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An Empirical Study on Perceived Value and Continuous Intention to Use of Smart Phone, and the Moderating Effect of Personal Innovativeness (스마트폰의 지각된 가치와 지속적 사용의도, 그리고 개인 혁신성의 조절효과)

  • Han, Joonhyoung;Kang, Sungbae;Moon, Taesoo
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.53-84
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    • 2013
  • With rapid development of ICT (Information and Communications Technology), new services by the convergence of mobile network and application technology began to appear. Today, smart phone with new ICT convergence network capabilities is exceedingly popular and very useful as a new tool for the development of business opportunities. Previous studies based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) suggested critical factors, which should be considered for acquiring new customers and maintaining existing users in smart phone market. However, they had a limitation to focus on technology acceptance, not value based approach. Prior studies on customer's adoption of electronic utilities like smart phone product showed that the antecedents such as the perceived benefit and the perceived sacrifice could explain the causality between what is perceived and what is acquired over diverse contexts. So, this research conceptualizes perceived value as a trade-off between perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice, and we need to research the perceived value to grasp user's continuous intention to use of smart phone. The purpose of this study is to investigate the structured relationship between benefit (quality, usefulness, playfulness) and sacrifice (technicality, cost, security risk) of smart phone users, perceived value, and continuous intention to use. In addition, this study intends to analyze the differences between two subgroups of smart phone users by the degree of personal innovativeness. Personal innovativeness could help us to understand the moderating effect between how perceptions are formed and continuous intention to use smart phone. This study conducted survey through e-mail, direct mail, and interview with smart phone users. Empirical analysis based on 330 respondents was conducted in order to test the hypotheses. First, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived usefulness among three factors of perceived benefit has the highest positive impact on perceived value, and then followed by perceived playfulness and perceived quality. Second, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived cost among three factors of perceived sacrifice has significantly negative impact on perceived value, however, technicality and security risk have no significant impact on perceived value. Also, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived value has significant direct impact on continuous intention to use of smart phone. In this regard, marketing managers of smart phone company should pay more attention to improve task efficiency and performance of smart phone, including rate systems of smart phone. Additionally, to test the moderating effect of personal innovativeness, this research conducted multi-group analysis by the degree of personal innovativeness of smart phone users. In a group with high level of innovativeness, perceived usefulness has the highest positive influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, the analysis for a group with low level of innovativeness showed that perceived playfulness was the highest positive factor to influence perceived value than others. This result of the group with high level of innovativeness explains that innovators and early adopters are able to cope with higher level of cost and risk, and they expect to develop more positive intentions toward higher performance through the use of an innovation. Also, hedonic behavior in the case of the group with low level of innovativeness aims to provide self-fulfilling value to the users, in contrast to utilitarian perspective, which aims to provide instrumental value to the users. However, with regard to perceived sacrifice, both groups in general showed negative impact on perceived value. Also, the group with high level of innovativeness had less overall negative impact on perceived value compared to the group with low level of innovativeness across all factors. In both group with high level of innovativeness and with low level of innovativeness, perceived cost has the highest negative influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, the analysis for a group with high level of innovativeness showed that perceived technicality was the positive factor to influence perceived value than others. However, the analysis for a group with low level of innovativeness showed that perceived security risk was the second high negative factor to influence perceived value than others. Unlike previous studies, this study focuses on influencing factors on continuous intention to use of smart phone, rather than considering initial purchase and adoption of smart phone. First, perceived value, which was used to identify user's adoption behavior, has a mediating effect among perceived benefit, perceived sacrifice, and continuous intention to use smart phone. Second, perceived usefulness has the highest positive influence on perceived value, while perceived cost has significant negative influence on perceived value. Third, perceived value, like prior studies, has high level of positive influence on continuous intention to use smart phone. Fourth, in multi-group analysis by the degree of personal innovativeness of smart phone users, perceived usefulness, in a group with high level of innovativeness, has the highest positive influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, perceived playfulness, in a group with low level of innovativeness, has the highest positive factor to influence perceived value than others. This result shows that early adopters intend to adopt smart phone as a tool to make their job useful, instead market followers intend to adopt smart phone as a tool to make their time enjoyable. In terms of marketing strategy for smart phone company, marketing managers should pay more attention to identify their customers' lifetime value by the phase of smart phone adoption, as well as to understand their behavior intention to accept the risk and uncertainty positively. The academic contribution of this study primarily is to employ the VAM (Value-based Adoption Model) as a conceptual foundation, compared to TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) used widely by previous studies. VAM is useful for understanding continuous intention to use smart phone in comparison with TAM as a new IT utility by individual adoption. Perceived value dominantly influences continuous intention to use smart phone. The results of this study justify our research model adoption on each antecedent of perceived value as a benefit and a sacrifice component. While TAM could be widely used in user acceptance of new technology, it has a limitation to explain the new IT adoption like smart phone, because of customer behavior intention to choose the value of the object. In terms of theoretical approach, this study provides theoretical contribution to the development, design, and marketing of smart phone. The practical contribution of this study is to suggest useful decision alternatives concerned to marketing strategy formulation for acquiring and retaining long-term customers related to smart phone business. Since potential customers are interested in both benefit and sacrifice when evaluating the value of smart phone, marketing managers in smart phone company has to put more effort into creating customer's value of low sacrifice and high benefit so that customers will continuously have higher adoption on smart phone. Especially, this study shows that innovators and early adopters with high level of innovativeness have higher adoption than market followers with low level of innovativeness, in terms of perceived usefulness and perceived cost. To formulate marketing strategy for smart phone diffusion, marketing managers have to pay more attention to identify not only their customers' benefit and sacrifice components but also their customers' lifetime value to adopt smart phone.

