• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.241-252
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• 2004

Purpose: Population based structural and functional maps of the brain provide effective tools for the analysis and interpretation of complex and individually variable brain data. Brain MRI and PET standard templates and statistical probabilistic maps based on image data of Korean normal volunteers have been developed and probabilistic maps based on cytoarchitectonic data have been introduced. A quantification method using these data was developed for the objective assessment of regional intensity in the brain images. Materials and Methods: Age, gender and ethnic specific anatomical and functional brain templates based on MR and PET images of Korean normal volunteers were developed. Korean structural probabilistic maps for 89 brain regions and cytoarchitectonic probabilistic maps for 13 Brodmann areas were transformed onto the standard templates. Brain FDG PET and SPGR MR images of normal volunteers were spatially normalized onto the template of each modality and gender. Regional uptake of radiotracers in PET and gray matter concentration in MR images were then quantified by averaging (or summing) regional intensities weighted using the probabilistic maps of brain regions. Regionally specific effects of aging on glucose metabolism in cingulate cortex were also examined. Results: Quantification program could generate quantification results for single spatially normalized images per 20 seconds. Glucose metabolism change in cingulate gyrus was regionally specific: ratios of glucose metabolism in the rostral anterior cingulate vs. posterior cingulate and the caudal anterior cingulate vs. posterior cingulate were significantly decreased as the age increased. 'Rostral anterior'/'posterior' was decreased by 3.1% per decade of age ($P<10^{-11}$, r=0.81) and 'caudal anterior'/'posterior' was decreased by 1.7% ($P<10^{-8}$, r=0.72). Conclusion: Ethnic specific standard templates and probabilistic maps and quantification program developed in this study will be useful for the analysis of brain image of Korean people since the difference in shape of the hemispheres and the sulcal pattern of brain relative to age, gender, races, and diseases cannot be fully overcome by the nonlinear spatial normalization techniques.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.651-660
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• 2016

Due to recent population aging, the number of check-up for senior citizens has increased steadily. According to this trend, the market size of dental X-ray equipment and the number of approval and review for these devices have simultaneously increased. The technical document of medical device is required for approval and review for medical device, and medical device companies needs to have work comprehension and expertise, as the document needs to include the overall contents such as performances, test criteria, etc.. Yet, since most of domestic manufacturers or importers of medical devices are small businesses, it is difficult for them to recruit professional manpower for approval of medical devices, and submission of inaccurate technical documents has increased. These problems lead to delay of the approval process and to difficulties in quick entering into the market. Especially, the Ministry of Food and Drug safety (MFDS) standards of a dental extra-oral X-ray equipment, a dental intra-oral X-ray equipment, an arm-type computed tomography, and a portable X-ray system have been recently enacted or not. this guideline of dental X-ray equipment adjusting revised standards was developed to help relative companies and reviewers. For this study, first, the methods to write technical document have been reviewed with revised international and domestic regulations and system. Second, the domestic and foreign market status of each item has been surveyed and analyzed. Third, the contents of technical documents already approved by MFDS have been analyzed to select the correct example, test items, criteria, and methods. Finally, the guideline has been developed based on international and domestic regulation, through close review of a consultative body composed of academic, industrial, research institute and government experts.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.71-96
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• 2011

Within the traditional medical delivery system, patients residing in medically vulnerable areas, those with body movement difficulties, and nursing facility residents have had limited access to good healthcare services. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides us with a convenient and useful means of overcoming distance and time constraints. ICT is integrated with biomedical science and technology in a way that offers a new high-quality medical service. As a result, rapid technological advancement is expected to play a pivotal role bringing about innovation in a wide range of medical service areas, such as medical management, testing, diagnosis, and treatment; offering new and improved healthcare services; and effecting dramatic changes in current medical services. The increase in aging population and chronic diseases has caused an increase in medical expenses. In response to the increasing demand for efficient healthcare services, a telehealth service based on ICT is being emphasized on a global level. Telehealth services have been implemented especially in pilot projects and system