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Hardware Approach to Fuzzy Inference―ASIC and RISC―

  • Watanabe, Hiroyuki
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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    • 1993.06a
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    • pp.975-976
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    • 1993
  • This talk presents the overview of the author's research and development activities on fuzzy inference hardware. We involved it with two distinct approaches. The first approach is to use application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) technology. The fuzzy inference method is directly implemented in silicon. The second approach, which is in its preliminary stage, is to use more conventional microprocessor architecture. Here, we use a quantitative technique used by designer of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) to modify an architecture of a microprocessor. In the ASIC approach, we implemented the most widely used fuzzy inference mechanism directly on silicon. The mechanism is beaded on a max-min compositional rule of inference, and Mandami's method of fuzzy implication. The two VLSI fuzzy inference chips are designed, fabricated, and fully tested. Both used a full-custom CMOS technology. The second and more claborate chip was designed at the University of North Carolina(U C) in cooperation with MCNC. Both VLSI chips had muliple datapaths for rule digital fuzzy inference chips had multiple datapaths for rule evaluation, and they executed multiple fuzzy if-then rules in parallel. The AT & T chip is the first digital fuzzy inference chip in the world. It ran with a 20 MHz clock cycle and achieved an approximately 80.000 Fuzzy Logical inferences Per Second (FLIPS). It stored and executed 16 fuzzy if-then rules. Since it was designed as a proof of concept prototype chip, it had minimal amount of peripheral logic for system integration. UNC/MCNC chip consists of 688,131 transistors of which 476,160 are used for RAM memory. It ran with a 10 MHz clock cycle. The chip has a 3-staged pipeline and initiates a computation of new inference every 64 cycle. This chip achieved an approximately 160,000 FLIPS. The new architecture have the following important improvements from the AT & T chip: Programmable rule set memory (RAM). On-chip fuzzification operation by a table lookup method. On-chip defuzzification operation by a centroid method. Reconfigurable architecture for processing two rule formats. RAM/datapath redundancy for higher yield It can store and execute 51 if-then rule of the following format: IF A and B and C and D Then Do E, and Then Do F. With this format, the chip takes four inputs and produces two outputs. By software reconfiguration, it can store and execute 102 if-then rules of the following simpler format using the same datapath: IF A and B Then Do E. With this format the chip takes two inputs and produces one outputs. We have built two VME-bus board systems based on this chip for Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The board is now installed in a robot at ORNL. Researchers uses this board for experiment in autonomous robot navigation. The Fuzzy Logic system board places the Fuzzy chip into a VMEbus environment. High level C language functions hide the operational details of the board from the applications programme . The programmer treats rule memories and fuzzification function memories as local structures passed as parameters to the C functions. ASIC fuzzy inference hardware is extremely fast, but they are limited in generality. Many aspects of the design are limited or fixed. We have proposed to designing a are limited or fixed. We have proposed to designing a fuzzy information processor as an application specific processor using a quantitative approach. The quantitative approach was developed by RISC designers. In effect, we are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of a specialized RISC processor for fuzzy information processing. As the first step, we measured the possible speed-up of a fuzzy inference program based on if-then rules by an introduction of specialized instructions, i.e., min and max instructions. The minimum and maximum operations are heavily used in fuzzy logic applications as fuzzy intersection and union. We performed measurements using a MIPS R3000 as a base micropro essor. The initial result is encouraging. We can achieve as high as a 2.5 increase in inference speed if the R3000 had min and max instructions. Also, they are useful for speeding up other fuzzy operations such as bounded product and bounded sum. The embedded processor's main task is to control some device or process. It usually runs a single or a embedded processer to create an embedded processor for fuzzy control is very effective. Table I shows the measured speed of the inference by a MIPS R3000 microprocessor, a fictitious MIPS R3000 microprocessor with min and max instructions, and a UNC/MCNC ASIC fuzzy inference chip. The software that used on microprocessors is a simulator of the ASIC chip. The first row is the computation time in seconds of 6000 inferences using 51 rules where each fuzzy set is represented by an array of 64 elements. The second row is the time required to perform a single inference. The last row is the fuzzy logical inferences per second (FLIPS) measured for ach device. There is a large gap in run time between the ASIC and software approaches even if we resort to a specialized fuzzy microprocessor. As for design time and cost, these two approaches represent two extremes. An ASIC approach is extremely expensive. It is, therefore, an important research topic to design a specialized computing architecture for fuzzy applications that falls between these two extremes both in run time and design time/cost. TABLEI INFERENCE TIME BY 51 RULES {{{{Time }}{{MIPS R3000 }}{{ASIC }}{{Regular }}{{With min/mix }}{{6000 inference 1 inference FLIPS }}{{125s 20.8ms 48 }}{{49s 8.2ms 122 }}{{0.0038s 6.4㎲ 156,250 }} }}