Development of New Variables Affecting Movie Success and Prediction of Weekly Box Office Using Them Based on Machine Learning (영화 흥행에 영향을 미치는 새로운 변수 개발과 이를 이용한 머신러닝 기반의 주간 박스오피스 예측)

  • Song, Junga;Choi, Keunho;Kim, Gunwoo
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.24 no.4
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    • pp.67-83
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    • 2018
  • The Korean film industry with significant increase every year exceeded the number of cumulative audiences of 200 million people in 2013 finally. However, starting from 2015 the Korean film industry entered a period of low growth and experienced a negative growth after all in 2016. To overcome such difficulty, stakeholders like production company, distribution company, multiplex have attempted to maximize the market returns using strategies of predicting change of market and of responding to such market change immediately. Since a film is classified as one of experiential products, it is not easy to predict a box office record and the initial number of audiences before the film is released. And also, the number of audiences fluctuates with a variety of factors after the film is released. So, the production company and distribution company try to be guaranteed the number of screens at the opining time of a newly released by multiplex chains. However, the multiplex chains tend to open the screening schedule during only a week and then determine the number of screening of the forthcoming week based on the box office record and the evaluation of audiences. Many previous researches have conducted to deal with the prediction of box office records of films. In the early stage, the researches attempted to identify factors affecting the box office record. And nowadays, many studies have tried to apply various analytic techniques to the factors identified previously in order to improve the accuracy of prediction and to explain the effect of each factor instead of identifying new factors affecting the box office record. However, most of previous researches have limitations in that they used the total number of audiences from the opening to the end as a target variable, and this makes it difficult to predict and respond to the demand of market which changes dynamically. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to predict the weekly number of audiences of a newly released film so that the stakeholder can flexibly and elastically respond to the change of the number of audiences in the film. To that end, we considered the factors used in the previous studies affecting box office and developed new factors not used in previous studies such as the order of opening of movies, dynamics of sales. Along with the comprehensive factors, we used the machine learning method such as Random Forest, Multi Layer Perception, Support Vector Machine, and Naive Bays, to predict the number of cumulative visitors from the first week after a film release to the third week. At the point of the first and the second week, we predicted the cumulative number of visitors of the forthcoming week for a released film. And at the point of the third week, we predict the total number of visitors of the film. In addition, we predicted the total number of cumulative visitors also at the point of the both first week and second week using the same factors. As a result, we found the accuracy of predicting the number of visitors at the forthcoming week was higher than that of predicting the total number of them in all of three weeks, and also the accuracy of the Random Forest was the highest among the machine learning methods we used. This study has implications in that this study 1) considered various factors comprehensively which affect the box office record and merely addressed by other previous researches such as the weekly rating of audiences after release, the weekly rank of the film after release, and the weekly sales share after release, and 2) tried to predict and respond to the demand of market which changes dynamically by suggesting models which predicts the weekly number of audiences of newly released films so that the stakeholders can flexibly and elastically respond to the change of the number of audiences in the film.

