• Title/Summary/Keyword: scale-up factors

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The Analysis and Treatment of Rotator Cuff Tear After Shoulder Dislocation in Middle-Aged and Elderly Patients (중·장년층에서 견관절 탈구 후에 발생한 회전근 개 파열에 대한 분석과 치료)

  • Ji, Jong-Hun;Park, Sang-Eun;Kim, Young-Yul;Shin, Eun-Su;Park, Bo-Youn;Jeong, Jae-Jung
    • Clinics in Shoulder and Elbow
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.20-26
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    • 2010
  • Purpose: To evaluate clinical features and surgical results for rotator cuff tear secondary to shoulder dislocation in middle-aged and elderly patients. Materials and Methods: We reviewed 19 patients over 50 years of age who had rotator cuff tears combined with shoulder dislocation between October 2004 and October 2008. There were 7 males and 12 females with a mean age 64.7 years (range, 50 to 78 years). The average follow-up duration was 22 months (range, 8 to 56 months). We investigated the number of dislocations, the size of the cuff tear, the presence of Bankart lesions and the time interval from dislocation to surgery. We also investigated the ASES score, UCLA score, SST score, and shoulder range of motion before and after surgery. We analyzed clinical outcomes and contributing factors. Results: ASES scores improved from 30.2 preoperatively to 72.3 postoperatively; UCLA scores improved from 12.9 to 26.5; SST scores improved from 2.4 to 7.3. Range of motion improved significantly: forward flexion, abduction, external rotation and internal rotation were, respectively, $110.8({\pm}39.3)^{\circ}$, $107.7({\pm}40)^{\circ}$, $22.5({\pm}17.6)^{\circ}$ and L5 level preoperatively; postoperatively they were $153.6({\pm}20.6)^{\circ}$, $152.1({\pm}20.8)^{\circ}$, $36.4({\pm}22.7)^{\circ}$ and L1 level. Age, the presence of Bankart lesions and the number of dislocations were not correlated with clinical outcomes. But the size of the cuff tear was correlated with clinical results. Also, the duration from dislocation to surgery was correlated with postoperative UCLA and SST scores (p=0.039, p=0.038). Conclusion: For shoulder dislocation, it is important to achieve early diagnoses of rotator cuff tears in middle-aged and elderly patients. If these injuries are both present, early rotator cuff repair should be performed for better clinical results.

Beak Trimming Methods - Review -

  • Glatz, P.C.
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.13 no.11
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    • pp.1619-1637
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    • 2000
  • A review was undertaken to obtain information on the range of beak-trimming methods available or under development. Beak-trimming of commercial layer replacement pullets is a common yet critical management tool that can affect the performance for the life of the flock. The most obvious advantage of beak-trimming is a reduction in cannibalism although the extent of the reduction in cannibalism depends on the strain, season, and type of housing, flock health and other factors. Beak-trimming also improves feed conversion by reducing food wastage. A further advantage of beak-trimming is a reduction in the chronic stress associated with dominance interactions in the flock. Beak-trimming of birds at 7-10 days is favoured by Industry but research over last 10 years has shown that beak-trimming at day-old causes the least stress on birds and efforts are needed to encourage Industry to adopt the practice of beak-trimming birds at day-old. Proper beak-trimming can result in greatly improved layer performance but improper beak-trimming can ruin an other wise good flock of hens. Re-trimming is practiced in most flocks, although there are some flocks that only need one trimming. Given the continuing welfare scrutiny of using a hot blade to cut the beak, attempts have been made to develop more welfare friendly methods of beak-trimming. Despite the developments in design of hot blade beak-trimmers the process has remained largely unchanged. That is, a red-hot blade cuts and cauterises the beak. The variables in the process are blade temperature, cauterisation time, operator ability, severity of trimming, age of trimming, strain of bird and beak length. This method of beak-trimming is still overwhelmingly favoured in Industry and there appears to be no other alternative procedures that are more effective. Sharp secateurs have been used trim the upper beak of both layers and turkeys. Bleeding from the upper mandible ceases shortly after the operation, and despite the regrowth of the beak a reduction of cannibalism has been reported. Very few differences have been noted between behaviour and production of the hot blade and cold blade cut chickens. This method has not been used on a large scale in Industry. There are anecdotal reports of cannibalism outbreaks in birds with regrown beaks. A robotic beak-trimming machine was developed in France, which permitted simultaneous, automated beak-trimming and vaccination of day-old chicks of up to 4,500 chickens per hour. Use of the machine was not successful because if the chicks were not loaded correctly they could drop off the line, receive excessive beak-trimming or very light trimming. Robotic beak-trimming was not effective if there was a variation in the weight or size of chickens. Capsaicin can cause degeneration of sensory nerves in mammals and decreases the rate of beak regrowth by its action on the sensory nerves. Capsaicin is a cheap, non-toxic substance that can be readily applied at the time of less severe beak-trimming. It suffers the disadvantage of causing an extreme burning sensation in operators who come in contact with the substance during its application to the bird. Methods of applying the substance to minimise the risk to operators of coming in contact with capsaicin need to be explored. A method was reported which cuts the beaks with a laser beam in day-old chickens. No details were provided on the type of laser used, or the severity of beak-trimming, but by 16 weeks the beaks of laser trimmed birds resembled the untrimmed beaks, but without the bill tip. Feather pecking and cannibalism during the laying period were highest among the laser trimmed hens. Currently laser machines are available that are transportable and research to investigate the effectiveness of beak-trimming using ablasive and coagulative lasers used in human medicine should be explored. Liquid nitrogen was used to declaw emu toes but was not effective. There was regrowth of the claws and the time and cost involved in the procedure limit the potential of using this process to beak-trim birds.

