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

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

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.171-196
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• 2018

With the development of the web, two-way communication and evaluation became possible and marketing paradigms shifted. In order to meet the needs of consumers, web design trends are continuously responding to consumer feedback. As the web becomes more and more important, both academics and businesses are studying consumer emotions and satisfaction on the web. However, some consumer characteristics are not well considered. Demographic characteristics such as age and sex have been studied extensively, but few studies consider psychological characteristics such as regulatory focus (i.e., emotional regulation). In this study, we analyze the effect of web style on consumer emotion. Many studies analyze the relationship between the web and regulatory focus, but most concentrate on the purpose of web use, particularly motivation and information search, rather than on web style and design. The web communicates with users through visual elements. Because the human brain is influenced by all five senses, both design factors and emotional responses are important in the web environment. Therefore, in this study, we examine the relationship between consumer emotion and satisfaction and web style and design. Previous studies have considered the effects of web layout, structure, and color on emotions. In this study, however, we excluded these web components, in contrast to earlier studies, and analyzed the relationship between consumer satisfaction and emotional indexes of web-style only. To perform this analysis, we collected consumer surveys presenting 40 web style themes to 204 consumers. Each consumer evaluated four themes. The emotional adjectives evaluated by consumers were composed of 18 contrast pairs, and the upper emotional indexes were extracted through factor analysis. The emotional indexes were 'softness,' 'modernity,' 'clearness,' and 'jam.' Hypotheses were established based on the assumption that emotional indexes have different effects on consumer satisfaction. After the analysis, hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 were accepted and hypothesis 4 was rejected. While hypothesis 4 was rejected, its effect on consumer satisfaction was negative, not positive. This means that emotional indexes such as 'softness,' 'modernity,' and 'clearness' have a positive effect on consumer satisfaction. In other words, consumers prefer emotions that are soft, emotional, natural, rounded, dynamic, modern, elaborate, unique, bright, pure, and clear. 'Jam' has a negative effect on consumer satisfaction. It means, consumer prefer the emotion which is empty, plain, and simple. Regulatory focus shows differences in motivation and propensity in various domains. It is important to consider organizational behavior and decision making according to the regulatory focus tendency, and it affects not only political, cultural, ethical judgments and behavior but also broad psychological problems. Regulatory focus also differs from emotional response. Promotion focus responds more strongly to positive emotional responses. On the other hand, prevention focus has a strong response to negative emotions. Web style is a type of service, and consumer satisfaction is affected not only by cognitive evaluation but also by emotion. This emotional response depends on whether the consumer will benefit or harm himself. Therefore, it is necessary to confirm the difference of the consumer's emotional response according to the regulatory focus which is one of the characteristics and viewpoint of the consumers about the web style. After MMR analysis result, hypothesis 5.3 was accepted, and hypothesis 5.4 was rejected. But hypothesis 5.4 supported in the opposite direction to the hypothesis. After validation, we confirmed the mechanism of emotional response according to the tendency of regulatory focus. Using the results, we developed the structure of web-style recommendation system and recommend methods through regulatory focus. We classified the regulatory focus group in to three categories that promotion, grey, prevention. Then, we suggest web-style recommend method along the group. If we further develop this study, we expect that the existing regulatory focus theory can be extended not only to the motivational part but also to the emotional behavioral response according to the regulatory focus tendency. Moreover, we believe that it is possible to recommend web-style according to regulatory focus and emotional desire which consumers most prefer.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.5-16
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• 2009

