• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.89-102
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• 2002

Genetically modified foods may be defined as the foods deemed as safe by current technology among the many kinds of agricultural and stockbreeding products that are now under research and development using contemporary gene-modification techniques. This study examines hotly debated arguments, both for and against genetically modified- foods, in various countries. This study also investigates consumers'rights and responsibilities. Countries that are developing and exporting genetically modified organisms(GMO) have maintained that GMO can help produce more crops while reducing labor and other production-related costs, and that the genetically modified foods signify ″the second green revolution,″ which will solve future food and environmental problems by strengthening specific nutritive substances and extending shelf-life. But consumer groups, environmental organizations. and food-importing countries are more cautious about importing and consuming those foods because the potential dangers of GMO to human bodies and the environment have not been tested thoroughly yet. South Korea, following suit with others such as EU, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, introduced a law on 'Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods', which went in effect in March, 2001, on the basis of customers'rights to make informed choices. The law takes the ″precautionary principle″ into consideration, rather than stopping at insuring ″substantial equivalence″ in developing and consuming GM foods. The actual impact of the law will depend on the level of citizens'Participation more than on the government's willingness to carry out the law. So far the level of Korean consumers'consciousness about genetically modified foods is very low. Therefore, it is hard to expect consumers to exercise their ″rights not to buy″ foods that are potentially unsafe. The Korean government must devise an effective plan to inform and educate the people about the labeling of genetically modified foods.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.51-62
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• 2011

Financial consumers can invest their financial assets directly or indirectly. This investment type have effect on their financial well-being and may be influenced by their financial characteristics and investment attitude. The purposes of the study were to classify the consumers by direct and indirect investment behavior of their financial assets and to investigate their socio-economic characteristics and investment attitudes to give implications for financial counseling and education. The data came from the 2009 Fund Investors Survey which was conducted by Korea Investors Protection Foundation. Total 2,530 consumers were analyzed using frequency, CROSSTAB, ANOVA and Duncan's multiple range test. In general, consumer tended to be rational in choosing the investment type. Noninvestors consisted of 38.5% of the sample. The economic level was the lowest for the noninvestors. The consumers who invest both indirectly and directly consisted of 21.0% and their economic level was the highest. Their investment tendency was between direct and indirect investors'. The proportion of direct investors ws 12.1% and that of indirect investors was 28.4%. Although the economic levels of indirect investors and direct investors were not statistically different, there were differences in their demographics and investment attitudes. The proportions of those aged 30-39, female and nonmarried were greater for indirect investors. They had the tendency to invest safely and diversely for a long term with reserve money. On the other hand, direct investors tended to be male, married and aged 40-49. They tended to invest intensively for a shorter term and seek returns even with borrowing money.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.62-71
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to conduct surveys on demanders using financial aid projects to prevent industrial accidents and to improve them. It is divided into clean business and loan support business through the structured questionnaire. In the case of clean business, the following results were obtained. Most of the applications were received within three months after application. The most important factor considered by the consumer is the amount of support, which is considered to consider the substantial improvement as follows.The expectation for the reduction of industrial accidents after the project was 96.1% and compared to before and after the actual business, it showed a 46.8% decrease from the previous year. In addition, the cost decreased by 21.8%, the facility utilization rate increased by 24.4%, the sales increased by 15.9%, and the average number of workers increased by 6.0. As for the sustainability of the business, 86.6% of the respondents said that they should continue to do so. The following results were obtained in the case of loan support projects. Industrial accidents decreased by 45.2% from the previous year. Costs decreased by 19.4%, facility utilization rose by 26.7%, sales increased by 14.9%, and the number of workers increased by an average of 2.8. In the case of suppliers, prevention of industrial accidents at the business sites participating in the clean business was the highest factor (67.0%). 89% of respondents were aware of the disposal criteria for ineligible suppliers. 50.6% of the respondents answered that it is appropriate to maintain the current level, and 39.4% of respondents answered that they should strengthen. The prices for the support items were more than 15% higher than the market prices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.368-372
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• 2002

