• Information Systems Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.161-177
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• 2014

Corporate credit rating assessment consists of complicated processes in which various factors describing a company are taken into consideration. Such assessment is known to be very expensive since domain experts should be employed to assess the ratings. As a result, the data-driven corporate credit rating prediction using statistical and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. In particular, statistical methods such as multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) and multinomial logistic regression analysis (MLOGIT), and AI methods including case-based reasoning (CBR), artificial neural network (ANN), and multiclass support vector machine (MSVM) have been applied to corporate credit rating.2) Among them, MSVM has recently become popular because of its robustness and high prediction accuracy. In this study, we propose a novel optimized MSVM model, and appy it to corporate credit rating prediction in order to enhance the accuracy. Our model, named 'GAMSVM (Genetic Algorithm-optimized Multiclass Support Vector Machine),' is designed to simultaneously optimize the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection. Prior studies like Lorena and de Carvalho (2008), and Chatterjee (2013) show that proper kernel parameters may improve the performance of MSVMs. Also, the results from the studies such as Shieh and Yang (2008) and Chatterjee (2013) imply that appropriate feature selection may lead to higher prediction accuracy. Based on these prior studies, we propose to apply GAMSVM to corporate credit rating prediction. As a tool for optimizing the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection, we suggest genetic algorithm (GA). GA is known as an efficient and effective search method that attempts to simulate the biological evolution phenomenon. By applying genetic operations such as selection, crossover, and mutation, it is designed to gradually improve the search results. Especially, mutation operator prevents GA from falling into the local optima, thus we can find the globally optimal or near-optimal solution using it. GA has popularly been applied to search optimal parameters or feature subset selections of AI techniques including MSVM. With these reasons, we also adopt GA as an optimization tool. To empirically validate the usefulness of GAMSVM, we applied it to a real-world case of credit rating in Korea. Our application is in bond rating, which is the most frequently studied area of credit rating for specific debt issues or other financial obligations. The experimental dataset was collected from a large credit rating company in South Korea. It contained 39 financial ratios of 1,295 companies in the manufacturing industry, and their credit ratings. Using various statistical methods including the one-way ANOVA and the stepwise MDA, we selected 14 financial ratios as the candidate independent variables. The dependent variable, i.e. credit rating, was labeled as four classes: 1(A1); 2(A2); 3(A3); 4(B and C). 80 percent of total data for each class was used for training, and remaining 20 percent was used for validation. And, to overcome small sample size, we applied five-fold cross validation to our dataset. In order to examine the competitiveness of the proposed model, we also experimented several comparative models including MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, ANN and MSVM. In case of MSVM, we adopted One-Against-One (OAO) and DAGSVM (Directed Acyclic Graph SVM) approaches because they are known to be the most accurate approaches among various MSVM approaches. GAMSVM was implemented using LIBSVM-an open-source software, and Evolver 5.5-a commercial software enables GA. Other comparative models were experimented using various statistical and AI packages such as SPSS for Windows, Neuroshell, and Microsoft Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Experimental results showed that the proposed model-GAMSVM-outperformed all the competitive models. In addition, the model was found to use less independent variables, but to show higher accuracy. In our experiments, five variables such as X7 (total debt), X9 (sales per employee), X13 (years after founded), X15 (accumulated earning to total asset), and X39 (the index related to the cash flows from operating activity) were found to be the most important factors in predicting the corporate credit ratings. However, the values of the finally selected kernel parameters were found to be almost same among the data subsets. To examine whether the predictive performance of GAMSVM was significantly greater than those of other models, we used the McNemar test. As a result, we found that GAMSVM was better than MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, and ANN at the 1% significance level, and better than OAO and DAGSVM at the 5% significance level.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-36