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Personal Information Overload and User Resistance in the Big Data Age (빅데이터 시대의 개인정보 과잉이 사용자 저항에 미치는 영향)

  • Lee, Hwansoo;Lim, Dongwon;Zo, Hangjung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.125-139
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    • 2013
  • Big data refers to the data that cannot be processes with conventional contemporary data technologies. As smart devices and social network services produces vast amount of data, big data attracts much attention from researchers. There are strong demands form governments and industries for bib data as it can create new values by drawing business insights from data. Since various new technologies to process big data introduced, academic communities also show much interest to the big data domain. A notable advance related to the big data technology has been in various fields. Big data technology makes it possible to access, collect, and save individual's personal data. These technologies enable the analysis of huge amounts of data with lower cost and less time, which is impossible to achieve with traditional methods. It even detects personal information that people do not want to open. Therefore, people using information technology such as the Internet or online services have some level of privacy concerns, and such feelings can hinder continued use of information systems. For example, SNS offers various benefits, but users are sometimes highly exposed to privacy intrusions because they write too much personal information on it. Even though users post their personal information on the Internet by themselves, the data sometimes is not under control of the users. Once the private data is posed on the Internet, it can be transferred to anywhere by a few clicks, and can be abused to create fake identity. In this way, privacy intrusion happens. This study aims to investigate how perceived personal information overload in SNS affects user's risk perception and information privacy concerns. Also, it examines the relationship between the concerns and user resistance behavior. A survey approach and structural equation modeling method are employed for data collection and analysis. This study contributes meaningful insights for academic researchers and policy makers who are planning to develop guidelines for privacy protection. The study shows that information overload on the social network services can bring the significant increase of users' perceived level of privacy risks. In turn, the perceived privacy risks leads to the increased level of privacy concerns. IF privacy concerns increase, it can affect users to from a negative or resistant attitude toward system use. The resistance attitude may lead users to discontinue the use of social network services. Furthermore, information overload is mediated by perceived risks to affect privacy concerns rather than has direct influence on perceived risk. It implies that resistance to the system use can be diminished by reducing perceived risks of users. Given that users' resistant behavior become salient when they have high privacy concerns, the measures to alleviate users' privacy concerns should be conceived. This study makes academic contribution of integrating traditional information overload theory and user resistance theory to investigate perceived privacy concerns in current IS contexts. There is little big data research which examined the technology with empirical and behavioral approach, as the research topic has just emerged. It also makes practical contributions. Information overload connects to the increased level of perceived privacy risks, and discontinued use of the information system. To keep users from departing the system, organizations should develop a system in which private data is controlled and managed with ease. This study suggests that actions to lower the level of perceived risks and privacy concerns should be taken for information systems continuance.