Outcome after relapse in childhood and adolescent osteosarcoma : single institution experience in Korea (소아 청소년 골육종 재발 후 치료성적 : 한국의 단일기관 성적)

  • Lee, Yun-Jeong;Lee, Hyun-Jae;Kim, Dong-Ho;Lim, Jung-Sub;Lee, Jun-Ha;Park, Kyung-Duk;Jeon, Dae-Geun;Lee, Soo-Yong
    • Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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    • v.51 no.1
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    • pp.78-83
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    • 2008
  • Purpose : Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignant bone tumor in children and adolescents. Although survival rate of osteosarcoma patients has markedly improved, about 20-30% of patients still have a relapse. This study was aimed to find factors that influence postrelapse survival of osteosarcoma in childhood and adolescents. Methods : Between 1985 and 2004, of 461 patients who were diagnosed and treated as osteosarcoma in Korean Cancer Center Hospital, 180 patients with recurrent osteosarcoma were retrospectively reviewed. We examined survival rates and analyzed prognostic factors, such as relapse site, post-relapse treatment methods, pathologic response to neoadjuvnat chemotherapy, metastasis at first diagnosis, and relapse free interval. Results : The overall recurrence rate of patients with osteosarcoma was 39%. The 5-year and 10-year postrelapse survival rates in the recurrent osteosarcoma were 13% and 4%, respectively. The 5-year post-relapse survival rate was influenced by site of relapse (lung, 39%; local, 0%; lung & bone, 25%; others, 12%; P<0.05), relapse-free interval (<12 months, 13%; ${\geq}12$ months, 44%, P<0.05), and post-relapse treatment methods (with surgery, 38%; without surgery, 11%; P<0.05). Conclusion : The survival rate of recurrent case is very low after 10 years, so new second-line chemotherapy and active treatment is needed to increase survival. Aggressive surgery with the removal of recurrence sites combined with multi-agent chemotherapy could either cure patients with recurrent osteosarcoma or significantly prolong their survival.

Evaluation on Functional Assessment for Fish Habitat of Underground type Eco-Artificial Fish Reef using the Index of Biological Integrity (IBI) and Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI) (생물보전지수(IBI) 및 서식지 평가지수(QHEI)를 활용한 지하 매립형 방틀둠벙의 어류 서식처 기능 평가)

  • Ahn, Chang Hyuk;Joo, Jin Chul;Kwon, Jae Hyeong;Song, Ho Myeon
    • KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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    • v.31 no.6B
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    • pp.565-575
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    • 2011
  • The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the expression of both multi-metric qualitative habitat evaluation index (QHEI) and biological integrity index (IBI) for artificial structures eco-artificial fish reef (EAFR) for fishes asylum and habitat. Especially, both experimental evaluation and biological verification were performed in Water and Environmental Center's outdoor test-bed of Korea Institute of Construction Technology located in Andong-city, Gyeongsangbuk-do. The experimental conditions reflecting the situation of domestic river include the flow rate (e.g., $0.0{\sim}1.5m\;s^{-1}$), the width (e.g., 1.0~3.0 m), the depth (e.g., 0.05~0.70 m), and variable bed materials. Both QHEI and IBI were monitored for 8 months from May to December 2010. Whereas QHEI values were highest at experimental points of the E~F with an average of 83.1, those were lowest at B~C with an average of 78.1. However, QHEI values inside EAFR were more than 98.9, regardelss of space and time, and indicated more than the highest good of the state (Good) in the habitat. Overally, IBI values showed similar trend with QHEI, but were 44.2 in the winter dry season, compared to 32.8 of QHEI values. IBI values Also, IBI values inside EAFR were greater than those at the experimental channel by 5.7 to 11.4% and 18.7 to 34.8% in flow and stagnant conditions, respectively, indicating that EAFR can secure asylum and habitat for fish during the dry season. For comprehensive aquatic ecosystem assessment, the experimental channel showed generally fair conditions (Fair~Good), whereas EAFR showed good conditions (Good), suggesting that EAFR can be applied to aquatic ecosystem restoration and improvement.