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• 2012

Service failure is one of the major reasons for customer defection. As the business environment gets tougher and more competitive, a single service failure might bring about fatal consequences to a service provider or a firm. Sometimes a failure won't end up with an unsatisfied customer's simple complaining but with a wide-spread animosity against the service provider or the firm, leading to a threat to the firm's survival itself in the society. Therefore, we are in need of comprehensive understandings of complainants' attitudes and behaviors toward service failures and firm's recovery efforts. Even though a failure itself couldn't be fixed completely, marketers should repair the mind and heart of unsatisfied customers, which can be regarded as an successful recovery strategy in the end. As the outcome of recovery efforts exerted by service providers or firms, recovery of the relationship between customer and service provider need to put on the top in the recovery goal list. With these motivations, the study investigates how service failure and recovery makes the changes in dynamics of fundamental elements of customer-firm relationship, such as customer affection, customer trust and loyalty intention by comparing two time points, before the service failure and after the recovery, focusing on the effects of recovery satisfaction and the failure severity. We adopted La & Choi (2012)'s framework for development of the research model that was based on the previous research stream like Yim et al. (2008) and Thomson et al. (2005). The pivotal background theories of the model are mainly from relationship marketing and social relationships of social psychology. For example, Love, Emotional attachment, Intimacy, and Equity theories regarding human relationships were reviewed. As the results, when recovery satisfaction is high, customer affection and customer trust that were established before the service failure are carried over to the future after the recovery. However, when recovery satisfaction is low, customer-firm relationship that had already established in the past are not carried over but broken up. Regardless of the degree of recovery satisfaction, once a failure occurs loyalty intention is not carried over to the future and the impact of customer trust on loyalty intention becomes stronger. Such changes imply that customers become more prudent and more risk-aversive than the time prior to service failure. The impact of severity of failure on customer affection and customer trust matters only when recovery satisfaction is low. When recovery satisfaction is high, customer affection and customer trust become severity-proof. Interestingly, regardless of the degree of recovery satisfaction, failure severity has a significant negative influence on loyalty intention. Loyalty intention is the most fragile target when a service failure occurs no matter how severe the failure criticality is. Consequently, the ultimate goal of service recovery should be the restoration of customer-firm relationship and recovery of customer trust should be the primary objective to accomplish for a successful recovery performance. Especially when failure severity is high, service recovery should be perceived highly satisfied by the complainants because failure severity matters more when recovery satisfaction is low. Marketers can implement recovery strategies to enhance emotional appeals as well as fair treatments since the both impacts of affection and trust on loyalty intention are significant. In the case of high severity of failure, recovery efforts should be exerted to overreach customer expectation, designed to directly repair customer trust and elaborately designed in the focus of customer-firm communications during the interactional recovery process to affect customer trust rebuilding indirectly. Because it is a longer and harder way to rebuild customer-firm relationship for high severity cases, low recovery satisfaction cannot guarantee customer retention. To prevent customer defection due to service failure of high severity, unexpected rewards as a recovery will be likely to be useful since those will lead to customer delight or customer gratitude toward the service firm. Based on the results of analyses, theoretical and managerial implications are presented. Limitations and future research ideas are also discussed.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.135-145
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• 2009