A Novel Volumetric Method for Quantitation of Titanium Dioxide in Cosmetics (용량분석법을 이용한 화장품 중 티타늄옥사이드의 정량)

  • Kim, Young-So;Kim, Boo-Min;Park, Sang-Chul;Jeong, Hye-Jin;Chang, Ih-Seop
    • Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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    • v.31 no.4 s.54
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    • pp.289-293
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    • 2005
  • Nowadays there are many sun protection cosmetics including organic or inorganic UV filter as an active ingredient. Chemically stable inorganic sunsEreen agents, usually metal oxides, we widely employed in high SPF products. Titanium dioxide is one of the most frequently used inorganic UV filters. It has been used as pigments for a long period of cosmetic history. With the development of micronization techniques, it becomes possible to incorporate titanium dioxide in sunscreen formulations without whitening effect and it becomes an important research topic. However, there are very few works related to quantitations of titanium dioxide in sunscreen products. In this research, we analyzed amounts of titanium dioxide in sunscreen cosmetics by adapting redof titration, reduction of Ti(IV) to Ti(III) and reoxidation to Ti(IV). After calcification of other organic ingredients of cosmetics, titanium dioxide is dissolved by hot sulfuric acid. The dissolved Ti(IV) is reduced to the Ti(III) by adding aluminum metals. The reduced Ti(III) is titrated against a standard oxidizing agent, Fe(III) (ammonium iron(III) sulfate), with potassium thiocyanate as an indicator In order to test accuracy and applicability of the proposed method, we analyzed the amounts of titanium dioxide in four types of sunscreen cosmetics, such as cream, make-up base, foundation and powder, after adding known amounts of titanium dioxide $(1{\sim}25w/w%)$. The percent recoveries of the titanium dioxide in four types of formulations were in the range between 96 and 105%. We also analyzed 7 commercial cosmetic products labeled titanium dioxide as an ingredient and compared the results with those of obtained from ICP-AES (Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry), one of the most powerful atomic analysis techniques. The results showed that the titrated amounts were well coincided with the analyzed amounts of titanium dioxide by ICP-AES. Although instrumental analytical methods, ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry) and ICP-AES, are the best for the analysis of titanium, it is hard to adopt because of their high prices for small cosmetic companies. It was found that the volumetric method presented here gat e quantitative and reliable results with routine lab-wares and chemicals.

The Value of Peace and the Modern Significance of Haewon Sangsaeng (해원상생사상의 평화적 가치와 현대적 의의)

  • Bae, Kyu-han
    • Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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    • v.40
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    • pp.1-38
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    • 2022
  • The aim of this research is to discover the value of peace conveyed by Haewon Sangsaeng, the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence, as espoused by Holy Teacher Kang Jeungsan (姜甑山, 1871~1909) and to evaluate its modern significance. To the faithful, Jeungsan is seen as the Supreme God who descended into the world in the Late Joseon Dynasty in the year 1871. Until the time of His passing away into Heaven in 1909, He vastly saved the world and fulfilled the hopes of humankind by carrying out the fundamentally innovative Reordering Works of Heaven and Earth (1901~1909) in the Three Realms of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity. He has thereby been appraised as a great religious figure within religious and academic circles. Jeungsan's ideological contributions can be summarized into two main points. One is the concept of 'the Great Opening and the Later World,' which foreshadowed the liquidation of the old system of order and the arrival of a new world. The other contribution is the concept of 'the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence,' a fundamental principle meant to achieve human salvation and world peace. In this context, 'the Great Opening' is precisely a 'positivistic religious expression of peace,' and 'the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence' is the principle by which 'peace can be achieved in the world for all humankind.' In particular, the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence is a tenet within the doctrine of Daesoon Jinrihoe, and it is the main concept that forms the basis of Daesoon Thought. It can be said to be the core current that flows through Jeungsan's Reordering Works of Heaven and Earth. Nowadays, the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence is being discussed and cited in various ways in academic fields as well as in discourse on coexistence, mutual beneficence, and peace. The Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence is specifically based on observations of the structure of conflicts as observed throughout world history via global conflicts, regional conflicts, cultural conflicts, ideological conflicts, class conflicts, generational conflicts, racial conflicts, religious conflicts, and other such conflicts. That is why the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence is discussed in depth within academic settings wherein the nature of conflict-resolution is examined. Looking at the previous studies on this topic, those studies tended to focus on key concepts or concerns such as human beings, divine beings, the earthly paradise of the Later World, ideal societies, world peace, new principles of order, and lasting peace. In particular, the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence has been presented as directly related to concepts such as love, coexistence, harmony, and peace for humankind and the world. Its significance has been applied to ethics, philosophy, order, and principles, and it has been understood as conveying values such as peace. Accordingly, this paper examines the ideological connections to the succession and establishment of Jeungsan's notion of the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence based on previous research, but further examines the value of peace communicated via the principles and ideas that pervade current discourse on the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence. I hope to thoroughly explore Haewon Sangsaeng in regards to its modern significance to the world and to humankind.

