• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.97-105
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• 2023

Background: Dispensing of prescription drugs is the most important task for community pharmacists. However, the public's satisfaction with pharmacist services is not high, and distrust due to dispensing by unqualified person and/or under unsanitary conditions led to demands for transparent dispensing room (TDR) in pharmacies. Objective: This study was conducted to investigate how pharmacy students perceive pharmacists' credibility and professional ethics in conjunction with the TDR issue. Methods: A survey using 20-items questionnaire was conducted from July 12 to 20, 2019 in pharmacy students nationwide. Results: Among 218 respondents, 84.1% attended pharmacy school located in the metropolitan area, 61.1% were the 3rd or 4th graders, and 81.2% had no practical training in community pharmacy. 56.2% were unaware of the TDR issue, and 66.8% agreed on the public's demand for TDR. 68.8% disagreed that TDR was the best way to solve the problem of unqualified dispensing, while 51.9% agreed that TDR was the best way in solving unsanitary dispensing problem. Publics' confidence level of community pharmacists was mean 5.84 (range 1-10). In a question asking how expertise and professional ethics affect pharmacist confidence, 50% said expertise was more important, 31.7% the same, and 18.3% said professional ethics was more important. Conclusions: To overcome the demand for TDR which began with public distrust in pharmacists, it is necessary to seek measures to increase the credibility of pharmacists, and as part of this, pharmacist ethics should be systematically educated at pharmacy school.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.25-43
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• 2013

Tasmania with its clean air, isolated from mainland Australia, has been producing high-quality agricultural products and has been continually developing organic farming since 1946 when the Living Soil Association of Tasmania(LSAT) was established. The organic farming movement in Tasmania has been actively advocated through three steps: the philosophical embryonic period, the movement diffusion period and the industrialised development period. The campaigns for informing about the connection between healthy soil and life unfolded during the embryonic period. This was followed by the birth of publicity of organic farming and the certification system through the dissemination of organic farming techniques and various events related to agriculture in the diffusion period when the Organic Gardening and Farming Society(OGFS) was established in 1972. In the industrialised development period, The Organic Coalition of Tasmania (OCT) which is representative of Tasmania was organised in 2000 and has been leading the organic farming industry. The organic farming movement in Tasmania not only limits the use of artificial agricultural chemical but pursues the quality of food, environment, the health of life including all animals and plants, the issue of development in rural society, social justice, and equity in understanding. It is far more holistic in its philosophy. The output of organic food accounts for 1 % of the total amount of agricultural production and 150 certified organic farms have managed with 5,000ha of land in 2010. The supply channels for organic foods vary from farmer's market, specialty stores, supermarket chains, local store to the cooperative community. Also the consumers' behaviour for organic foods has been establishing as an alternative life style. The education of the value and role of organic farming on the environment should be enlarged for the consumption of the organic food. In addition, organising for small farmers who act individually and the link with differentiated local food have still remained issues.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.793-805
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• 2023

This study analyzes the body shapes of lower-body obese female adolescents and proposes a slacks pattern suitable for their body type. Lower-body obesity is a prevalent type of teenage obesity, and our proposals aim to improve consumer satisfaction in ready-to-wear clothes across this demographic. We first observe characteristics of obese lower bodies, noting significantly above-average thigh and hip circumference. These figures indicate a high degree of curvature in obese lower bodies, along with a large drop value. Leveraging this data, we develop a novel slacks pattern using 3D avatars in a virtual simulation system. The formulas for the main areas of the pattern are as follows: front waist girth W/4+0.75cm+0.5cm, back waist girth W/4+0.5cm-0.5cm, front hip girth H/4+1.25cm-0.5cm, back hip girth H/4+2cm+0.5cm, front crotch extension H/16+0.5cm, back crotch extension H/8+1cm. Results from appearance evaluations show that this pattern minimizes strain rate on the waist and hips, and its average score is significantly higher than that of an alternative pattern that was also evaluated. The minimized strain rate and high average score indicate that our pattern assigns a sufficient amount of space to the appropriate areas. Based on these results, we expect our research to inform slacks pattern development and production for obese consumers of all types.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.1-26
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• 2023

