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Natural Language Processing Model for Data Visualization Interaction in Chatbot Environment (챗봇 환경에서 데이터 시각화 인터랙션을 위한 자연어처리 모델)

  • Oh, Sang Heon;Hur, Su Jin;Kim, Sung-Hee
    • KIPS Transactions on Computer and Communication Systems
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    • v.9 no.11
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    • pp.281-290
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    • 2020
  • With the spread of smartphones, services that want to use personalized data are increasing. In particular, healthcare-related services deal with a variety of data, and data visualization techniques are used to effectively show this. As data visualization techniques are used, interactions in visualization are also naturally emphasized. In the PC environment, since the interaction for data visualization is performed with a mouse, various filtering for data is provided. On the other hand, in the case of interaction in a mobile environment, the screen size is small and it is difficult to recognize whether or not the interaction is possible, so that only limited visualization provided by the app can be provided through a button touch method. In order to overcome the limitation of interaction in such a mobile environment, we intend to enable data visualization interactions through conversations with chatbots so that users can check individual data through various visualizations. To do this, it is necessary to convert the user's query into a query and retrieve the result data through the converted query in the database that is storing data periodically. There are many studies currently being done to convert natural language into queries, but research on converting user queries into queries based on visualization has not been done yet. Therefore, in this paper, we will focus on query generation in a situation where a data visualization technique has been determined in advance. Supported interactions are filtering on task x-axis values and comparison between two groups. The test scenario utilized data on the number of steps, and filtering for the x-axis period was shown as a bar graph, and a comparison between the two groups was shown as a line graph. In order to develop a natural language processing model that can receive requested information through visualization, about 15,800 training data were collected through a survey of 1,000 people. As a result of algorithm development and performance evaluation, about 89% accuracy in classification model and 99% accuracy in query generation model was obtained.

A Study on Analyzing Sentiments on Movie Reviews by Multi-Level Sentiment Classifier (영화 리뷰 감성분석을 위한 텍스트 마이닝 기반 감성 분류기 구축)

  • Kim, Yuyoung;Song, Min
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.22 no.3
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    • pp.71-89
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    • 2016
  • Sentiment analysis is used for identifying emotions or sentiments embedded in the user generated data such as customer reviews from blogs, social network services, and so on. Various research fields such as computer science and business management can take advantage of this feature to analyze customer-generated opinions. In previous studies, the star rating of a review is regarded as the same as sentiment embedded in the text. However, it does not always correspond to the sentiment polarity. Due to this supposition, previous studies have some limitations in their accuracy. To solve this issue, the present study uses a supervised sentiment classification model to measure a more accurate sentiment polarity. This study aims to propose an advanced sentiment classifier and to discover the correlation between movie reviews and box-office success. The advanced sentiment classifier is based on two supervised machine learning techniques, the Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Feedforward Neural Network (FNN). The sentiment scores of the movie reviews are measured by the sentiment classifier and are analyzed by statistical correlations between movie reviews and box-office success. Movie reviews are collected along with a star-rate. The dataset used in this study consists of 1,258,538 reviews from 175 films gathered from Naver Movie website (movie.naver.com). The results show that the proposed sentiment classifier outperforms Naive Bayes (NB) classifier as its accuracy is about 6% higher than NB. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are positive correlations between the star-rate and the number of audiences, which can be regarded as the box-office success of a movie. The study also shows that there is the mild, positive correlation between the sentiment scores estimated by the classifier and the number of audiences. To verify the applicability of the sentiment scores, an independent sample t-test was conducted. For this, the movies were divided into two groups using the average of sentiment scores. The two groups are significantly different in terms of the star-rated scores.