This study was performed to investigate added sugar intakes from processed food-snacks and participation behaviors of special event days sharing sweet foods among adolescents in Korea. Questionnaire survey (n = 959), dietary survey (n = 71) by food record method for 3 days, and snack survey (n = 230) for 3 days were carried out, and subjects were overlapped among three surveys. As a result, middle school students (MS) preferred milks and fermented milks while high school students (HS) preferred breads and fast foods as a snack (p < 0.01). MS and HS took snacks three to six times a week, and HS took snacks more frequently than MS (p < 0.05). Most subjects participated in special event days sharing sweet foods such as friend's birthday (68.4%), Peppro's day (61.5%) and Valentine's day (42.6%). As for merits of these events, MS said ‘they could get along with their friends' and ‘relieve stress', while HS said ‘they could enjoy their own events' and ‘confess their affection to whom they like' (p < 0.01). A group of cookies, biscuits, breads and, cakes was major source of added sugars followed by beverages, sweet jellies of red bean, chocolates and candies for subjects. For MS and HS, daily total added sugar intakes from whole processed food-snacks were $30.5{\pm}23.5g/d$ (3.0-137.9 g/d) and $31.7{\pm}23.2g/d$ (1.2-126.1 g/d), and ratios of daily total energy taken from added sugars of whole processed food-snacks in proportion to daily total energy taken from diet (energy percent of added sugars from snacks) were $6.3{\pm}4.7%$ (0.6-26.1%) and $6.3{\pm}4.4%$ (0.3-23.9%), respectively. These results showed that subjects frequently participated in special event days sharing sweet foods. In addition, energy percent of added sugars from snacks was more than the UL suggested by WHO/FAO for some subjects. Therefore, it is highly critical to monitor adolescents' sugar intakes on a long-term basis and to take nutritional management on their high sugar intakes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.161-174
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• 1997

Omega-3 fatty acids have been major research interests in medical and nutritional science relating to life sciences since after the epidemiologic data on Green3and Eskimos reported by several researchers clearly showed fewer per capita deaths from heart diseases and a lower incidence of adult diseases. Linolenic acid(LNA) is an essential fatty acid for human beings as well as linoleic acid(LA) due to the fact that vertebrates lack an enzyme required to incorporate a double bond beyond carbon 9 in the chain. In addition the ratio of omega-6 and 3 fatty acids seems to be important in terms of alleviation of heart diseases since LA and LNA competes for the metabolic pathways of eicosanoids synthesis. High consumption of omega-3 fatty acids in seafoods may control heart diseases by reducing blood cholesterol, triglyceride, VLDL, LDL and increasing HDL and by inhibiting plaque development through the formation of antiaggregatory substances like PGI$_2$, PGI$_3$ and TXA$_3$ metabolized from LNA. Omega 3 fatty acids also play an important role in neuronal developments and visual functioning, in turn influence learning behaviors. Current dietary sources of omega-3 fatty acids are limited mostly to seafoods, leafy vegetables, marine and some seed oils and the most appropriate way to provide omega-3 fatty acids is as a part of the normal dietary regimen. The efforts to enhance the intake of omega-3 fatty acids due to several beneficial effects have been made nowadays by way of food processing technology. Two different ways can be applied: one is add Purified and concentrated omega-3 fatty acids into foods and the other is to produce foods with high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids by raising animals with specially formulated feed best for the transfer of omega-3 fatty acids. Recently, items of manufactured and marketed omega-3 fatty acids fortified foodstuffs are pork, milk, cheese, egg, formula milk and ham. In domestic food market, many of them are distributed already, but problem is that nutritional informations on the amounts of omega-3 fatty acids are not presented on the labeling, which might cause distrust of consumers on those products, result in lower sales volumes. It would be very much wise if we consume natural products, result in lower sales volumes. It would be very much wise if we consume natural products high in omega-3 fatty acids to Promote health related to many types of adult diseases rather than processed foods fortified with omega-3 fatty acids.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.1
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• pp.119-129
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• 1977