A theoretical model of information overload (Jackson and Farzaneh, 2012) with its three influential components (i.e., time, technology, and social networks) was empirically tested in the context of news consumption behavior considered as a communicative outcome. Using a national sample of South Korean adults (N = 1166), data analyses identified perceived information overload and large/diverse social networks positively associated with active and passive news consumption. Findings may imply the existence of individually varying cognitive threshold (i.e., tipping point), if crossed individuals cannot process information any further. News consumers may keep searching and receiving information to verify factuality of news even when they feel overloaded.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.59-81
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• 2024

Online consumer reviews provide a variety of information from the customer perspective in terms of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Negative emotional expression is a potential antecedent of review usefulness, and can also influence potential consumers' attitudes and decisions. In addition, because national culture provides a perspective from which individuals view the world and act, it is highly likely that differences in negative emotional expression will occur depending on culture. This study explores the relationship between national culture and negative emotional expression based on impression management theory and ultimately analyzes the impact on review usefulness. For empirical analysis, 16,076 reviews of 140 hotels located in Seoul were collected and analyzed using the PLS-SEM method. As a result of the analysis, it was found that power distance and masculinity culture dimensions had a positive effect on reviewers' negative emotional expressions, while uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation had a negative effect. In addition, negative emotional expression was analyzed to have a positive effect on review usefulness even when review ratings were controlled.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.42 no.10
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• pp.1701-1706
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• 2013

Domestic and overseas information with regard to harmful substances are analyzed. From the results, environmental-derived hazard chemicals, which show relatively low recognition, and hazard chemicals that occur unavoidably in food manufacturing process are selected as target harmful substances. Thus, educational leaflet contents were developed based on these substances. To find the effects of education with the above contents, this study surveyed 120 female college students living in Seoul. The purpose of the survey is to analyze the change in recognition, attitude and behavior on hazard chemicals in foods. The survey found that the recognition on harmful substance in foods increased; from 31.5~78.0% before education to 98.8% after education. It also indicates that vague anxiety in which the harmful substances may damage their health decreased by approx. 25.0%; from 77.8% before education to 52.8% after education. For the question of what they would do when government promotes to reduce harmful substances in foods, 12.3% of respondents said that they would actively follow the suggestions and 73.5% of them said that they would do their best before an education. However, 56.1% of them said that they would actively follow the suggestions after the education. It indicates that the ability to recognize harmful substances changed after the education. With regard to consumer behavior, when they knew about the harmful substances in foods, 49.6% of them said that they would select foods after investigating relevant information before the education, while 77.4% of them said that after the education; which is an increase of 27.8%. Further, 45.4% of them said that they would not purchase relevant foods before the education, while 20.9% of them said that after the education; which is a decrease of 24.5%. Therefore, it is considered that vague anxiety of consumers can be eliminated by providing persuasive information on harmful substances. To expand on the communication channel with consumers for food safety, contents development and educational promotion should be enhanced for providing food safety related information.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.291-298
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• 2009

