• Title/Summary/Keyword: performance factor

Search Result 7,939, Processing Time 0.041 seconds

Nutrition and Psychosocial Factors were associated with Possible Sarcopenia in the Rural Elderly (농촌지역 주민의 영양결핍 및 사회심리적 요인과 근감소증 가능군과의 관련성)

  • Kim, Bokyoung;Lee, Gyeong-Ye;Seo, Ae-Rim;Kim, Mi-Ji;Seo, Sung-Hyo;Park, Ki-Soo
    • Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
    • /
    • v.47 no.2
    • /
    • pp.90-98
    • /
    • 2022
  • Objective: This study aimed to provide basic data for preventing and managing sarcopenia by identifying the relationship between sarcopenia, malnutrition, and psychosocial factors among the elderly in the community. Methods: The study included 1,019 subjects aged 60 and over. "Possible sarcopenia" was defined by low handgrip strength with or without reduced physical performance. Nutrition was evaluated according to the mini nutrition assessment (MNA), and the psychosocial factors examined were self-efficacy, social isolation, fear of falling, and social capital (trust and participation). A logistic regression analysis was also performed on the relationship between risk of malnutrition, psychosocial factors, and sarcopenia. Results: MNA was significantly associated with social participation (OR = 1.747, p <0.001), fear of falling (OR = 2.905, p <0.001), and self-efficacy (high/low, OR = 0.654, p = 0.011). In model 3, which included both MNA and psychosocial factors, sarcopenia was significantly associated with MNA (OR = 2.529, p <0.001) and fear of falling (OR = 1.544, p = 0.045). Compared with the low self-efficacy group, the high group (OR = 0.589, p = 0.009) was significant. The factors related to possible sarcopenia include risk of malnutrition, fear of falls, and low self-efficacy. Conclusion: It will be necessary to improve self-efficacy so that individuals feel they can do activities of daily living themselves and to reduce their fear of falling through muscle strength and balance exercises. Finally, it is also necessary to increase regular participation in community social activities.

Effect of Drying Type and Addition Level of Sweet Potato 'Tongchaeru' Byproducts on Broiler Productivity, Meat Quality, Blood Parameters, and Immune Response (고구마 '통채루' 부산물의 건조 방법과 첨가 수준에 따른 육계 생산성, 계육 품질, 혈액 성상, 면역 지표에 미치는 영향)

  • Woo-Do Lee;Hyunsoo Kim;Jiseon Son;Eui-Chul Hong;Hee-Jin Kim;Yeon-Seo Yun;Hye Kyung Shin;Hwan-Ku Kang
    • Korean Journal of Poultry Science
    • /
    • v.50 no.4
    • /
    • pp.325-336
    • /
    • 2023
  • This study used leaves and stems of 'Tongchaeru', one of the sweet potato varieties, to investigate broiler productivity, meat quality, blood properties, growth hormones, and immune factor levels according to drying method and amount added to feed. For this experiment, a total of 720 1-day-old male Ross 308 broilers were used. Treatments were assigned with 3 replicates per treatment and 20 birds were assigned to each replicate. The treatment group was designed into 12 treatments according to the type of natural product (leaves (L), stems (S)), drying type (natural (N), hot air (H), freeze (F)) and amount added (0.1%, 0.3%). The test was conducted for a total of 5 weeks. In this study, there was no significant difference in productivity depending on the type and amount of additives added (P>0.05). The FS 0.3% group showed high pH and WHC levels, and the shear force was lowest at HL 0.1% group (P<0.05). Blood cell and serum biochemical components were similar in all treatments, and growth hormone IGF-1 was highest in FS 0.1% group (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in IFN-γ, but the highest level of IL-6 was seen in the HS 0.1% group (P<0.05). In conclusion, the meat quality and the level of growth hormone and immune factors in the body were different depending on the type and amount of dried leaves and stems of sweet potato 'Tongchaeru', further study is needed to compare the selected additives and amounts added with those without additions.

