• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.155-169
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• 2014

With the rapid advances in technologies, organizations are more likely to depend on information systems in their decision-making processes. Business Intelligence (BI) systems, in particular, have become a mainstay in dealing with complex problems in an organization, partly because a variety of advanced computational methods from statistics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence can be applied to solve business problems such as demand forecasting. In addition to the ability to analyze past and present trends, these predictive analytics capabilities provide huge value to an organization's ability to respond to change in markets, business risks, and customer trends. While the performance effects of BI system use in organization settings have been studied, it has been little discussed on the use of predictive analytics technologies embedded in BI systems for forecasting tasks. Thus, this study aims to find important factors that can help to take advantage of the benefits of advanced technologies of a BI system. More generally, a BI system can be viewed as an advisor, defined as the one that formulates judgments or recommends alternatives and communicates these to the person in the role of the judge, and the information generated by the BI system as advice that a decision maker (judge) can follow. Thus, we refer to the findings from the advice-giving and advice-taking literature, focusing on the role of explanations of the system in users' advice taking. It has been shown that advice discounting could occur when an advisor's reasoning or evidence justifying the advisor's decision is not available. However, the majority of current BI systems merely provide a number, which may influence decision makers in accepting the advice and inferring the quality of advice. We in this study explore the following key factors that can influence users' advice taking within the setting of a BI system: explanations on how the box-office grosses are predicted, types of advisor, i.e., system (data mining technique) or human-based business advice mechanisms such as prediction markets (aggregated human advice) and human advisors (individual human expert advice), users' evaluations of the provided advice, and individual differences in decision-makers. Each subject performs the following four tasks, by going through a series of display screens on the computer. First, given the information of the given movie such as director and genre, the subjects are asked to predict the opening weekend box office of the movie. Second, in light of the information generated by an advisor, the subjects are asked to adjust their original predictions, if they desire to do so. Third, they are asked to evaluate the value of the given information (e.g., perceived usefulness, trust, satisfaction). Lastly, a short survey is conducted to identify individual differences that may affect advice-taking. The results from the experiment show that subjects are more likely to follow system-generated advice than human advice when the advice is provided with an explanation. When the subjects as system users think the information provided by the system is useful, they are also more likely to take the advice. In addition, individual differences affect advice-taking. The subjects with more expertise on advisors or that tend to agree with others adjust their predictions, following the advice. On the other hand, the subjects with more knowledge on movies are less affected by the advice and their final decisions are close to their original predictions. The advances in predictive analytics of a BI system demonstrate a great potential to support increasingly complex business decisions. This study shows how the designs of a BI system can play a role in influencing users' acceptance of the system-generated advice, and the findings provide valuable insights on how to leverage the advanced predictive analytics of the BI system in an organization's forecasting practices.

• Journal of forensic and investigative science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.30-49
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• 2007

An autopsy is a postmortem assessment or examination of a body to determine cause of death or manner of death. The author had surveyed Personnel's perception toward conducting an autopsy in general hospital with autopsy at YeungNam University Medical Center, Daegu, Korea from April, to May, 2007. The total number of 286 personnel consisted of 121 men(42.3%), 165 women(57.7%). There were 57 doctors(19.9%), 71 nurses(24.8%), 83 medical technicians (29.0%), 58 office workers(20.3%), and 17 others(5.9%). 61.4% of doctors had an experience of education for autopsy more than 2 times, but nurses(1.4%), medical technicians(15.7%), office workers(1.7%), and others(5.9%) had little experience. Response of conducting an autopsy for sudden death of respondent or respondent's family member was 59.6% of doctors, 22.5% of nurses, 39.8% of medical technicians, 41.4% of office workers, and 35.3% of others. Response of conducting an autopsy for sudden death of respondent's companion was 66.7% of doctors, 33.8% of nurses, 39.8% of medical technicians, 43.1% of office workers, and 17.6% of others. Response of conducting an autopsy for sudden death of patients in general hospital was 50.9% of doctors, 8.5% of nurses, 19.3% of medical technicians, 24.1% of office workers, and 17.6% of others. Survey about a proper institution for autopsy showed 73.7% of doctors for department of forensic medicine in medical school, and 62.0% of nurses, 59.0% of medical technicians, 46.6% of office workers, and 58.8% of others