development and technological research. With the service about to be implemented in earnest, it is necessary to study its overall acceptance by consumers, which is expected to contribute to the development and activation of a variety of services. In this sense, the study aims at positively examining the structural relationship among the acceptance factors for telehealth services based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Data were collected by showing audiovisual material on telehealth services to online panels and requesting them to respond to a structured questionnaire sheet, which is known as the information acceleration method. Among the 1,165 adult respondents, 608 valid samples were finally chosen, while the remaining were excluded because of incomplete answers or allotted time overrun. In order to test the reliability and validity of the assessment scale items, we carried out reliability and factor analyses, and in order to explore the causal relation among potential variables, we conducted a structural equation modeling analysis using AMOS 7.0 and SPSS 17.0. The research outcomes are as follows. First, service quality, innovativeness of medical technology, and social influence were shown to affect perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the telehealth service, which was statistically significant, and the two factors had a positive impact on willingness to accept the telehealth service. In addition, social influence had a direct, significant effect on intention to use, which is paralleled by the TAM used in previous research on technology acceptance. This shows that the research model proposed in the study effectively explains the acceptance of the telehealth service. Second, the research model reveals that information privacy concerns had a insignificant impact on perceived ease of use of the telehealth service. From this, it can be gathered that the concerns over information protection and security are reduced further due to advancements in information technology compared to the initial period in the information technology industry, and thus the improvement in quality of medical services appeared to ensure that information privacy concerns did not act as a prohibiting factor in the acceptance of the telehealth service. Thus, if other factors have an enormous impact on ease of use and usefulness, concerns over these results in the initial period of technology acceptance may become irrelevant. However, it is clear that users' information privacy concerns, as other studies have revealed, is a major factor affecting technology acceptance. Thus, caution must be exercised while interpreting the result, and further study is required on the issue. Numerous information technologies with outstanding performance and innovativeness often attract few consumers. A revised bill for those urgently in need of telehealth services is about to be approved in the national assembly. As telemedicine is implemented between doctors and patients, a wide range of systems that will improve the quality of healthcare services will be designed. In this sense, the study on the consumer acceptance of telehealth services is meaningful and offers strong academic evidence. Based on the implications, it can be expected to contribute to the activation of telehealth services. Further study is needed to assess the acceptance factors for telehealth services, such as motivation to remain healthy, health care involvement, knowledge on health, and control of health-related behavior, in order to develop unique services according to the categorization of customers based on health factors. In addition, further study may focus on various theoretical cognitive behavior models other than the TAM, such as the health belief model.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.105-138
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• 2009

Although the decline in fertility rate is generally observed along the history of economic development throughout the world, the continuing decline hitting below the replacement level in Korea over the recent years gathered serious social concerns on the ground that it accelerates the process of population aging. The total fertility rate in Koreareached 2.08 in 1983, and gradually fell to the levels of 1.08 in 2005 and 1.26 in 2007. The policy debate over the role of the government has been focused mainly on the level of theoretical discussion without substantial basis on firm empirical evidence and the determinants of fertility. The objective of the paper is to empirically investigate the fertility effect of the female wage, which is understood as one of the most important determinants of fertility in Koreasince 1980 focusing on one aspect of fertility, namely birth spacing. Using the Korean National Fertility Survey conducted in 2006, I estimate a duration model of first and second births taking into account individual heterogeneity, which turned out to be an important factor to control for. Compared with previous studies in the literature on the Korean fertility, the study has an advantage of using the complete pregnancy history of women in a more representative sample. Unlike the previous studies, the analysis also deals with the endogeneity of marriage by treating a certain age, rather than age at marriage, as the time in which a woman becomes exposed to the risk of pregnancy. The study shares the common problem in the literature on birth spacing of lacking relevant wage information for respondents in a retrospective survey. I estimate the