Channel of distribution of contents of digitalised multimedia contents is changing in form passed directly to consumer from manufacturer through digital network of high speed. Together, diffusion of various digital equipment that do is changing Past multimedia consumption structure with the wonderful speed so that can consume easily digital contents. Specially, Multimedia Personal Computer and fast diffusion of a digital television are acting role such as catalyst that promote easy purchase and consumption of multimedia contents of good qualify. However, this system is no method that can sell digital contents and express right that original owner for the contents can insist nothing but consume. Because consumer can distribute to another person copying contents that buy because of and user can distribute producing ashes again according to necessary field by oneself as well as, can lose meaning for original contents. In this paper, Text editing system for XrML (extensible Rights Markup Language) that describe about integrity of message and entity authentication in addition to necessary rights, fees, condition etc. and this to do fetters XML (eXtensible Markup Language) for copyright protection for digital contents in treatise that see hereupon and use digital contents design and embody.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.689-733
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• 2011

This study evaluates a novel scheme to trade sulfur dioxide emission permits subject to non-uniform rates. These rates are based on generators' marginal costs of compliance with environmental policy in a hypothesized least social-cost solution. This scheme is compared against the existing trading program used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, featuring permits tradable one for one. Both policies are modeled to yield identical aggregate emissions. A numerical partial-equilibrium model of the U.S. energy industry is used to infer sulfur dioxide concentrations and health damages, as well as producer and consumer surplus, under the two policies. Regional pollution levels are found to vary across the two policies significantly. The system of exchange rates is estimated to outperform the uniform-trading scheme by $2.2 billion in industry profits and $2.1 billion in health damages, but to reduce consumer surplus by $6.7 billion. Paradoxically, exchange rates are thus estimated to lower total welfare by $2.5 billion. This is due to conceptual mechanism-design problems, as well as empirical issues.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.517-522
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• 2015

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to investigate food allergens and prevalence rates of food allergies, followed by comparison of consumer attitudes and preferences regarding food allergy labeling by diagnosis of food allergies. SUBJECTS/METHODS: A total of 543 individuals living in Seoul and Gyeonggi area participated in the survey from October 15 to 22 in 2013. RESULTS: The results show that the prevalence of doctor-diagnosed food allergies was 17.5%, whereas 6.4% of respondents self-reported food allergies. The most common allergens of doctor-diagnosed and self-reported food allergy respondents were peaches (30.3%) and eggs (33.3%), respectively, followed by peanuts, cow's milk, and crab. Regarding consumer attitudes toward food labeling, checking food allergens as an item was only significantly different between allergic and non-allergic respondents among all five items (P < 0.001). All respondents reported that all six items (bold font, font color, box frame, warning statement, front label, and addition of potential allergens) were necessary for an improved food allergen labeling system. PLSR analysis determined that the doctor-diagnosed group and checking of food allergens were positively correlated, whereas the non-allergy group was more concerned with checking product brands. CONCLUSIONS: An effective food labeling system is very important for health protection of allergic consumers. Additionally, government agencies must develop policies regarding prevalence of food allergies in Korea. Based on this information, the food industry and government agencies should provide clear and accurate food labeling practices for consumers.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.39-62
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• 2020

Purpose - Korean exports account for a vast proportion of Korean GDP, and large volumes of Korean products are sold in the United States. Identifying and characterizing actual and potential product hazards related to Korean products is critical to safeguard Korean export trade, as severe quality issues can impair Korea's reputation and reduce global consumer confidence in Korean products. In this study, we develop country-of-origin-based product risk analysis methods for social media with a specific focus on Korean-labeled products, for the purpose of safeguarding Korean export trade. Design/methodology - We employed two social media datasets containing consumer-generated product reviews. Sentiment analysis is a popular text mining technique used to quantify the type and amount of emotion that is expressed in the text. It is a useful tool for gathering customer opinions regarding products. Findings - We document and discuss the specific potential risks found in Korean-labeled products and explain their implications for safeguarding Korean export trade. Finally, we analyze the false positive matches that arise from the established dictionaries that were used for risk discovery and utilize these classification errors to suggest opportunities for the future refinement of the associated automated text analytic methods. Originality/value - Various studies have used online feedback from social media to analyze product defects. However, none of them links their findings to trade promotion and the protection of a specific country's exports. Therefore, it is important to fill this research gap, which could help to safeguard export trade in Korea.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.40
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• pp.41-60
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• 2015