A Study on the Types of Jazz Performance Audiences Using Q Methodology (Q 방법론을 적용한 재즈공연 관객의 유형에 관한 연구)

  • Jeong, Woo Sik
    • Korean Association of Arts Management
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    • no.53
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    • pp.5-45
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    • 2020
  • This study aims to deeply analyze the subjective attitude of jazz performance audiences in Korea using Q methodology. In order to establish a population for the research, we decided 'People's mind about jazz performances' as the main topic and finally selected a Q model consist of 38 statements after having a depth interview with corresponding experts. Additionally, from January to February 2019, we implemented a Q-sorting and individual interview to total of 27 people including people majored in music, jazz club members and other citizens. The result were the following. First of all, a musical-interest oriented type. People of this type understood watching jazz performance as a daily leisure activity and went to watch a show more than once a month on overage. Those people obtained information of performances and actors before attending a show using social network such as SNS and jazz clubs. They also had a big desire to have an emotional interaction with jazz musicians while having a fan signing event or performance. Secondly, a general-interest oriented type. This type of people had a tendency of considering watching a jazz performance as a especial experience and not a daily life event. Attending a jazz performance was a novel experience which could be done with their close friends in a special day. Thirdly, people with self-value oriented type. This people were majored in jazz and classic in their universities. As they had a concrete perspective, professional knowledge and experiences, they were more sensitive on the general quality of the performances such as show's sound, light, video, sound system of the theater, player's ability, level of facilities, accessibility, etc. rather than the reputation of an artist. This research did not only revealed jazz audience's subjective tendency using Q methodology but also demonstrated the types of jazz audiences and their characteristics. Therefore, this could be a meaningful study for suggesting a significant implication for the marketing mix of performance planning on each jazz audience type.

The Value of the Wonju Origol Nongyo (Agricultural Work Song) and Performance Content (원주오리골농요의 가치와 공연콘텐츠)

  • Lee, Chang-Sik
    • (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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    • no.42
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    • pp.257-290
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    • 2021
  • The Wonju Nongyo (agricultural work song) is geographically classified as eastern minyo (folk song) which has many distinctive, regional features such as tunes, forms and the use of a melodic line. There has been growing attention to the transmission value of the nongyo including the Wonju Eorirang of the Wonju Origol Nongyo and its region of origin. The Wonju Nongyo is of great value and worthy of preservation in the western part of Gangwon Province. For this reason, it seems fairer to say that a focus should be directed towards establishing the identity of the song and increasing the contextualisation of transmission. At the same time, the preservation association's efforts in passing the traditional song down and education activities fairly deserve equal attention. In addition to the way the folk songs are handed down, a discussion on the facilitation of their use will be required. An in-depth discussion about the restoration and use of the song will be encouraged in a multifaceted manner. Unfortunately, few of the previous literatures on nongyo has gone so far as to investigate Arirang as a separate research topic. In fact, the Wonju Origol Nongyo should be viewed as an intangible cultural asset that paved the way for performance artistry of the Korean agricultural work songs to be seen at a national folk art festival. From the perspective of regional characteristics (traditionally termed "tori"), the Wonju Eorirang represents the cultural value of the manners and customs of our locals which constitute unwritten and neglected literary property and musicality of the song. Particularly, a more attention should be paid to making a record of woodcutters and diversity of farmers' small cooperative groups. The existence of the Wonju Eorirang indicates that the melodies to which the song are sung in Nongyo are of infinite variety. A minyo-singer unfolds various journeys of life through various modes and structure of epic chants, ranging from first encounter, love to marriage, realistic problems to relationship with husband's family and death. The epic chant of the Wonju Origol Nongyo contains a rich variety of regional sentiments about life. In particular, the epic chants of the Galtteukgisor and Ssoeltteukgisori are a genius example of sexual satire and a sense of humor. In the past, the agricultural work songs were rhythmic songs served to synchronize physical movements in groups, coordinating tasks in upland farming and rice paddy with the usage of catchy, repetitive verses easy to pass down. The Wonju Origol Nongyo is a precursor of the work songs which took the farming activities a notch higher to be part of the excitement and festivals. In the context of transmission, a festival serves to demonstrate the value of history and life. The value of the Wonju Eorirang should be appreciated and a concerted effort should be made to find a way to facilitate the transmission of the folk song. A folk-singer is a traditional oral poet and a storyteller of minyo and the forms and species of melody solely depend on the signer. The combination of performance and witticism is shown by the singer freely expressing himself. The Origol Nongyo symbolizes ethnic arts cleverly combining playful effects such as tune, rhythm and old agricultural work of the region. It is to be hoped that much of the efforts is directed to designating such folk songs as the archetype of a cultural heritage. In terms of the foundation on which the folk songs are transmitted, the usage(Performance Content) of a community would be an alternative.

