• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.118-124
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• 2020

Background: The poultry industry in Pakistan has flourished since the 1960s; however, there are scarce data regarding the impact of occupational exposure on the pulmonary health of farm workers in terms of years working in the industry. The objective of the present study was to assess the effect of poultry environment on the health of occupationally exposed poultry farmers in countries of warm climatic regions, such as Pakistan. This study will also show the effect of exposure to poultry facilities on the health of poultry farmers in the context of low-income countries with a relatively inadequate occupational exposure risk management. Materials and methods: The lung function capacity of 79 poultry workers was measured using a spirometer. Along with spirometry, a structured questionnaire was also administrated to obtain information about age, height, weight, smokers/nonsmokers, years of working experience, and pulmonary health of farm workers. The workers who were directly involved in the care and handling of birds in these intensive facilities were considered and divided into four groups based on their years of working experience: Group I (3-10 months), Group II (1-5 years), Group III (6-10 years), and Group IV (more than 11 years). The forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and the FEV1/FVC ratio were considered to identify lung function abnormalities. Statistical analysis was carried out using independent sample t test, Chi-square test, Pearson's correlation, and linear regression. Results: Based on the performed spirometry, 68 (86 %) of workers were found normal and healthy, whereas 11 (14 %) had a mild obstruction. Of the 11 workers with mild obstruction, the highest number with respect to the total was in Group IV (more than 11 years of working experience) followed by Group III and Group II. Most of the workers were found healthy, which seems to be because of the healthy survivor effect. For the independent sample t test, a significant difference was noticed between healthy and nonhealthy farmers, whereas Chi-square test showed a significant association with height, drugs, and working experience. Linear regression that was stratified by respiratory symptoms showed for workers with symptoms, regression models for all spirometric parameters (FVC, FEV1, and FEV1/FVC) have better predictive power or R square value than those of workers without symptoms. Conclusion: These findings suggest that lung function capacity was directly related to years of working experience. With increasing number of working years, symptoms of various respiratory problems enhanced in the poultry workers. It should be noted that most of the poultry workers were healthy and young, the rationale being that there is a high turnover rate in this profession. The mobility in this job and our finding of 86% of the healthy workers in the present study also proposed healthy worker survivor effect.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.344-349
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• 2008

Normal somatic cells proliferate for a limited number of doublings in culture and then enter an irreversible growth-arrest state called replicative senescence. Replicative senescence has been believed a reason for the limited cellular turnover and deterioration of tissue function in aged animals. However, there is no experimental evidence supporting this assumption. Furthermore, cells from aged person have been poorly characterized with an exception of the cases of T cells. In this study, we examined cell biological changes occurring in replicative senescence of fibroblast strains originated from a new-born (NHF-NB) and a 87 year old man (NHF-87). NHF-87 (and the cells from a 75-year old) proliferated to smaller population doublings and with longer doubling times than NHF-NB did. At early passages, NHF-87 exhibited a low senescence-associated ${\beta}-Gal$ (SA ${\beta}-Gal$) activity and lipofuscin level, typical markers for cellular senescence. Furthermore, they maintained low levels of lysosome and reactive oxygen species (ROS). All of these levels increased dramatically in the late passage NHF-87 quite similarly as those in the late passaged NHF-NB did. These results indicate that most cells originated from the aged maintain a phenotype of the cells originated from new-born donors and undergo replicative senescence with the same kinetics as that of the cells from new-born. It is also indicated that not SA ${\beta}-gal$ activity but cell proliferation rate may be qualified as a biomarker for cells aged in vivo.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.57-77
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to analyzing the DISC behavioral styles of deluxe hotel employees, that Dominance(D), Influence(I), Steadiness(S), Consciousness(C) on the organizational culture and the organizational effectiveness of the hotel employees and is to presenting the influence of DISC behavioral patterns on the organizational culture and the organizational effectiveness. To accomplish the aim, the study conducted literature investigations and positive analysis. The results were as in the followings. Employees with a dominant and influencing behavior style adapt themselves to innovative culture and collusive culture. also, organizational commitment and job satisfaction were affected by dominant and influencing behavioral employees. and employees with a steady style adapt themselves to rationality culture. so, organizational commitment and job satisfaction were affected by steady style. furthermore, the result shows that it can be reduced turnover rate when the conscious behavioral employees adapt to the collusive culture. Customer's needs and wants are changed fastly. In addition, there is a keen competition between a five-star hotel. Because the number of five-star hotel are increased. Lastly I suggest that the DISC behavioral style is using at recruit.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.163-169
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• 2009