Theoretical Study on Modeling Success Factors of Overseas Agricultural Startups (해외 농업스타트업 성공요인 모델링에 관한 이론적 고찰)

  • Jinhwan, Park;Sangsoon, Kim
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
    • /
    • v.18 no.1
    • /
    • pp.85-106
    • /
    • 2023
  • This study reviewed and derived the success factors of overseas agricultural startups and studied their integrated research model. Agricultural startups and general startups have in common that poor resources and infrastructure exist from a resource-based perspective after startup, but a differentiated approach from general startups is required due to the nature of the primary industry of agriculture. In this study, we approach the company internal factors (human resources/vision/distribution network capacity/capital capacity/cultivated crops/physical resources/farming technology, etc.) and external factors (agricultural infrastructure/laws/regulations/relationship with surrounding society, etc.) We tried to build a research model that can be integrated by focusing on various existing research models, success factors, and entrepreneurship. Through this, it is intended to present an integrated model that is practically helpful to business performance to entrepreneurs, business-related persons, and researchers who need an integrated understanding of agricultural startups at home and abroad. made for purpose In this paper, a standard model was established through three types (existing agricultural startup, small and medium-sized business startup, multinational company, and comprehensive approach) according to size and characteristics for modeling agricultural startup success factors. Through this, a total of 9 success factors (agricultural management, external environment, manager/founder characteristics, corporate identity, business management, organizational culture, infrastructure, commercialization capability, and sustainable growth) were derived. The implication of this study is that the success factors of agricultural startups were comprehensively presented based on 'entrepreneurship' for various domestic and foreign agricultural startup cases. By confirming the systematic categorization, a standard model for future agricultural startup success factors was presented, and as a result, a foundation was presented for systematic research and practical effectiveness of related research in the future.

  • PDF

Problems in the Korean National Family Planning Program (한국가족계획사업(韓國家族計劃事業)의 문제점(問題點))