This study was carried out to evaluate the consumer recognition with regard to the safety management for imported foods. In order to evaluate the effect of the prgram on consumer education, the program was practiced for 89 female college students in Seoul, Korea. The participants were given an instruction with materials on imported food safety, including the safety management of imported foods and their distribution. The results showed that the participants achieved a greater understanding of imported foods. In particular, they had firmly grasped the importance of expiration date in selecting imported foods. Before the instruction, 50.6% of total participants blamed the Korean government for the problems arising from imported foods; only 18.0% placed the blame on individuals or businesses importing from foreign countries. After the instruction, 39.3% had blamed the individuals or businesses importing from foreign countries. Furthermore, 36.0% had disapproved of the foods that are imported from China before the instruction, while 32.6% found objectionable the views on the illegally distributed foods; 29.2% criticized the junk foods that target children (after the instruction). In addition, the level of participant satisfaction via-a-vis imported foods safety supervision had improved from $2.76{\pm}1.59$(before the instruction) to $3.37{\pm}1.58$(after the instruction). The results indicate that consumers are concerned with the imported foods that contain adulterated or forbidden substances and the illegally distributed foods from foreign countries. Thus, consistent and informative educational programs on imported food safety could help consumers in choosing safer products, resulting in an improvement in the consumer confidence with respect to imported foods.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.147-152
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine how dental-care institutions responded to discontented customers and how much they provided grievance service and tried not to displease customers. After a survey was conducted on dental-care institutions from January 20 through February 20, 2007, the answer sheets from 206 respondents were analyzed with SPSS WIN 12.0 program, except four incomplete ones. The findings of the study were as follows: 1. 32.5 percent of the respondents were aware of grievance service, and 64.6 percent actually provided no grievance service. 94.7 percent had ever met customers who made a complaint. 2. The most common grievance of medical consumers was that it took long time to receive treatment and to wait for it. The second most dominant complaint was that the treatment they received was beyond the coverage of health-care insurance(30.6%). An insufficient medical explanation was the third most common grievance(6.3%), followed by excessive medical bills(5.8%). The most dominant number of monthly grievance case was one to ten(91.3%). As for how customers voiced their complaints, the largest number of customers talked employees about that in person(88.2%), and dental hygienists were mainly identified as a person who handled their grievance(56.8%). Concerning how the dental-care institutions responded to complaining customers, the largest number of the institutions took an immediate action(34.5%), and the second largest group took a measure after investigating the disposition of discontented patients(30.0%). The third greatest group just made an excuse(11.1%), and the fourth greatest group directed active efforts into taking care of complaining customers by offering grievance service (7.0%). 3. The dental-care institutions got a mean of 3.02 in grievance handling. The institutions that dental hygienists were in charge of grievance handling statistically significantly better responded to discontented customers than the others that receptionists were in charge of that(p < .01). The institutions that had no monthly grievance cases took care of discontented customers statistically significantly better than the institutions that faced one to ten grievance cases or 11 or more cases (p < .05). 4. The dental-care institutions got a mean of 2.59 in providing service of preventing customers from being dissatisfied. The institutions located in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi province provided statistically significantly better service of that kind than the others located in the other regions(p < .01). And the dental-care institutions that dental hygienists were in charge of grievance handling offered statistically significantly better service of that kind than the dental-care institutions that receptionists were in charge of it(p < .05).

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.175-191
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• 2011