Foreign Entry Strategies for Korean Fishery Firms (한국수산업의 해외진출전략에 관한 연구)

  • 김회천
    • The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.131-153
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    • 1984
  • Fishery resources are still abundant compared with other resources and the possibility of exploitation is probably great. The Korean fishery industry has grown remarkably since 1957, and Korea is ranked as one of the major fishery countries. Its of fishery products reached the 9th in the world and the value of exports was 5th in 1982. But recently a growth rate has slowed down, due to the enlargement of territorial seas by the declaration of the 200 mile, Exclusive Economic Zone, the tendency to develop fishery resources strate-gically in international bargaining, the change in function of the international organizations, the expansion of regulated waters, the illegal arrest of our fishing boats, the rapid rise in oil prices, and the fall in fish prices, the development of fishery resources as a symbol of nationalism, the fishing boats decreptitude, the rise of crew wages, regulations on fishing methods, fish species, fishing season, size of fish, and mesh size, fishing quotas and the demand of excessive fishing royalties. Besides the the obligation of coastal countries, employing crews of their host countries is also an example of the change in the international environment which causes the aggravation of foreign profit of fishing firms. To ameliorate the situation, our Korean fishery firms must prepare efficient plans and study systematically to internationalize themselves because such existing methods as conventional fishing entry and licence fishing entry are likely to be unable to cope with international environmental change. Thus, after the systematic analysis of the problem, some new combined alternatives might be proposed. These are some of the new schemes to support this plan showing the orientation of our national policy: 1. Most of the coastal states, to cope with rapid international environmental change and to survive in the new era of ocean order, have rationalized their higher governmental structure concerning the fishery industries. And the coastal countries which are the objectives of our expecting entry, demand excessive economic and technical aid, limit the number of fishing boats’entry and the use of our foreign fishing bases, and regulate the membership of the international fishery commissions. Especially, most of the coastal or island countries are recently independent states, which are poorer in national budget, depend largely on fishing royalties and licence entry fees as their main resources of national finance. 2. Alternatives to our entry to deep sea fishing, as internationalization strategies, are by direct foreign investment method. About 30 firms have already invested approximately US $ 8 million in 9 coastal countries. Areas of investment comprise the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, the Moroccan sea and five other sea areas. Trawling, tuna purse seining and five other fields are covered by the investment. Joint-venture is the most prominent method of this direct investment. If we consider the number of entry firms, the host countries, the number of seas available and the size of investment, this method of cooperation is perhaps insufficient so far. Our fishery firms suffer from a weakness in international competitive ability, an insufficiency of information, of short funds, incompetency in the market, the unfriendliness of host coastal countries, the incapability of partners in joint-ventures and the political instability of the host countries. To enlarge our foreign fishing grounds, we are to actively adopt the direct investment entry method and to diversity our collaboraboration with partner countries. Consequently, besides proper fishing, we might utilize forward integration strategies, including the processing fied. a. The enterprise emigration method is likely to be successful in Argentina. It includes the development of Argentinian fishing grounds which are still not exploited in spite of abundant resources. Besides, Arentina could also be developed as a base for the exploitation of the krill resources and for further entries into collaboration with other Latin American countries. b. The co-business contract fishing method works in American territorial seas where American fishermen sell their fishery products to our factory ships at sea. This method contributes greatly to obtaining more fishing quotas and in innovation bottom fishing operation. Therefore we may apply this method to other countres to diffuse our foreign fishing entry. c. The new fishing ground development method was begun in 1957 by tuna long-line experimental fishing in the Indian Ocean. It has five fields, trawling, skipjack pole fishing and shrimp trawling, and so on. Recently, Korean fisheries were successful in the development of the Antarctic Ocean krill and tuna purse seining. 3. The acceleration of the internationalization of deep sea fishing; a. Intense information exchange activities and commission participation are likely to be continues as our contributions to the international fishery organizations. We should try to enter international fishery commissions in which we are not so far participating. And we have to reform adequately to meet the changes of the function of the international commissions. With our partner countries, we ought to conclude bilateral fishery agreements, thus enlarging our collaboration. b. Our government should offer economic and technical aids to host countries to facilitate our firms’fishery entry and activities. c. To accelerate technical innovation, our fishery firms must invest greater amount in technical innovation, at the same time be more discriminatory in importing exogeneous fishery technologies. As for fishing methods; expanded use of multi-purpose fishing boats and introduction of automation should be encuraged to prevent seasonal fluctuations in fishery outputs. d. The government should increases financial and tax aid to Korean firms in order to elevate already weak financial structure of Korean fishery firms. e. Finally, the government ought to revise foreign exchange regulations being applied to deep sea fishery firms. Furthermore, dutes levied on foreign purchaed equipments and supplies used by our deep sea fishing boats thould be reduced or exempted. when the fish caught by Korean partner of joint-venture firms is sold at the home port, pusan, import duty should be exempted.

