• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.534-541
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• 2009

Word recognition test (WRT) for the children can be useful for diagnosing the degree of communication disability, prescribing hearing instruments, planning aural rehabilitation and speech therapy, and determination of site of lesions. The Korean standard monosyllabic word lists for preschoolers (KS-MWL-P) were developed considering the criteria given by the literatures. However, the authors of KS-MWL-P suggested more children should be included to verify homogeneity of the lists using psychometric function curve since only 8 children participated in the developing process. The purpose of this study was to explore the homogeneity of KS-MWL-P for supplementing the limitations of the lists employing psychometric analysis. To 23 preschoolers who have normal-hearing, 100 monosyllabic KS-MWL-P words were examined with the pictures. Psychometric function curve with linear slopes of 20% and 80%'s correct rates through accounting recognition scores of each monosyllabic word at variable intensities from -10 to 40 dBHL was obtained and analyzed. As a result, s-shaped psychometric function curve was presented with increasing correct rate depending on intensity and showed no statistical significant differences among each word and list. The congruous graph shapes among lists also indicated good homogeneity and the list 1,2,3,4's average slopes were 4.48, 3.86, 4.65, 4.50. It was verified that the homogeneity was suitable because the analysis of variance showed no statistical significance among lists (p>0.05). However, KS-MWL-P's order of slope according to the order of the number of items, $1{\sim}10$, $1{\sim}20$, $1{\sim}25$ showed no difference with the p-value of 0.93, 0.59, 0.91, 0.70 for the lists 1,2,3, and 4, respectively. Although KS-MWL-P was assumed that the lower-numbered items were easy for testing younger ages, this study's results could not agree with the author's conclusion. Considering this matter, rearranging of the number of items should be performed according to the analysis of slope suggested by this study for testing younger children with easier items. Other than this, in conclusion, KS-MWL-P was proved to be useful for clinical and rehabilitative evaluating and training tools for preschoolers.

• The Korean Journal of Coaching Psychology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.153-196
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to development and validate kkondae tendency scale. Kkondae tendencies are defined as "a response pattern to others in a way that values authority in social relationships, is self-centered, and does not accept other people's opinions," and the subjects of the study are workers aged 19 or older who act as seniors, seniors, and bosses in the workplace. In Study 1, 65 preliminary questions were produced with 7 factors for the compositional concept of kkondae tendency through literature review, expert interviews, and open questionnaire survey. In Study 2, a preliminary survey was conducted with 65 questions derived from Study 1. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted based on the responses of a total of 395 people, and 22 items for 4 factors were derived. In Study 3, this survey was conducted with 22 questions derived from Study 2. A total of 880 responses were analyzed, and cross-validation verification was conducted by dividing the data into two groups (Group 1 and Group 2). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on Group 1 (N=429) to derive 19 items with 4 factors. The four factors are authoritarianism(3 items), egocentrism (5 items), inertial thinking (5 itemss), and one-sided communication (6 items). A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on 19 questions obtained from Group 1 for Group 2 (N = 451), and 19 questions of four factors were accepted due to the good fit of the model. To verify the convergent validity of the Kkondae tendency scale, the correlation with the Kkondae scale was examined, and to verify the criterion-related validity, the relationship between self-reflection, relationship conflict, social connectedness was examined. All were statistically significant, and convergence validity and criterion-related validity were verified. Finally, discussions on the process and results of this study, differences from related measures, academic significance, practical implications, limitations of the study, and future research directions were presented.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.44-62
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• 2024

The development of online funeral services and social issues of eco-friendly funeral culture have raised awareness of the new need for online funeral culture. There have been several attempts to revitalize online funeral services in domestic institutions and companies, but the effect is weak. The purpose of this study is to propose a design that can improve the accessibility and usability of online memorial services by analyzing the usability problem factors through a First Time User Experience analysis of the online memorial platform. Therefore, in this study, in order to identify the problem factors of the online memorial platform, a literature review on the UX, OOBE, and FTUE theories was conducted. The subject of the study was the app 'Memorial'. Before analyzing the First-Time User-Experience, IA was compared and analyzed with other similar services to understand the characteristics of the UX service of the app 'Memorial', which is the subject of the study. In addition, tasks corresponding to the Unpack-Setup/Configure-First Use stage were performed on 10 subjects who had no experience using the online memorial platform. The experimental process was expressed as the UX Curve to identify factors that caused negative experiences. As a result, the major problem factors included unnecessary UI elements, the need for sensitive personal information at the membership stage, and lack of immersion in the service. The improvements included strengthening community functions to facilitate the sharing of emotions and promote smooth communication between users. We proposed UI/UX service developments that enhanced the app by incorporating these insights. In order to verify the effectiveness, serviceability, and value of the developed prototype, an interview with a expert was conducted. The interviewes consisted of three service design experts. This study was conducted to contribute to the quality improvement and activation of the recently emerging online funeral services. The study is significant as it aims to understand the current status of these services and identify the factors necessary to improve service accessibility and usability. Subsequent studies require in-depth user verification of how much the proposed improvement plan affects the actual user experience.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.11-27