A Study on the Effect of the Introduction Characteristics of Cloud Computing Services on the Performance Expectancy and the Intention to Use: From the Perspective of the Innovation Diffusion Theory (클라우드 컴퓨팅 서비스의 도입특성이 조직의 성과기대 및 사용의도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 혁신확산 이론 관점)

  • Lim, Jae Su;Oh, Jay In
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.22 no.3
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    • pp.99-124
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    • 2012
  • Our society has long been talking about necessity for innovation. Since companies in particular need to carry out business innovation in their overall processes, they have attempted to apply many innovation factors on sites and become to pay more attention to their innovation. In order to achieve this goal, companies has applied various information technologies (IT) on sites as a means of innovation, and consequently IT have been greatly developed. It is natural for the field of IT to have faced another revolution which is called cloud computing, which is expected to result in innovative changes in software application via the Internet, data storing, the use of devices, and their operations. As a vehicle of innovation, cloud computing is expected to lead the changes and advancement of our society and the business world. Although many scholars have researched on a variety of topics regarding the innovation via IT, few studies have dealt with the issue of could computing as IT. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to set the variables of innovation attributes based on the previous articles as the characteristic variables and clarify how these variables affect "Performance Expectancy" of companies and the intention of using cloud computing. The result from the analysis of data collected in this study is as follows. The study utilized a research model developed on the innovation diffusion theory to identify influences on the adaptation and spreading IT for cloud computing services. Second, this study summarized the characteristics of cloud computing services as a new concept that introduces innovation at its early stage of adaptation for companies. Third, a theoretical model is provided that relates to the future innovation by suggesting variables for innovation characteristics to adopt cloud computing services. Finally, this study identified the factors affecting expectation and the intention to use the cloud computing service for the companies that consider adopting the cloud computing service. As the parameter and dependent variable respectively, the study deploys the independent variables that are aligned with the characteristics of the cloud computing services based on the innovation diffusion model, and utilizes the expectation for performance and Intention to Use based on the UTAUT theory. Independent variables for the research model include Relative Advantage, Complexity, Compatibility, Cost Saving, Trialability, and Observability. In addition, 'Acceptance for Adaptation' is applied as an adjustment variable to verify the influences on the expected performances from the cloud computing service. The validity of the research model was secured by performing factor analysis and reliability analysis. After confirmatory factor analysis is conducted using AMOS 7.0, the 20 hypotheses are verified through the analysis of the structural equation model, accepting 12 hypotheses among 20. For example, Relative Advantage turned out to have the positive effect both on Individual Performance and on Strategic Performance from the verification of hypothesis, while it showed meaningful correlation to affect Intention to Use directly. This indicates that many articles on the diffusion related Relative Advantage as the most important factor to predict the rate to accept innovation. From the viewpoint of the influence on Performance Expectancy among Compatibility and Cost Saving, Compatibility has the positive effect on both Individual Performance and on Strategic Performance, while it showed meaningful correlation with Intention to Use. However, the topic of the cloud computing service has become a strategic issue for adoption in companies, Cost Saving turns out to affect Individual Performance without a significant influence on Intention to Use. This indicates that companies expect practical performances such as time and cost saving and financial improvements through the adoption of the cloud computing service in the environment of the budget squeezing from the global economic crisis from 2008. Likewise, this positively affects the strategic performance in companies. In terms of effects, Trialability is proved to give no effects on Performance Expectancy. This indicates that the participants of the survey are willing to afford the risk from the high uncertainty caused by innovation, because they positively pursue information about new ideas as innovators and early adopter. In addition, they believe it is unnecessary to test the cloud computing service before the adoption, because there are various types of the cloud computing service. However, Observability positively affected both Individual Performance and Strategic Performance. It also showed meaningful correlation with Intention to Use. From the analysis of the direct effects on Intention to Use by innovative characteristics for the cloud computing service except the parameters, the innovative characteristics for the cloud computing service showed the positive influence on Relative Advantage, Compatibility and Observability while Complexity, Cost saving and the likelihood for the attempt did not affect Intention to Use. While the practical verification that was believed to be the most important factor on Performance Expectancy by characteristics for cloud computing service, Relative Advantage, Compatibility and Observability showed significant correlation with the various causes and effect analysis. Cost Saving showed a significant relation with Strategic Performance in companies, which indicates that the cost to build and operate IT is the burden of the management. Thus, the cloud computing service reflected the expectation as an alternative to reduce the investment and operational cost for IT infrastructure due to the recent economic crisis. The cloud computing service is not pervasive in the business world, but it is rapidly spreading all over the world, because of its inherited merits and benefits. Moreover, results of this research regarding the diffusion innovation are more or less different from those of the existing articles. This seems to be caused by the fact that the cloud computing service has a strong innovative factor that results in a new paradigm shift while most IT that are based on the theory of innovation diffusion are limited to companies and organizations. In addition, the participants in this study are believed to play an important role as innovators and early adapters to introduce the cloud computing service and to have competency to afford higher uncertainty for innovation. In conclusion, the introduction of the cloud computing service is a critical issue in the business world.