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have been shown to be potential factors that can improve corporate image and increase the ability of corporations to compete. However, most previous studies related to CSR activities investigated how these activities influence product and corporate evaluation, as well as corporate image. In addition, some researchers treated consumers' perceptions of corporate motives as moderator variables in evaluating the relationship between corporate social responsibilities and consumer response. However, motive-based theories have some weaknesses. Corporate social responsibility activities cause two motives(egoistic vs. altruistic) for consumers, but recently, Vlachos et al. (2008) argued that these motives should be segmented. Thus, it is possible to transform the original theory into a modified theory model (persuasion knowledge model, PKM). Vlachos et al. (2008) segmented corporate social responsibility motives into four types and compared the effects of these motives on customer loyalty. Prior studies have proved that CSR activities with positive motives have positive influences on customer loyalty. However, the psychological reasons underlying this finding have not been determined empirically. Thus, the objectives of this research are twofold. First, we attempt to determine why most customers favor companies that they feel have positive motives for their corporate social responsibility activities. Second, we attempt to measure the effects of consumers' reciprocity when society benefits from corporate social responsibility activities. The following research hypotheses are constructed. H1: Values-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a positive influence on the perceived reciprocity. H2: Stakeholder-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on the perceived reciprocity. H3: Egoistic-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. H4: Strategic-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. H5: Perceived reciprocity for corporate social responsibility activities has a positive influence on consumer loyalty. A single company is selected as a research subject to understand how the motives behind corporate social responsibility influence consumers' perceived reciprocity and customer loyalty. A total sample of 200 respondents was selected for a pilot test. In addition, to ensure a consistent response, we ensured that the respondents were older than 20 years of age. The surveys of 172 respondents (males-82, females-90) were analyzed after 28 invalid questionnaires were excluded. Based on our cutoff criteria, the model fit the data reasonably well. Values-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities had a positive effect on perceived reciprocity (t = 6.75, p < .001), supporting H1. Morales (2005) also found that consumers appreciate a company's social responsibility efforts and the benefits provided by these efforts to society. Stakeholder-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities did not affect perceived reciprocity (t = -.049, p > .05). Thus, H2 was rejected. Egoistic-driven motives (t = .3.11, p < .05) and strategic-driven (t = -4.65, p < .05) motives had a negative influence on perceived reciprocity, supporting H3 and H4, respectively. Furthermore, perceived reciprocity had a positive influence on consumer loyalty (t = 4.24, p < .05), supporting H5. Thus, compared with the general public, undergraduate students appear to be more influenced by egoistic-driven motives. We draw the following conclusions from our research findings. First, value-driven attributions have a positive influence on perceived reciprocity. However, stakeholder-driven attributions have no significant effects on perceived reciprocity. Moreover, both egoistic-driven attributions and strategic-driven attributions have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. Second, when corporate social responsibility activities align with consumers' reciprocity, the efforts directed towards social responsibility activities have a positive influence on customer loyalty. In this study, we examine whether the type of motivation affects consumer responses to CSR, and in particular, we evaluate how CSR motives can influence a key internal factor (perceived reciprocity) and behavioral consumer outcome (customer loyalty). We demonstrate that perceived reciprocity plays a mediating role in the relationship between CSR motivation and customer loyalty. Our study extends the research on consumer CSR-inferred motivations, positing them as a direct indicator of consumer responses. Furthermore, we convincingly identify perceived reciprocity as a sub-process mediating the effect of CSR attributions on customer loyalty. Future research investigating the ultimate behavior and financial impact of CSR should consider that the impacts of CSR also stem from perceived reciprocity. The results of this study also have important managerial implications. First, the central role that reciprocity plays indicates that managers should routinely measure how much their socially responsible actions create perceived reciprocity. Second, understanding how consumers' perceptions of CSR corporate motives relate to perceived reciprocity and customer loyalty can help managers to monitor and enhance these consumer outcomes through marketing initiatives and management of CSR-induced attribution processes. The results of this study will help corporations to understand the relative importance of the four different motivations types in influencing perceived reciprocity.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.179-196
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• 2019