  • Hong, Jong-Kwan
    • Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
    • /
    • v.2 no.2
    • /
    • pp.27-36
    • /
    • 1975
  • The success of the family planning program in Korea is reflected in the decrease in the growth rate from 3.0% in 1962 to 2.0% in 1971, and in the decrease in the fertility rate from 43/1,000 in 1960 to 29/1,000 in 1970. However, it would be erroneous to attribute these reductions entirely to the family planning program. Other socio-economic factors, such as the increasing age at marriage and the increasing use of induced abortions, definitely had an impact on the lowered growth and fertility rate. Despite the relative success of the program to data in meeting its goals, there is no room for complacency. Meeting the goal of a further reduction in the population growth rate to 1.3% by 1981 is a much more difficult task than any one faced in the past. Not only must fertility be lowered further, but the size of the target population itself will expand tremendously in the late seventies; due to the post-war baby boom of the 1950's reaching reproductive ages. Furthermore, it is doubtful that the age at marriage will continue to rise as in the past or that the incidence of induced abortion will continue to increase. Consequently, future reductions in fertility will be more dependent on the performance of the national family planning program, with less assistance from these non-program factors. This paper will describe various approaches to help to the solution of these current problems. 1. PRACTICE RATE IN FAMILY PLANNING In 1973, the attitude (approval) and knowledge rates were quite high; 94% and 98% respectively. But a large gap exists between that and the actual practice rate, which is only 3695. Two factors must be considered in attempting to close the KAP-gap. The first is to change social norms, which still favor a larger family, increasing the practice rate cannot be done very quickly. The second point to consider is that the family planning program has not yet reached all the eligible women. A 1973 study determineded that a large portion, 3096 in fact, of all eligible women do not want more children, but are not practicing family planning. Thus, future efforts to help close the KAP-gap must focus attention and services on this important large group of potential acceptors. 2. CONTINUATION RATES Dissatisfaction with the loop and pill has resulted in high discontinuation rates. For example, a 1973 survey revealed that within the first six months initial loop acceptance. nearly 50% were dropouts, and that within the first four months of inital pill acceptance. nearly 50% were dropouts. These discontinuation rates have risen over the past few years. The high rate of discontinuance obviously decreases the contraceptive effectiveness. and has resulted in many unwanted births which is directly related to the increase of induced abortions. In the future, the family planning program must emphasize the improved quality of initial and follow-up services. rather than more quantity, in order to insure higher continuation rates and thus more effective contraceptive protection. 3. INDUCED ABORTION As noted earlier. the use of induced abortions has been increase yearly. For example, in 1960, the average number of abortions was 0.6 abortions per women in the 15-44 age range. By 1970. that had increased to 2 abortions per women. In 1966. 13% of all women between 15-44 had experienced at least one abortion. By 1971, that figure jumped to 28%. In 1973 alone, the total number of abortions was 400,000. Besides the ever incre.sing number of induced abortions, another change has that those who use abortions have shifted since 1965 to include- not. only the middle class, but also rural and low-income women. In the future. in response to the demand for abortion services among rural and low-income w~men, the government must provide and support abortion services for these women as a part of the national family planning program. 4. TARGET SYSTIi:M Since 1962, the nationwide target system has been used to set a target for each method, and the target number of acceptors is then apportioned out to various sub-areas according to the number of eligible couples in each area. Because these targets are set without consideration for demographic factors, particular tastes, prejudices, and previous patterns of acceptance in the area, a high discontinuation rate for all methods and a high wastage rate for the oral pill and condom results. In the future. to alleviate these problems of the methodbased target system. an alternative. such as the weighted-credit system, should be adopted on a nation wide basis. In this system. each contraceptive method is. assigned a specific number of points based upon the couple-years of protection (CYP) provided by the method. and no specific targets for each method are given. 5. INCREASE OF STERILIZA.TION TARGET Two special projects. the hospital-based family planning program and the armed forces program, has greatly contributed to the increasing acceptance in female and male sterilization respectively. From January-September 1974, 28,773 sterilizations were performed. During the same time in 1975, 46,894 were performed; a 63% increase. If this trend continues, by the end of 1975. approximately 70,000 sterilizations will have been performed. Sterilization is a much better method than both the loop and pill, in terms of more effective contraceptive protection and the almost zero dropout rate. In the future, the. family planning program should continue to stress the special programs which make more sterilizations possible. In particular, it should seek to add the laparoscope techniques to facilitate female sterilization acceptance rates. 6. INCREASE NUMBER OF PRIVATE ACCEPTORS Among the current family planning users, approximately 1/3 are in the private sector and thus do not- require government subsidy. The number of private acceptors increases with increasing urbanization and economic growth. To speed this process, the government initiated the special hospital based family planning program which is utilized mostly by the private sector. However, in the future, to further hasten the increase of private acceptors, the government should encourage doctors in private practice to provide family planning services, and provide the contraceptive supplies. This way, those do utilize the private medical system will also be able to receive family planning services and pay for it. Another means of increasing the number of private acceptors, IS to greatly expand the commercial outlets for pills and condoms beyond the existing service points of drugstores, hospitals, and health centers. 7. IE&C PROGRAM The current preferred family size is nearly twice as high as needed to achieve a stable poplation. Also, a strong boy preference hinders a small family size as nearly all couples fuel they must have at least one or more sons. The IE&C program must, in the future, strive to emphasize the values of the small family and equality of the sexes. A second problem for the IE&C program to work. with in the: future is the large group of people who approves family planning, want no more children, but do not practice. The IE&C program must work to motivate these people to accept family planning And finally, for those who already practice, an IE&C program in the future must stress continuation of use. The IE&C campaign, to insure highest effectiveness, should be based on a detailed factor analysis of contraceptive discontinuance. In conclusion, Korea faces a serious unfavorable sociodemographic situation- in the future unless the population growth rate can be curtailed. And in the future, the decrease in fertility will depend solely on the family planning program, as the effect of other socio-economic factors has already been maximumally felt. A second serious factor to consider is the increasing number of eligible women due to the 1950's baby boom. Thus, to meet these challenges, the program target must be increased and the program must improve the effectiveness of its current activities and develop new programs.

  • PDF

A Study on Perceived Quality affecting the Service Personal Value in the On-off line Channel - Focusing on the moderate effect of the need for cognition - (온.오프라인 채널에서 지각된 품질이 서비스의 개인가치에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구 -인지욕구의 조정효과를 중심으로-)

  • Sung, Hyung-Suk
    • Journal of Distribution Research
    • /
    • v.15 no.3
    • /
    • pp.111-137
    • /
    • 2010
  • The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.

