• Title/Summary/Keyword: US Consumers

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Study on the Korean Traditional Dyeing:1) Unique features and understanding

  • Soh, Hwang Oak
    • International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.35-47
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    • 2013
  • We know that humans are able to live comfortably when there is a balance between the living environment that surrounds us and us. Clothing, one of the necessities of life, serves a dual purpose of functioning as protection for the body as well as providing visual satisfaction, and so is the most effective bonding mechanism. A different type of comfort that has been provided through industrialization and advancements in technology has resulted in pollution problems in the environment, and it has reached a point of seriously thinking about its effects. The biggest problems in environmental pollution are air pollution and waste disposal, and something that cannot be ignored is that environmental hormones and harmful heavy metals have been discovered in the synthetic dyes used in the clothing product, and not only are they harmful to the body, but they also have adverse effects on skin allergies such as atopic dermatitis. Its effects on clothing, especially underwear and baby products, can become a serious issue. The use of natural vegetable dye can be considered the basis for the traditional Korean dyeing process, however not all natural dyeing process can be thought of as traditional Korean dyeing. This is because natural dyeing used to be the most common method of dyeing before synthetic dyes came along and became the dye of choice for most clothing. Natural dyes are beneficial to the body, and the nature colors, achieved from the natural materials, relieve eye strains as well as have a healing effect for people who are suffering from psychological instability such as stress. However, the use of mordant in order to increase the fastness and get better color effects can lead to even more damage to the environment, and it cannot be a dyeing method that is good for the body. Traditional natural dyeing is different from regular natural dyeing because it uses colors that the Korean people can identify with and applies specific methods in order to achieve those colors. Even though experimental study with dyestuff and practical use of the dyeing methods for traditional Korean dyeing has been started(Soh, H., 1983) and has been ongoing, it is still not easy for regular people to use the method on their own. At the present time, natural dye materials are getting made and sold more than ever, but there is a lot of confusion among consumers regarding the difference between traditional Korean dyeing and natural dyeing, as companies are using the two terms interchangeably to market their natural dye products. So getting a better understanding of the characteristics of traditional Korean dyeing and traditional colors should be considered first priority at this time. The purpose of this thesis is to study the traditional Korean view of color, which developed the culture of traditional dyeing in Korea, and the characteristics of traditional Korean dyeing, a method that pursued achieving Korea's color through natural dyeing.

A Comparative Study on the Burden of proof between Korea and the USA under the Product Liability (제조물책임법상 입증책임에 관한 한·미 간 비교연구)

  • Ha, Choong-Lyong;Kim, Eun-Bin
    • Korea Trade Review
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    • v.43 no.3
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    • pp.101-124
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    • 2018
  • After the establishment of the Korean Product Liability Act, a new clause on the burden of proof has been added and is being revised to meet the purpose of consumer protection. Article 3(2) of the new clause stipulates a provision for estimating a causal relationship when proving indirect facts to alleviate burden of proof. While consumer rights are increasing and public attention is drawn to consumer issues, problems are still emerging. In order to solve the problem, the U.S. Product Liability Act, which has strong consumer rights, was examined to describe the direction in which Korea's Product Liability Act should proceed in terms of consumer protection. The results of the comparative analysis show that the US has expanded the concept of strict liability in terms of rigorous liability, consumer dispute resolution, provable possibility, and litigation accessibility, The consumer dispute settlement system has thoroughly protected consumers by operating educational and systemic consumer ADR system. As for the possibility of proving, Korea has three provenances, and the United States has one. In the United States, where consumer lawsuits are frequent, lawsuits are more accessible than those in Korea, where the party responsible for proving is turned into a manufacturer and responsible for proving the case. This study focuses on consumer protection and provides implications for Korean product liability law.

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Study on Shift of Innovation and Manufacturing Hubs to the United States (혁신 및 제조 허브의 미국으로 이동에 관한 연구)

  • Seo, Daesung
    • The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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    • v.9 no.2
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    • pp.553-560
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    • 2023
  • The study is about domestic industries following the migration of hubs (innovation, manufacturing) to other countries and the hub-oriented US industries (batteries, semiconductors, electric vehicles). Additionally, the ongoing trade tensions between the United States and China may have also played a role in companies moving their operations to the United States. The result of such a move could potentially include job creation in the United States, as well as increased investment in the U.S. manufacturing sector. However, it is also possible that there could be negative consequences, such as higher prices for consumers or disruptions to supply chains during the relocation process. However, such IRA, Chips Act scenario would likely also have negative consequences (Inflation in the home country) for the countries whose industries moved to the US, as they would lose jobs, investment, and possibly face economic difficulties as a result. As the result of the empirical analysis of the export scale of Korea and the United States, changes in the movement of global supply hubs are related to factors such as geopolitical price increases and consumption declines. In order to respond to these changes, this paper emphasizes the need to prevent the result of de-advantage by moving the production area of the scale.