Recently, the "Smart Consumer" has been emerging. He or she is increasingly inclined to search for and purchase products by taking into account personal judgment or expert reviews rather than by relying on information delivered through manufacturers' advertising. This is especially true when purchasing cosmetics. Because cosmetics act directly on the skin, consumers respond seriously to dangerous chemical elements they contain or to skin problems they may cause. Above all, cosmetics should fit well with the purchaser's skin type. In addition, changes in global cosmetics consumer trends make it necessary to study this field. The desire to find one's own individualized cosmetics is being revealed to consumers around the world and is known as "Finding the Holy Grail." Many consumers show a deep interest in customized cosmetics with the cultural boom known as "K-Beauty" (an aspect of "Han-Ryu"), the growth of personal grooming, and the emergence of "self-culture" that includes "self-beauty" and "self-interior." These trends have led to the explosive popularity of cosmetics made in Korea in the Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. In order to meet the customized cosmetics needs of consumers, cosmetics manufacturers and related companies are responding by concentrating on delivering premium services through the convergence of ICT(Information, Communication and Technology). Despite the evolution of companies' responses regarding market trends toward customized cosmetics, there is no "Intelligent Data Platform" that deals holistically with consumers' skin condition experience and thus attaches emotions to products and services. To find the Holy Grail of customized cosmetics, it is important to acquire and analyze consumer data on what they want in order to address their experiences and emotions. The emotions consumers are addressing when purchasing cosmetics varies by their age, sex, skin type, and specific skin issues and influences what price is considered reasonable. Therefore, it is necessary to classify emotions regarding cosmetics by individual consumer. Because of its importance, consumer emotion analysis has been used for both services and products. Given the trends identified above, we judge that consumer emotion analysis can be used in our study. Therefore, we collected and indexed data on consumers' emotions regarding their cosmetics experiences focusing on consumers' language. We crawled the cosmetics emotion data from SNS (blog and Twitter) according to sales ranking ($1^{st}$ to $99^{th}$), focusing on the ample/serum category. A total of 357 emotional adjectives were collected, and we combined and abstracted similar or duplicate emotional adjectives. We conducted a "Consumer Sentiment Journey" workshop to build a "Consumer Sentiment Dictionary," and this resulted in a total of 76 emotional adjectives regarding cosmetics consumer experience. Using these 76 emotional adjectives, we performed clustering with the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) method. As a result of the analysis, we derived eight final clusters of cosmetics consumer sentiments. Using the vector values of each node for each cluster, the characteristics of each cluster were derived based on the top ten most frequently appearing consumer sentiments. Different characteristics were found in consumer sentiments in each cluster. We also developed a cosmetics experience pattern map. The study results confirmed that recommendation and classification systems that consider consumer emotions and sentiments are needed because each consumer differs in what he or she pursues and prefers. Furthermore, this study reaffirms that the application of emotion and sentiment analysis can be extended to various fields other than cosmetics, and it implies that consumer insights can be derived using these methods. They can be used not only to build a specialized sentiment dictionary using scientific processes and "Design Thinking Methodology," but we also expect that these methods can help us to understand consumers' psychological reactions and cognitive behaviors. If this study is further developed, we believe that it will be able to provide solutions based on consumer experience, and therefore that it can be developed as an aspect of marketing intelligence.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.99-129
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• 2008

This study analyzed the resilience process of persons with disabilities using the grounded theory approach. To conduct this study, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 8 persons with disabilities. In data analysis, this study identified 393 concepts on the resilience process of persons with disabilities and the concepts were categorized into 45 sub-categories and 18 primary categories. In the paradigm model on the resilience process of persons with disabilities, it was identified that casual conditions included 'unawareness of disability before being disability', 'extreme pain', 'repressing psychological pain', and the contingent conditions were 'dis-empowerment by staying in home', 'isolation by himself with difficulty in accepting the disability', 'experience of frustration from social barriers with prejudice against persons with disabilities'. Also, it was identified that the resilience process could be dependent on the type and the degree of the disability, the gender, and the length of time being disability. In spite of the casual and contingent conditions, the central way in which persons with disabilities could acquire resilience was identified as 'enhancement of the power of positive thinking'. The control conditions which accelerate or retard central phenomenon were 'the awareness of not being alone through family, friends, neighborhood and the social system' externally and 'finding purpose in life through religion and help from other persons with disabilities', internally. The action/interactional sequences enhanced the efforts, self searching and active acting, and as a result, persons with disabilities could find comfort in life, participate in society and change the perspective of disability in society. The core categories of resilience process in persons with disabilities were a belief in affirmation and choice of life by initiative. In the process analysis, stages developed in the following: 'pain', 'strangeness', 'reflection', 'daily life'. This stage was more continuous and causal than discrete and complete. In this process, the types of resilience of persons with disabilities are divided into 'existence reflection', 'course development', 'implicit endeavor', and 'active execution'. This study showed the details of the paradigm models, the process and types with an in-depth understanding of the resilience process of persons with disabilities using grounded theory as well as theory construction and policy and clinical involvement on the study of persons with disabilities.

• Korean Journal of Hospice Care
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.34-54
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• 2003