wage series as a function of the basic characteristics using the annual Wage Structure Survey from 1980 to 2005, which is considered as a nationally representative sample for wage information of employees. The results suggest that the increase in female wage by 10 percent leads to a decrease in second birth hazard by 0.56~0.92 percentage points and that the increase in spouse's wage by the equal amount is accompanied by the increase in second birth hazard by 0.36~1.13 percentage points. These estimates are more precisely estimated and of smaller magnitude than those presented by the previous studies. The results are robust to the different specifications of the wage equation. The simulation analysis based on the predicted values shows that about 17% of the change in the second birth hazard over the period 1980 to 2005 was due to the change in the female wage. Although there is some limitation in data, the results can be viewed as one estimate of the role of female wage on the recent fertility decline in Korea. The question raised by the paper is not a normative one of whether a government should promote childbearing but a positive one thatexplains fertility decline. Therefore, if there is a wide consensus on promoting childbearing, the finding suggests that the policies designed to reduce the opportunity cost of women in the labor market would be effective. The recent movement of implementing a wide range of family-friendly policies including child care support, maternity leave, parental leave and tax benefit in developed countries should be understood in this context.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.181-199
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• 2010

As rapid progress of population aging and strong interest in health, the demand for new healthcare service is increasing. Until now healthcare service has provided post treatment by face-to-face manner. But according to related researches, proactive treatment is resulted to be more effective for preventing diseases. Particularly, the existing healthcare services have limitations in preventing and managing metabolic syndrome such a lifestyle disease, because the cause of metabolic syndrome is related to life habit. As the advent of ubiquitous technology, patients with the metabolic syndrome can improve life habit such as poor eating habits and physical inactivity without the constraints of time and space through u-healthcare service. Therefore, lots of researches for u-healthcare service focus on providing the personalized healthcare service for preventing and managing metabolic syndrome. For example, Kim et al.(2010) have proposed a healthcare model for providing the customized calories and rates of nutrition factors by analyzing the user's preference in foods. Lee et al.(2010) have suggested the customized diet recommendation service considering the basic information, vital signs, family history of diseases and food preferences to prevent and manage coronary heart disease. And, Kim and Han(2004) have demonstrated that the web-based nutrition counseling has effects on food intake and lipids of patients with hyperlipidemia. However, the existing researches for u-healthcare service focus on providing the predefined one-way u-healthcare service. Thus, users have a tendency to easily lose interest in improving life habit. To solve such a problem of u-healthcare service, this research suggests a u-healthcare recommender system which is based on collaborative filtering principle and social network. This research follows the principle of collaborative filtering, but preserves local networks (consisting of small group of similar neighbors) for target users to recommend context aware healthcare services. Our research is consisted of the following five steps. In the first step, user profile is created using the usage history data for improvement in life habit. And then, a set of users known as neighbors is formed by the degree of similarity between the users, which is calculated by Pearson correlation coefficient. In the second step, the target user obtains service information from his/her neighbors. In the third step, recommendation list of top-N service is generated for the target user. Making the list, we use the multi-filtering based on user's psychological context information and body mass index (BMI) information for the detailed recommendation. In the fourth step, the personal information, which is the history of the usage service, is updated when the target user uses the recommended service. In the final step, a social network is reformed to continually provide qualified recommendation. For example, the neighbors may be excluded from the social network if the target user doesn't like the recommendation list received from them. That is, this step updates each user's neighbors locally, so maintains the updated local neighbors always to give context aware recommendation in real time. The characteristics of our research as follows. First, we develop the u-healthcare recommender system for improving life habit such as poor eating habits and physical inactivity. Second, the proposed recommender system uses autonomous collaboration, which enables users to prevent dropping and not to lose user's interest in improving life habit. Third, the reformation of the social network is automated to maintain the quality of recommendation. Finally, this research has implemented a mobile prototype system using JAVA and Microsoft Access2007 to recommend the prescribed foods and exercises for chronic disease prevention, which are provided by A university medical center. This research intends to prevent diseases such as chronic illnesses and to improve user's lifestyle through providing context aware and personalized food and exercise services with the help of similar users'experience and knowledge. We expect that the user of this system can improve their life habit with the help of handheld mobile smart phone, because it uses autonomous collaboration to arouse interest in healthcare.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.506-525