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• 2024

This study aimed to investigate the role of scientific empathy in influencing students' productive disciplinary engagement in scientific activities and analyze the key factors of scientific empathy that manifest during this process. Twelve fifth-grade students were divided into three subgroups based on their general empathic abilities. Lessons promoting productive disciplinary engagement, integrating design thinking processes, were conducted. Subgroup discourse analysis during idea generation and prototype stages, two of five problem-solving steps, enabled observation of scientific empathy and practice aspects. The results showed that applying scientific empathy effectively through design thinking facilitated students' productive disciplinary engagement in science. In the idea generation stage, we observed an initial increase followed by a decrease in scientific empathy and practice utterances, while during the prototyping stage, utterance frequency increased, particularly in the later part. However, subgroups with lower empathic abilities displayed decreased discourse frequency in scientific empathy and practice during the prototype stage due to a lack of collaborative communication. Across all empathic ability levels, the students articulated all five key factors of scientific empathy through their utterances in situations involving productive science engagement. In the high empathic ability subgroup, empathic understanding and concern were emphasized, whereas in the low empathic ability subgroup, sensitivity, scientific imagination, and situational interest, factors of empathizing with the research object, were prominent. These results indicate that experiences of scientific empathy with research objects, beyond general empathetic abilities, serve as a distinct and crucial factor in stimulating diverse participation and sustaining students' productive engagement in scientific activities during science classes. By suggesting the potential multidimensional impact of scientific empathy on productive disciplinary engagement, this study contributes to discussions on the theoretical structure and stability of scientific empathy in science education.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.19-45
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• 2008

This study is to empirically examine the primary dimensions of visual merchandising (VMD) of internet shopping mall, namely store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues, to be a attractive virtual store to the shoppers. The authors reviewed the literature related to the major components of VMD from the perspective of the AIDA model, which has been mainly applied to the offline store settings. The major purposes of the study are as follows; first, tries to derive the variables related with the components of visual merchandising through reviewing the existing literatures, establish the hypotheses, and test it empirically. Second, examines the relationships between the components of VMD and the attitude toward the VMD, however, putting more emphasis on finding out the component structure of the VMD. VMD needs to be examined with the perspective that an online shopping mall is a virtual self-service or clerkless store, which could reduce the number of employees, help the shoppers search, evaluate and purchase for themselves, and to be explored in terms of the in-store persuasion processes of customers. This study reviewed the literatures related to store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues which might be relevant to the store, product, and promotion respectively. VMD is a total communication tool, and AIDA model could explain the in-store consumer behavior of online shopping. Store design has to do with triggering a consumer attention to the online mall, merchandise with a product related interest, and merchandising cues with promotions such as recommendation and links that induce the desire to pruchase. These three steps might be seen as the processes for purchase actions. The theoretical rationale for the relationship between VMD and AIDA could be found in Tyagi(2005) that the three steps of consumer-oriented merchandising are a store, a product assortment, and placement, in Omar(1999) that three types of interior display are a architectural design display, commodity display, and point-of-sales(POS) display, and in Davies and Ward(2005) that the retail store interior image is related to an atmosphere, merchandise, and in-store promotion. Lee et al(2000) suggested as the web merchandising components a merchandising cues, a shopping metaphor which is an assistant tool for search, a store design, a layout(web design), and a product assortment. The store design which includes differentiation, simplicity and navigation is supposed to be related to the attention to the virtual store. Second, the merchandise dimensions comprising product assortments, visual information and product reputation have to do with the interest in the product offerings. Finally, the merchandising cues that refer to merchandiser(MD)'s recommendation of products and providing the hyperlinks to relevant goods for the shopper is concerned with attempt to induce the desire to purchase. The questionnaire survey was carried out to collect the data about the consumers who would shop at internet shopping malls frequently. To select the subject malls, the mall ranking data announced by a mall rating agency was used to differentiate the most popular and least popular five mall each. The subjects was instructed to answer