for National Institute of Scientific Investigation. Most of the respondents agreed with the forensic pathologist as the director of autopsy:98.2% of doctors, 94.4% of nurses, 96.4% of medical technicians, 89.7% of office workers, and 88.2% of others. Survey for necessity for autopsy showed responsiveness of doctors, 23.9% of nurses, 47.0% of medical technicians, 34.5% of office workers, and 23.5% of others. Survey for donation of him- or herself after death to the medical school or institution for the death investigation revealed responsiveness of 22.8% of doctors, 11.3% of nurses, 24.1% of medical technicians, 22.4% of office workers, and 23.5% of others. The result of the survey questionnaire showed more negative awareness for autopsy in nurses, medical technicians, office workers, others and than doctors. To improve the negative awareness for autopsy and settle proper postmortem inspection system, education of professional manpower for forensic medicine and inaction of law which is adequate for the actual circumstance of Korea should be considered.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.20 no.1 s.21
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• pp.165-203
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• 1987

This project was a service-cum-research effort with a quasi-experimental study design to examine the health benefits of an integrated Family Planning (FP)/Maternal & Child health (MCH) Service approach that provides crucial factors missing in the present on-going programs. The specific objectives were: 1) To test the effectiveness of trained nurse/midwives (MW) assigned as change agents in the Health Sub-Center (HSC) to bring about the changes in the eight FP/MCH indicators, namely; (i)FP/MCH contacts between field workers and their clients (ii) the use of effective FP methods, (iii) the inter-birth interval and/or open interval, (iv) prenatal care by medically qualified personnel, (v) medically supervised deliveries, (vi) the rate of induced abortion, (vii) maternal and infant morbidity, and (viii) preinatal & infant mortality. 2) To measure the integrative linkage (contacts) between MW & HSC workers and between HSC and clients. 3) To examine the organizational or administrative factors influencing integrative linkage between health workers. Study design; The above objectives called for quasi-experimental design setting up a study and control area with and without a midwife. An active intervention program (FP/MCH minimum 'package' program) was conducted for a 2 year period from June 1982-July 1984 in Seosan County and 'before and after' surveys were conducted to measure the change. Service input; This study was undertaken by the Soonchunhyang University in collaboration with WHO. After a baseline survery in 1981, trained nurses/midwives were introduced into two health sub-centers in a rural setting (Seosan county) for a 2 year period from 1982 to 1984. A major service input was the establishment of midwifery services in the existing health delivery system with emphasis on nurse/midwife's role as the link between health workers (nurse aids) and village health workers, and the referral of risk patients to the private physician (OBGY specialist). An evaluation survey was made in August 1984 to assess the effectiveness of this alternative integrated approach in the study areas in comparison with the control area which had normal government services. Method of evaluation; a. In this study, the primary objective was first to examine to what extent the FP/MCH package program brought about changes in the pre-determined eight indicators (outcome and impact measures) and the following relationship was first analyzed; b. Nevertheless, this project did not automatically accept the assumption that if two or more activities were integrated, the results would automatically be better than a non-integrated or categorical program. There is a need to assess the 'integration process' itself within the package program. The process of integration was measured in terms of interactive linkages, or the quantity & quality of contacts between workers & clients and among workers. Intergrative linkages were hypothesized to be influenced by organizational factors at the HSC clinic level including HSC goals, sltrurture, authority, leadership style, resources, and personal characteristics of HSC staff. The extent or degree of integration, as measured by the intensity of integrative linkages, was in turn presumed to influence programme performance. Thus as indicated diagrammatically below, organizational factors constituted the independent variables, integration as the intervening variable and programme performance with respect to family planning and health services as the dependent variable: Concerning organizational factors, however, due to the limited number of HSCs (2 in the study area and 3 in the control area), they were studied by participatory observation of an anthropologist who was independent of the project. In this observation, we examined whether the assumed integration process actually occurred or not. If not, what were the constraints in producing an effective integration process. Summary of Findings; A) Program effects and impact 1. Effects on FP use: During this 2 year action period, FP acceptance increased from 58% in 1981 to 78% in 1984 in both the study and control areas. This increase in both areas was mainly due to the new family planning campaign driven by the Government for the same study period. Therefore, there was no increment of FP acceptance rate due to additional input of MW to the on-going FP program. But in the study area, quality aspects of FP were somewhat improved, having a better continuation rate of IUDs & pills and more use of effective