Emoticon by Emotions: The Development of an Emoticon Recommendation System Based on Consumer Emotions (Emoticon by Emotions: 소비자 감성 기반 이모티콘 추천 시스템 개발)

  • Kim, Keon-Woo;Park, Do-Hyung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.227-252
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    • 2018
  • The evolution of instant communication has mirrored the development of the Internet and messenger applications are among the most representative manifestations of instant communication technologies. In messenger applications, senders use emoticons to supplement the emotions conveyed in the text of their messages. The fact that communication via messenger applications is not face-to-face makes it difficult for senders to communicate their emotions to message recipients. Emoticons have long been used as symbols that indicate the moods of speakers. However, at present, emoticon-use is evolving into a means of conveying the psychological states of consumers who want to express individual characteristics and personality quirks while communicating their emotions to others. The fact that companies like KakaoTalk, Line, Apple, etc. have begun conducting emoticon business and sales of related content are expected to gradually increase testifies to the significance of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, despite the development of emoticons themselves and the growth of the emoticon market, no suitable emoticon recommendation system has yet been developed. Even KakaoTalk, a messenger application that commands more than 90% of domestic market share in South Korea, just grouped in to popularity, most recent, or brief category. This means consumers face the inconvenience of constantly scrolling around to locate the emoticons they want. The creation of an emoticon recommendation system would improve consumer convenience and satisfaction and increase the sales revenue of companies the sell emoticons. To recommend appropriate emoticons, it is necessary to quantify the emotions that the consumer sees and emotions. Such quantification will enable us to analyze the characteristics and emotions felt by consumers who used similar emoticons, which, in turn, will facilitate our emoticon recommendations for consumers. One way to quantify emoticons use is metadata-ization. Metadata-ization is a means of structuring or organizing unstructured and semi-structured data to extract meaning. By structuring unstructured emoticon data through metadata-ization, we can easily classify emoticons based on the emotions consumers want to express. To determine emoticons' precise emotions, we had to consider sub-detail expressions-not only the seven common emotional adjectives but also the metaphorical expressions that appear only in South Korean proved by previous studies related to emotion focusing on the emoticon's characteristics. We therefore collected the sub-detail expressions of emotion based on the "Shape", "Color" and "Adumbration". Moreover, to design a highly accurate recommendation system, we considered both emotion-technical indexes and emoticon-emotional indexes. We then identified 14 features of emoticon-technical indexes and selected 36 emotional adjectives. The 36 emotional adjectives consisted of contrasting adjectives, which we reduced to 18, and we measured the 18 emotional adjectives using 40 emoticon sets randomly selected from the top-ranked emoticons in the KakaoTalk shop. We surveyed 277 consumers in their mid-twenties who had experience purchasing emoticons; we recruited them online and asked them to evaluate five different emoticon sets. After data acquisition, we conducted a factor analysis of emoticon-emotional factors. We extracted four factors that we named "Comic", Softness", "Modernity" and "Transparency". We analyzed both the relationship between indexes and consumer attitude and the relationship between emoticon-technical indexes and emoticon-emotional factors. Through this process, we confirmed that the emoticon-technical indexes did not directly affect consumer attitudes but had a mediating effect on consumer attitudes through emoticon-emotional factors. The results of the analysis revealed the mechanism consumers use to evaluate emoticons; the results also showed that consumers' emoticon-technical indexes affected emoticon-emotional factors and that the emoticon-emotional factors affected consumer satisfaction. We therefore designed the emoticon recommendation system using only four emoticon-emotional factors; we created a recommendation method to calculate the Euclidean distance from each factors' emotion. In an attempt to increase the accuracy of the emoticon recommendation system, we compared the emotional patterns of selected emoticons with the recommended emoticons. The emotional patterns corresponded in principle. We verified the emoticon recommendation system by testing prediction accuracy; the predictions were 81.02% accurate in the first result, 76.64% accurate in the second, and 81.63% accurate in the third. This study developed a methodology that can be used in various fields academically and practically. We expect that the novel emoticon recommendation system we designed will increase emoticon sales for companies who conduct business in this domain and make consumer experiences more convenient. In addition, this study served as an important first step in the development of an intelligent emoticon recommendation system. The emotional factors proposed in this study could be collected in an emotional library that could serve as an emotion index for evaluation when new emoticons are released. Moreover, by combining the accumulated emotional library with company sales data, sales information, and consumer data, companies could develop hybrid recommendation systems that would bolster convenience for consumers and serve as intellectual assets that companies could strategically deploy.