the questions after navigating the designated mall for five minutes. The 300 questionnaire was distributed to the consumers, 166 samples were used in the final analysis. The empirical testing focused on identifying and confirming the dimensionality of VMD and its subdimensions using a structural equation modeling method. The confirmatory factor analysis for the endogeneous and exogeneous variables was carried out in four parts. The second-order factor analysis was done for a store design, a merchandise, and a merchandising cues, and first-order confirmatory factor analysis for the attitude toward the VMD. The model test results shows that the chi-square value of structural equation is 144.39(d.f 49), significant at 0.01 level which means the proposed model was rejected. But, judging from the ratio of chi-square value vs. degree of freedom, the ratio was 2.94 which smaller than an acceptable level of 3.0, RMR is 0.087 which is higher than a generally acceptable level of 0.08. GFI and AGFI is turned out to be 0.90 and 0.84 respectively. Both NFI and NNFI is 0.94, and CFI 0.95. The major test results are as follows; first, the second-order factor analysis and structural equational modeling reveals that the differentiation, simplicity and ease of identifying current status of the transaction are confirmed to be subdimensions of store design and to be a significant predictors of the dependent variable. This result implies that when designing an online shopping mall, it is necessary to differentiate visually from other malls to improve the effectiveness of the communications of store design. That is, the differentiated store design raise the contrast stimulus to sensory organs to promote the memory of the store and to have a favorable attitude toward the VMD of a store. The results that navigation which means the easiness of identifying current status of shopping affects the attitude to VMD could be interpreted that the navigating processes via the hyperlinks which is characteristics of an internet shopping is a complex and cognitive process and shoppers are likely to lack the sense of overall structure of the store. Consequently, shoppers are likely to be alost amid shopping not knowing where to go. The orientation tool enhance the accessibility of information to raise the perceptive power about the store environment.(Titus & Everett 1995) Second, the primary dimension of merchandise and its subdimensions was confirmed to be unidimensional respectively, have a construct validity, and nomological validity which the VMD dimensions supposed to have a positive correlation with the dependent variable. The subdimensions of product assortment, brand fame and information provision proved to have a positive effect on the attitude toward the VMD. It could be interpreted that the more plentiful the product and brand assortment of the mall is, the more likely the shoppers to favor it. Brand fame and information provision as well affect the VMD attitude, which means that the more famous the brand, the more likely the shoppers would trust and feel familiar with the mall, and the plentifully and visually presented information could have the shopper have a favorable attitude toward the store VMD. Third, it turned out to be that merchandising cue of product recommendation and hyperlinks affect the VMD attitude. This could be interpreted that recommended products could reduce the uncertainty related with the purchase decision, and the hyperlinks to relevant products would help the shopper save the cognitive effort exerted into the information search and gathering, which could lead to a favorable attitude to the VMD. This study tried to sheds some new light on the VMD of online store by reviewing the variables mentioned to be relevant with offline VMD in the existing literatures, and tried to link the VMD components from the perspective of AIDA model. The effect size of the VMD dimensions on the attitude was in the order of the merchandise, the store design and the merchandising cues.It is said that an internet has an unlimited place for display, however, the virtual store is not unlimited since the consumer has a limited amount of cognitive ability to process the external information and internal memory. Particularly, the shoppers are likely to face some difficulties in decision making on account of too many alternative and information overloads. Therefore, the internet shopping mall manager should take into consideration the cost of information search on the part of the consumer, to establish the optimal product placements and search routes. An efficient store composition would be possible by reducing the psychological burdens and cognitive efforts exerted to information search and alternatives evaluation. The store image is in most part determined by the product category and its brand it deals in. The results of this study support this proposition that the merchandise is most important to the VMD attitude than other components, the manager is required to take a strategic approach to VMD. The internet users are getting more accustomed and more knowledgeable about the internet media and more likely to accept the internet as a shopping channel as the period of time during which they use the internet to shop become longer. The web merchandiser should be aware that the product introduction using a moving pictures and a bulletin board become more important in order to present the interactive product information visually and communicate with customers more actively, therefore leading to making the quantity and quality of product information more rich.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technology Innovation Society Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.545-570
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• 2015