  • PDF

A Prospective Randomized Comparative Clinical Trial Comparing the Efficacy between Ondansetron and Metoclopramide for Prevention of Nausea and Vomiting in Patients Undergoing Fractionated Radiotherapy to the Abdominal Region (복부 방사선치료를 받는 환자에서 발생하는 오심 및 구토에 대한 온단세트론과 메토클로프라미드의 효과 : 제 3상 전향적 무작위 비교임상시험)

  • Park Hee Chul;Suh Chang Ok;Seong Jinsil;Cho Jae Ho;Lim John Jihoon;Park Won;Song Jae Seok;Kim Gwi Eon
    • Radiation Oncology Journal
    • /
    • v.19 no.2
    • /
    • pp.127-135
    • /
    • 2001
  • Purpose : This study is a prospective randomized clinical trial comparing the efficacy and complication of anti-emetic drugs for prevention of nausea and vomiting after radiotherapy which has moderate emetogenic potential. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the anti-emetic efficacy of ondansetron $(Zofran^{\circledR})$ 8 mg bid dose (Group O) is better than the efficacy of metoclopramide 5 mg lid dose (Group M) in patients undergoing fractionated radiotherapy to the abdominal region. Materials and Methods : Study entry was restricted to those patients who met the following eligibility criteria: histologically confirmed malignant disease; no distant metastasis; performance status of not more than ECOG grade 2; no previous chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Between March 1997 and February 1998, 60 patients enrolled in this study. All patients signed a written statement of informed consent prior to enrollment. Blinding was maintained by dosing identical number of tablets including one dose of matching placebo for Group O. The extent of nausea, appetite loss, and the number of emetic episodes were recorded everyday using diary card. The mean score of nausea, appetite loss and the mean number of emetic episodes were obtained in a weekly interval. Results : Prescription error occurred in one patient. And diary cards have not returned in 3 patients due to premature refusal of treatment. Card from one patient was excluded from the analysis because she had a history of treatment for neurosis. As a result, the analysis consisted of 55 patients. Patient characteristics and radiotherapy characteristics were similar except mean age was $52.9{\pm}11.2$ in group M, $46.5{\pm}9.5$ in group O. The difference of age was statistically significant. The mean score of nausea, appetite loss and emetic episodes in a weekly interval was higher in group M than O. In group M, the symptoms were most significant at 5th week. In a panel data analysis using mixed procedure, treatment group was only significant factor detecting the difference of weekly score for all three symptoms. Ondansetron $(Zofran^{\circledR})$ 8 mg bid dose and metoclopramide 5 mg lid dose were well tolerated without significant side effects. There were no clinically important changes In vital signs or clinical laboratory parameters with either drug. Conclusion : Concerning the fact that patients with younger age have higher emetogenic potential, there are possibilities that age difference between two treatment groups lowered the statistical power of analysis. There were significant difference favoring ondansetron group with respect to the severity of nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite. We concluded that ondansetron is more effective anti-emetic agents in the control of radiotherapy-induced nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite without significant toxicity, compared with commonly used drug, i.e., metoclopramide. However, there were patients suffering emesis despite the administration of ondansetron. The possible strategies to improve the prevention and the treatment of radiotherapy-induced emesis must be further studied.

  • PDF

Treatment Outcome of Locally Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Who Received Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy with Weekly Paclitaxel (Paclitaxel 매주 투여 및 방사선치료 동시요법을 받은 국소진행성 비소세포폐암 환자들의 치료 결과)