Contraceptive methods in comparison with the control area. 2. Effects of use of MCH services: Between the study and control areas, however, there was a significant difference in maternal and child health care. For example, the coverage of prenatal care was increased from 53% for 1981 birth cohort to 75% for 1984 birth cohort in the study area. In the control area, the same increased from 41% (1981) to 65% (1984). It is noteworthy that almost two thirds of the recent birth cohort received prenatal care even in the control area, indicating that there is a growing demand of MCH care as the size of family norm becomes smaller 3. There has been a substantive increase in delivery care by medical professions in the study area, with an annual increase rate of 10% due to midwives input in the study areas. The project had about two times greater effect on postnatal care (68% vs. 33%) at delivery care(45.2% vs. 26.1%). 4. The study area had better reproductive efficiency (wanted pregancies with FP practice & healthy live births survived by one year old) than the control area, especially among women under 30 (14.1% vs. 9.6%). The proportion of women who preferred the 1st trimester for their first prenatal care rose significantly in the study area as compared to the control area (24% vs 13%). B) Effects on Interactive Linkage 1. This project made a contribution in making several useful steps in the direction of service integration, namely; i) The health workers have become familiar with procedures on how to work together with each other (especially with a midwife) in carrying out their work in FP/MCH and, ii) The health workers have gotten a feeling of the usefulness of family health records (statistical integration) in identifying targets in their own work and their usefulness in caring for family health. 2. On the other hand, because of a lack of required organizational factors, complete linkage was not obtained as the project intended. i) In regards to the government health worker's activities in terms of home visiting there was not much difference between the study & control areas though the MW did more home visiting than Government health workers. ii) In assessing the service performance of MW & health workers, the midwives balanced their workload between 40% FP, 40% MCH & 20% other activities (mainly immunization). However, $85{\sim}90%$ of the services provided by the health workers were other than FP/MCH, mainly for immunizations such as the encephalitis campaign. In the control area, a similar pattern was observed. Over 75% of their service was other than FP/MCH. Therefore, the pattern shows the health workers are a long way from becoming multipurpose workers even though the government is pushing in this direction. 3. Villagers were much more likely to visit the health sub-center clinic in the study area than in the control area (58% vs.31%) and for more combined care (45% vs.23%). C) Organization factors (admistrative integrative issues) 1. When MW (new workers with higher qualification) were introduced to HSC, it was noted that there were conflicts between the existing HSC workers (Nurse aids with less qualification than MW) and the MW for the beginning period of the project. The cause of the conflict was studied by an anthropologist and it was pointed out that these functional integration problems stemmed from the structural inadequacies of the health subcenter organization as indicated below; i) There is still no general consensus about the objectives and goals of the project between the project staff and the existing health workers. ii) There is no formal linkage between the responsibility of each member's job in the health sub-center. iii) There is still little chance for midwives to play a catalytic role or to establish communicative networks between workers in order to link various knowledge and skills to provide better FP/MCH services in the health sub-center. 2. Based on the above findings the project recommended to the County Chief (who has power to control the administrative staff and the technical staff in his county) the following ; i) In order to solve the conflicts between the individual roles and functions in performing health care activities, there must be goals agreed upon by both. ii) The health sub·center must function as an autonomous organization to undertake the integration health project. In order to do that, it is necessary to support administrative considerations, and to establish a communication system for supervision and to control of the health sub-centers. iii) The administrative organization, tentatively, must be organized to bind the health worker's midwive's and director's jobs by an organic relationship in order to achieve the integrative system under the leadership of health sub-center director. After submitting this observation report, there has been better understanding from frequent meetings & communication between HW/MW in FP/MCH work as the program developed. Lessons learned from the Seosan Project (on issues of FP/MCH integration in Korea); 1) A majority or about 80% of the couples are now practicing FP. As indicated by the study, there is a growing demand from clients for the health system to provide more MCH services than FP in order to maintain the achieved small size of family through FP practice. It is fortunate to see that the government is now formulating a MCH policy for the year 2,000 and revising MCH laws and regulations to emphasize more MCH care for achieving a small size family through family planning practice. 2) Goal consensus in FP/MCH shouBd be made among the health workers It administrators, especially to emphasize the need of care of 'wanted' child. But there is a long way to go to realize the 'real' integration of FP into MCH in Korea, unless there is a structural integration FP/MCH because a categorical FP is still first priority to reduce the rate of population growth for economic reasons but not yet for health/welfare reasons in practice. 