• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.231-241
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to identify the buying intentions for luxury fashion brands. The data used in this study were gathered through surveying university students living in Seoul metropolitan area. The variables included in this study were demographics, which are gender, age, academic major, area of residence, expenditure for apparel, pocket money, and family income, and fashion orientation and consumer needs for uniqueness were included as personal value variables. All demographic variables except academic major and area of residence were significantly related to the buying intentions. Among the fashion orientation factors, fashion intered was significantly related to the buying intentions while fashion leadership and importance of being well-dressed were not. Consumer needs for uniqueness was indirectly related to the buying intentions for luxury brands through fashion interest. The creative choice counterconformity was positively related to fashion interest, whereas the unpopular choice counterconformity was negatively related to it.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.104-116
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• 2017

People tend to maintain and express their individuality in unique ways. Consumer's need for uniqueness is defined as an individual's pursuit that differentiates themselves from others, thereby developing and enhancing their personal identities. This study examined the effect of consumers' need for uniqueness on fashion orientation and consumption values. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey distributed to people visiting the fashion show center during Seoul Fashion Week. The survey questions were designed using the 5-point Likert scale and Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ value of questions was reliable as .628-.862. The study's results indicate that people with high need for uniqueness are very interested in fashion and think that is important to be well-dressed. In addition, the results suggest that people with high needs for unusual choices who enjoy challenging the prevailing taste of people want to be fashion leaders and are attracted to products that express their personality well. And people with high needs for creative choices and incompliant choices value their own satisfaction and happiness with the products. On the other hand, consumer's needs for incompliant choices have a negative effect on social value. As a result, people with high needs for incompliant choices would break social norms rather than consider social status and reputation when they purchase fashion products. The concluding section of the paper discusses the implications of this research for fashion companies.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.573-593
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate consumers' buying intention toward fashion goods through global internet shopping malls. This research employed Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a theoretical framework and was extended to introduce fashion innovativeness, clothing involvement, consumers' needs for uniqueness, computer self-efficacy as external factors. A total of 381 copies of questionnaires were collected online. The subjects of this study were women. The collected date were analysed by factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha, correlation and path analysis. The results indicated that fashion innovativeness, clothing involvement and consumers' needs for uniqueness had a significant positive affect on perceived usefulness. Consumers' needs for uniqueness and computer self-efficacy had a significant positive affect on perceived ease of use. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were found to influence buying intention toward fashion goods through global internet shopping malls. The results of this study also suggested that perceived ease of use was actually a causal antecedent to perceived usefulness. This study reveled that employing TAM to investigate the buying intention toward fashion goods through global internet shopping malls was appropriate. This study also provides empirical analysis that can serve as a guide for marketers of the fashion industry in activating global internet shopping malls.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.192-205
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• 2017

Modern men are much more interested in their appearance than ever before, as well as showing an increased need for uniqueness in order to construct their own sphere and pursue differentiation from others. Besides, changes in life style and the aesthetic sense are causing men to pursue various kinds of clothing benefits so that they want a suit with characteristics beyond the stereotyped design and style. They have started to be actively engaged in clothing purchases, forming a driving force for the growth of the male suit market. Hence, this study has significance in that it offers data conducive to consumers' custom suit purchase by reviewing data on the present condition of the custom suit market and bespoke suits. In addition, it aims to give a summary on the theoretical bases of preceding studies, including the need for uniqueness, pursuit of clothing benefit and concern for the appearance of male consumers, as well as examining the factors that influence on their bespoke suit purchase intentions. Accordingly, this work intends to construct a basic environment for consumers to approach the custom suit market easily and pave the way for male suit markets through offering marketing data and information that is helpful for custom suit-related markets.

• Language and Information
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.67-86
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• 2007

The semantic literature on definiteness and specificity shows that the former is relatively an established notion, whereas the latter is still a vague notion that needs to be more clarified and confirmed. Given this, Ionin (2006) argues for the reality of specificity based on the informal use of this. She proposes this in spoken English as a specificity marker which has a semantic feature indicating "peaker intent to refer" and "noteworthiness." She also provides as evidence the results of some crosslinguistics studies including an L2 acquisition study with both L1-Russian and L1-Korean L2-English learners. However, this paper will argue that the informal use of this does not seem to mark specificity according to Ionin's definition of specificity. It will also be argued that the L2 acquisition study cannot be used as evidence for the reality of specificity. Based on these arguments, this paper will try to redefine specificity, based on the notions of existence and uniqueness.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.89-94
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• 2011