With the MICE(Meeting, Incentive travel, Convention, Exhibition) industry coming into the spotlight, there has been a growing interest in the domestic exhibition industry. Accordingly, in Korea, various studies of the industry are being conducted to enhance exhibition performance as in the United States or Europe. Some studies are focusing particularly on analyzing visiting patterns of exhibition visitors using intelligent information technology in consideration of the variations in effects of watching exhibitions according to the exhibitory environment or technique, thereby understanding visitors and, furthermore, drawing the correlations between exhibiting businesses and improving exhibition performance. However, previous studies related to booth recommendation systems only discussed the accuracy of recommendation in the aspect of a system rather than determining changes in visitors' behavior or perception by recommendation. A booth recommendation system enables visitors to visit unplanned exhibition booths by recommending visitors suitable ones based on information about visitors' visits. Meanwhile, some visitors may be satisfied with their unplanned visits, while others may consider the recommending process to be cumbersome or obstructive to their free observation. In the latter case, the exhibition is likely to produce worse results compared to when visitors are allowed to freely observe the exhibition. Thus, in order to apply a booth recommendation system to exhibition halls, the factors affecting the performance of the system should be generally examined, and the effects of the system on visitors' unplanned visiting behavior should be carefully studied. As such, this study aims to determine the factors that affect the performance of a booth recommendation system by reviewing theories and literature and to examine the effects of visitors' perceived performance of the system on their satisfaction of unplanned behavior and intention to reuse the system. Toward this end, the unplanned behavior theory was adopted as the theoretical framework. Unplanned behavior can be defined as "behavior that is done by consumers without any prearranged plan". Thus far, consumers' unplanned behavior has been studied in various fields. The field of marketing, in particular, has focused on unplanned purchasing among various types of unplanned behavior, which has been often confused with impulsive purchasing. Nevertheless, the two are different from each other; while impulsive purchasing means strong, continuous urges to purchase things, unplanned purchasing is behavior with purchasing decisions that are made inside a store, not before going into one. In other words, all impulsive purchases are unplanned, but not all unplanned purchases are impulsive. Then why do consumers engage in unplanned behavior? Regarding this question, many scholars have made many suggestions, but there has been a consensus that it is because consumers have enough flexibility to change their plans in the middle instead of developing plans thoroughly. In other words, if unplanned behavior costs much, it will be difficult for consumers to change their prearranged plans. In the case of the exhibition hall examined in this study, visitors learn the programs of the hall and plan which booth to visit in advance. This is because it is practically impossible for visitors to visit all of the various booths that an exhibition operates due to their limited time. Therefore, if the booth recommendation system proposed in this study recommends visitors booths that they may like, they can change their plans and visit the recommended booths. Such visiting behavior can be regarded similarly to consumers' visit to a store or tourists' unplanned behavior in a tourist spot and can be understand in the same context as the recent increase in tourism consumers' unplanned behavior influenced by information devices. Thus, the following research model was established. This research model uses visitors' perceived performance of a booth recommendation system as the parameter, and the factors affecting the performance include trust in the system, exhibition visitors' knowledge levels, expected personalization of the system, and the system's threat to freedom. In addition, the causal relation between visitors' satisfaction of their perceived performance of the system and unplanned behavior and their intention to reuse the system was determined. While doing so, trust in the booth recommendation system consisted of 2nd order factors such as competence, benevolence, and integrity, while the other factors consisted of 1st order factors. In order to verify this model, a booth recommendation system was developed to be tested in 2011 DMC Culture Open, and 101 visitors were empirically studied and analyzed. The results are as follows. First, visitors' trust was the most important factor in the booth recommendation system, and the visitors who used the system perceived its performance as a success based on their trust. Second, visitors' knowledge levels also had significant effects on the performance of the system, which indicates that the performance of a recommendation system requires an advance understanding. In other words, visitors with higher levels of understanding of the exhibition hall learned better the usefulness of the booth recommendation system. Third, expected personalization did not have significant effects, which is a different result from previous studies' results. This is presumably because the booth recommendation system used in this study did not provide enough personalized services. Fourth, the recommendation information provided by the booth recommendation system was not considered to threaten or restrict one's freedom, which means it is valuable in terms of usefulness. Lastly, high performance of the booth recommendation system led to visitors' high satisfaction levels of unplanned behavior and intention to reuse the system. To sum up, in order to analyze the effects of a booth recommendation system on visitors' unplanned visits to a booth, empirical data were examined based on the unplanned behavior theory and, accordingly, useful suggestions for the establishment and design of future booth recommendation systems were made. In the future, further examination should be conducted through elaborate survey questions and survey objects.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.113-145
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• 2010

Nowadays, it is surely the quack which stands as one of the most controversial, problematic. the quack has been a consistent target of contested public protection strategies in the past few centuries in many countries. Recently, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasingly utilized and accepted by patients and providers throughout the health care system in the world, most accounts attribute this growing acceptability to the shortcomings of conventional medicine, the appeal of CAM's core beliefs, and the growing body of research indicating that CAM actually works. However, the governments of western countries have called for measures to ensure that the public are protected from incompetent and dangerous practitioners. Common to these controversies has been a suggestion to ban, exclude or limit the medical practice of those deemed to be damaging rather than improving the health of individuals as a measure of public protection. This article describes the experiences of western counties' health care system which is moving in a more pluralistic direction. By examining the ways in which regulatory efforts in the countries have come to address what is invariably described as a growing interest in CAM, this study show how the problem of CAM/quackery today is increasingly located in an ethical field of practitioner competency, qualifications, conduct, responsibility and personal professional development, regardless of the form of therapy in question. Many countries developed a series of measures and strategies to contain the acceptance of CAM groups, such as insisting on scientific evidence of safety and efficacy, resisting integration of CAM with conventional medicine and opposing government support for research and education. In a sense, those countries' movements serve to protect not only patients, but the dominant position of medicine and its allied professions, and to maintain existing jurisdictional boundaries within the healthcare system. The popular support for CAM will require that health professional stakeholders continue to address the challenges this poses, and at the same time protect their position at healthcare system. To cope with the quack, professional body, public sector and health authorities should consider the safety of consumers of healthcare and responding to the demands of the community for CAM therapies as well as the claims of the established healthcare professions. Finally, some implications for future health care were suggested.