  • Kim, Su-Zy;Shim, Byoung-Yong;Kim, Chi-Hong;Song, So-Hyang;Ahn, Meyung-Im;Cho, Deog-Gon;Cho, Kyu-Do;Yoo, Jin-Young;Kim, Hoon-Kyo;Kim, Sung-Whan
    • Radiation Oncology Journal
    • /
    • v.24 no.4
    • /
    • pp.230-236
    • /
    • 2006
  • $\underline{Purpose}$: To analyze the response, toxicity, patterns of failure and survival rate of patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer who were treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy with weekly paclitaxel. $\underline{Materials\;and\;Methods}$: Twenty-three patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients who received radical chemoradiotherapy from October 1999 to September 2004 were included in this retrospective study. Patients received total $55.4{\sim}64.8$ (median 64.8) Gy (daily 1.8 Gy per fraction, 5 days per weeks) over $7{\sim}8$ weeks. 50 or $60\;mg/m^2$ of paclitaxel was administered on day 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 and 36 of radiotherapy. Four weeks after the concurrent chemoradiotherapy, three cycles of consolidation chemotherapy consisted of paclitaxel $135\;mg/m^2$ and cisplatin $75\;mg/m^2$ was administered every 3 weeks. $\underline{Results}$: Of the 23 patients, 3 patients refused to receive the treatment during the concurrent chemoradiotherapy. One patient died of bacterial pneumonia during the concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Grade 2 radiation esophagitis was observed in 4 patients (17%). Sixteen patients received consolidation chemotherapy. During the consolidation chemotherapy, 8 patients (50%) experienced grade 3 or 4 neutropenia and one of those patients died of neutropenic sepsis. Overall response rate for 20 evaluable patients was 90% including 4 complete responses (20%) and 14 partial responses (70%). Among 18 responders, 9 had local failure, 3 had local and distant failure and 2 had distant failure only. Median progression-free survival time was 9.5 months and 2-year progression-free survival rate was 19%. Eleven patients received second-line or third-line chemotherapy after the treatment failure. The median overall survival time was 21 months. 2-year and 5-year survival rate were 43% and 33%, respectively. Age, performance status, tumor size were significant prognostic factors for progression-free survival. $\underline{Conclusion}$: Concurrent chemoradiotherapy with weekly paclitaxel revealed high response rate and low toxicity rate. But local failure occurred frequently after the remission and large tumor size was a poor prognostic factor. Further investigations are needed to improve the local control.

Improved Social Network Analysis Method in SNS (SNS에서의 개선된 소셜 네트워크 분석 방법)

  • Sohn, Jong-Soo;Cho, Soo-Whan;Kwon, Kyung-Lag;Chung, In-Jeong
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.18 no.4
    • /
    • pp.117-127
    • /
    • 2012
  • Due to the recent expansion of the Web 2.0 -based services, along with the widespread of smartphones, online social network services are being popularized among users. Online social network services are the online community services which enable users to communicate each other, share information and expand human relationships. In the social network services, each relation between users is represented by a graph consisting of nodes and links. As the users of online social network services are increasing rapidly, the SNS are actively utilized in enterprise marketing, analysis of social phenomenon and so on. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is the systematic way to analyze social relationships among the members of the social network using the network theory. In general social network theory consists of nodes and arcs, and it is often depicted in a social network diagram. In a social network diagram, nodes represent individual actors within the network and arcs represent relationships between the nodes. With SNA, we can measure relationships among the people such as degree of intimacy, intensity of connection and classification of the groups. Ever since Social Networking Services (SNS) have drawn increasing attention from millions of users, numerous researches have made to analyze their user relationships and messages. There are typical representative SNA methods: degree centrality, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality. In the degree of centrality analysis, the shortest path between nodes is not considered. However, it is used as a crucial factor in betweenness centrality, closeness centrality and other SNA methods. In previous researches in SNA, the computation time was not too expensive since the size of social network was small. Unfortunately, most SNA methods require significant time to process relevant data, and it makes difficult to apply the ever increasing SNS data in social network studies. For instance, if the number of nodes in online social network is n, the maximum number of link in social network is n(n-1)/2. It means that it is too expensive to analyze the social network, for example, if the number of nodes is 10,000 the number of links is 49,995,000. Therefore, we propose a heuristic-based method for finding the shortest path among users in the SNS user graph. Through the shortest path finding method, we will show how efficient our proposed approach may be by conducting betweenness centrality analysis and closeness centrality analysis, both of which are widely used in social network studies. Moreover, we devised an enhanced method with addition of best-first-search method and preprocessing step for the reduction of computation time and rapid search of the shortest paths in a huge size of online social network. Best-first-search method finds the shortest path heuristically, which generalizes human experiences. As large number of links is shared by only a few nodes in online social networks, most nods have relatively few connections. As a result, a node with multiple connections functions as a hub node. When searching for a particular node, looking for users with numerous links instead of searching all users indiscriminately has a better chance of finding the desired node more quickly. In this paper, we employ the degree of user node vn as heuristic evaluation function in a graph G = (N, E), where N is a set of vertices, and E is a set of links between two different nodes. As the heuristic evaluation function is used, the worst case could happen when the target node is situated in the bottom of skewed tree. In order to remove such a target node, the preprocessing step is conducted. Next, we find the shortest path between two nodes in social network efficiently and then analyze the social network. For the verification of the proposed method, we crawled 160,000 people from online and then constructed social network. Then we compared with previous methods, which are best-first-search and breath-first-search, in time for searching and analyzing. The suggested method takes 240 seconds to search nodes where breath-first-search based method takes 1,781 seconds (7.4 times faster). Moreover, for social network analysis, the suggested method is 6.8 times and 1.8 times faster than betweenness centrality analysis and closeness centrality analysis, respectively. The proposed method in this paper shows the possibility to analyze a large size of social network with the better performance in time. As a result, our method would improve the efficiency of social network analysis, making it particularly useful in studying social trends or phenomena.