The Characteristics of Population Flows in kwangju Metropolitan Area (光州 中心의 人口移動 特性에 관한 硏究)

  • Chouh, Hae-Chong
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.28 no.1
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    • pp.40-57
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    • 1993
  • This paper aims to show the various aspects of migration in Kwangju merropolitan area, southwestern Korea, for a period of years 1980-1985. Migratory patterns are spatially extensive in countryside around Kwanfju, and due to high accessibility to the metropolitan area urban implosion emerges in the city. In Chonnam province where Kwangju is loca-ted, all cities and counties except for such in-dustrial areas as Yochon, and Kwangyang are experiencing population losses in terms of net migration by survival rate methods. Kwangju is the exceptionally one of in-migration areas in Chonnam, though its central part(Dong-Gu) is also an out-migrated area. Predominantly in-migration urban areas have high proportions of a student age group between 15-19 years, and that reflects the importance of the educational factor in migration analysis. The municipal authorities of Kwangju are planning to block the way of the middle sxhool students who live in the outskirts of Kwangju to entrance to high school in the city. Thant may stir up migrations into Kwangju for the elementary and middle school students, because the city id expected to provide educational opportunities higher and better than remaining Chonnam areas. Population of Kwangju would, therefore, grow as the students migrate into the city. The findings on the residential intra-city movement in selected 5 Dongs indicate that implications of a short-distance movement re noteworthy; neighbour to neighbour, and the nearest stop in the way from the outer Kwangju as well. Trends in a short-distance movement are in accord with Ravensteins's "law of migra-tion". But in casw of the inter-provincial migra-tion to Kwangju, the number of in-migrants from remoter Seoul is more than that from nearer Chonbuk province. Therefore it supports the fact that the movement between capital region and far off local cities overcomes a distance barrier. The temporary mobility for a day has been increased as the standard of living has improved and it reaches a peak on weekend or on con-secutive holidays. The number of temporal movers to Kwangju from capital region and Yongnam area, southeastern Korea has a greatincrease in terms of the frequency of the passengers' mobility, in particular on Myongjol(the ethnic and traditional festival day) in com-parison with on weekdays. By comparison with two largest Myongjols, the number of movers is more on Chusok(The Full Moon festival on lunar August) than on Sol (lunar new year's day). Annual peak point of weekday movers appears in August because of summer vacation. But the lowest one appears in June, which is related to the busy farming season. A patients' move for medical services in on the increase with a change of living conditions. It is especially true in the industrial counties such as Kwangyang and Yochon. By way of conclusion, it should be pointed out that one of the problems we face in survey of migration volume by the survival rate method is that the survival rate somtimes exceeds the value 1.0, in normal states of which should be under 1.0. it may be due to the shortcoming from the census statistics. We should not give therefore too much stress on the importance of migrations or moves as an element of changes in spatial pattern. In cinclusion, the results of the study show some geographic facts as the followings: 1. One of the outstanding phenomena in all types of movement is the seletivity of ages. The most important factors are related to education and employment. 2. Short-distance movement is carried out in accordance with Ravenstein's law, but in case long-distance movement, in-migration from capital region is prominent in spite of remoten-ces. The gravity between large cities such as Kwangju and Seoul, which has a frequent human movenent, causes urban implosion of small cities between those cities. 3. The temporary mobility for a day, in con-trast to that of permanent movement, is more related to transportation, and its volumes and annual variations are a large-scale. 4. Passengers' mobility is high in industrial cities. And the scope of patients' mobility is narrower than passengers'.