The image identification methodology associates an image with a unique identifiable representation. Whenever the methodology regenerates an identifier for the same image, moreover, the newly created identifier needs to be consistent in terms of representation value. In this paper, we discuss a methodology for image identifier generation utilizing luminance correlation. We furthermore propose a method for performance enhancement of the image identifier generation. We also demonstrate the experimental evaluations for uniqueness and similarity analysis and performance improvement that have shown favorable results.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.305-336
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• 2021

This study explored the user's information needs and information behavior for the development of academic library services. The content analysis of qualitative data showed that the in-depth interview participants have six types of information needs such as 'suitability, up-to-dateness, uniqueness, reliability, practicality, and convenience' while going through societal, educational, and research-related changes. Interview participants solved their information needs by acquiring the resources necessary for each individual's task through information behaviors using information media, human resources and the places. Each participant tried to solve his/her information problem through individual efforts based on their different media and information utilization capabilities. Based on the analysis, this study presented four directions in the development of academic library services. They are an personalized information literacy service, a space to meet the characteristics of information needs, an infrastructure platform for exchanging human resources, and an accessible support service for utilizing information media.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.126-134
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• 2017

Since public rental housings (social housings) in Korea are extremely standardized and uniformed, a variety of needs of residents for their housing are hardly satisfied. Public rental housing conditions, its low quality and size limitations regardless of residents type and needs resulted into negative images of social housing and social discriminations. Therefore there is a growing demand for alternative housing options in terms of diversification of social housing design with consideration for changing households and housing requirements. The purpose of this study to investigate some housing design guidelines, to analyze layout of building complex, community designs, household units and characteristics, overall design characteristics (sustainable design features, facade design, window and balcony composition, color and materials) and to provide some design suggestions for social housing. Design guidelines are classified into site planning and building layouts, residential building and household units, and performance of housing. Community facilities and their design features provide uniqueness of the public residence. Overall housing size of foreign cases is bigger than the domestic cases. Narrow shape of household units are more dominant in Korean public rental housing. More various shape and forms are found in facade and window design in foreign cases. Some design suggestion are provided for more diverse housing units and design for public rental housing in Korea.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2014

Leggings are recognized as unique fashion items that meet the needs of customers to express individuality due to their protective and thermal functions. They are highly practical fashion items that show a casual, street and sportive style with a noted influence on outdoor leisure fields. This study analyzes the sociocultural background for the spread of leggings as well as their design characteristics, coordination characteristics and authentic characteristics. The formative characteristics of modern legging designs are as follows. First, the shapes of modern leggings are ankle-length, calflength, above-knee, knee-length, stirrup and top of the foot-length. Leggings are transformed in many ways: length-expansion, side-slit, unbalanced length, variations of straps, cut-out, trimmings, pattern transformation and complex form. Second, modern leggings contain achromatic colors in modern and sensual image, vivid colors in sportive image and metallic colors futuristic and technical image. Third, leggings patterns value originality, uniqueness and rarity as shown by printed geometric patterns, hand crafted geometric and natural patterns, and abstract patterns expressed through various materials and themes. Fourth, modern leggings' textures are categorized into erotic, simply-functional, seasonless, glossy, and metallic. Functional and fashionable leggings reflect the psychological needs of modern society. This study suggests a direction for the development of legging designs and provides a theoretical database for higher value-added leggings business.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.592-599
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate consumer needs, image sensibility and preference of bedding fabric according to size and spacing of dot pattern. 18 kinds of dot pattern fabrics were designed with different diameters(6, 8, 10cm) and distances(4, 7, 10cm) in regular arrangement of diamond figure. The subjects were 162 male and female university students. The data were analyzed by SPSS 24.0. Fabrics were assessed subjectively using a 5-point scale 17 consumer needs and 33 sensory descriptors. The most consumer's needs for bedding fabric was shown to be functionality of bedding including hygiene, touch, warmth, ease of washing and management, air permeability, and hygroscopicity. The other parameters of consumer's needs were shown to be physical property and design parameter. The results of analysis of the dimension of image sensibility for fabrics with different size and spacing of dots are derived from six factors including joyfulness, coziness, uniqueness, charm, femininity, and complexity. As a result of analysis of preference with fabric kinds, there was a significant difference in preference with fabrics. The preferred fabrics were characterized by the pattern and the base fabric being striking three-dimensionally with 1/3 twill and 3/1 twill fabric. Sensory descriptors related to joyful image and unique image were analyzed as evaluation terms that can distinguish the preferences of fabrics. Correlation analysis showed the fabrics are preferred as the difference in luminance and reflectance between the base and pattern of the fabric become larger and the spacing of patterns become closer.