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• 1992

Older people, because of the psychological and physiological changes related to the aging process are more vulnerable to experiencing powerlessness than any other age group. This self destructive cycle of depression in older people related to the experience of continued and long term powerlessness can lead even to death. The purpose of this study was to measure powerlessness and resources to increase power in older people, and to measure the effectiveness of a psychological rehabilitation program for reducing powerlessness. The research methodology used was a two step process. In the first step, a survey was done of perceived powerlessness and power resources comparing four groups of elderly people ; those living at home, those in hospital, those living in nursing homes and those attending educational programs for the elderly. The total sample size was 236. In the second step, a psychological rehabilitation program was carried out, pre and post measurements were taken related to this program. The sample consisted of 29 residents in a nursing home. The results of the study are as follows : 1. Powerlessness was classified as cognitive, emotional, activity and learning. The lowest score for powerlessness was in the area of activity, that is the people in the sample felt more power concerning their activities. The highest score was in the area of cognition where they felt they had less power. 2. When the different groups of elderly were compared, it was found that the residents of the nursing home had the highest score on perceived powerlessness and the group who were living at home had the lowest score. 3. Among the general characteristics, the factors influencing the powerlessness score were age, sex, level of education, financial resources and health status. In the interaction effects among these factors, it was found that level of education and health status were factors influencing perceived powerlessness. The elderly with lower education and poorer health status had the higher scores for perceived powerlessness. 4. The power resources could be classified into the following areas : physical strength, emotional strength, positive self-image, energy, knowledge, motivation and belief system. Belief system was given the highest score among the power resources and energy, knowledge and motivation were given low scores. 5. The group participating in an educational program for the elderly had the highest score for power resources while the group made up of residents of a nursing home had the lowest score as well as the highest score for perceived powerlessness. 6. The factors influencing the power resource scores were sex, level of education, financial resources and health status. In the analysis of the interaction effect among the factors, it was found that sex, level of education and financial resources were the factors that influenced the power resource score, that is, women, those with a low level of education and those with poor financial resources reported a lower level of power resources. 7. There was a negative correlation between perceived powerlessness and power resources in the elderly in this study. Since power resources explainded 49% of the variance for powerlessness, it can be concluded that the power resources can be used to reduce powerlessness. 8. The psychological rehabilitation program was carried out with the nursing home residents over a period of five weeks. No statistically significant difference was found in the scores on powerlessness between the pre and post tests, but there was a slight decrease in the raw scores on the post test for emotional, activity and learning powerlessness. There was a statistically significant increase in the power resource scores for emotional strength, positive self-image, energy, knowledge and motivation in the post test as compared to the pre test. In conclusion, the study indicates that a psychological rehabilitation program for the elderly could be effective in increasing power resources and this in turn could lead to a decrease in perceived powerlessness.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.354-377
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• 2002