3) There should be more financial allocation: (i) a midwife should be made available to help to promote the MCH program and coordinate services, (in) there should be a health sub·center director who can provide leadership training for managing the integrated program. There is a need for 'organizational support', if the decision of integration is made to obtain benefit from both FP & MCH. In other words, costs should be paid equally to both FP/MCH. The integration slogan itself, without the commitment of paying such costs, is powerless to advocate it. 4) Need of management training for middle level health personnel is more acute as the Government has already constructed 90 MCH centers attached to the County Health Center but without adequate manpower, facilities, and guidelines for integrating the work of both FP and MCH. 5) The local government still considers these MCH centers only as delivery centers to take care only of those visiting maternity cases. The MCH center should be a center for the managment of all pregnancies occurring in the community and the promotion of FP with a systematic and effective linkage of resources available in the county such as i.e. Village Health Worker, Community Health Practitioner, Health Sub-center Physicians & Health workers, Doctors and Midwives in MCH center, OBGY Specialists in clinics & hospitals as practiced by the Seosan project at primary health care level.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.105-130
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• 1981

This study was conducted to compare the characteristics of high performane areas for family planning with that of low performance areas and to find factors which strongly affected contraceptive practice behavior. For the study, eight areas were selected from 274 rural family planning canvassing areas of Korean Population Policy and Program Evaluation Study, which was an action study operated in all areas of Cheju Island from July 1, 1976 until December 31,1979. As a first step of the action study, Cheju Island was devided up 318 family planning canvasser areas Each area was consisted of 200 households in rural district and 300 households in urhan one Duriog the period of project, each canvassing area had been managed by a female family planning canvasser, selected by director of health center considering several individual conditions needed for family planning activities Basic activities of canvassers were to counsell all the eligihie couples in own charged area about family planning methods and also to distribute contraceptives such as condoms and oral pills. In case couples desire to accept sterilization including vasectomy and tubal-ligation, the canvassers played a linking role connecting potential client with family planning field workers. Canvassng areas shows significant differentce in performance for family planning, nevertheless they are supposed to have almost the same conditions regarding family planning distribution channel. Because the purpose of the Cheju project was to eliminate all the problems that existed in governmental distribution system, that is to remove geographic, economic, cognitive and administrative barriers Accumulated performances of family planning methods accepted by residents in each area were calculated by eligible women aged 14-49. And then canvassing areas were ranked according to performance score. Consequently, 4 areas in extremely high and low family planning performance areas were selected respectively. Major results were obtained by comparing characteristics of high performance area with that of low performance areas, which are as follows: 1. The mean number of living children was about the same both in high and low performance areas for family planning. But respondents' mean age (38.5) in high performance areas was higher than that (37.0) in low performance areas 2. Respondents' perception in the expectant educational level of others' children in high performance areas was higher than that in low performance areas, although respondents educational level, monthly expenditure and ratio of children in high school and above was not different. 3. Ratio of ownerships of TV and newspaper in high performance areas was highen than that in low performance areas 4. The duration of canvasser' charge in high performance areas was longer than that of low performance areas, showing the fact that canvassers didn't move cut in high performance areas 5. In high performance areas, canvassers' houses were relatively located in the center part of the village. And so villagers resided in near distances from the anvasser's house 6. 4H clubs' activities in high performance areas were more active than those in low performance areas Therefore it was assumed that cohesiveness of community in high performance areas were stronger than that in low areas. 7. Canvassers' family planning practice rate was higher than that in low performance areas, and also canvassers' human relationship was more sociable than that of canvassers in low performance areas. 8. Fourteen variables which showed relatively high significance level in $X^2$ and F test were selected as independent variables for stepwise regression analysis. According to the results of regression analysis. five of 14 variables-distributors education level ($R^2$=.4439), duration of distributor's charge ($R^2$=.6166), 4H club activities ($R^2$=.6697), canvasser's contraceptive practice ($R^2$=.7377) and location of distributions house ($R^2$=.8010) explained 80.1 percent of total variance.