Comparative analysis of RN-BSN Program in Korea and U. S. A. (간호학사 편입학제도의 교과과정 비교분석)

  • Lee Ok-Ja;Kim Hyun-Sil
    • The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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    • v.3
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    • pp.99-116
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    • 1997
  • In response of the increasing demand for professional degree in nursing, some university in Korea offers RN-BSN program for R. N. from diploma in nursing. However, RN-BSN program in Korea is in formative period. Therefore, the purpose of this survey study is for the comparative analysis of RN-BSN curriculum in Korea and U.S.A. In this study, subjects consisted of 18 department of nursing in university and 5 RN-BSN programs in Korea and 18 department of nursing in university and 12 RN-BSN programs in U.S.A. For earn the degree of Bachelor of Science in Nursing, the student earns 134 of mean credits in U.S.A., whereas 150.3 of mean credits in Korea. The mean credit for clinical pratice is 30.1 in U.S.A., whereas 23.9 in Korea. Students are assigned to individually planned clinical experiences under the direction of a preceptor in U.S.A. In RN-BSN program, total mean credits through lecture and clinical practice for earn the degree of BSN is 35.5(lecture : 27.7, practice ; 7.8)in U.S.A., whereas,48.1 (lecture;42.1, practice;6.0) in Korea. RN-BSN program can be taken on a full-or-part time basis in U.S.A., whereas didn't in Korea. Especially, emphasis is place on the advanced nursing practicum that focus on the role of the professional nurse in providing health care to individuals, families, and groups in community setting in U.S.A. 27.7 of mean credits was earned through lecture in U.S.A., whereas 42.1 of mean credits in Korea. It means that RN-BSN program in Korea is the lesser development in teaching method and appraisal method than in U.S.A. Students of RN-BSN program in U.S.A. can earns credit through CLEP, NLN achievement test, portfolio review session etc as well as lecture. Therefore, the authors suggests some recommendations for the development of curriculum of RN-BSN program in Korea based on comparative analysis of RN-BSN curricula in U.S.A. and Korea. 1. The curriculum of RN-BSN Program in nursing was required to do some alterations. Nursing care, today, is complex and ever changing. According to change of public need, RN-BSN curriculum intensified primary care program in community setting, geriatric nursing, marketing skill, computer language. 2. The various and new methods of earning credit should be developed. That is, the students will earn credits through the transfer of previous nursing college credits, accredited examination of university, advanced placement examination, portfolio review session, case study, report, self-directed learning and so on. Flexible teaching place should ile offered. 3. Flexible teaching place should be offered. The RN-BSN curriculum should accommodate each RN student's geographical needs and school/work schedule. Therefore, the university should search a variety of teaching places and the RN students can obtain their degrees comfortably throughout the teaching place such as lecture room inside the health care agency and establishment of the branch school in each student's residence area. 4. The RN-BSN program should offer a long distance education to place-bound RN student in many parts of Korea. That is, from the main office of university, the RN-BSN courses are delivered to many areas by Internet, EdNet (satellite telecommunication) and other non-traditional methods. 5. For allowing RN student to take nursing courses, program length should be various, depending upon the student's study/work schedule. That is, the various term systems such as semester, three terms, quarter systems and the student's status like full time or part time should be considered. Therefore, the student can take advantage of the many other educational and professional opportunities, making them available during the school year.

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Monte Carlo Simulations of Selection Responses for Improving High Meat Qualities Using Real Time Ultrasound in Korean Cattle (초음파측정 활용 고급육형 한우개량을 위한 선발반응 Monte Carlo 모의실험)