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Avifauna and Management of Breeding Season in Taeanhaean National Park (태안해안국립공원의 번식기 조류상과 관리)

  • Paik, In-Hwan;Jin, Seon-Deok;Yu, Jae-Pyoung;Paek, Woon-Kee
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.139-146
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    • 2010
  • The survey was done in order to find what kinds of birds visit Taeanhaean National Park during breeding season, where we fixed up 10 coastal areas and islands within the National Park. Three groups concurrently performed the field research from 5th to 9th of July in 2009. Total 58 species and 7,323 individuals were recorded in Taeanhaean National Park. 48 species including 6,187 individuals were observed in coastal areas and 33 species including 1,136 individuals in island areas. The most dominant species in the National Park are Larus crassirostris which accounts for 60% of the birds inhabiting there, and they seem to have been bred in the islands near the National Park. The birds observed only around the coastal areas include Anas poecilorhyncha, Fulica atra, Egretta intermedia and the others which consist of 25 species and amount to 318 individuals, and the birds found exclusively in island areas include Phalacrocorax filamentosus, Apus pacificus¸ Locustella pleskei and other birds, which consist of 10 species and the number of those individuals observed was 308. The inhabited islands areas such as Gauido were characterized by high ratio of waterbird population, which seems to be correlated with the factors such as the extent of island, the richness of water resources, and the diversity of habitats. Based on the data collected during the research and other data from the previous observations, the kinds of dominant species remain nearly unchanged. And in spite of the oil spill accident in 2007, the increase in the number of waterbirds compared to 2004 may be the evidence that the area is recovering from the environmental pollution. At present, the tidal power plants are being built or scheduled to be built and large-scale reclamation is also under way. What is worse, those areas are seeing the increase of pension construction, which is likely to be the potential cause of damage and disturbance against some key habitats for the waterbirds. Therefore, it is a major priority that we build the bird information system to efficiently manage the knowledge-based asset collected from bird-watching groups and to better monitor the areas that need enhanced database through which the National Park can be appropriately administered.

The Assessment on Health Status of Workers by using HPLP and Sa-sang Constitutional Questionnaire (HPLP와 사상체질설문(四象體質說問)을 이용(利用)한 근로자(勤勞者)들의 건강상태(健康狀態) 평가(評價))

  • Choi Mun-Il;Lee Eun-Kyoung;Kwon So-Hee;Ko Kwang-Jae;Seo Byeong-Yun;Jeoung Jae-Yeal;Jahng Doo-Sub;Song Yung-Sun;Lee Ki-Nam
    • Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.41-56
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    • 2001
  • Overview: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the determinants on the correlation between constitution and health promoting lifestyle profile on the workers. Also, the questionnaire on the HPLP (health promoting lifestyle profile) of Walker(1987) and Sa-sang constitution of Lee(l894) were utilized Methods: Data from a representative sample of 652 workers were analyzed Pearson's chi-square test analysis was utilized to test the explanatory causal model and to determine the direct and indirect effects of independent variables on quality of life. Results: Constitutional distribution among exposed group, were Tae-eum In(43.7%), So-eum In(33.6%), and So-yang In(22.7%). The degree of the subjects practicing health promoting lifestyle, on a scale of 1 to 4, is an average of 2.62, personal relations 2.94, self-realization 2.86, stress management 2.71, nutrition 2.68, responsibility for health 2.37, and exercise 2.21, with personal relations earning the highest points and exercise the lowest As for factors influencing health promoting lifestyle, there is significant difference between sex and age. That is female and higher age. On the difference between constitution and health promoting lifestyle, Tae-eum In is the highest all area except personal relations. So-eum In is the lowest all area except responsibility for health. Conclusions: Tae-eum In totally do health promoting lifestyle well but So-eum In relatively not. On the Study we used the HPLP(health promoting lifestyle profile) on the premise that each person's daily life, the attitude and the practice level to the health have an influence on the health. So in the constitution there is a little differences in the consideration and the practice level and health condition will be different. On this study we finish up by knowing about the health promoting lifestyle. But on next time we will have to go on studying about the sign and the comparison with the result of western and oriental medical health examination to the each constitution on carrying out continuously oriental medical health examination.