Many biological systems are regulated by an intricate set of feedback loops that oscillate with a circadian rhythm of roughly 24 h. This circadian clock mediates an increase in body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol secretion early in the day. Recent studies have shown changes in the amplitude of the circadian clock in the hearts and livers of streptozotocin (STZ)-treated rats. It is therefore important to examine the relationships between circadian clock genes and growth factors and their effects on diabetic phenomena in animal models as well as in human patients. In this study, we sought to determine whether diurnal variation in organ development and the regulation of metabolism, including growth and development during the juvenile period in rats, exists as a mechanism for anticipating and responding to the environment. Also, we examined the relationship between changes in growth factor expression in the liver and clock-controlled protein synthesis and turnover, which are important in cellular growth. Specifically, we assessed the expression patterns of several clock genes, including Per1, Per2, Clock, Bmal1, Cry1 and Cry2 and growth factors such as insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 and -2 and transforming growth factor (TGF)-${\beta}1$ in rats with STZ-induced diabetes. Growth factor and clock gene expression in the liver at 1 week post-induction was clearly increased compared to the level in control rats. In contrast, the expression patterns of the genes were similar to those observed after 5 weeks in the STZ-treated rats. The increase in gene expression is likely a compensatory change in response to the obstruction of insulin function during the initial phase of induction. However, as the period of induction was extended, the expression of the compensatory genes decreased to the control level. This is likely the result of decreased insulin secretion due to the destruction of beta cells in the pancreas by STZ.

• Journal of vocational education research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.1-22
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• 2011

Paradoxically, leadership has not only positive effects but also negative effects. The purpose of this study is to examine supervisors' dysfunctional leadership behaviors, antecedents and results in order to draw HRD implications for protecting organizations and employees from dysfunctional leaders and provide implications for leadership development. A qualitative research method based on semi-organized interviews with 28 employees from S-group was used. The results of this study show that the dysfunctional leadership behaviors were associated with ten behavioral categories: belittling and insulting the subordinates, authoritative and arbitrary behaviors, self-aggrandizement, biased preference for certain personnel, arrogance, micro-managing, inability to change and adapt, discordance between words and actions, over-dependance on supervisor, lack of ethics and values. Dysfunctional leadership behaviors were casually attributed to 'personal traits & experience', 'task characteristics', and 'internal & external environments of the organization'. Finally, the results of supervisor's dysfunctional leadership behaviors on employees and the organizational effects were 'increased turnover rate', 'declining work efficiency', 'collapsing morale', 'retraining innovative thinking', 'passive working culture', 'discouraging organizational vitality', 'discouraging organizational synergy', 'losing loyalty' and 'declining trust on supervisor'.

• Korea Real Estate Review
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.7-21
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• 2018

This study was conducted to determine the location determinants that influence the sales of the "Storyway" convenience stores built at the country's railway stations. The preceding studies were about the convenience stores located in the residence-business areas or along the roadsides. This study, on the other hand, focused on the characteristics of the stations, based on a theory that is different from the existing theories. The targets of this study were the 301 "Storyway" convenience stores doing business in the 198 railway stations in the country, and the dummy parameter and hedonic-price model function were used for multiple regression analysis. For the study results, it was found that the number of people using the railway and the size of the store have a positive effect on the sales whereas the other brand competitors have a negative effect thereon. Second, the subway stations holding 89% of the total passengers in the country have unexpectedly no positive influence on the sales. Third, depending on the transfer, it was found that no transfer station had smaller sales than the transfer stations. Finally, as for the location of the stores in the station, the stores located on the platforms or passageways have a smaller turnover rate than the stores in the welcoming spaces and squares. This research result shows that when starting a convenience store business, the number of people using the railway, the size of the store, the transfer possibility, and the location of the store inside the station have to be considered under the circumstance of recession on the part of the convenience stores due to excessive competition.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.264-272
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• 2019