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An Improvement Direction for Increases of Visitor Satisfaction on Arboretum by Post-evaluation - Based on Jade Garden - (수목원 방문객 만족도 증진을 위한 개선방향 - 제이드가든 내 4개 주제정원을 대상으로 -)

  • Park, Geon;Yun, Young-Jo;Kil, Sung-Ho;Rho, Hoe-Eun
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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    • v.37 no.4
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    • pp.60-72
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    • 2019
  • The purpose of this study was to identify detailed factors that affect visitor satisfactions of the plants on display, environments of pedestrian road and facility of each theme garden by conducting a survey of visitors to Jade Garden. The 400 data including 100 copies per theme garden were used for statistical analysis. The statistical techniques used in the survey analysis include multi-regression analysis, t-test, and analysis of variance(ANOVA). As a result of the analysis, most of theme gardens tended to have the greatest impact on the satisfaction of the plants on display and the lowest level of facility satisfaction. According to detailed factors analysis of the satisfaction of plants on display satisfaction of plant diversity and the method of plant display were most affected in most of the theme gardens. Among them, promoting the satisfaction of plant diversity is necessary to plant various species, but in case of Ginkgo Maze Garden, a type of tree community as one tree(Ginkgo biloba), the satisfaction of plants diversity did not show a rising-up value. Therefore, it was confirmed that the appropriate degree of plants diversity depends on the theme or environment of the garden. In the case of the pedestrian-road-satisfaction, the width of the pedestrian road was the most affected, It was analyzed that whether the point of intersection can be easily available during peak season has a significant impact on the satisfaction of visitors. In the case of facility satisfaction, it was analyzed that the presence of rest and convenience facilities had the most direct influence on visitors, so the facility diversity had the greatest influence. Therefore, it is necessary to more systematically categorize and consider the influential detailed factors such as plants diversity and methods of plant display, width of pedestrian road and facilities diversity for the management and development of the arboretum.