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Development and Validation of the Social Entrepreneurship Measurement Tools: From an Organizational-Level Behavioral Perspective (사회적기업가정신 척도 개발 및 타당화 연구: 조직차원의 행동적 관점에서)

  • Cho, Han Jun
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.97-113
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    • 2023
  • In order to generalize the social entrepreneurship model with cooperation orientation and increase the possibility of using the model, this study developed a measurement tool and tested it with 389 executives of social enterprises. For the development of the measurement tool, preliminary measurement items were formed through review of previous studies, and a questionnaire was tentatively composed of 40 measurement items in five areas through an expert panel review of the measurement items. A total of 389 questionnaires were collected by conducting a questionnaire survey targeting Korean social enterprise managers, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted using 375 questionnaires that could be analyzed. Five factors for 24 items were derived through exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis. Through a series of analysis processes including primary and secondary confirmatory factor analysis, the model fit of the newly constructed social entrepreneurship research model was confirmed, and the validity and reliability of the measurement tools were verified. As a result of this study, the model fit of the social entrepreneurship model(social value orientation; innovativeness; pro-activeness; risk-taking; cooperation orientation) is verified, thereby improving the theoretical explanatory power of social entrepreneurship research and at the same time providing the basis and basis for theoretical expansion of follow-up research. The study proved the possibility of generalizing the social entrepreneurship model with added cooperation orientation, and at the same time, the measurement tool used in this study was widely used as a tool to measure social entrepreneurship theoretically and practically. In addition, it was confirmed that the cooperation orientation is manifested in corporate decision-making and activity behaviors for resource mobilization and capacity building, opportunity and performance creation, social capital and network reinforcement, and governance establishment of social enterprises.

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Spatial Distribution of Aging District in Taejeon Metropolitan City (대전광역시 노령화 지구의 공간적 분포 패턴)

  • Jeong, Hwan-Yeong;Ko, Sang-Im
    • Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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    • v.6 no.2
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    • pp.1-19
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    • 2000
  • This study is to investigate and analyze regional patterns of aging in Taejeon Metropolitan city-the overpopulated area of Choong-Cheong Province-by cohort analysis method. According to the population structure transition caused by rapid social and economic changes, Korea has made a rapid progress in population aging since 1970. This trend is so rapid that we should prepare for and cope with aging society. It is not only slow to cope with it in our society, but also there are few studies on population aging of the geographical field in Korea. The data of this study are the reports of Population and Housing Censuses in 1975 and 1985 and General Population and Housing Censuses with 10% sample survey in 1995 taken by National Statistical Office. The research method is to sample as the aging district the area with high aged population rate where the populations over 60 reside among total population during the years of 1975, 1985, 1995 and to sample the special districts of decreasing population where the population decreases very much and the special districts of increasing population in which the population increases greatly, presuming that the reason why aged population rate increases is that non-elderly population high in mobility moves out. It is then verified and ascertained whether it is true or not with cohort analysis method by age. Finally regional patterns in the city are found through the classification and modeling by type based on the aging district, the special districts of decreasing population, and the special districts of increasing population. The characteristics of the regional patterns show that there is social population transition and that non-elderly population moves out. The aging district with the high aged population rate is divided into high-level keeping-up type, relative falling type below the average of Taejeon city in aging progress, and relative rising type above the average of the city. This district can be found at both the central area of the city and the suburbs because Taejeon city has the characteristic of over-bounded city. But it cannot be found at the new built-up area with the in-migration of large population. The special districts of decreasing population where the population continues to decrease can be said to be the population doughnuts found at the CBD and its neighboring inner area. On the other hand, the special districts of increasing population where the population continues to increase are located at the new built-up area of the northern part in Taejeon city. The special districts of decreasing population are overlapping with the aging district and higher in aged population rate by the out-migration of non-elderly population. The special districts of increasing population are not overlapping with the aging district and lower in aged population rate by the in-migration of non-elderly population. To clarify the distribution map of the aging district, the special districts of decreasing and increasing population and the aging district are divided into four groups such as the special districts of decreasing population group-the same one as the aging district, the special districts of decreasing population group, the special districts of increasing population group, and the other district. With the cohort analysis method by age used to investigate the definite increase and decrease of aging population through population transition of each group, it is found that the progress of population aging is closely related to the social population fluctuation, especially that aged population rate is higher with the out-migration of non-elderly population. This is to explain each model of CBD, inner area, and the suburbs after modeling the aging district, the special districts of decreasing population, and the special districts of increasing population in Taejeon city. On the assumption that the city area is a concentric circle, it is possible to divide it into three areas such as CBD(A), the inner area(B), and the suburbs(C). The special districts of increasing and decreasing population in the city are divided into three districts-the special districts of decreasing population(a), the special districts of increasing population(b), and the others(c). The aging district of this city is divided into the aging district($\alpha$) and the others($\beta$). And then modeling these districts, it is probable to find regional patterns in the city. $Aa{\alpha}$ and $Ac{\beta}$ patterns are found in the CBD, in which $Aa{\alpha}$ is the special district of decreasing population and is higher in aged population rate because of aged population low in mobility staying behind and out-migration of non-elderly population. $Ba{\alpha}$, $Ba{\beta}$, $Bb{\beta}$, and $Bc{\beta}$ patterns are found in the inner area, in which neighboring area $Ba{\alpha}$ pattern is located. $Bb{\beta}$ pattern is located at the new developing area of newly built apartment complex. $Cb{\beta}$, $Cc{\alpha}$, and $Cc{\beta}$ patterns are found in the suburbs, among which $Cc{\alpha}$ pattern is highest in population aging. It is likely that the $Cc{\beta}$ under housing land readjustment on a large scale will be the $Cb{\beta}$ pattern. As analyzed above, marriage and out-migration of new family, non-elderly population, with house purchase are main factors in accelerating population aging in the central area of the city. Population aging is responsible for the great increase of aged population with longer life expectancy by the low death rate, the out-migration of non-elderly population, and the age group of new aged population in the suburbs. It is necessary to investigate and analyze the regional patterns of population aging at the time when population problems caused by aging as well as longer life expectancy are now on the increase. I hope that this will help the future study on population aging of the geographical field in Korea. As in the future population aging will be a major problem in our society, local autonomy should make a plan for the problem to the extent that population aging progresses by regional groups and inevitably prepare for it.