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Electronic Word-of-Mouth in B2C Virtual Communities: An Empirical Study from CTrip.com (B2C허의사구중적전자구비(B2C虚拟社区中的电子口碑): 관우휴정려유망적실증연구(关于携程旅游网的实证研究))

  • Li, Guoxin;Elliot, Statia;Choi, Chris
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.262-268
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    • 2010
  • Virtual communities (VCs) have developed rapidly, with more and more people participating in them to exchange information and opinions. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. A business-to-consumer virtual community (B2CVC) is a commercial group that creates a trustworthy environment intended to motivate consumers to be more willing to buy from an online store. B2CVCs create a social atmosphere through information contribution such as recommendations, reviews, and ratings of buyers and sellers. Although the importance of B2CVCs has been recognized, few studies have been conducted to examine members' word-of-mouth behavior within these communities. This study proposes a model of involvement, statistics, trust, "stickiness," and word-of-mouth in a B2CVC and explores the relationships among these elements based on empirical data. The objectives are threefold: (i) to empirically test a B2CVC model that integrates measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; (ii) to better understand the nature of these relationships, specifically through word-of-mouth as a measure of revenue generation; and (iii) to better understand the role of stickiness of B2CVC in CRM marketing. The model incorporates three key elements concerning community members: (i) their beliefs, measured in terms of their involvement assessment; (ii) their attitudes, measured in terms of their satisfaction and trust; and, (iii) their behavior, measured in terms of site stickiness and their word-of-mouth. Involvement is considered the motivation for consumers to participate in a virtual community. For B2CVC members, information searching and posting have been proposed as the main purpose for their involvement. Satisfaction has been reviewed as an important indicator of a member's overall community evaluation, and conceptualized by different levels of member interactions with their VC. The formation and expansion of a VC depends on the willingness of members to share information and services. Researchers have found that trust is a core component facilitating the anonymous interaction in VCs and e-commerce, and therefore trust-building in VCs has been a common research topic. It is clear that the success of a B2CVC depends on the stickiness of its members to enhance purchasing potential. Opinions communicated and information exchanged between members may represent a type of written word-of-mouth. Therefore, word-of-mouth is one of the primary factors driving the diffusion of B2CVCs across the Internet. Figure 1 presents the research model and hypotheses. The model was tested through the implementation of an online survey of CTrip Travel VC members. A total of 243 collected questionnaires was reduced to 204 usable questionnaires through an empirical process of data cleaning. The study's hypotheses examined the extent to which involvement, satisfaction, and trust influence B2CVC stickiness and members' word-of-mouth. Structural Equation Modeling tested the hypotheses in the analysis, and the structural model fit indices were within accepted thresholds: ${\chi}^2^$/df was 2.76, NFI was .904, IFI was .931, CFI was .930, and RMSEA was .017. Results indicated that involvement has a significant influence on satisfaction (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.809). The proportion of variance in satisfaction explained by members' involvement was over half (adjusted $R^2$=0.654), reflecting a strong association. The effect of involvement on trust was also statistically significant (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.751), with 57 percent of the variance in trust explained by involvement (adjusted $R^2$=0.563). When the construct "stickiness" was treated as a dependent variable, the proportion of variance explained by the variables of trust and satisfaction was relatively low (adjusted $R^2$=0.331). Satisfaction did have a significant influence on stickiness, with ${\beta}$=0.514. However, unexpectedly, the influence of trust was not even significant (p=0.231, t=1.197), rejecting that proposed hypothesis. The importance of stickiness in the model was more significant because of its effect on e-WOM with ${\beta}$=0.920 (p<0.001). Here, the measures of Stickiness explain over eighty of the variance in e-WOM (Adjusted $R^2$=0.846). Overall, the results of the study supported the hypothesized relationships between members' involvement in a B2CVC and their satisfaction with and trust of it. However, trust, as a traditional measure in behavioral models, has no significant influence on stickiness in the B2CVC environment. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on B2CVCs, specifically addressing gaps in the academic research by integrating measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in one model. The results provide additional insights to behavioral factors in a B2CVC environment, helping to sort out relationships between traditional measures and relatively new measures. For practitioners, the identification of factors, such as member involvement, that strongly influence B2CVC member satisfaction can help focus technological resources in key areas. Global e-marketers can develop marketing strategies directly targeting B2CVC members. In the global tourism business, they can target Chinese members of a B2CVC by providing special discounts for active community members or developing early adopter programs to encourage stickiness in the community. Future studies are called for, and more sophisticated modeling, to expand the measurement of B2CVC member behavior and to conduct experiments across industries, communities, and cultures.

A Mobile Landmarks Guide : Outdoor Augmented Reality based on LOD and Contextual Device (모바일 랜드마크 가이드 : LOD와 문맥적 장치 기반의 실외 증강현실)