Effect of Flywheel Weight on the Vibration of Diesel Engine (플라이휠 중량(重量)이 디젤 기관(機關)의 진동(振動)에 미치는 영향(影響))

  • Myung, Byung Soo;Kim, Sung Rai
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
    • /
    • v.20 no.2
    • /
    • pp.167-180
    • /
    • 1993
  • Most of small size diesel engines are widely used with the same size and weight flywheel in the levels of 6.0kW and 7.5kW. This study was conducted to obtain basic data which affect the engine performance of the power tiller. The flywheel weight was considered as a major factor in this research. Basically, fuel consumption ratio, motoring loss, torque, vibration and mechanical efficiency of the engine were measured and analyzed on four levels of flywheel weight, 32.2, 29.4, 26.2 and $24.2kg_f$, respectively. Results were obtained as follows: 1. The weights of flywheel were $23.7kg_f$ from design program of JSME and $24.5kg_f$ from ASME and SAE design criteria. Therefore, the flywheel weight of $32.2kg_f$ might be reduced about $8kg_f$ in 7.5kW engine. 2. The rated outputs of 6.0kW and 7.5kW engine were actually 7.43kW and 7.85kW, respectively. When flywheel weight was reduced from $32.2kg_f$ to $24.2kg_f$, outputs were increased from 7.43kW to 7.70kW in 6.0kW engine and from 7.85kW to 8.25kW in 7.5kW engine. 3. When the flywheel weight was reduced from $32.2kg_f$ to $24.2kg_f$, fuel consumption ratio was decreased from 300.8 to 296.8g/kW-hr in 6.0kW engine and also from 313.6 to 312.8g/kW-hr in 7.5 kW engine, respectively. 4. When the flywheel weight was reduced from $32.2kg_f$ to $24.2kg_f$, mechanical efficiency of engine was increased from 76.1% to 76.8% in 6.0kW engine and also from 76.7% to 77.0% in 7.5kW engine, respectively. 5. When the flywheel weight was reduced from $32.2kg_f$ to $24.2kg_f$, vibration was decreased at X-axis and Z-axis in 6.0kW engine, however, slightly increased at Y-axis in 6.0kW engine and at all axes in 7.5kW engine. 6. When the flywheel weight was reduced from $32.2kg_f$ to $24.4kg_f$ motoring loss was decreased from 2.33kW to 1.75kW in 6.0kW engine and also from 2.46kW to 1.84kW in 7.5kW engine.