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Study on the Effects of Shop Choice Properties on Brand Attitudes: Focus on Six Major Coffee Shop Brands (점포선택속성이 브랜드 태도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 6개 메이저 브랜드 커피전문점을 중심으로)

  • Yi, Weon-Ho;Kim, Su-Ok;Lee, Sang-Youn;Youn, Myoung-Kil
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.51-61
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    • 2012
  • This study seeks to understand how the choice of a coffee shop is related to a customer's loyalty and which characteristics of a shop influence this choice. It considers large-sized coffee shops brands whose market scale has gradually grown. The users' choice of shop is determined by price, employee service, shop location, and shop atmosphere. The study investigated the effects of these four properties on the brand attitudes of coffee shops. The effects were found to vary depending on users' characteristics. The properties with the largest influence were shop atmosphere and shop location Therefore, the purpose of the study was to examine the properties that could help coffee shops get loyal customers, and the choice properties that could satisfy consumers' desires The study examined consumers' perceptions of shop properties at selection of coffee shop and the difference between perceptual difference and coffee brand in order to investigate customers' desires and needs and to suggest ways that could supply products and service. The research methodology consisted of two parts: normative and empirical research, which includes empirical analysis and statistical analysis. In this study, a statistical analysis of the empirical research was carried out. The study theoretically confirmed the shop choice properties by reviewing previous studies and performed an empirical analysis including cross tabulation based on secondary material. The findings were as follows: First, coffee shop choice properties varied by gender. Price advantage influenced the choice of both men and women; men preferred nearer coffee shops where they could buy coffee easily and more conveniently than women did. The atmosphere of the coffee shop had the greatest influence on both men and women, and shop atmosphere was thought to be the most important for age analysis. In the past, customers selected coffee shops solely to drink coffee. Now, they select the coffee shop according to its interior, menu variety, and atmosphere owing to improved quality and service of coffee shop brands. Second, the prices of the brands did not vary much because the coffee shops were similarly priced. The service was thought to be more important and to elevate service quality so that price and employee service and other properties did not have a great influence on shop choice. However, those working in the farming, forestry, fishery, and livestock industries were more concerned with the price than the shop atmosphere. College and graduate school students were also affected by inexpensive price. Third, shop choice properties varied depending on income. The shop location and shop atmosphere had a greater influence on shop choice. The customers in an income bracket of less than 2 million won selected low-price coffee shops more than those earning 6 million won or more. Therefore, price advantage had no relation with difference in income. The higher income group was not affected by employee service. Fourth, shop choice properties varied depending on place. For instance, customers at Ulsan were the most affected by the price, and the ones at Busan were the least affected. The shop location had the greatest influence among all of the properties. Among the places surveyed, Gwangju had the least influence. The alternate use of space in a coffee shop was thought to be important in all the cities under consideration. The customers at Ulsan were not affected by employee service, and they selected coffee shops according to quality and preference of shop atmosphere. Lastly, the price factor was found to be a little higher than other factors when customers frequently selected brands according to shop properties. Customers at Gwangju reacted to discounts more than those in other cities did, and the former gave less priority to the quality and taste of coffee. Brand preference varied depending on coffee shop location. Customers at Busan selected brands according to the coffee shop location, and those at Ulsan were not influenced by employee kindness and specialty. The implications of this study are that franchise coffee shop businesses should focus on customers rather than aggressive marketing strategies that increase the number of coffee shops. Thus, they should create an environment with a good atmosphere and set up coffee shops in places that customers have good access to. This study has some limitations. First, the respondents were concentrated in metropolitan areas. Secondary data showed that the number of respondents at Seoul was much more than that at Gyeonggi-do. Furthermore, the number of respondents at Gyeonggi-do was much more than those at the six major cities in the nation. Thus, the regional sample was not representative enough of the population. Second, respondents' ratio was used as a measurement scale to test the perception of shop choice properties and brand preference. The difficulties arose when examining the relation between these properties and brand preference, as well as when understanding the difference between groups. Therefore, future research should seek to address some of the shortcomings of this study: If the coffee shops are being expanded to local areas, then a questionnaire survey of consumers at small cities in local areas shall be conducted to collect primary material. In particular, variables of the questionnaire survey shall be measured using Likert scales in order to include perception on shop choice properties, brand preference, and repurchase. Therefore, correlation analysis, multi-regression, and ANOVA shall be used for empirical analysis and to investigate consumers' attitudes and behavior in detail.

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An experimental study on the impact of an agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period of primiparous mothers and enhance their self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance (산욕초기 초산모의 간호목표달성방번 합의가 어머니 역할수행에 대한 자신감 및 만족도에 미치는 영향에 관한 실험적 연구)