It is significant for developing the future for us to know our present age. In order to preserve our Korean costume as a fola clothes retaining our distinguished independent characterisitics and to help design the tomorrow of our Korean costume playing a role as a racial to develop the world clothing culture, a survey was conducted to investigate modern people's conscious-ness and wearing practumes of Korean costume by questionaire and interviewing methods. The results of the survey were analyzed as follows: (1) At present, Korean costumes were purchased as customtailored(64.0%) and as ready-made(17.8%) and most of them were not made at individual homes. The laundry and ironing of them were carried out at laundry shops(68.8%). Considering our present economic, social and cultural aspects, sowing, laundryand ironing will not be carried out at homes again in the future and ready made costumes seen to be produced in a large scale in the future. Garment makers and laundry shop operators should be trained how to make our Korean costumes retain our traditional beauty in the course of their production and laundry and the makers of ready-made costumes must make research how to efficiently produce ideal ready-made costumes by adopting the synchro system in their wrk odisivion. (2) The age group wearing Korean costumes most frequently was the aged people over 60 (their wearing rate; 45%-50%) and the group wearing them most frequently next io the aged people over 60, was housewives(their wearing rate; 15%-20%). Excludign aged people and housewives, other respondentsdid not wear Korean costumes very frequently. Men's wearing rate was lower their wearing rate was the younger their ages were and the less their monthly incomes were. Korean costumes were used for holiday and festival(60%), wedding and funeral ceremonies (52%), visiting and working(22%), casual wear(12.8%) and home wear(9.2%). The use of Korean costumes as casual and home wears, was lower than the use for holday, festival, visiting and working, Under our present circumstances in which our Korean people use both Western style clothes and Korean costumer, our Korean costume has lostits position as a basic and necessary requiement in Korean people's daily life and become a ceremonical and fancy costume. It is natural that the times and life change everything in our daily life. Our costume has to be made as good ceremonial and fancy clothes satisfying modern sensibility according to its new role. In order for us to get close with our clothes, a keen study must be carried out to cleat the color, material, style, function and harmony of the Korean costume matching the of the times. (3) The 47.8% of the respondents answered that they were proud of our Korean costume as our folk clothes, 47.6% replied that thought them just common and 1.1% responded that they were ashamed of it. Most of them were affirmative in feeling pride with our Korean costume. (4) Considering the functional aspect of Korean costumes, their strong points were symetric beauty, rhythmical beauty, unity feeling, harmonical beauty and detailed decorations. Their common shortcomings were lack of individuality and inadequateness for active life. The shortcomings of woman costumes were suppressing breast, making resperation difficult and in adequnteness in summer time. The main reason not to wear our Korean costumes, was due to the fact that they are incomvenient for active life. As a measure to eliminate such shortcomings, 1) the suspension system of skirt to remove the suppression of breast should be generally adopted. 2) they should be simplified in their structure to make them convenient for active life and adepuate in wearing them in hot weather in an extent to which the traditional beauty of the costume may not be lostand 3) a new technique must be explored for showing individuality by wearing method and new arrangment of colors and decorations. (5) The reasons desiring to wear Korean costumes were classifide as follows: A. Korean costumes are our traditional clothes(43.4%). B. Korean costumes are noble and beautiful(26.8%). C. They are accustomed to wear Korean costumes by habit(19.5%). D. Korean costumes are necessary for attending ceremoneis(9.5%). E. Miscellaneous reasons(0.8%). Classifying these reasons into age groups, the high age group over 40 wore them because they were easy to wear by habit and the low age group of 10-30 never thought that they were east to wear by habit. Considering that even those who were accustomed to wear Korean costumes showed a low wearing rate and that the young generation were accustomed to wear Western style clothes rather than Korean costumes, the wearing rate of Korean costumes will be reduced in the future if such trend continues. It is urgent for us to make our best efforts in order to enhance the interest of young generation in Korean costumes and not to make them lose the strong points of Korean costume in the future. (6) Conicering the plan of the respondents on what kind of clothes they were going to wear in the future, among the age group over 50, those who wanted to wear only Korean costumes were 24.8%(men) and 35.1%(women), those who wanted to wear 49.7%(men) and 47.4(women), those who wanted to wear chiefly Western style clothes were 20.7% (men) and 14.4%(women) and those who wanted to wear only Western style clothes, were 2.4% (men) and 2.1%(women). This shows that the general tendency to wear only or chiefly Korean costumes