Integrating Urban Planning and Environmental Impact Assessment for Enhancing Citizen Participation : Focusing on Official Development Assistance Project in Kenya (도시계획과 환경영향평가 제도의 통합적 접근을 통한 시민 참여 확대 방안: 케냐 ODA 사업 사례를 바탕으로)

  • Yeom, Jaeweon;Ha, Dongoh;Jung, Juchul
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.29 no.5
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    • pp.338-349
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    • 2020
  • The importance of citizen participation, especially in urban planning, is increasing. Citizen participation is the sharing of control or influence on decisions and choices that affect stakeholders, and providing citizens with the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process. The paradigm of urban planning has also shifted from the rational planning model, which relied solely on the rationality of planners, to expand citizen participation. In fact, citizen participation in the process of establishing a vision for comprehensive plan is expanding, especially in metropolitan governments such as Seoul, Busan, and Daegu. However, there are criticisms that citizen cannot practically participate in urban planning due to limited participation methods and lack of participation in the pre-planning process. Accordingly, the necessity of institutionalization of citizen participation in the urban planning has been raised. According to literature reviews, foreign countries have integrated environmental impact assessment (EIA) into the urban planning to institutionalize citizen participation and pursue sustainability of the plan. In particular, the EIA actively includes citizen participation from the scoping stage to identify the issues. However, it was pointed out that there is a limitation to guaranteeing sustainability of the plan since EIA is carried out only at the urban project level. In other words, in order to expand citizen participation and ensure sustainability through the integrated approach, analysis of EIA in urban planning level is needed. Therefore, this study carried out a case study of EIA in the official development assistance of the Kenya multi-purpose dam construction to analyze the impact assessment in a wider scope than the urban project-level.

Biotope Mapping of Pinus densiflora Based on Growth Environment of Tricholoma matsutake - A Case Study of Yangyang-gun, Kang Won-do - (송이 생육환경 특성을 고려한 소나무비오톱지도 작성 연구 - 강원도 양양군을 사례로 -)

  • Han, Bong-Ho;Park, Seok-Cheol;Kwak, Jeong-In;Kim, Bo-Hyun;Lee, Kyong-Jae
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.25 no.2
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    • pp.211-226
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    • 2011
  • The purpose of this paper was to ensure the basis for effective management of Tricholoma matsutake mountain province, to perform biotope mapping of Pinus densiflora based on growth environment of Tricholoma matsutake, target a cluster of Yangyang-gun, Kang Won-do. Study Methods were to review on growth and environmental characteristics of Tricholoma matsutake through internal and external documents and to identify vegetational structure and soil characteristics. This paper studied growth structure and soil environment of Pinus densiflora forest where a farm of production area for Tricholoma matsutake of in order to set the standard of Pinus densiflora biotope. Mapping standards were derived by separating of landform conditions, soil conditions, vegetation conditions. Biotope types were divided into possible production area for Tricholoma matsutake and potential production area for Tricholoma matsutake, possible production area for Tricholoma matsutake were Pinus densiflora biotope in landform and soil structure that enables Tricholoma matsutake production and Single-layered Pinus densiflora biotope of less than 30cm(DBH)-Tree species that other shrub is dominant in shrub layer, Multi-layered Pinus densiflora biotope that Pinus densiflora forest was predominant in understrory layer. Potential production area for Tricholoma matsutake were single-layered Pinus densiflora biotope of more than 30cm(DBH) in landform that enables Tricholoma matsutake production, Pinus densiflora biotope with Quercus predominant in the understrory layer, single-layered Pinus densiflora biotope with Quercus predominant in shrub layer, inappropriate vegetation structure area that the induction of production of Tricholoma matsutake was possible through future vegetation management. According to the research results, Pinus densiflora forest were divided into 16 types; 6 types of possible Tricholoma matsutake production areas, 9 potential Tricholoma matsutake production areas and 16 types of areas where Tricholoma matsutake production was impossible. Possible production areas account for 15.48%, or $9.8km^2$ out of the total Pinus densiflora forest while potential production areas take up 32.42%, or $20.52km^2$, and areas where Tricholoma matsutake production was impossible was 52.10%, or $32.97km^2$.