  • 이영은
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.81-115
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    • 1992
  • The problem addressed by this study was to determine the effect of nurse - patient agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period of primiparous mothers. It was hypothesized that the experimental treatment would result in hegher self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance. This purpose was to contribute to the planning of nursing care to enhance self- confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance and to the development of relevant nursing theory. Especially, the early postpartum period is crucial toward in recovery from childbirth and attainment of the maternal role. Maternal role attaintment is a complex social and cognitive process of stimulus -response accomplished by learning. Most women attain the maternal role sucessfully. But, some primiparous mothers experience difficultites in attainment of the maternal role due to lack of experience and knowledge. Self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance are important factors in attainment and adjustment to the maternal role (Mercer, 1981a, 1981b ; Lederman, Weigarten, and Lederman, 1981 :Bobak and Jensen, 1985). Nursing is defined as behaviors of nurses add patients that attain nursing goals through action, reaction, interaction, and transaction. For attainment of nursing goals, active participating transactions must occur by agreement on the means to achieve those goals through nurse -patient mutual goal setting and establishment of their active relationships(King, 1981, Ha, 1977). Based on King's theory of goal attainment (1981), this stuy was planned as a non-equivalent control group, non -synchronized quasi -experimental design using agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in early postpartum as the experimental treatment. The data were collected from July 20 to Sep. 1, 1991 by questionnaires with 60 primiparous mothers planing to breast feed after normal deliveries at W hospital in Pusan, Korea. The subjects were divided into a control group(conventional group) -those admitted from July 20 to Aug. 12, and an experimental group(agreement group) - those admitted from Aug. 13 to Sep. 1. The instument for agreement on the means to nursing goals in the early postpartum period included five steps - identification of disturbances of problems through action, reaction, and interaction with primiparous mothers : mutual early postpartal nursing goal setting : exploration of the means to achieve goals ; agreement on the means (self- care, ealry maternal -infant contact, performance of mothering behavior, and communicating about the infant's behavior and health condition) : implementation of the means. This instrument was developed on the basis of King's elements that lead to transactions in nurse-patient interactions. Lederman et al's (1981) scale for Confidence in ability to cope with tasks of motherhood and Lederman et al's(1981) scale for Mother's satisfaction with motherhood and infant care were used to measure self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance ·with the subjects immediately after admission and on the day of discharge. Self-care performance in the experimental group was measured by self -evaluation tool developed by the investigator from the literature concerned. The tools to measure Pelf-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance, and the tool to measure self-evaluation of self-care performance were tested for internal reliability. Cronbach's Alphas were 0.94, 0.94, and 0.63. The data were analysed by using in S.P.S.S. computerized program and included percentage, x²-test, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson Correlation Coefficient. The conclusions obtained from this study are summerized as follows : 1. The degree of self-confidence in maternal role performance of the total subjects group measured before the experimental treatment was above average with a mean score of 2.77(range 2.14-3.64). Out of 14 items, those with relatively high mean scores were ‘I would like to be a better mother than I am’(3.95), and ‘I have my doubts about whether I am a good mother’(2.87). Those with low mean scores were ‘I know that my baby wants most of the times’(2.28), ‘When the baby cries, I can tell what she /he wants’(2.37), and ‘I have confidence in my