The Study of Characteristics of Consumer Purchasing Private Brand Products at Large-Scale Mart (국내 대형마트의 유통업체 브랜드 상품 구매 소비자의 특성 분석에 관한 연구)

  • Hwang, Seong-Huyk;Lee, Jung-Hee;Roh, Eun-Jung
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.1-19
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    • 2010
  • As having the movement of developing private brand (PB) goods, domestic big retailers are facing up with new problems. Thus, it is required studies of PB products, and how consumers recognize PB products as a consideration commodity set. Also, it is worthy in order that it gives us the important meaning on the marketing strategy with focusing on evaluating the differences between customers buying PB grocery goods with respect to demographic characteristics and purchasing behaviors. PB has some advantages for customers and retailers. However, according to AC Nielson's report (2005), Asian and emerging market has 1/5 sales relatively to Western countries. But we can assume that the emerging market has the most potential growth through this result. As a result from several other studies, it becomes necessary to not only increase the rate of selling composition of PB product temporarily, but also analyze the characteristics of customers using big retailers and segmenting customer groups to make PB product as a consideration commodity set for them. In addition, it is needed to have a variety of acts of marketing. From studies related to PB, there is a prejudice - cheap products have low quality - but, evaluation by customers who have used those products shows neutral stand, and there is a study representing that it is the most important to accumulate the belief between the retailers selling PB products and consumers using those for the accurate evaluation and intention on purchasing. Also, by the result from analyzing the characteristics of customers buying PB products, we could assume that higher income and higher education level, more preference on PB products. Especially, according to TNS's research, the primary targets of PB product are 30's who seeks value for money and planned spending habits, and 40's who have teenager children, and are interested in encouraging themselves. This paper used Probit model to analyze the characteristics of consumers. This model helps us to analyze with the variables representing the demographic characteristics of consumers (gender, age, educational level, occupation, income level, living area), and variables related to purchasing behavior (visiting frequency on big retailers, the average amount that they pay for goods in there, and check-up which brand made those goods). The method we used in this study is by man to man interview and survey on-line with the rate of 89% and 11% in Seoul and Gyunggi Province, respectively, for about one month from the beginning of February, 2008. As a result of this, under the assumption that people buy PB products more as long as they go shopping more, it was not meaningful for target groups which we pointed out as frequently visiting customers to be. Although, we have expected women buy more PB products than men do, gender doesn't mean anything for the result. And, it has inferred that married people buy more PB goods than singles do. It was also meaningless with variables related to occupation. Because housewives are often exposed to any kind of supermarket than workers are, we could not get any relatives. Moreover, we couldn't proof that younger generation prefer big retailers more than older people who 50~60's. Education levels doesn't affect on the purchase of PB product as well. Related to living area, the result is statistically not similar as we expected whether living in Seoul or not. It shows there is no relationship with the preference on retail brands and PB products, and it is similar with the study researched by TNS(2008) that customers tend to buy PB product impulsively no matter which brand it is and where they are even though their shopping place is the big market where customers are often using. Variables on which we had meaningful results are income level and living place. That is, customers who have 3,000,000~6,000,000 WON every month on average are more willing to buy PB products than other customers whose income is over 6,000,000 WON, and residents not living in Seoul prefer PB goods than those who are living in Seoul. To explain more about what we got, if there is only one condition about customer's visiting frequency on big retails, we could come up with this result that more exposed to PB products, more purchasing frequency. Consequently, it brings the important insight that large retailers have to prepare something to make customers visit them often to increase selling rate of PB products. To demonstrate the result of analyzing more, what is more efficient variables are demographically including marital status, income level, and residential area to buy items that affect the PB products and could include the frequency of visiting large markets by the purchase habits. Specifically, then, married couples rather than singles, middle-income customers than high-income customers, and local residents not living in Seoul than customers in Seoul are more likely to purchase PB goods. In addition, as long as a customer visits two times more, then the purchasing rate of PB products is to increase over 5.3%. Therefore, it seems that retailers are better to make a shopping place as fun and comfortable places. With overwhelming the idea that PB products are just cheap, one-time purchase goods, it is needed to increase the loyalty on those goods like NB products, try to make PB products as a consideration products set, and occur to sustainable sales. Especially, as suggested by this paper, it seems like it strongly needs to identify the characteristics of customers who prefer PB, to segment those customers, and to select the main target, and to do positioning with well-planned marketing strategies. Then, it is able to give us a meaningful point on marketing strategy by developing the field of PB study, identifying the difference of life style and shopping habits of customers.