Every one experiences death one day, however no one can knows exactly what it is because people can not experience death until it comes, it is therefore impossible to judge correctly on the phenomenon of the death. On the whole, man experiences indirect death through the mass communications such as TV drama, fiction, magazine etc because those methods can easily access by every one. In addition to this, people usually acquire the negative awareness of death through the dramatic change of story like dying of cancer for dramatic effect by giving scare and fear to the cancers. The purpose of this study is to provide basic information on the spiritual care that enables the facing death patients to accept death as a part of life and divert hope from scare about after death by comparing and analyzing of two aspects of death meaning I.e, Korean fiction and the end stage cancer patients. Additionally, for medical staff to understand the facing death cancer patients by making to aware patients correctly and provide the better quality of care. The study was performed from September 28, 2002 to February, 28 2003. The materials of this study were collected by direct data obtained from observation, interviews, note and diary of end stage of cancer patients and written materials acquired from Korean contemporary fiction. Participants of this study were 4 end stage cancer patients including 2 lung cancer patients, 1 liver cancer patient and 1 esophagus cancer patient. The methodology used in this study was divided into two types; Huberman & Miles methodology was used for fiction to find and categorize subject, and Colaizzi, one of phenomenological methodology was used for end stage cancer patients to find the major meaning, subject and categorization. 1.The death investigated in the fiction, was found as a progress of negative emotion, acceptance and sublimation, life related subjects in the negative emotion were tenacity for life, anxiety, lingering attachment, responsibility, abandonment and death related subjects were shock, isolation, fear, scare and rejection. Acceptance related subjects were acceptance, destiny, secularism, preparation and arrangement, and sublimation related subjects were sublimation through Christian and Buddhism. 2.The death showed in the participants was negative emotion, acceptance and sublimation, life related subjects were repentance, anxiety, responsibility and hopelessness, and death related subjects were dejection, solitude, anger, fear and scare. The acceptance was a type of religious acceptance that admitted instantly by reaching an understanding with the God, and death was accepted as a progress of preparation, arrangement, acceptance and hope. Sublimation related subjects were Christian sublimation and relief or destiny incurred from self-reflective sublimation through communications and thoughts. 3.The death in view of fiction and participants were positively accepted both death and negative emotion, and the study disclosed the fact that death was sublimated dependent on religion. 4.The progress of negative emotion, acceptance and sublimation was disclosed more complicated and various in the real end stage cancer patients and acceptance only found in the patients on the form of religious acceptance, according to the results compared with fiction and real end stage cancer patients. The death showed in the fiction was standardized, gradated and similar progress with psychological status of Kubler-Ross. However, death in the participants was showed complex and various feelings simultaneously, and sometimes they accepted death positively. The sublimation through religion was found in Buddhism and Christian in the fiction and mostly Christian in the participants due to a number of Hospice patients. It was found that negative emotion various types of death was more found in the participants than fiction. It is therefore necessary to study on the response of death in various types. In the participants death was incurred more systematic and variously, we knew that nursing practice focused on experience of participants is required and reality on death is much profound than we analyzed and presented, lots of situations and reactions should be premised because we can not completely rule out the negligence possibility of care mediation of participants. In caring for the facing death patients, we discovered and confirmed again through this study that the spiritual care should be needed as a mediation method.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.3547-3554
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• 2011

The aim of this study is to take hold of the present situation as well as the perspective of the domestic alcohol specialized hospitals. The structured questionnaire was prepared to understand the type of services, manpower and systematic programs. Among eight hospitals that stand for the alcohol addiction specialized hospitals, six hospitals agreed to participate in the survey, which was made from Jun. 17 to July 15, 2010. The average number of beds of the surveyed hospitals was 208. They were mostly private ones(66.7%), located in urban area(50%), and had experiences of alcohol treatment less than five years(50%). While all of them practiced both the inpatient and outpatient services, only 33% provided the systematic outpatient program that was at least 2 or 3 hours per week. All hospitals practiced the physical and individual psychological evaluations, but only 16.1% had the daytime programs. The beds of protective ward were 72% of all beds, and the beds of night and day occupied 7.6% and 2.6% respectively. It was found that although the average number of mental health social worker and mental health nurse was larger than that required in the regulation of mental health law there are significant deviations between hospitals. However, the manpower of psychiatrists and nurses were comparatively large. The first problem indicated by clinical experts was the patient's refusal of care, which results in an inefficiency in the treatment. The next problem was the lack of local health care institutions that can attend on the discharged patients were important issues. Also the low reimbursement and indifferences to the alcohol abuse were considered as important issues.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.162-167
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• 2015