ability to care for the baby’(2;50). That is, the self - confidence of Primiparous mothers was considerably high in mothering, but rather low in activities concerning the infant care and understanding of the infant behavior. The degree of satisfaction in maternal role performance of the total subjects group measured before the experimental treatment was high with a mean score of 3.18(range 1.92-3.92). Out of 13 items, those with relatively high mean scores were ‘I am glad 1 had this baby now’(3.75), ‘I play with the baby between feedings when s/he is awake and quiet’(3.67), and ‘I enjoy being a mother’(3.27). Those with low mean scores were ‘I am upset about having too many responsibilities as a mother’(2.78), ‘It bothers me to get up for the baby at night’(2.82), and ‘I get annoyed if the baby frequently interrupts my activities’.(2.82), That is, the satisfaction of primiparous mothers was considerably high in mothering and infant care, but rather low in restraints in time or on the mother's self accomplishment and development. 2. Agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period included process of mutual goal setting, exploration of the means to achieve goals, and ahreement in concert means to achieve goals based on the mothers' condition, concerns, self-perception of the nurse - patient interactions. In the process of agreement, there was agreement that the means to achieve goals should be through trust and establishment of active relationships with the nurse through identification of problems according to planned nursing goals and active interaction, such as explanations, teaching, changing of opinions, acceptance or rejection of explanations, and proposing of questions. Therefore agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period appears to be an effective nursing intervention for primiparous mothers. 3. The degree of self- confidence in maternal role performance of the exprimental group was higher than that of the control group(t=3.95, p<0.01). Out of 14 items, those with higher score in the experimental group were ‘I would like to be a better mother than I am’(t=1.93, p<0.05), ‘I know that my baby wants most of the times’(t=2.75, p<0.01), ‘When the baby cries, 1 can tell what she/he wants’(t=2.10, p<0.05), ‘I have confidence in my ability to care for the baby’(t=3.72, p<0.01), ‘I trust my own judement in deciding how to care for the baby’(t=1.96, p<0.05), ‘I feel that I know my baby and what to do for him /her’(t=2.44, p<0.01), ‘I am concerned about being able to meet the baby's needs’(t=2.87, p<0.01), ‘I know what my baby likes and dislikes’(t=3.26, p<0.01), ‘I don't know to care for the baby as well as I should’(t=2.07, p<0.05), and ‘I am unsure about whether I give enough attention to the baby’(t=3.04, p<0.01), That is, the degree of self-confidence in mothering, activities concerning infant care, and understanding of infant behavior of the experimental group was higher than that of the control group. Therefore, the first hypothesis, that the degree of self-confidence in maternal role performance of the experimental group would be higher than that of the control group, was supported(t=3.95, p<0.01). 4. The degree of satisfaction in the maternal role performance of the exprimental group was higer than that or the control group(t=2.31, p<0.05). Out of 13 items, those with higher score in the experimental group were ‘I am glad I had this baby now’(t=2.29, p<0.05), ‘I enjoy taking care of the baby’(t=2.4g, p<0.01), ‘It is boring for me to care for the baby and do the same thing over and over’(t=2.87, P<0.01), ‘I am unhappy with the amount of time I have for activities other than childcare’(t=2.51, p<0.01), and ‘When bathing and diapering the baby, I would like to be doing something else’(t=2.43, p<0.01). That is, the degree of satisfaction in mothering, infant care, and restraints in time of on the mother's self accomplishment and development in the experimental group was higher than that of the control group. Therefore, the second hypothesis, that the degree of satisfaction in maternal role performance of the experimental group would be higher than that of the control group, was supported(t=2.31, p<0.05). 5. The third hypothesis, that the higher the degree of satisfaction in materenal role performance, the higher the degree of self-confidence in materenal role performance in the experimental group, was supported (r=0.57, p<0.01)