  • Lee, D. H.
    • Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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    • v.45 no.3
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    • pp.343-354
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    • 2003
  • Simulation studies were carried out to investigate the responses of selection for three carcass traits (longissimus muscle area: EMA, fat thickness: BF, and marbling score: MS) based on either adjusted phenotypes (APH) or estimated breeding values (EBV) in multivariate animal model with different breeding schemes. Selection responses were estimated and compared on six different models with respect to breeding schemes using either carcass measurements or real time ultrasonic (RTU) scans generated by Monte Carlo computer simulation supporting closed breeding population. From the base population with 100 sires and 2000 dams, 20 sires and 1000 dams by each generation were selected by either APH or EBV for 10 generations. Relative economic weights were equal of three traits as EMA(1): BF(-1) : MS(1) for standardized either APH or EBV. For first two models which were similarly designed with current progeny-test program in Korean cattle, three carcass traits with records either only on male progenies (Model 1) or on male and female progenies (Model 2) were used for selecting breeding stocks. Subsequently, generation intervals on males were assumed as 6${\sim}$10 years in these two models. The other two models were designed with tools of selection by RTU rather than carcass measurements with genetic correlations of 0.81${\sim}$0.97 between RTU and corresponding carcass traits in addition to whether with records (Model 4) or without records (Model 3) on female. In these cases, generation intervals on males were assumed as 2${\sim}$4 years. The remaining last two models were designed as similar with Models 3 and 4 except genetic correlations of 0.63${\sim}$0.68 between RTU and corresponding carcass traits with records (Model 6) and without records (Model 5) on females. The results from 10 replicates on each model and selecting methods suggested that responses indirect selection for carcass traits in Model 4 were 1.66${\sim}$2.44 times efficient rather than those in Model 1. Otherwise, in Model 6 with assuming moderate genetic correlations, those efficiencies were 1.18${\sim}$2.08 times with comparing to responses in Model 1. However, selection response for marbling score was the smallest among three carcass traits because of small variation of measurements. From these results, this study suggested that indirect selection using RTU technology for improving high meat qualities in Korean cattle would be valuable with modifying measuring rules of marbling score forward to large variation or modifying relative economic weight for selection.

Social Tagging-based Recommendation Platform for Patented Technology Transfer (특허의 기술이전 활성화를 위한 소셜 태깅기반 지적재산권 추천플랫폼)

  • Park, Yoon-Joo
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.21 no.3
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    • pp.53-77
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    • 2015
  • Korea has witnessed an increasing number of domestic patent applications, but a majority of them are not utilized to their maximum potential but end up becoming obsolete. According to the 2012 National Congress' Inspection of Administration, about 73% of patents possessed by universities and public-funded research institutions failed to lead to creating social values, but remain latent. One of the main problem of this issue is that patent creators such as individual researcher, university, or research institution lack abilities to commercialize their patents into viable businesses with those enterprises that are in need of them. Also, for enterprises side, it is hard to find the appropriate patents by searching keywords on all such occasions. This system proposes a patent recommendation system that can identify and recommend intellectual rights appropriate to users' interested fields among a rapidly accumulating number of patent assets in a more easy and efficient manner. The proposed system extracts core contents and technology sectors from the existing pool of patents, and combines it with secondary social knowledge, which derives from tags information created by users, in order to find the best patents recommended for users. That is to say, in an early stage where there is no accumulated tag information, the recommendation is done by utilizing content characteristics, which are identified through an analysis of key words contained in such parameters as 'Title of Invention' and 'Claim' among the various patent attributes. In order to do this, the suggested system extracts only nouns from patents and assigns a weight to each noun according to the importance of it in all patents by performing TF-IDF analysis. After that, it finds patents which have similar weights with preferred patents by a user. In this paper, this similarity is called a "Domain Similarity". Next, the suggested system extract technology sector's characteristics from patent document by analyzing the international technology classification code (International Patent Classification, IPC). Every patents have more than one IPC, and each user can attach more than one tag to the patents they like. Thus, each user has a set of IPC codes included in tagged patents. The suggested system manages this IPC set to analyze technology preference of each user and find the well-fitted patents for them. In order to do this, the suggeted system calcuates a 'Technology_Similarity' between a set of IPC codes and IPC codes contained in all other patents. After that, when the tag information of multiple users are accumulated, the system expands the recommendations in consideration of other users' social tag information relating to the patent that is tagged by a concerned user. The similarity between tag information of perferred 'patents by user and other patents are called a 'Social Simialrity' in this paper. Lastly, a 'Total Similarity' are calculated by adding these three differenent similarites and patents having the highest 'Total Similarity' are recommended to each user. The suggested system are applied to a total of 1,638 korean patents obtained from the Korea Industrial Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS) run by the Korea Intellectual Property Office. However, since this original dataset does not include tag information, we create virtual tag information and utilized this to construct the semi-virtual dataset. The proposed recommendation algorithm was implemented with JAVA, a computer programming language, and a prototype graphic user interface was also designed for this study. As the proposed system did not have dependent variables and uses virtual data, it is impossible to verify the recommendation system with a statistical method. Therefore, the study uses a scenario test method to verify the operational feasibility and recommendation effectiveness of the system. The results of this study are expected to improve the possibility of matching promising patents with the best suitable businesses. It is assumed that users' experiential knowledge can be accumulated, managed, and utilized in the As-Is patent system, which currently only manages standardized patent information.