Patterns of care for patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (KROG 11-06) in South Korea

  • Sung, Soo Yoon;Kang, Min Kyu;Kay, Chul Seung;Keum, Ki Chang;Kim, Sung Hwan;Kim, Yeon-Sil;Kim, Won Taek;Kim, Ji-Yoon;Kim, Jin-Hee;Moon, Sung Ho;Ahn, Yong Chan;Oh, Young Taek;Wu, Hong-Gyun;Lee, Chang-Geol;Chung, Woong-Ki;Cho, Kwan Ho;Cho, Moon-June;Choi, Jin Hwa
    • Radiation Oncology Journal
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    • v.33 no.3
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    • pp.188-197
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    • 2015
  • Purpose: To investigate the patterns of care for patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in South Korea. Materials and Methods: A multi-institutional retrospective study was performed (Korean Radiation Oncology Group [KROG] 11-06) on a total of 1,445 patients from 15 institutions. Results: Of the 1,445 patients, more than half were stages III (39.9%) and IV (35.8%). In addition to patterns of care, we also investigated trends over time with the periods 1988-1993, 1994-2002, and 2003-2011. The frequencies of magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography-computed tomography were markedly increased in the third period compared to previous 2 periods. Concurrent chemoradiation (CCRT) was performed on 894 patients (61.9%), neoadjuvant chemotherapy on 468 patients (32.4%), and adjuvant chemotherapy on 366 patients (25.3%). Of stage II-IV patients, CCRT performed on 78.8% in 2003-2011 compared to 15.0% in 1988-1993. For patients treated with CCRT, cisplatin was the most commonly used agent in 81.3% of patients. Over the periods of time, commonly used radiotherapy (RT) techniques were changed from 2-dimensional RT (1988-1993, 92.5%) to 3-dimensional RT (2003-2011, 35.5%) or intensity-modulated RT (IMRT; 2003-2011, 56.5%). Median RT doses given to primary tumors, high-risk lymphatics, and low-risk lymphatics were 70.0 Gy, 58.1 Gy, and 48.0 Gy, respectively. Adoption of IMRT increased the dose per fraction and escalated total radiation dose. Conclusion: Assessment of the patterns of care for NPC patients in South Korea demonstrated that management for NPC including diagnostic imaging, treatment regimen, RT techniques and dose schedule, advanced in accordance with the international guidelines.

Improvement Way for Mobile X-ray Examinations by Rule Revision about Safety Management of Diagnosis Radiation Occurrence System (진단용방사선발생장치의 안전관리에 관한 규칙 개정에 따른 이동형 방사선검사의 개선방안)

  • Choi, Jun-Gu;Kim, Gyeong-Su;Kim, Byeong-Gi;Ahn, Nam-Jun;Kim, Hyeong-Sun;Kim, Sang-Geon;Lim, Si-Eun
    • Journal of radiological science and technology
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    • v.30 no.1
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    • pp.53-59
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    • 2007
  • A safety management rule of the diagnosis radiation system which opened a court 2006 February 10th was promulgated for safety of the radiation worker, patients and patients' family members. The purpose of this study is to minimize injury by radiation that can happen to patients and people around a sick ward when managing mobile X-ray system. This study analyzed sickroom environment of mobile X-ray examination and the statistical data of the Konkuk medical Information System(KIS) and the Picture Archiving Communication System(PACS). This study also investigated patient conditions, infection, relation information and related data, when the sickroom mobile X-ray examination is used. Through data analysis, many problems were expected such as restriction of space side, manpower and expense of business side, satisfaction degree decline of patient and protector of operation side. Therefore, we tried to restrict examination of multi bed sickroom, and to use treatment room in each ward to solve problem mentioned. As a result, the whole sickroom mobile X-ray examination rate decreased to near 50%, and mobile X-ray examination rate for inpatients decreased to more than 85%. This study shows that several attempts we did should be helpful for manpower, patients satisfaction and expenses. Also, they should protect patients in sickroom from unnecessary radiation exposure and could minimize inconvenience of patients and their family members from x-ray examination.

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