is more prevalent than that to wear only Western style. Among the age group under 50, the tendency to wear Western style clothes was conspicuous and most of the respondent answered that they would wear chiefly Western style clothes and Korean costumes occasionally. Only 5.4% of the respondent answered that they would wear only Western style clothes and this shows that meny respondents still wonted to wear Korean costumes. Those who wanted their descendants to wear what they desire, were 50.1%(men) and 68.8% (women) and those who wanted their descendants to wear Koran costumes occasionally, were 85.8%(men) and 86.3%(women). This shows that most of respondents wanted their descendants to wear Korean costumes. In order to realize, it is necessory for us to make ourdescendants recognize the preciousness of our traditional culture and modify our Korean costumes according to their taste so that they may like wearing them.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.447-468
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• 1996

The peat layer was deposited on the abandoned channel of incised meander of River Banbyuncheon with 7 meter thickness on Youngyang basin. The late Quaternary environmental change on the study area was discussed based on pollen anaalysis and radiocarbon-dating from this peat. The swamp which was caused to sediment the peat, was produced by which the fan debris from the adjacent slope damed the waterflow on the abandoned channel. The peat layer contains continuous vegetational history from 60,000y.B.P. to Recent. The peat deposit was divided into two layers by the organic thin sand horizon, which was sedimented at one time and made unconformity between the lower decomposed compact peat layers and the upper fresh fiberous peat layer. As the result of the pollen analysis, both peat layers from the two boring sites, Profile YY1 and Profile YY2 were divided into five Pollenzones(Pollenzone I, II, III, IV and V) and 12 Subzones which were mainly corresponded by the AP (Arboreal Pollen)-Dominance. The two profiles have some differences on the sedimentary facies and on the pollen composition as well. Therefore these were in common with the Pollenone III, however the Pollenzone I and II existed only on the Profile YY1 and the Pollenzone IV and V existed only on the Profile YY2. The lower layer containing the Pollenzone I, II and III revealed vegetational records of Pleistocene, which was characterized as tundra-like landscape and thin forested landscapes. It represented the NAP (Non-Arboreal Pollen)-period with a plenty of Artemisia sp., Sanguisorba sp., Umbelliferae, Gramineae and Cyperaceae. However a relatively high proportion of the boreal trees with Picea sp., Pinus sp. and Betula sp. as AP was observed in the lower layer. The upper layer contained the Pollenzone IVb and V and vegetational history in Holocene which was characterized by thick forested landscape with rich tree pollen. It represented AP-period with plenty of Pinus sp. and Quercus sp. as temperate trees. The temperature fluctuation supposed from the vegetational records is as follows; the Pollenzone I(Betula-Dominance, about 57,000y.B.P.) represents relatively cold period. The Pollenzone II(EMW-Domi-nance, 57,000-43,000y.B.P.)represents relatively warm period. This period is supposed to be Interstadial, the transi-tional stage from Alt- to Mittel Wurm. The Pollenzone III(Butula-, Pinus- and Picea-Dominace in turns, 43,000-15,000y.B.P.) reproesents cold period which had been built from Mittel-to Jung Wurm. Especially the Subzone IIId represents the coldest period throughout the Pollenzone III. It is corresponds to Wurm Glacial Maximu. It is supposed that the mean temperature in July of this period was coller about 10${^\circ}$C than present. The Pollenzone IV and V represent the vegetational history of Holocene. Tilia, Quercus and Pinus were dominant in turns during this period. Subzone IVb and Pollenzone I and II at east coastal plain of Korean penninsula reported by JO(1979).

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.279-287
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• 1995

The vertical profiles of natural ²¹⁰Pb, ²¹⁰Po and ²³⁴Th activities were measured for the upper 100 m of water column at three stations in the middle region of the Korean East Sea during May 1992. And the distribution of these radionuclides was discussed associated with the formation of warm eddy or water mass. The main thermocline was maintained between the depth of 50 and 100 m at the southern station (Sta. A1), and between the depth of 10 to 50 m at the coastal station of Sockcho (Sta. B10). Contrastingly, a main thermocline at Sta. A10, which locates near the center of warm eddy, was observed below 230 m depth. Between 50 and 220 m depth of Sta. A10 is there a relatively homogeneous water mass of 10.1${\pm}$0.5$^{\circ}C$, which is significantly higher in temperature and lower in nutrient than the