  • PDF

Antecedents of Manufacturer's Private Label Program Engagement : A Focus on Strategic Market Management Perspective (제조업체 Private Labels 도입의 선행요인 : 전략적 시장관리 관점을 중심으로)

  • Lim, Chae-Un;Yi, Ho-Taek
    • Journal of Distribution Research
    • /
    • v.17 no.1
    • /
    • pp.65-86
    • /
    • 2012
  • The $20^{th}$ century was the era of manufacturer brands which built higher brand equity for consumers. Consumers moved from generic products of inconsistent quality produced by local factories in the $19^{th}$ century to branded products from global manufacturers and manufacturer brands reached consumers through distributors and retailers. Retailers were relatively small compared to their largest suppliers. However, sometime in the 1970s, things began to slowly change as retailers started to develop their own national chains and began international expansion, and consolidation of the retail industry from mom-and-pop stores to global players was well under way (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007, p.2) In South Korea, since the middle of the 1990s, the bulking up of retailers that started then has changed the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. Retailer private labels, generally referred to as own labels, store brands, distributors own private-label, home brand or own label brand have also been performing strongly in every single local market (Bushman 1993; De Wulf et al. 2005). Private labels now account for one out of every five items sold every day in U.S. supermarkets, drug chains, and mass merchandisers (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007), and the market share in Western Europe is even larger (Euromonitor 2007). In the UK, grocery market share of private labels grew from 39% of sales in 2008 to 41% in 2010 (Marian 2010). Planet Retail (2007, p.1) recently concluded that "[PLs] are set for accelerated growth, with the majority of the world's leading grocers increasing their own label penetration." Private labels have gained wide attention both in the academic literature and popular business press and there is a glowing academic research to the perspective of manufacturers and retailers. Empirical research on private labels has mainly studies the factors explaining private labels market shares across product categories and/or retail chains (Dahr and Hoch 1997; Hoch and Banerji, 1993), factors influencing the private labels proneness of consumers (Baltas and Doyle 1998; Burton et al. 1998; Richardson et al. 1996) and factors how to react brand manufacturers towards PLs (Dunne and Narasimhan 1999; Hoch 1996; Quelch and Harding 1996; Verhoef et al. 2000). Nevertheless, empirical research on factors influencing the production in terms of a manufacturer-retailer is rather anecdotal than theory-based. The objective of this paper is to bridge the gap in these two types of research and explore the factors which influence on manufacturer's private label production based on two competing theories: S-C-P (Structure - Conduct - Performance) paradigm and resource-based theory. In order to do so, the authors used in-depth interview with marketing managers, reviewed retail press and research and presents the conceptual framework that integrates the major determinants of private labels production. From a manufacturer's perspective, supplying private labels often starts on a strategic basis. When a manufacturer engages in private labels, the manufacturer does not have to spend on advertising, retailer promotions or maintain a dedicated sales force. Moreover, if a manufacturer has weak marketing capabilities, the manufacturer can make use of retailer's marketing capability to produce private labels and lessen its marketing cost and increases its profit margin. Figure 1. is the theoretical framework based on a strategic market management perspective, integrated concept of both S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The model includes one mediate variable, marketing capabilities, and the other moderate variable, competitive intensity. Manufacturer's national brand reputation, firm's marketing investment, and product portfolio, which are hypothesized to positively affected manufacturer's marketing capabilities. Then, marketing capabilities has negatively effected on private label production. Moderating effects of competitive intensity are hypothesized on the relationship between marketing capabilities and private label production. To verify the proposed research model and hypotheses, data were collected from 192 manufacturers (212 responses) who are producing private labels in South Korea. Cronbach's alpha test, explanatory / comfirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis were employed to validate hypotheses. The following results were drawing using structural equation modeling and all hypotheses are supported. Findings indicate that manufacturer's private label production is strongly related to its marketing capabilities. Consumer marketing capabilities, in turn, is directly connected with the 3 strategic factors (e.g., marketing investment, manufacturer's national brand reputation, and product portfolio). It is moderated by competitive intensity between marketing capabilities and private label production. In conclusion, this research may be the first study to investigate the reasons manufacturers engage in private labels based on two competing theoretic views, S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The private label phenomenon has received growing attention by marketing scholars. In many industries, private labels represent formidable competition to manufacturer brands and manufacturers have a dilemma with selling to as well as competing with their retailers. The current study suggests key factors when manufacturers consider engaging in private label production.

  • PDF