Aging population is a global trend and Korea is no exception. Due to the progress of the medical and scientific sectors, increase in the average lifetime incurred increase in the number of elderly people. Meanwhile, the family function of supporting the elderly has become a major issue in a society due to the changes in the society's structure and increased entry of the women into the workforce. As a means to substitute the protection of the elderly who are not protected at their respective homes and to replace the tending needs, weekly protection centers and short-stay centers for the elderly were established and operated in Seoul since 1992. However, structured and satisfactory services are not yet to be provided, thus this research intends to understand the current situation at the short-stay centers for the elderly, to identify users' characteristics and to conduct study on nursing need for the health reasons so that the results of the research can be utilized as basic data for the development of nursing care program. Towards this end, this research targeted 142 elderly people who were undergoing treatment at the 11 short-stay centers for the elderly out of total of 13 located in Seoul that were willing to cooperate. The research was conducted from April to May 2002, with the measurement tool developed by Rhee, Seon-ja (2001) to measure the level of nursing need. Then data was collected and analyzed using SPSS program. The results are as follows. The general characteristics of users of the short-stay centers for the elderly were: 123 females $(86.6\%)$, 19 males $(13.4\%)$ and 72 elderly were over the age of 80 $(50.7\%)$. Among these, 24$(16.9\%)$ were living by themselves. Among the illnesses that the subjects were inflicted with were: dementia $(54.2\%)$, stroke $(54.1\%)$ and high blood pressure $(50.7\%)$, in the respective order. Despite the fact that they were diagnosed with illnesses, $47.2\%$ responded that they do not undergo special treatment due to financial reasons. When the level of needs for nursing care among the elderly who use the short-stay centers is divided into informational. physical. and emotional need levels and scored between zero to two, the level of emotional need is the highest with 1.80, followed by physical (1.45) and informational (1.44) need levels. As for the realities of services at the centers and improvement areas, restriction on term was cited as the greatest inconvenience with $38.7\%$, followed by lack of budget (24 respondents, $16.9\%$). Wishful services were financial assistance $(46.5\%)$, medical and nursing services $(40.1\%)$, meal provision service $(8.5\%)$ and counseling service $(4.9\%)$, in the respective order. Based on the above mentioned results, the research identified the need to develop nursing program for the patients of dementia that can be applied onto the short-stay centers and the need to develop volunteer service, backed by societal support. Also, placement of specialized cadre of professionals is needed so that medical and nursing service functions can be provided in a complementary manner.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.441-446
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• 1998

Purpose : The incidence of esophageal carcinoma is increasing. Radical surgery is the treatment of choice, but large proportion of the esophageal cancer patients are with unresectable disease at the time of initial diagnosis, so radiation therapy has been the major treatment modality. We carried out retrospective analysis to see the outcome and prognostic factors of radiation therapy alone for esophageal carcinoma. Methods and Materials : From June of 1979 through December 1992, 289 patients with esophageal carcinoma were treated with radiation therapy alone at Department of Therapeutic Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital. Of these patients, 84 patients were excluded as they were ineligible for the current analyses. Twenty-two patients had distant metastasis other than supraclavicular lymph node metastasis, 52 patients received less than 45 Gy, and 10 patient were lost from follow-up. Therefore 205 patients constituted the base population of this study. According to AJCC s1aging system, there were 2 patients with stage 1, 104 with stage IIA, 26 with stage IIB, 48 with stage III, and 25 with stage IV Radiation dose ranged from 4500 cGy to 6980 cGy with median dose of 5940 cGy. Follow-up period of the alive patients ranged from 77 to 180 months. Results : The Median survival period of all the patients was II months and the 2-, 5-, and 10-year overall survival rates were 22.4$\%$, 10.2$\%$ and 5.3$\%$, respectively. Most of the failures were local recurrences. Of 169 failures, 134 had local failure as a component and 111 had local recurrence only. The Lymph node was most common distant metastatic site and the next was the lung. The stage, T-stage, N-stage, functional status, tumor size, and aim of treatment were statistically significant prognostic factors for survival by univariate analyses. But only tumor size and N-stage were significant by multivariate analyses. Conclusion : We could get 10.2$\%$ of 5 year survival rate and 5.3$\%$ of 10 year survival rate with radiation therapy alone. The size of tumor and N-stage were statistically significant prognostic factors for survival on multivariate analyses.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.20 no.1 s.21
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• pp.147-157
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• 1987