Although the perfomance indicators of the nuclear power plants in Korea show optimal, it requires detailed analysis and discussion centered on the radiation dose. As analysis methods, analysis on the radiation dose of nuclear power plants over the past five years was assessed by comparing the relevant radiation dose of radiation workers and per capita average annual radiation dose of the world's major nuclear power stations was also analyzed. The radiation workers over the annual radiation dose limit of 50 mSv were not. The contrast ratio of the radiation exposure according to the reactor type was the normal operation of PHWR was 6.2% higher than those of the PWR. This shows the radiation work of PHWR during normal driving operation is much more than those of PWR. According to the Performance Indicators of the World Association of Nuclear Operator, the annual radiation dose per unit in 2013 showed 527 man-mSv of Korea is the best country among the major nuclear power generating states, the world average was 725 man-mSv. The annual per capita radiation dose is about 80% less than 1 mSv of the public dose limit and also the average per capita dose showed a very low level as 0.82 mSv. Workers in related organizations showed 1.07 mSv, the non-destructive inspection agency workers showed 3.87 mSv. The remarkable results were due to radiation reduced program such as development of radiation shielding and radiation protection. In conclusion, the radiation exposured dose of nuclear power plants workers in Korea showed a trend which is ideally reduced. But more are expected to be difficul and the psychological insecurity against the operation of the nuclear power plants is existed to the residents near the nuclear power plants. So the radiation dose reduction policy and radiation dose follow up study of nuclear power plants will be continously excuted.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.162-168
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• 2012

Purpose: Teeth are generally exposed when people smiling. Moreover, the exposed teeth and soft tissue when smiling becomes an important guideline for esthetically prosthetic restoration. This research is to compare and find out differences of Korean young men's smile living in presence and twenty years ago. Materials and methods: Subjects, 100 young men (50 male and 50 female), were required about several aspects; normally developed physical condition, no psychological or genetic disorders, a fine face with no loss of teeth, no experience in orthodontic or prosthetic treatment, relatively normal occlusion, aged between 20-29. The photos of the subject at rest position and front face when fully smiled were taken three times. 100 photos (50 male and 50 female) were chosen at random from the 240 university students' smile photos taken by Yoon and his colleagues in 1991. By Hulsey's method of measuring smile, several factors; the change of upper lip curvature, the change of the relation between the upper lip and teeth, parallelism between Mx. incisor and lower lip, contact relation between Mx. incisor and lower lip and teeth displayed in a smile, were measured and analyzed. Meanwhile, ten dentists assessed aesthetic evaluation about men and women's smile for twice and recorded and compared smile score. The -test (P<.05) was used to compare the measured value. The difference of smile score was analyzed by t-test (P<.05). Results: The smile score calculated in 2011 (60.22) was higher than that of 1991 (52.80). Among five measurement categories, the noticeable difference was distinguished from two factors; the change of upper lip curvature and contact relation between Mx. incisor and lower lip. Conclusion: The Korean young men's smile has been considerably improved for twenty years. And it is found that the change of upper lip curvature plays an important role, that is, the smile formed with an ascended labial commissure has been increased significantly.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.436-442
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• 2007

Purpose : To promote awareness and efforts by pediatricians to identity and prevent child abuse by investigation of characteristics of victim and types of injury caused by abuse. Methods : A retrospective study was performed with 20 patients who had been diagnosed or suspected as child abuse at Hallym University Hospital from January 1999 to December 2005. The medical records, radiologic documents, and social worker's notes were reviewed to investigate age, sex, visiting time, form of abuse, perpetrator, risk factor, and type of injury. Results : The mean age of the subjects was 2.8 years. Fourteen patients were between 0-1 years old, 2 patients between 1-6 years old, 3 patients between 7-12 years old, and 1 case over 13 years old. The ratio of male to female was 1:1. The majority of these patients (70%) visited via emergency department. Eight five percent of these patients reported with physical abuse, 5% psychological abuse, 5% sexual abuse, and 5% neglect respectively. The suspected perpetrator was the biological father in six cases, the biological mother in three cases, the stepmother in two cases, caregiver in one case, relatives in one case and "unknown" in six cases. Bruise and hematoma (80%) were the most common physical findings. Skull fractures were diagnosed in six cases, long bone fractures in two cases, hemoperitoneum in two cases, subdural hemorrhage in 10 cases, epidural hemorrhages in two cases, subarachnoidal hemorrhages in two cases, and retinal hemorrhages in five cases respectively. Seventeen cases required hospitalization and surgical operations performed were in nine cases. Four patients died and three patients had sequalae such as developmental delay and quadriplegia. Conclusion : Child abuse results in high mortality and morbidity in victims. Therefore early recognition and prevention is very important. Pediatricians should always suspect the possibilities of abuse in cases of fracture, intracranial hemorrhage, abdominal injury, or even any injury to the body. We recommend that the clinical investigation of suspicious children should include a full multidisciplinary social assessment, a skeletal survey and CT or MRI.