Performance Prediction for an Adaptive Optics System Using Two Analysis Methods: Statistical Analysis and Computational Simulation (통계분석 및 전산모사 기법을 이용한 적응광학 시스템 성능 예측)

  • Han, Seok Gi;Joo, Ji Yong;Lee, Jun Ho;Park, Sang Yeong;Kim, Young Soo;Jung, Yong Suk;Jung, Do Hwan;Huh, Joon;Lee, Kihun
    • Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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    • v.33 no.4
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    • pp.167-176
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    • 2022
  • Adaptive optics (AO) systems compensate for atmospheric disturbance, especially phase distortion, by introducing counter-wavefront deformation calculated from real-time wavefront sensing or prediction. Because AO system implementations are time-consuming and costly, it is highly desirable to estimate the system's performance during the development of the AO system or its parts. Among several techniques, we mostly apply statistical analysis, computational simulation, and optical-bench tests. Statistical analysis estimates performance based on the sum of performance variances due to all design parameters, but ignores any correlation between them. Computational simulation models every part of an adaptive optics system, including atmospheric disturbance and a closed loop between wavefront sensor and deformable mirror, as close as possible to reality, but there are still some differences between simulation models and reality. The optical-bench test implements an almost identical AO system on an optical bench, to confirm the predictions of the previous methods. We are currently developing an AO system for a 1.6-m ground telescope using a deformable mirror that was recently developed in South Korea. This paper reports the results of the statistical analysis and computer simulation for the system's design and confirmation. For the analysis, we apply the Strehl ratio as the performance criterion, and the median seeing conditions at the Bohyun observatory in Korea. The statistical analysis predicts a Strehl ratio of 0.31. The simulation method similarly reports a slightly larger value of 0.32. During the study, the simulation method exhibits run-to-run variation due to the random nature of atmospheric disturbance, which converges when the simulation time is longer than 0.9 seconds, i.e., approximately 240 times the critical time constant of the applied atmospheric disturbance.

Association between Texture Analysis Parameters and Molecular Biologic KRAS Mutation in Non-Mucinous Rectal Cancer (원발성 비점액성 직장암 환자에서 자기공명영상 기반 텍스처 분석 변수와 KRAS 유전자 변이와의 연관성)

  • Sung Jae Jo;Seung Ho Kim;Sang Joon Park;Yedaun Lee;Jung Hee Son
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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    • v.82 no.2
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    • pp.406-416
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    • 2021
  • Purpose To evaluate the association between magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based texture parameters and Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) mutation in patients with non-mucinous rectal cancer. Materials and Methods Seventy-nine patients who had pathologically confirmed rectal non-mucinous adenocarcinoma with or without KRAS-mutation and had undergone rectal MRI were divided into a training (n = 46) and validation dataset (n = 33). A texture analysis was performed on the axial T2-weighted images. The association was statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test. To extract an optimal cut-off value for the prediction of KRAS mutation, a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed. The cut-off value was verified using the validation dataset. Results In the training dataset, skewness in the mutant group (n = 22) was significantly higher than in the wild-type group (n = 24) (0.221 ± 0.283; -0.006 ± 0.178, respectively, p = 0.003). The area under the curve of the skewness was 0.757 (95% confidence interval, 0.606 to 0.872) with a maximum accuracy of 71%, a sensitivity of 64%, and a specificity of 78%. None of the other texture parameters were associated with KRAS mutation (p > 0.05). When a cut-off value of 0.078 was applied to the validation dataset, this had an accuracy of 76%, a sensitivity of 86%, and a specificity of 68%. Conclusion Skewness was associated with KRAS mutation in patients with non-mucinous rectal cancer.

