• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.303-311
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• 2023

Traditional mediation analysis, which relies on linear regression models, has faced criticism due to its limited suitability for cases involving different types of variables and complex covariates, such as interactions. This can result in unclear definitions of direct and indirect effects. As an alternative, causal mediation analysis using the counterfactual framework has been introduced to provide clearer definitions of direct and indirect effects while allowing for more flexible modeling methods. However, the conceptual understanding of this approach based on the counterfactual framework remains challenging for applied researchers. To address this issue, the present article was written to highlight and illustrate the definitions of causal estimands, including controlled direct effect, natural direct effect, and natural indirect effect, based on the key concept of nested counterfactuals. Furthermore, we recommend using 2 R packages, 'medflex' and 'mediation', to perform causal mediation analysis and provide public health examples. The article also offers caveats and guidelines for accurate interpretation of the results.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.117-122
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• 2018

As evidenced through rapidly growing digital repositories and web resources, automatic metadata generation is becoming ever more critical, especially considering the costly and complex operation of manual metadata creation. Also, automatic metadata generation is apt to consistent metadata application. In this sense, metadata quality and interoperability can be enhanced by utilizing a mechanism for automatic metadata generation. In this article, a mechanism of automatic metadata extraction called ExMETA is introduced in order to alleviate issues dealing with inconsistent metadata application and semantic interoperability across ever-growing digital collections. Conceptual graph, one of formal languages that represent the meanings of natural language sentences, is utilized for ExMETA as a mediation mechanism that enhances the metadata quality by disambiguating semantic ambiguities caused by isolation of a metadata element and its corresponding definition from the relevant context. Hence, automatic metadata generation by using ExMETA can be a good way of enhancing metadata quality and semantic interoperability.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.821-832
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• 2021

Economic deprivation of households remains a significant economic issue in the world. Researchers have shown great concern in identifying crucial factors to enhance poor households' socio-economic performance. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a new conceptual framework to investigate the influence of different microfinance services on households' socioeconomic performance using moderated mediation analysis of various crucial factors. Focus-group interviews with managements of the microfinance institution, i.e. Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM), and a systematic literature review were conducted for this purpose, and a new framework for the future study has been developed. The result from focus-group interviews and systematic literature review propose microfinance financial services, training programs, and business coaching as independent factors, whereas household socioeconomic performance as a dependent factor in the proposed model. Specifically, this study provides the direction to scholars to empirically test the direct relationship between financial services and household socioeconomic performance and the indirect relationship between training programs, business coaching, and household socioeconomic performance. Further, microfinance institutions' service efficiency is also included as a moderator that can strengthen microfinance services' effectiveness. The study also provides useful implications for policymakers, financial institutions, households, micro-enterprises, and researchers to better understand microfinance interventions and household economic mechanisms.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2021

This study investigates students' conceptions of fractions from a measurement approach while providing a technological environment designed to support students' understanding of the relationships between quantities and adjustable units. 13 third-graders participated in this study and they were involved in a series of measurement tasks through task-based interviews. The tasks were devised to investigate the relationship between units and quantity through manipulations. Screencasting videos were collected including verbal explanations and manipulations. Drawing upon the theory of semiotic mediation, students' constructed concepts during interviews were coded as mathematical words and visual mediators to identify conceptual profiles using a fine-grained analysis. Two students changed their strategies to solve the tasks were selected as a representative case of the two profiles: from guessing to recursive partitioning; from using random units to making a relation to the given unit. Dragging mathematical objects plays a critical role to mediate and formulate fraction understandings such as unitizing and partitioning. In addition, static and dynamic representations influence the development of unit concepts in measurement situations. The findings will contribute to the field's understanding of how students come to understand the concept of fraction as measure and the role of technology, which result in a theory-driven, empirically-tested set of tasks that can be used to introduce fractions as an alternative way.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.147-162
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• 1990

The purpose of this review is to establish a groundwork for building a more comprehensive conceptual framework within which various aspects of sibling relations and factor related to sibling behaviors con be explained and integrated. Descriptions of the trends and shifts in sibling studies are made in terms of their themes, variables, basic perceptions and general approaches, and analyzes of current state of sibling researches are made with relation to the conceptual aspects of the studies, namely, their standpoints on the issues of sibling variations, the sources of variations, and basic units of analysis, their reliance or emphasis on different methods, and their interests in the mediation processes. It is recognized that research variables have been successively differentiated and used in diversified manners and family ecology and systems theory viewpoints have been incorporated into the understanding of sibling relations. A triad in its full meaning, rather than a dyad or a partial trial, is proposed as a unit of analysis in order for the researchers to be able to examine and describe the true interactional aspects of family relations involving sibling relations. The concepts of coexistence and interaction are proposed as key concepts os that the inconsistencies in findings, differing viewpoints, contradicting conceptions , and contrasting approaches can be interpreted and integrated into a unified system of theories on siblings. The coexistence of similarities and differences in reality. the inevitability of interaction between individual variables and environmental variables and between within-family environmental factors and our-of-family environmental factors, and the need for the joint use of intrafamilial and extrafamilial approach are acknowledged. Attention is also drawn to the mechanism characteristics and the directionality of the mediating processes of mediating variables between a variable and its effects.