This article aims at exploring the convergence and sharing of cultural tastes among Northeast Asian countries by analyzing TV drama "Boys over flower", based on the original Japanese manga and produced in Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan in the $21^{st}$ century. It explores the expectation and desire of the mass who have taken pleasure in watching it in each country as well. This article argues that the sharing of the sensitivities and tastes of young women, the main consumer of the drama, by the mass of the four countries, are an important cultural phenomenon in that it reveals the emergence of "girl" as an active cultural consumer, who had been the object of a restraint and strict protection of the bourgeois family structure.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.141-147
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• 2021

The foreign trends of noncompliance occurring frequently in food contact materials during the period of 2011-2019 was investigated by analyzing the food safety risk information DB in the National Food Safety Information Service (NFSI). A total of 2,042 cases of noncompliance of food utensils, containers, and packages were classified into 5 violation categories; administrative procedures, manufacturing and processing standards, residues and migration standards, labeling and advertising, and quality standards. This was again subcategorized according to non-compliance causative factors. The non-compliances in residues and migration standards comprised the largest proportion (76.4%) of the violative categories. The number of noncompliance information collected in 2011 was 88 cases and increased to 373 cases in 2019. A 72.8% of the non-compliance case was identified to be products of 4 countries (China 64.2%, Germany 4.0%, Japan 3.2%, and Taiwan 3.1%), those produce large quantities of containers and packaging products. During the period of 2011-2019, the number of illegal use of hazardous materials and illegal recycling of waste synthetic resins has decreased to less than one a year since 2014. On the other hand, after 2016, inconsistency of heat-resisting temperature labeling (Taiwan), non-compliance in paper container's strength standards, violation of printing standards, and the risk of consumer injury while using the products were newly reported due to the strengthening of consumer safety protection regulations. Migration of hazardous substances in synthetic polymer products such as heavy metals, melamine and formaldehyde in melamine tableware, primary aromatic amines which are colorant components in kitchenware such as ladles and spatulas, and phthalate plasticizers have been continuously reported with high frequency.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2019

Purpose - This paper empirically investigates the competition effect of exports between Korea and China in their common-export markets considering market sophistication. Modern market sophistication includes an importing country's aggregate demand for products of high quality, design, novelty, eco-friendliness, and even IPR protection. Using an empirical analysis to identify the demand for product quality across countries, this paper estimates the effects of market sophistication on the competition between Korean exports and Chinese products. Design/Methodology - Our empirical model considers the relationship between an importing country's consumer sophistication and the export competition between Korea and China. This study employs the existing theoretical framework to identify the aggregate demand for product quality across countries. Using a quite direct measurement (the consumer sophistication index, our analysis investigates the differential effects of Korea's export market sophistication, particularly in markets where Korean exports are in competition with similar Chinese products. Findings - Our main findings can be summarized as follows: the negative effects of the export competition between Korea and China on Korea's exports are stronger in third markets where consumers are less sophisticated while the effects are not as pronounced in markets where consumers are more sophisticated. This result, however, best applies to differentiated goods which significantly vary in product quality. Originality/value - Existing studies focus on the supply side of production and make the assumption that the market preference for export quality is identical across countries. This paper attempts to evaluate the export competition between Korea and China from the demand-side perspective. This area of trade studies is underexplored both empirically and in theory, although the issue has long been important to Korean and world trade.