Automatic gasometer reading system using selective optical character recognition (관심 문자열 인식 기술을 이용한 가스계량기 자동 검침 시스템)

  • Lee, Kyohyuk;Kim, Taeyeon;Kim, Wooju
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.26 no.2
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    • pp.1-25
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    • 2020
  • In this paper, we suggest an application system architecture which provides accurate, fast and efficient automatic gasometer reading function. The system captures gasometer image using mobile device camera, transmits the image to a cloud server on top of private LTE network, and analyzes the image to extract character information of device ID and gas usage amount by selective optical character recognition based on deep learning technology. In general, there are many types of character in an image and optical character recognition technology extracts all character information in an image. But some applications need to ignore non-of-interest types of character and only have to focus on some specific types of characters. For an example of the application, automatic gasometer reading system only need to extract device ID and gas usage amount character information from gasometer images to send bill to users. Non-of-interest character strings, such as device type, manufacturer, manufacturing date, specification and etc., are not valuable information to the application. Thus, the application have to analyze point of interest region and specific types of characters to extract valuable information only. We adopted CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) based object detection and CRNN (Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network) technology for selective optical character recognition which only analyze point of interest region for selective character information extraction. We build up 3 neural networks for the application system. The first is a convolutional neural network which detects point of interest region of gas usage amount and device ID information character strings, the second is another convolutional neural network which transforms spatial information of point of interest region to spatial sequential feature vectors, and the third is bi-directional long short term memory network which converts spatial sequential information to character strings using time-series analysis mapping from feature vectors to character strings. In this research, point of interest character strings are device ID and gas usage amount. Device ID consists of 12 arabic character strings and gas usage amount consists of 4 ~ 5 arabic character strings. All system components are implemented in Amazon Web Service Cloud with Intel Zeon E5-2686 v4 CPU and NVidia TESLA V100 GPU. The system architecture adopts master-lave processing structure for efficient and fast parallel processing coping with about 700,000 requests per day. Mobile device captures gasometer image and transmits to master process in AWS cloud. Master process runs on Intel Zeon CPU and pushes reading request from mobile device to an input queue with FIFO (First In First Out) structure. Slave process consists of 3 types of deep neural networks which conduct character recognition process and runs on NVidia GPU module. Slave process is always polling the input queue to get recognition request. If there are some requests from master process in the input queue, slave process converts the image in the input queue to device ID character string, gas usage amount character string and position information of the strings, returns the information to output queue, and switch to idle mode to poll the input queue. Master process gets final information form the output queue and delivers the information to the mobile device. We used total 27,120 gasometer images for training, validation and testing of 3 types of deep neural network. 22,985 images were used for training and validation, 4,135 images were used for testing. We randomly splitted 22,985 images with 8:2 ratio for training and validation respectively for each training epoch. 4,135 test image were categorized into 5 types (Normal, noise, reflex, scale and slant). Normal data is clean image data, noise means image with noise signal, relfex means image with light reflection in gasometer region, scale means images with small object size due to long-distance capturing and slant means images which is not horizontally flat. Final character string recognition accuracies for device ID and gas usage amount of normal data are 0.960 and 0.864 respectively.

State of Mind in the Flow 4-Channel Model and Play (플로우 4경로모형의 마음상태와 플레이(play))