Korea is among the ten countries with the largest R&D budget and the highest R&D investment-to-GDP ratio, yet the subject of security and protection of R&D results remains relatively unexplored in the country. Countries have implemented in their legal systems measures to properly protect cutting-edge industrial technologies that would adversely affect national security and economy if leaked to other countries. While Korea has a generally stable legal framework as provided in the Regulation on the National R&D Program Management (the "Regulation") and the Act on Industrial Technology Protection, many difficulties follow in practice when determining details on security management and obligations and setting standards in carrying out national R&D projects. This paper proposes to modify and improve security level classification standards in the Regulation. The Regulation provides a dual security level decision-making system for R&D projects: the security level can be determined either by researcher or by the central agency in charge of the project. Unification of such a dual system can avoid unnecessary confusions. To prevent a leakage, it is crucial that research projects be carried out in compliance with their assigned security levels and standards and results be effectively managed. The paper examines from a practitioner's perspective relevant legal provisions on leakage of confidential R&D projects, infringement, injunction, punishment, attempt and conspiracy, dual liability, duty of report to the National Intelligence Service (the "NIS") of security management process and other security issues arising from national R&D projects, and manual drafting in case of a breach. The paper recommends to train security and technological experts such as industrial security experts to properly amend laws on security level classification standards and relevant technological contents. A quarterly policy development committee must also be set up by the NIS in cooperation with relevant organizations. The committee shall provide a project management manual that provides step-by-step guidance for organizations that carry out national R&D projects as a preventive measure against possible leakage. In the short term, the NIS National Industrial Security Center's duties should be expanded to incorporate national R&D projects' security. In the long term, a security task force must be set up to protect, support and manage the projects whose responsibilities should include research, policy development, PR and training of security-related issues. Through these means, a social consensus must be reached on the need for protecting national R&D projects. The most efficient way to implement these measures is to facilitate security training programs and meetings that provide opportunities for communication among industrial security experts and researchers. Furthermore, the Regulation's security provisions must be examined and improved.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.269-276
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• 1996

A theroretical study was made on the psychodynamism of somatoform disorder. Somatoform disorder is caused by a defense mechanism of somatization. Somatization is the tendency to react to stimuli(drives, defenses, and conflict between them) physically rather than psychically(Moore, 1990). Ford(1983) said it is a way of life, and Dunbar(1954) said it is the shift of psychic energy toward expression in somatic symptoms. As used by Max Shur(1955), somatization links symptom formation to the regression that may occur in response to acute and chronic conflict. In the neurotic individual psychic conflict often provokes regressive phenomena that may include somatic manifestations characteristic of an earlier developmental phase. Schur calls this resomatization. Pain is the most common example of a somatization reaction to conflict. The pain has an unconscious significance derived from childhood experiences. It is used to win love, to punish misdeeds, as well as a means to amend. Among all pains, chest pain has a special meaning. Generally speaking, 'I have pain in my chest' is about the same as 'I have pain in my mind'. The chest represent the mind, and the mind reminds us about the heart. So we have a high tendency to recognize mental pain as cardiac pain. Kellner(1990) said rage and hostility, especially repressed hostility, are important factors in somatization. In 'Psychoanalytic Observation on Cardiac Pain', psychoanalyst Bacon(1953) presented clinical cases of patients who complained of cardiac pain in a psychoanalytic session that spread from the left side of their chests down their left arms. The pain was from rage and fear which came after their desire to be loved was frustrated by the analyet. She said desires related to cardiac pain were dependency needs and aggressions. Empatic relationship and therapeutic alliances are indispensable to psychotherapy in somatoform disorder. The beginning of therapy is to discover a precipitating event from the time their symptoms have started and to help the patient understand a relation between the symptom and precipitating event. Its remedial process is to find and interpret a intrapsychic conflict shown through the symptoms of the patient. Three cases of somatoform disorder patients treated based on this therapeutic method were introduced. The firt patient, Mr. H, had been suffering from hysterical aphasia with repressed rage as ie psychodynamic cause. An interpretation related to the precipitating event was given by written communication, and he recovered from his aphasia after 3 days of the session. The second patient was a dentist in a cardiac neurosis with agitation and hypochondriasis, whose psychodynamism was caused by a fear that he might lose his father's love. His symptom was also interpreted in relation to the precipitating event. It showed the patient a child-within afraid of losing his father's love. His condition improved after getting a didactic interpretation which told him, to be master of himself, The third patient was a lady transferred from the deparment of internal medicine. She had a frequent and violent fit of chest pains, whose psychodynamic cause was separation anxiety and a rage due to the frustration of dependency needs. Her symptom vanished dramatically when she wore a holler EKG monitor and did not occur during monitoring. By this experience she found her symptom was a psychogenic one, and a therapeutic alliance was formed. later in reguar psychotherapy sessions, she was told the relaton between symptoms and precipitating events. Through this she understood that her separation anxiety was connected to the symptom and she became less terrifide when it occurred. Now she can travel abroad and take well part in social activities.

• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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• no.38
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• pp.349-383
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• 2019

This discussion is focused on Donghaeanbyulsingut's 'gutchum-pan to pray'. 'Gutchum-pan to pray' is repeated in almost all of the geori in Byulsingut, so it is a crucial chum-pan that can never be disregarded in understanding Byulsingutchum. Meanwhile, it supposes that Donghaeanbyulsingut is grounded on the activity of producing 'praying (words) and dance (motions)' within its relationship with the structure of capitalistic society along with the context of traditional rituals. The motion that is newly generated as a response to the concrete expression of 'praying' conducted by a mudang (a shaman), that is, the expression coming from the inside associated with the praying is seen as gutchum. This dance is bound to be in competition and interest among shaman groups, and they tend to influence one another. If praying leads to dance, a mudang can gain profits from capital as well as the value of labor. When the mudang succeeds in forming a bigger bond of sympathy with her praying, the object of praying gets more eager to select byulbi and dances a heoteunchum (impromptu dance) more vigorously. This means that a mudang's ability to perform a ritual is associated with the object of praying's consumption. With his impromptu motions, the object of praying comes to go into 'the field of consumption' within the structure of capitalistic competition before he is aware of it. Behind the communication that praying leads to dance, a lot of things are associated with one another organically. 'Gutchum-pan to pray' is generated by the continuous movement of diversity and unity that the time has within the ritual of the mudang and the object of praying. It continues to create the future 'self' that is different from the present 'self', and it means that he expects variability from the present 'self' through 'gutchum-pan to pray'. The mudang also prays for him arranging the variability of the other (the object of praying) inside her labor. In a big picture, of course, the mudang expects the variability of herself, too, which is connected to the value of her labor. The variability that they expect forms a crucial axis that determines where the flow of time and space that the 'gutchum-pan to pray' has is directed to. The contents of praying are directly related with the villagers' lives, and what leads to dance is mostly related with their jobs. This implies that what the mudang experiences in her everyday consuming activity is directly associated with the villagers' activity for earning money. In other words, the contents of that praying change constantly according to the flow of capitalistic economy. Also, those striving to respond to it before anyone else also expect better life for them by substituting their self to the 'gutchum-pan to pray' eagerly. If so, who are the ones that generate 'gutchum-pan to pray'? This can be understood through relationship among mudangs, relationship between the mudang and villagers, and also relationship among villagers. Their relationships can never be free from the concepts like labor in capitalistic society, consumption and expenditure, or time; therefore, they come to compete with the other, the present self, or the better self within the diverse relationships. This gets to be expressed in any ways, words or motions. And the range that covers the creation of either group or individual 'gutchum-pan to pray' in the village is the village community. Outside the range, it is upsized to the competition of the village unit, so individual praying may become diminished more easily. Although mudangs pray in each geori, it does not mean all praying leads to dance. Within various relationships between mudangs and villagers, 'gutchum-pan to pray' comes to be generated, repeated, and extinct. As it is mitigated to more positive competition, it does not lead to gutchum any longer. In other words, repeating 'gutchum-pan to pray' previously created has turned the object of praying into the state different from the former. Also, the two groups both have experienced the last step of Byulsingut, and at that point, praying does no longer lead to dance. In other words, from the position of the shaman group, it is the finish of their labor time and ritual performance, and from the perspective of the villagers, it means the finish of consuming activity and participation in a ritual. The characteristics of 'gutchum-pan to pray' can be summarized as follows. First, it goes through the following process: competition in the village group → competition in the group → competition among individuals. Second, repeated praying does not lead to 'gutchum'. Third, in the cases of praying for each of the occupation groups, the mudang can induce a bond of sympathy from the objects of praying directly, and this lead to dance. Fourth, the group that fails in being included in the category of praying gets to be alienated from 'gutchum-pan to pray' repeatedly.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.247-268
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• 1996