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A Comparative Study of the Nurse Licensure Exam Systems between the United States and South Korea (미국과 한국의 간호사 국가면허시험 문항개발과정 비교)

  • Kwak, Chanyeong;Yun, Soon-Nyoung;Kim, Shin-Jeong
    • Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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    • v.25 no.6
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    • pp.622-632
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    • 2013
  • Purpose: This study was conducted to compare the nurse licensure examination system in Korea with that of the United States (US). Methods: Focus interviews with the administrative staff of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) were held. two areas were explored in the interviews: the item development process and the general administrative operating procedures. Results: NCLEX-RN items are designed for entry-level practice. The items are subjected to a series of 12 steps including a item writing panel, a content and editorial review, a sensitivity panel, a pre-test, a Differential item functioning panel and a committee review. NCSBN is responsible for the test for registered nurses and one for practical nurses. In contrast the Korean National Health Personnel Licensing Board (KNHPLB) is responsible for nursing is and 21 other health related licensure. Another difference is that in Korea there is no consistent and specialized staff to develop question items. Items are developed by educators who are not active nurses (this last statemtne is not a finding but a point of view usually not given in findings.). Conclusion: Korean nurses form the largest group of health related job categories and the most direct to health care consumers. Therefore, the nursing licensure exam should be acknowledged as the most influential licensure exam in health care services. We recommend a nursing specialized licensing institution to be established with active nurse' participation in item development process to reflect clinical practice into licensure exam.

Research trends in outdoor pig production - A review

  • Park, Hyun-Suk;Min, Byungrok;Oh, Sang-Hyon
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.30 no.9
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    • pp.1207-1214
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    • 2017
  • Since the industrialization of swine production in the late 1900s, swine farms in the United States, as well as in Europe, have largely become consolidated. Pig farms became larger in size but fewer in number, with 91% of market pigs being produced by large operations with 5,000 or more pigs on-site in the US, and only 3% of the total utilized agricultural land representing organic farming. Such change in the market made it difficult for small farmers to stay competitive, forcing them to find alternative ways to reduce the cost of production and increase profit using the outdoor production system. In contrast to the indoor confinement system, outdoor production system uses pasture-based units and/or deep-bedded hoop structures that promote animal welfare and environmental sustainability with a lower capital investment. In accord with the growing concern for animal and environmental welfare and food safety by the consumers, small farmers practicing an outdoor production system are seeing increased opportunities for marketing their products in the pork niche market. Unlike the general belief that the reproductive and growth performance measures of the outdoor sows and piglets are poorer in comparison with the animals reared indoors, studies showed that there was no significant difference in the performance measures, and some traits were even better in outdoor animals. Improved reproductive and production traits can increase the sustainability of outdoor farming. Present study reviewed the recent studies comparing the performance measures, meat quality and health of indoor and outdoor animals, as well as the efforts to improve the outdoor production system through changes in management such as hut types and breed of animals.