  • Sohn, Jun-Sang
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.1-29
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    • 2007
  • The flow theory becomes one of the most important frameworks in the internet research arena. Hoffman and Novak proposed a hierarchical flow model showing the antecedents and outcomes of flow and the relationship among these variables in the hyper-media computer circumstances (Hoffman and Novak 1996). This model was further tested after their initial research (Novak, Hoffman, and Yung 2000). At their paper, Hoffman and Novak explained that the balance of challenge and skill leads to flow which means the positive optimal state of mind (Hoffman and Novak 1996). An imbalance between challenge and skill, leads to negative states of mind like anxiety, boredom, apathy (Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi 1988). Almost all research on the flow 4-channel model have been focusingon flow, the positive state of mind (Ellis, Voelkl, and Morris 1994 Mathwick and Rigdon 2004). However, it also needs to examine the formation of the negative states of minds and their outcomes. Flow researchers explain play or playfulness as antecedents or the early state of flow. However, play has been regarded as a distinct concept from flow in the flow literatures (Hoffman and Novak 1996; Novak, Hoffman, and Yung 2000). Mathwick and Rigdon discovered the influences of challenge and skill on play; they also observed the influence of play on web-loyalty and brand loyalty (Mathwick and Rigdon 2004). Unfortunately, they did not go so far as to test the influences of play on state of mind. This study focuses on the relationships between state of mind in the flow 4-channel model and play. Early research has attempted to hypothetically explain state of mind in flow theory, but has not been tested except flow until now. Also the importance of play has been emphasized in the flow theory, but has not been tested in the flow 4-channel model context. This researcher attempts to analyze the relationships among state of mind, skill of play, challenge, state of mind and web loyalty. For this objective, I developed a measure for state of mind and defined the concept of play as a trait. Then, the influences of challenge and skill on the state of mind and play under on-line shopping conditions were tested. Also the influences of play on state of mind were tested and those of flow and play on web loyalty were highlighted. 294 undergraduate students participated in this research survey. They were asked to respond about their perceptions of challenge, skill, state of mind, play, and web-loyalty to on-line shopping mall. Respondents were restricted to students who bought products on-line in a month. In case of buying products at two or more on-line shopping malls, they asked to respond about the shopping mall where they bought the most important one. Construct validity, discriminant validity, and convergent validity were used to check the measurement validations. Also, Cronbach's alpha was used to check scale reliability. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. This researcher conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of measurements. All items loaded significantly on their respective constructs. Also, all reliabilities were greater than.70. Chi-square difference tests and goodness of fit tests supported discriminant and convergent validity. The results of clustering and ANOVA showed that high challenge and high skill leaded to flow, low challenge and high skill leaded to boredom, and low challenge and low skill leaded to apathy. But, it was different from my expectation that high challenge and low skill didnot lead to anxiety but leaded to apathy. The results also showed that high challenge and high skill, and high challenge and low skill leaded to the highest play. Low challenge leaded to low play. 4 Structural Equation Models were built by flow, anxiety, boredom, apathy for analyzing not only the impact of play on state of mind and web-loyalty, but also that of state of mind on web-loyalty. According the analyses results of these models, play impacted flow and web-loyalty positively, but impacted anxiety, boredom, and apathy negatively. Results also showed that flow impacted web-loyalty positively, but anxiety, boredom, and apathy impacted web-loyalty negatively. The interpretations and implications of the test results of the hypotheses are as follows. First, respondents belonging to different clusters based on challenge and skill level experienced different states of mind such as flow, anxiety, boredom, apathy. The low challenge and low skill group felt the highest anxiety and apathy. It could be interpreted that this group feeling high anxiety or fear, then avoided attempts to shop on-line. Second, it was found that higher challenge leads to higher levels of play. Test results show that the play level of the high challenge and low skill group (anxiety group) was higher than that of the high challenge and high skill group (flow group). However, this was not significant. Third, play positively impacted flow and negatively impacted boredom. The negative impacts on anxiety and apathy were not significant. This means that the combination of challenge and skill creates different results. Forth, play and flow positively impacted web-loyalty, but anxiety, boredom, apathy had negative impacts. The effect of play on web-loyalty was stronger in case of anxiety, boredom, apathy group than fl ow group. These results show that challenge and skill influences state of mind and play. Results also demonstrate how play and flow influence web-loyalty. It implies that state of mind and play should be the core marketing variables in internet marketing. The flow theory has been focusing on flow and on the positive outcomes of flow experiences. But, this research shows that lots of consumers experience the negative state of mind rather than flow state in the internet shopping circumstance. Results show that the negative state of mind leads to low or negative web-loyalty. Play can have an important role with the web-loyalty when consumers have the negative state of mind. Results of structural equation model analyses show that play influences web-loyalty positively, even though consumers may be in the negative state of mind. This research found the impacts of challenge and skill on state of mind in the flow 4-channel model, not only flow but also anxiety, boredom, apathy. Also, it highlighted the role of play in the flow 4-channel model context and impacts on web-loyalty. However, tests show a few different results from hypothetical expectations such as the highest anxiety level of apathy group and insignificant impacts of play on anxiety and apathy. Further research needs to replicate this research and/or to compare 3-channel model with 4-channel model.

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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.