  • Zhao, Bi-Cheng;Rosli, Ahmad Nurzid;Jang, Chol-Hee;Lee, Kee-Sung;Jo, Geun-Sik
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.1-21
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    • 2012
  • In recent years, mobile phone has experienced an extremely fast evolution. It is equipped with high-quality color displays, high resolution cameras, and real-time accelerated 3D graphics. In addition, some other features are includes GPS sensor and Digital Compass, etc. This evolution advent significantly helps the application developers to use the power of smart-phones, to create a rich environment that offers a wide range of services and exciting possibilities. To date mobile AR in outdoor research there are many popular location-based AR services, such Layar and Wikitude. These systems have big limitation the AR contents hardly overlaid on the real target. Another research is context-based AR services using image recognition and tracking. The AR contents are precisely overlaid on the real target. But the real-time performance is restricted by the retrieval time and hardly implement in large scale area. In our work, we exploit to combine advantages of location-based AR with context-based AR. The system can easily find out surrounding landmarks first and then do the recognition and tracking with them. The proposed system mainly consists of two major parts-landmark browsing module and annotation module. In landmark browsing module, user can view an augmented virtual information (information media), such as text, picture and video on their smart-phone viewfinder, when they pointing out their smart-phone to a certain building or landmark. For this, landmark recognition technique is applied in this work. SURF point-based features are used in the matching process due to their robustness. To ensure the image retrieval and matching processes is fast enough for real time tracking, we exploit the contextual device (GPS and digital compass) information. This is necessary to select the nearest and pointed orientation landmarks from the database. The queried image is only matched with this selected data. Therefore, the speed for matching will be significantly increased. Secondly is the annotation module. Instead of viewing only the augmented information media, user can create virtual annotation based on linked data. Having to know a full knowledge about the landmark, are not necessary required. They can simply look for the appropriate topic by searching it with a keyword in linked data. With this, it helps the system to find out target URI in order to generate correct AR contents. On the other hand, in order to recognize target landmarks, images of selected building or landmark are captured from different angle and distance. This procedure looks like a similar processing of building a connection between the real building and the virtual information existed in the Linked Open Data. In our experiments, search range in the database is reduced by clustering images into groups according to their coordinates. A Grid-base clustering method and user location information are used to restrict the retrieval range. Comparing the existed research using cluster and GPS information the retrieval time is around 70~80ms. Experiment results show our approach the retrieval time reduces to around 18~20ms in average. Therefore the totally processing time is reduced from 490~540ms to 438~480ms. The performance improvement will be more obvious when the database growing. It demonstrates the proposed system is efficient and robust in many cases.