It has been known for a long time that gonadotropins and steroid hormones play a pivotal role in a series of reproductive biological phenomena including the maturation of ovarian follicles and oocytes, ovulation and implantation, maintenance of pregnancy and fetal growth & development, parturition and mammary development and lactation. Recent investigations, however, have elucidated that in addition to these classic hormones, multiple growth factors also are involved in these phenomena. Most growth factors in reproductive organs mediate the actions of gonadotropins and steroid hormones or synergize with them in an autocrine/paracrine manner. The insulin-like growth factor(IGF) system, which is one of the most actively investigated areas lately in the reproductive organs, has been found to have important roles in a wide gamut of reproductive phenomena. In the present communication, published literature pertaining to the intrauterine IGF system will be reviewed preceded by general information of the IGF system. The IGF family comprises of IGF-I & IGF-II ligands, two types of IGF receptors and six classes of IGF-binding proteins(IGFBPs) that are known to date. IGF-I and IGF-II peptides, which are structurally homologous to proinsulin, possess the insulin-like activity including the stimulatory effect of glucose and amino acid transport. Besides, IGFs as mitogens stimulate cell division, and also play a role in cellular differentiation and functions in a variety of cell lines. IGFs are expressed mainly in the liver and messenchymal cells, and act on almost all types of tissues in an autocrine/paracrine as well as endocrine mode. There are two types of IGF receptors. Type I IGF receptors, which are tyrosine kinase receptors having high-affinity for IGF-I and IGF-II, mediate almost all the IGF actions that are described above. Type II IGF receptors or IGF-II/mannose-6-phosphate receptors have two distinct binding sites; the IGF-II binding site exhibits a high affinity only for IGF-II. The principal role of the type II IGF receptor is to destroy IGF-II by targeting the ligand to the lysosome. IGFs in biological fluids are mostly bound to IGFBP. IGFBPs, in general, are IGF storage/carrier proteins or modulators of IGF actions; however, as for distinct roles for individual IGFBPs, only limited information is available. IGFBPs inhibit IGF actions under most in vitro situations, seemingly because affinities of IGFBPs for IGFs are greater than those of IGF receptors. How IGF is released from IGFBP to reach IGF receptors is not known; however, various IGFBP protease activities that are present in blood and interstitial fluids are believed to play an important role in the process of IGF release from the IGFBP. According to latest reports, there is evidence that under certain in vitro circumstances, IGFBP-1, -3, -5 have their own biological activities independent of the IGF. This may add another dimension of complexity of the already complicated IGF system. Messenger ribonucleic acids and proteins of the IGF family members are expressed in the uterine tissue and conceptus of the primates, rodents and farm animals to play important roles in growth and development of the uterus and fetus. Expression of the uterine IGF system is regulated by gonadal hormones and local regulatory substances with temporal and spatial specificities. Locally expressed IGFs and IGFBPs act on the uterine tissue in an autocrine/paracrine manner, or are secreted into the uterine lumen to participate in conceptus growth and development. Conceptus also expresses the IGF system beginning from the peri-implantation period. When an IGF family member is expressed in the conceptus, however, is determined by the presence or absence of maternally inherited mRNAs, genetic programming of the conceptus itself and an interaction with the maternal tissue. The site of IGF action also follows temporal (physiological status) and spatial specificities. These facts that expression of the IGF system is temporally and spatially regulated support indirectly a hypothesis that IGFs play a role in conceptus growth and development. Uterine and conceptus-derived IGFs stimulate cell division and differentiation, glucose and amino acid transport, general protein synthesis and the biosynthesis of mammotropic hormones including placental lactogen and prolactin, and also play a role in steroidogenesis. The suggested role for IGFs in conceptus growth and development has been proven by the result of IGF-I, IGF-II or IGF receptor gene disruption(targeting) of murine embryos by the homologous recombination technique. Mice carrying a null mutation for IGF-I and/or IGF-II or type I IGF receptor undergo delayed prenatal and postnatal growth and development with 30-60% normal weights at birth. Moreover, mice lacking the type I IGF receptor or IGF-I plus IGF-II die soon after birth. Intrauterine IGFBPs generally are believed to sequester IGF ligands within the uterus or to play a role of negative regulators of IGF actions by inhibiting IGF binding to cognate receptors. However, when it is taken into account that IGFBP-1 is expressed and secreted in primate uteri in amounts assessedly far exceeding those of local IGFs and that IGFBP-1 is one of the major secretory proteins of the primate decidua, the possibility that this IGFBP may have its own biological activity independent of IGF cannot be excluded. Evidently, elucidating the exact role of each IGFBP is an essential step into understanding the whole IGF system. As such, further research in this area is awaited with a lot of anticipation and attention.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.