In this study, the rate of return on investment used as a proxy variable for the entity's value and financial structure (liability ratio) is related to positive balance. This is consistent with the Static Tradeoff Theory (STT) that the entity's value and financial structure are related to a positive balance because the capital expense of a debt (tax-saving effects) that is less than its equity cost before it is in financial difficulty. Also, operating profitability (EBITDA/Sales), investment safety, total asset growth, net working capital and depreciation expenses are related to negative (-) with financial structure (liability ratio). This is the result of an analysis consistent with the Pecking Order Theory (POT). Fuel costs, borrowing, total asset turnover, financial costs, and tangible asset ratios have a significant positive relationship with the debt ratio. This is consistent with the agency theory and confirms that excessive chartering expenses, such as the bankrupt H company, are the main factors that pressure the financial structure of Korean ocean carriers.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.750-762
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• 2019

The importance of the call center as a contact point for the enterprise is growing. However, call centers have difficulty with their operating agents due to the agents' lack of knowledge and owing to frequent agent turnover due to downturns in the business, which causes deterioration in the quality of customer service. Therefore, through an N-bank call center case study, we developed a system to reduce the burden of keeping up business knowledge and to improve customer service quality. It is a "real-time agent advisor" system that provides agents with answers to customer questions in real time by combining AI technology for speech recognition, natural language processing, and questions & answers for existing call center information systems, such as a private branch exchange (PBX) and computer telephony integration (CTI). As a result of the case study, we confirmed that the speech recognition system for real-time call analysis and the corpus construction method improves the natural speech processing performance of the query response system. Especially with name entity recognition (NER), the accuracy of the corpus learning improved by 31%. Also, after applying the agent advisor system, the positive feedback rate of agents about the answers from the agent advisor was 93.1%, which proved the system is helpful to the agents.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Near Infrared Spectroscopy Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.1263-1263
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• 2001

The amounts of organic matter present in soil and the rate of soil organic matter (SOM) turnover are influenced by agricultural management practice, such as rotation, tillage, forage plow down direct seeding and manure application. The amount of nutrients released from SOM is highly dependent upon the state of the organic matter. If it contains a large proportion of light fractions (low-density) more nutrients will be available to the glowing crops. However, if it contains mostly heavy fractions (high-density) that are difficult to breakdown, then lesser amounts of nutrients will be available. The state of the SOM and subsequent release of nutrients into the soil can be predicted by NIRS as long as a robust regression equation is developed. The NIRS method is known for its rapidity, convenience, simplicity, accuracy and ability to analyze many constituents at the same time. Our hypothesis is that the NIRS technique allows researchers to investigate fully and in more detail each field for the status of SOM, available moisture and other soil properties in Alberta soils for precision farming in the near future. One hundred thirty one (131) Alberta soils with various levels (low 2-6%, medium 6-10%, and high >10%) of organic matter content and most of dry land soils, including some irrigated soils from Southern Alberta, under various management practices were collected throughout Northern, Central and Southern Alberta. Two depths (0- 15 cm and 15-30 cm) of soils from Northern Alberta were also collected. These air-dried soil samples were ground through 2 mm sieve and scanned using Foss NIR System 6500 with transport module and natural product cell. With particle size above 150 microns only, the “Ludox” method (Meijboom, Hassink and van Noorwijk, Soil Biol. Biochem.27: 1109-1111, 1995) which uses stable silica, was used to fractionate SOM into light, medium and heavy fractions with densities of <1.13, 1.13-1.37 and >1.37 respectively, The SOM fraction with the particle size below 150 microns was discarded because practically, this fraction with very fine particles can't be further separated by wet sieving based on density. Total organic matter content, mechanical texture, ash after 375$^{\circ}C$, and dry matter (DM) were also determined by “standard” soil analysis methods. The NIRS regression equations were developed using Infra-Soft-International (ISI) software, version 3.11.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.235-243
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to positive psychological capital on the Communication competence and Job Satisfaction, of Geriatric hospital Nurses. Data were collected using questionnaires from 255 Geriatric hospital Nurses located in G Metropolitan City with over one year career experiences. The collected data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, pearson's correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression using IBM SPSS 23.0 program. The mean scores for the positive psychological capital(3.23±.49), Communication competence(3.56±.47) and job satisfactions (2.88±.55). Second, positive psychological capital positive mentality has positive correlations with communication capital and job satisfaction. Third, Optimism have statistical significance on communication competence in 33% level. Hope has positive correlations with job satisfaction in 6% of an explanatory power. As a conclusion, it is necessary to lower the turnover rate of nursing homes for the elderly and increase the job satisfaction effect, many factors related to positive psychological capital are continuously found in order to solve the nursing workforce of geriatric nursing hospitals.