Polysomnographic Characteristics and Prescription Status of Restless Legs Syndrome Patients in Naturalistic Setting (임상현장에서 하지불안증후군 환자의 수면다원검사결과의 특징과 약물처방현황)

  • Kang, Seung-Gul;Nam, Ji-Hye;Kim, Hana;Shin, Hong Beom
    • Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.35-40
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    • 2013
  • Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the polysomnographic characteristics and prescription status of restless legs syndrome (RLS) patients in naturalistic setting. Methods: We reviewed medical record of the patients over 18 years olds who (i) satisfied the clinical RLS diagnostic criteria and (ii) had the polysomnography and got treatment related thereto. As a baseline, we evaluated the four diagnostic criteria of the International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group (IRLSSG) and the International Restless Legs Scale (IRLS) of the subjects. Then the polysomnography and the suggested immobilization test (SIT) were conducted and, after one month of pharmacotherapy using dopamine agonist, the IRLS was evaluated again. Results: A total of 211 subjects participated in this analysis and 94 (44.5%) of them were male and the other 117 (55.5%) were female and the average age of the 211 subjects was $46.9{\pm}14.2$. Out of such 211 subjects, 136 subjects (64.5%) also had the obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and 53 subjects (25.1%) also had the periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD). 185 subjects (87.7%) out of the 211 subjects had some other sleep disorders except RLS. The results of the polysomnography were as follows : 78.0% of sleep efficiency, 86.8 min of wake after sleep onset, and 3.4% of N3. More specifically, 12.4/h of the average apnea hypopnea index, 14.8/h of the periodic limb movement during sleep (PLMS), 41.2/h of the periodic limb movement during wake during SIT and 21.6/h of total arousal index during sleep. Out of the total subjects, 149 (70.6%) of them took the ropinirole and 47 (22.3%) of them took the pramipexole, and the average dosage of ropinirole was 0.9mg(dosage range 0.125-5 mg) while the average dosage of pramipexole was 0.5 mg (dosage range 0.125-4 mg). The dosage of the ropinirole showed a significant positive correlation with the age (r=0.25, p=0.002) and also with the IRLS (r=0.23, p=0.038). The IRLS at the baseline was 24.9 while the same was decreased down to 13.4 after one month. Conclusions: Analyzing the result of this study, a majority of clinical RLS subjects demonstrated comorbidity with some other sleep disorder such as the OSA or PLMD. 25.1% of the subjects showed a PLMD, which was less than in previous researches and the average PLMS was not very high as 14.8/h. The dosage of dopamine agonist taken was often a bit more than the amount recommended in Korea. A prospective research using a large scale controlled subjects will be necessary with respect to this topic.