other two stations. It seems to be due to sinking of the warm surface water in which nutrients were completely consumed. Both ²¹⁰Pb and ²¹⁰Po show the highest concentration at Sta. A1 and the lowest at Sta. B10 among the three stations. Also, the ²¹⁰Pb activity is generally higher in the upper layer than in the lower layer, while ²¹⁰Po activity represents the reversed pattern at all three stations. At Sta. A1 and Sta. B10, the activities of ²¹⁰Po relative to its parent ²¹⁰Pb were deficient in the water column above the main thermocline, but were excess below the thermocline. However, the station near the center of warm eddy(Sta. A10), shows no excess of ²¹⁰Po in the depths below 50 m, although its defficiency is found in the upper layer like the other stations. At Sta. A1 and b10. ²³⁴Th activities are slightly lower in the surface mixed layer than in the deeper region However, at Sta. A10, ²³⁴Th activity in the upper 30 m is higher than below 50 m or in the same depth of the other stations, probably because of the high concentration of particulate matter. The residence time of ²¹⁰Po in the surface mixed layer at Sta. A10 is 0.4 year, much shorter than at the other two stations(about one year). Above 100 m depth, the residence times of ²³⁴Th range from 18 to 30 other two stations(about on year). Above 100 m depth, the residence times of ²³⁴Th range from 18 to 30 days at all stations, without significant regional variation. The percentages of recycled ²¹⁰Po within the thermocline are 39% and 92% at Sta. A1 and Sta. B10, respectively. Much higher value at Sta. B10 may be due to a thin thickness of the mixed layer as well as the slower recycling rate of ²¹⁰Po in the main thermocline.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.81-89
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• 2004

Purpose : Retropharyngeal and parapharyngeal abscesses are often distinguishable from other head and neck abscesses on clinical grounds, but these infections can combine and the presentations are similar to one another. Because of the advances of antibiotic therapy, the frequency of the diseases decreased considerably, but recently the incidence of neck abscesses has increased. We sought to describe the clinical presentation of patients with deep neck abscess, and implications on management. Methods : For 10 year periods, 94 cases of charts were reviewed retrospectively, who were diagnosed as neck abscesses aged below 16 years old(between January 1993 to August 2003) in 4 hospitals. Deep neck abscesses were diagnosed by surgical pus drainage, neck CT (homogenous, hypodense area with ring enhancement) and neck sono findings. Results : The annual incidence of deep neck abscess has been increased since 2000. The median age of the patients was 4 years(range, 26 days~15 years); 63% of the patients were younger than 5 years. Abscesses in the submandibular space(34%) were most common, followed by peritonsillar space(29.7%), retropharyngeal space(11.7%), combined(10.8%), parotid space(7.4%) and parapharyngeal space(6.4%). Fever(73.4%), sore throat(37.2%), decreased oral intake(34%) and neck pain(27.7%) were the most common symptoms. In 6 children(6.4%), there was refusal to move neck, in 6(6.4%) headache, and in 4(4.3%) torticollis. Respiratory distress was observed in only 1 patient(2.1%) and stridor in 1 other(2.1%). The most common physical examinations were neck swelling/mass(67%), pharyngitis(46.8%), tonsillitis(36.2 %), and cervical lymphadenopathy(28.7%). Neck stiffness was observed in 4 patients(4.3%). Total 35 organisms were isolated in 33 patients. The most common organisms cultured by patients' blood or pus were S. aureus(34%) and S. pyogenes(28.6%). Most organisms were gram positive, and had sensitivities in vancomycin(96.4%), cefotaxime(88.9%), cephalothin (86.4%), trimethoprime-sulfamethoxazole(83.3%), and clindamycin(77.8%). 77 patients(81.9%) underwent surgery plus antibiotics; 17 patients(18.1%) were treated with antibiotics only. There is no significant differences between two groups. In duration of admission, fever after admission, and antibiotic treatment. Conclusion : The incidence of deep neck abscess has increased recently and the major symptoms have been changed. The incidence of respiratory distress or stridor is decreasing, while the incidence of abnormal head and neck symptoms and signs like headache, neck stiffness, refusal to move neck, or torticollis are increasing. Gram positive organisms are predominant, S. aureus is the most common followed by S. pyogenes. 1st generation cephalosporin has high sensitivity on gram positive organisms. Treatment with surgery plus antibiotics dose not significantly decrease total duration of antibiotic treatment or admission compared to treatment with antibiotics alone.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.29-52
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• 2012

Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).