The Relationship between Nutrient Intakes and Health Indicators according to Rice Consumption in Korean Elderly: Using the 2010 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

  • Oh, Chorong;No, Jae-Kyung
    • Culinary science and hospitality research
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    • v.23 no.1
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    • pp.19-27
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    • 2017
  • The present study was aimed at evaluating whether white rice consumption has any association with selected measures of dietary intake and nutrients, including various variables of energy intake, major vitamin, mineral intakes, and the risk of health characteristics for over 60 years older. A total of 1,433 subjects (658 male and 775 females) 60 years or older from the fifth Korea National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey(KNHANES) 2010 participated and the Food Commodity Intake Database were used in this study. Levels of percent energy intake from rice were classified into 4 groups (R1, R2, R3, R4 groups: 25% of each) between male and female elderly using data from KNHANES. One of the interesting findings was that the higher rice consumers had a significantly sufficient intakes of a range of nutrients such as total energy intake, protein, carbohydrate, calcium, mineral, sodium, potassium, and niacin in female elderly, but not much in male. Other finding was that as the higher intake of rice group, prevalence of hypertension (53.5%, 63.4%, 50.3%, 46.3%, p=0.035), dyslipidemia (16.6%, 18.0%, 14.5%, 11.1%, p=0.008), sarcopenia (46.1%, 46.1%, 40.2%, 28.8%, p=0.012), sarcopenic obesity (25.4%, 31.5%, 23.7%, 15.5%, p=0.008) were significantly less than other groups in female, but not much in male. In conclusion, we obtained valuable basic information on recommended rice-centered diet could give us good nutritional status and eventually bring the prevention of some chronic diseases in elderly, especially in female.

A Study on Smart Kitchen of the 4th Industrial Revolution - Focusing on IOT Kitchen Furniture and Kitchen Electric Appliances - (4차 산업혁명의 스마트 키친 연구 - IOT 주방가구와 주방가전의 개발사례를 중심으로 -)

  • Oh, Mihyun;Kim, Jong-seo
    • Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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    • v.28 no.4
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    • pp.268-277
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    • 2017
  • This paper analyzed the modern trends and the present state of kitchen furniture and electric appliances depending on the advancement in IOT technology, in order to contribute to seeking a method of approaching consumers as an effective way for kitchen furniture and electric appliance companies to develop IOT products. Prior to analysis, the chronological transitions of Korean kitchen furniture and examined the effects of Korea's own emotions and characteristics on modern kitchen. For this study, the changes in Korean kitchen space were explored, based on previous studies, recent trend magazines, articles and professional books and the trends of modern kitchen furniture were observed. Also, the concept of IOT technology was considered and then the tendencies of modern IOT kitchen furniture and electric appliances were analyzed. The case study targeted the recent three-year trends of two types of domestic kitchen furniture and small-sized IOT kitchen electric appliances, which are sold, or have been introduced on foreign online stores and have been unveiled at CES Electric Appliances Exhibition. As a result of the study, it was found that many foreign countries, including the US have been developing various IOT kitchen electric appliances. The enterprise concept is to change kitchen with their IOT products, not changing future kitchen with IOT technology. This implies that approaches to product development may change. Moreover, it was recognized that for kitchen design, characteristics of product users need to be considered, according to Korean ideology.

A study on EDP of water Rate Billing procedures (상수도 요금 과징업무 기계화 처리에 대하여)

  • 정규영
    • Water for future
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    • v.7 no.2
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    • pp.11-22
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    • 1974
  • Comparing with Seoul city's other administrative works, the work to arrange and collect monthly water rates with 470,000 faucets is tremendous in volume and simple repetition in quality. In order to cover the shortage of handling, it is urgent for us to replace the present manual system with EDP(Electronic Data Processing) system to mechanize a series of handling works of simple repeated calculation such as water consumption, rate calculation, statistics arrangement, bills and specification of water rate by computer. When this work is completely mechanized, inspectors of water meter just turn over their checking results to the Data Center and all data are processed through Input Media(OMR Card, Punched Card) and computer for programming final bills. Then, the delivery of the bills to citizens will be the only work to be carried out. such mechanization will bring about the following benefits: 1. Improvement of administrative work by efficiency and rationalization. 2. Improvement of administrative service with people. 3. Possibility of scientific with trustworthy multi-purpose policy-making data. 4. An effect to cover the personnel shortage of 252 persons (at all the water works offices) and save manpower of 166 persons (47,619 man-days). The application of the above mentioned mechanization will be started to only Chongro and Chung-ku water works offices as model cases out of all water works offices in Seoul. As the electronic calculating machines are inducted, this system will be gradually applied to other water works offices. The billing and collection works of water rates which are connected directly to the daily life of the citizenes, should be handled by the scientific EDP system as soon as possible in order to promote the convenience of consumers and effective operation. This study is to promote the sound and rational operation of this work.

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