Authors obtained the results of the investigation for healthy people through the routine health examination of public officers and school personnels in private schools which were conducted in 1986. The results were as follows; 1) Those who were above 20% incidence of body weight for 3917 study population were revealed 5.2% in males and 15.1% in females of $45{\sim}49$ years of age, 6.8% in males and 24,4% in females of $50{\sim}54$ years old, 5.8% in males and 13.5% in females of $55{\sim}59$ years old, and they showed that the incidences were significantly higher in females than in males at 0.01, 0.01 & 0.05 in P-values respectively. 2) Mean$\pm$SD of total cholesterol level for 3,265 healthy people with both sexes combined showed $181.63{\pm}34.67$ and it was $188.61{\pm}33.96$ in people of $40{\sim}59$ years old with both sexes combined. Mean$\pm$SD of fasting blood sugar level for 3,266 healthy people showed $87.28{\pm}11.67$ and that in $40{\sim}59$ years of age were $89.14{\pm}11.74$. Therefore, mean$\pm$2SD of total cholesterol and fasting blood sugar were $112.26{\sim}250.98mg/dl$ in males and $58.93{\sim}110.61mg/dl$ in females. 3) This investigation showed 3.0% in above 251 mg/dl of total cholesterol and 3.5% in above 111 mg/dl of fasting blood glucose. 4) Those who were above 251 mg/dl of total cholesterol and above 111 mg/dl of blood glucose in above 20% incidence of body weight according to the Broca' index were 12.9% and 7.6% respectively. 5) Those who have hypertension according to the criteria of WHO with obesity of above 20% incidence of body weight showed 8.4% in both sexes (8.2% in males and 8.7% in females). 6) Blood pressures increased according to more aging and gaining body weight.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.21-40
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• 2000

The retail trades in many countries have changed recently according to the high quality, diversification, and marked individuality of consumer needs. Under the continually competing system of the WTO agreement, corporations based in the USA and the EU try to raise their market share in other countries so it is inevitable for Korean retail enterprises to compete with them. This paper is aimed at contributing to the efficient growth for Korean retail trade from the analysis of the development process in retail trade and its changing locations comparing Korea and the USA. Retailers in the USA have practiced diversified marketing strategies considerably in order to survive in a rapidly changing retailing environment. American retailing, which has the most advanced marketing system in the world, has been of growing concern to marketing strategies in Korea. The following is a brief summary of this study. 1. Speedy and higher quality consumption is needed in accordance with the great increase in the single-family household and the female labor force participation both in Korea and in the USA. Senior citizens have become a new consumer group due to the aging population. In the future the retail trade will switch over to diversified retail formats and internet shopping as countries are transformed into information and communication societies. 2. In Korea, the former retail system characterized by markets and department stores has been greatly changed since the late 1980s with emphasis on high quality and convenience in consumption behaviors, with large domestic enterprises and foreign distribution corporations participating in Korean retailing. In the USA, retailing mergers and takeovers by major retails, bankruptcies, and extra-large shopping centers have emerged since the late 1980s. Recently, the USA retailing formats have been changed from the lower price-oriented discount types to the large scale theme parks. Much emphasis was put on entertainment, resorts, and convention centers. On the other hand, non-store types, such as the internet shopping, the CATV shopping, as well as catalog and mail-order sales are drastically increasing, although the proportion of their sales is low up to now. 3. In Korea, most of the retail facilities are concentrated in Seoul and the Metropolitan Region, and the distribution ratio of facilities came to 52% in 1997. The periodic markets, traditional markets which open on a periodic basis, are located mainly in Chollanam-do and Kyungsangbuk-do. The large-sized discount stores have expanded their locations to the over-crowded apartment complexes in new towns, located in the Metropolitan Region, and the large provincial cities, unlike the suburban locations in the USA. Therefore we needed to give attention to the locational relations in retail facilities between Seoul & the Metropolitan Region and rural settlement areas. In the USA, urban areas grew quickly with the development of the automobile in the 1920s, and the location of stores changed from a dispersed style centering around rural areas to a centralized one in urban areas. There is an accelerated growth for suburban areas, which have grown rapidly since 1950. As the membership warehouse clubs were introduced in the 1970s, the decentralization of location was more intensified. On the other hand, inner cities were revitalized by rearranging existing facilities to cope with suburban areas. And the location-free virtual retailing & TV shopping are also growing every year. 4. In view of the above, the continuous and desirable development devices in Korean retail trade are summarized as follows: First, the countermeasures against economies of scale, increase in retailing sales, and rise of a employment percentage in retailing are in need. Second, a scheme of lowering the proportion of food retail sales, and increasing a ratio of durable goods sales need to be worked out. Third, the original ideas are needed to apply positively information, communication and technology to retailing, to graft the traditional types on modem ones based on the social culture. Fourth, strategies are needed to strengthen the competitiveness of our retail trade through cooperation and chains of smaller retailers, the large enterprises participating in the distribution industry. Fifth, in order to realize the above, the retail industry, the administration, and the academic world should support the retail segment with concern and a practical strategy plan.