researchers set up the hypothesis and research aims through the previous empirical research works from the researchers who are doing this research. Third, as the main body of this research, this research was conducted through the analysis of companies' data, the data come from the interviews by managers, and the data from questionnaire by the users. The results was produced after analyses of the above all the data. As a results, this research has introduced the successful case study which used the emotional design concept and the emotional marketing as a strategic level in the kitchenware industry. This research results would be able to help some one who wants to use the emotional design as a strategic level in order to increase their market share.

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Chronic pain control in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (만성통증 환자의 통증 조절)

  • Eun, Young
    • Journal of muscle and joint health
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.17-40
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    • 1995
  • Rheumatoid arthritis is the one of the chronic diseases, one of its major symptoms is a chronic pain. Despite developing medical treatment and surgical techniques, it is suggested that to control the pain is the goal of the treatment. But pain is an inner experience and even those closest to the patient cannot truly observe its progress or share in its suffering. The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine's report on Pain and Disability concluded that there is no objective measure of pain-(exactly) no pain thermometer-nor can there ever be one, because the experience of pain is inseparable from personal perception and social influence such as culture. To explore chronic pain experience is to understand the process and property of the patient's perception of pain through the response to pain, the coping with pain, and the adaptation to pain. Therefore a qualitative study was conducted in order to gain an understanding of pain experience of patients with RA in korea. I used naturalistic inquiry as a research methodology, which had 5 axioms, the first is that realities are multiple, constructed, and holistic, the second is that knower and known are interactive, inseparable, the third is only time and context bound working hypotheses(idiographic statements) are possible, the forth is all entities are in a state of mutual simultaneous shaping, so that it is impossible to distinguish causes from effects and the last is that inquiry is value-bound. Purposive sampling was conducted as a sampling. 20 subjects who experienced pain over 10 years, lived in middle-sized city and big city in Korea, and 17 women and 3 men. The subject's age was from 32 to 62 (average 48.8), all were married, living with their spouse and children, except two-one divorced and the other widow before they became ill. I collected data using In depth structured interview. I had interviews two or three times with each subject, and the interviews were conducted at each subject's home. Each interview lasted about two hours an average. A recording was taken with the consent of the subject. I used inductive data analysis-such as unitizing and categorizing. unitizing is a process of coding, whereby raw data are systematically transformed and aggregated into units. Categorizing is a process wherby previously unitized data are organized into categories that provide descriptive or inferential information about the context or setting from which the units were derived. This process is used constant comparative method. The pain controlling process is composed of behavior of pain control. The behaviors of pain control are rearranging of ADL, hiddening role conflict, balancing treatment, and changing social relation. Rearranging of ADL includes diet management, sleep management, and the adjustment of daily life activities. The subjects try to rearrange their daily activities by modified style of motions, rearranging time span & range of activities, using auxillary facilities, and getting help in order to keep on the pace of daily life. Hiddening role conflict means to reduce conflicts between sick role and their role as a family member. In this process, the subjects use two modes, one is to control the pain complaints, and the other is to internalize the value which is to stay home is good for caring her children and being a good mother. To control pain complaints is done by 'enduring', 'understanding' the other family members, or making them undersood in order to reduce pain. Balancing treatment is composed of two aspects. One is to keep the pain within the endurable level, the other is to keep in touch with medical personnel in order to get the information of treatment and emotional support. Changing social relation is made by information seeking and sharing, formation of mutual support relation, and finally simplification of social relationships. The subjects simplify their social relationships by refraining from relations with someone who makes them physically and psychologically strained. In particular the subjects are apt to avoid contact with in-laws, and the change of relation to in-laws results in lessening the family boundary. In the course of this process, they confront the crisis of family confict result in family dissolution. This crisis is related to the threat of self-existence. Findings from this study contribute to understanding the chronic pain experience. To advance this study, we should compare this result with other cases in different cultural contexts. I think to interpret these results, korean cultural background should be considered. Especially the different family concept, more broader family members and kinship network, and the traditional medical knowledge influences patients' behavior.

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Classification of Estuaries based on Morphological Convergence (형태적 수렴 특성을 이용한 하구 분류)

  • SHIN, Hyun-jung;RHEW, Hosahng;LEE, Guan-hong
    • Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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    • v.19 no.3
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    • pp.1-22
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    • 2012
  • The classification scheme of estuaries can be divided into two categories: qualitative classification based on geomorphic characteristics and quantitative classification based upon the physical properties of water body. While simple and intuitive scheme of the former is difficult to quantify, the latter is not easy to apply due to the lack of data. A classification scheme based on morphological convergence is very promising because it only requires easily accessible data such as width and depth of channels, as well as it can characterize estuaries in terms of tidal propagation. Thus, this paper examines the classification scheme based on estuarine morphological convergence using depth and width data obtained from 19 major Korean estuaries. Morphological convergence for each estuary was estimated with the estuarine length, width and depth data to get the convergence parameters, which includes the degree of funneling ${\nu}$ and the dimensionless estuarine length $y_0$. The transfer function ${\xi}({\nu},ky)$ is then deduced analytically from 1D depth-integrated hydrodynamic momentum equation and continuity equation for estuarine shapes. Tidal response of each estuary is finally calculated using ${\nu}$, $y_0$ and ${\xi}({\nu},ky)$ for comparison and classification. The 19 Korean estuaries were classified into three groups: tidal amplitude-dominated estuaries with standing wave-like tidal response (group 1), current-dominated estuaries with progressive wave-like tidal response (group 2), and the intermediate group (group 3) between groups 1 and 2. The sensitivity analysis revealed that uncertainties in determining the estuarine length can have a critical effect upon the results of classification, which indicates that the reasonable determination of the estuarine length is of critical importance. Once the estuarine length is feasibly determined, depth-convergence can be neglected without any negative effect on the classification scheme, which has an important ramification on the wide applicability of the classification scheme.