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Resolving the 'Gray sheep' Problem Using Social Network Analysis (SNA) in Collaborative Filtering (CF) Recommender Systems (소셜 네트워크 분석 기법을 활용한 협업필터링의 특이취향 사용자(Gray Sheep) 문제 해결)

  • Kim, Minsung;Im, Il
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.137-148
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    • 2014
  • Recommender system has become one of the most important technologies in e-commerce in these days. The ultimate reason to shop online, for many consumers, is to reduce the efforts for information search and purchase. Recommender system is a key technology to serve these needs. Many of the past studies about recommender systems have been devoted to developing and improving recommendation algorithms and collaborative filtering (CF) is known to be the most successful one. Despite its success, however, CF has several shortcomings such as cold-start, sparsity, gray sheep problems. In order to be able to generate recommendations, ordinary CF algorithms require evaluations or preference information directly from users. For new users who do not have any evaluations or preference information, therefore, CF cannot come up with recommendations (Cold-star problem). As the numbers of products and customers increase, the scale of the data increases exponentially and most of the data cells are empty. This sparse dataset makes computation for recommendation extremely hard (Sparsity problem). Since CF is based on the assumption that there are groups of users sharing common preferences or tastes, CF becomes inaccurate if there are many users with rare and unique tastes (Gray sheep problem). This study proposes a new algorithm that utilizes Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques to resolve the gray sheep problem. We utilize 'degree centrality' in SNA to identify users with unique preferences (gray sheep). Degree centrality in SNA refers to the number of direct links to and from a node. In a network of users who are connected through common preferences or tastes, those with unique tastes have fewer links to other users (nodes) and they are isolated from other users. Therefore, gray sheep can be identified by calculating degree centrality of each node. We divide the dataset into two, gray sheep and others, based on the degree centrality of the users. Then, different similarity measures and recommendation methods are applied to these two datasets. More detail algorithm is as follows: Step 1: Convert the initial data which is a two-mode network (user to item) into an one-mode network (user to user). Step 2: Calculate degree centrality of each node and separate those nodes having degree centrality values lower than the pre-set threshold. The threshold value is determined by simulations such that the accuracy of CF for the remaining dataset is maximized. Step 3: Ordinary CF algorithm is applied to the remaining dataset. Step 4: Since the separated dataset consist of users with unique tastes, an ordinary CF algorithm cannot generate recommendations for them. A 'popular item' method is used to generate recommendations for these users. The F measures of the two datasets are weighted by the numbers of nodes and summed to be used as the final performance metric. In order to test performance improvement by this new algorithm, an empirical study was conducted using a publically available dataset - the MovieLens data by GroupLens research team. We used 100,000 evaluations by 943 users on 1,682 movies. The proposed algorithm was compared with an ordinary CF algorithm utilizing 'Best-N-neighbors' and 'Cosine' similarity method. The empirical results show that F measure was improved about 11% on average when the proposed algorithm was used

    . Past studies to improve CF performance typically used additional information other than users' evaluations such as demographic data. Some studies applied SNA techniques as a new similarity metric. This study is novel in that it used SNA to separate dataset. This study shows that performance of CF can be improved, without any additional information, when SNA techniques are used as proposed. This study has several theoretical and practical implications. This study empirically shows that the characteristics of dataset can affect the performance of CF recommender systems. This helps researchers understand factors affecting performance of CF. This study also opens a door for future studies in the area of applying SNA to CF to analyze characteristics of dataset. In practice, this study provides guidelines to improve performance of CF recommender systems with a simple modification.


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