• 한국경영정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.117-122
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• 2007

Recently, as the management environments are changing rapidly and the uncertainty is becoming larger, the needs of internal control for management and IS become stronger. In order to construct a new internal control system for IS, it is necessary to evaluate the former research of the system. This study emphasizes the importance of effective internal control system, presents a conceptual framework for the preceding factors to consider, and verifies empirically the framework. This study sets the organization citizenship behavior, IS innovation resistance, and IT capability from the viewpoint of Socio-Technical system as the preceding factors for the effectiveness of internal control system. A research model, affecting the above factors on IS capability as a mediating variable of the internal control effectiveness for the use of IS, is set up. PLS-Graph 3.0 is used to verify the model. We found that the internal control effectiveness have affirmative effect on information capability, a surrogate variable of the IS effectiveness and a mediation effect is meaningful.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.20-33
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• 2010

This study investigates the relationships of total quality management (TQM), organizational learning (OL) activities and business performance and examines the partial mediation effect of OL activities on business performance in Korean industrial manufacturing setting. Main target sample firms were all manufacturing companies listed in the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and 206 firms participated. This study theoretically develops a conceptual model with 3 hypotheses regarding how TQM practices influence OL activities and how the OL activities partially mediate between the TQM practices and business performance. To examine these hypotheses, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed and an alternative model which includes a path between errors of leadership factor and OL construct was developed. The findings are TQM practices cannot directly influence business performance but indirectly impact business performance through OL activities. This study found that OL activities playa role as firms' critical competency to improve business performance.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.570-583
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• 2020

The fashion industry is accountable for labor and environment-related issues. With such issues raised, consumers' social responsibility for environmental and labor issues has become an important factor that shapes the perception of companies. This study investigates the relationship between consumer values, concerns regarding social issues, and willingness to pay a premium for ethical fashion products. This study included two exogenous variables of altruistic value and egocentric value. In the conceptual model, consumers' social responsibility was conceptualized as two constructs of environmental consciousness and labor-issue consciousness. It was then analyzed as mediating variables. Willingness to pay a premium for ethical fashion products was the endogenous variable. Data was collected and analyzed with PLS-SEM from 600 consumers. The assessment of discriminant validity and construct validity using CFA were conducted before analyzing the model. Structural equation modeling results revealed that altruistic value directly influenced environmental consciousness and labor-issue consciousness. However, egocentric value was directly and significantly influenced only by labor-issue consciousness. Both environmental and labor issue consciousness directly influenced customers' willingness to pay a premium, but did not significantly change their willingness to pay a premium. Two-stage serial mediation analysis results indicated that the constructs did not have a significant mediation effect on the exogenous variables (altruistic value and egocentric value) and the endogenous variable (willingness to pay a premium) for ethical fashion products. This study found the influence of consumer's personal values on their willingness to pay a higher price for ethical fashion products.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.233-246
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• 2015

Focus on Digital Fashion Image, the conceptual framework for the thesis is established from Virtuality in Digital Art. Formative characteristics and aesthetic characteristics were studied by classifying the Digital Fashion Image applied and expressed by digital media and technology. A detective research method was used for a case study. A literature study for case-by-case data was analyzed with focus on the works expressing fashion that utilized digital media and technology since the 2000s. Through this study, the Digital revolution has created the socio-cultural impact of a Virtual representation to implement technology and fashion culture that finds ways to take advantage of the image shown in a Digital Fashion Media by understanding Virtuality. The results are as follows. First, it was a re-formation of the fashion culture through the experience of virtuality with mental zone parameters between the media 'Mediation Code'. Reflect the reality of the virtual environment as represented by a cultural image of fashion brands and fashion that reset the team relationship and formed a Homo Ludens cultural code. Second, 'Interactive Exchange' acts on the exchange interaction between the method of digital technology, the human and the machine as well as the technical interoperability of network elements and techniques. This exchange is applied to fashion images that express emotion. Forming personalized fashion items and the user interactively storage that expresses the interactive exchange to forward the identity of the emotional fashion by a change in the message delivery system fashion. Third, the emphasis on intuitive artistic expression 'Synesthesia Immersion' induces a sense of immersion and excitement through the fusion of the interconnected. Enhance a visual image in fashion sensory representation and maximize a tactile and visual virtual reality involvement.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.273-289
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• 2001

Given that the culture of the mathematics classroom has been perceived as an important topic in mathematics education research, this paper deals with the construct of sociomathematical norms which can be used as an analytical tool in understanding classroom mathematical culture. This paper first reviews the theoretical foundations of the construct such as symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology, and describes the actual classroom contexts in which social and sociomathematical norms were originally identified. This paper then provides a critical analysis of the previous studies with regard to sociomathematical norms. Whereas such studies analyze how sociomathematical norms become constituted and stabilized in the specific classroom contexts, they tend to briefly document sociomathematical norms mainly as a precursor to the detailed analysis of classroom mathematical practice. This paper reveals that the trend stems from the following two facts. First, the construct of sociomathematical norms evolved out of a classroom teaching experiment in which Cobb and his colleagues attempted to account for students' conceptual loaming as it occurred in the social context of an inquiry mathematics classroom. Second, the researchers' main role was to design instructional devices and sequences of specific mathematical content and to support the classroom teacher to foster students' mathematical learning using those sequences Given the limitations in terms of the utility of sociomathematical norms, this paper suggests the possibility of positioning the sociomathematical norms construct as more centrally reflecting the quality of students' mathematical engagement in collective classroom processes and predicting their conceptual teaming opportunities. This notion reflects the fact that the construct of sociomathematical norms is intended to capture the essence of the mathematical microculture established in a classroom community rather than its general social structure. The notion also allows us to see a teacher as promoting sociomathematical norms to the extent that she or he attends to concordance between the social processes of the classroom, and the characteristically mathematical ways of engaging. In this way, the construct of sociomathematical norms include, but in no ways needs to be limited to, teacher's mediation of mathematics discussions.