• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.152-161
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• 2023

Modern people live a life connected with the real world and the virtual world by relying on the new media of enterprises and social consumption led by innovative technologies. In this environment, virtual influencers actively communicate with consumers and build relationships through social media, which is a new marketing tool that has attracted widespread attention. From a business perspective, it is necessary to have a solid understanding of this phenomenon, and then explore communication strategies to effectively develop virtual influencers. To investigate followers' preference for virtual influencers, this study employs the Q-method, which studies human subjective attributes, an empirical research effort to uncover complex issues in human subjectivity. To determine the factors that trigger people's voluntary and active practice and the preference degree of virtual influencers, the Q method is implemented to examine human subjectivity, thoughts and attitudes. According to the results of this study, virtual influencers are a new group of idols full of vitality. The interviews found that there are still many virtual influencers who do not know about followers, but each type can be clearly understood through the intuitive understanding of the interviewees. Divided out, type 1 one egoideal virtual influencers aim to represent an idealized version of the creator or target audience. Embodies ideal physical characteristics, personality or lifestyle desired by the audience. Type 2 is charismatic and attractive, and has the characteristics of most virtual influencers. It is suggested that it can be developed into a potential type, doing brand cooperation, and content production on social media platforms. Type 3: Game animation, derived from the image of characters in games or comics, with stylized features and energetic personalities, which can be integrated into games or entertainment experiences. Type 4 development potential type is the most successful type among virtual imagers, and it is also the purpose of marketing virtual influencers. It is essential that brand endorsement on social media platforms, integrated marketing, and driving advertising traffic. It is recommended to improve production technology to reduce investment costs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.113-125
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• 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a model for predicting mental health risk among adolescents based on health behavior information by employing a hybrid machine learning method. Methods: The study analyzed data of 51,850 domestic middle and high school students from 2022 Youth Health Behavior Survey conducted by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Firstly, mental health risk levels (stress perception, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, suicide plans, experiences of sadness and despair, loneliness, and generalized anxiety disorder) were classified using the k-mean unsupervised learning technique. Secondly, demographic factors (family economic status, gender, age), academic performance, physical health (body mass index, moderate-intensity exercise, subjective health perception, oral health perception), daily life habits (sleep time, wake-up time, smartphone use time, difficulty recovering from fatigue), eating habits (consumption of high-caffeine drinks, sweet drinks, late-night snacks), violence victimization, and deviance (drinking, smoking experience) data were input to develop a random forest model predicting mental health risk, using logistic and XGBoosting. The model and its prediction performance were compared. Results: First, the subjects were classified into two mental health groups using k-mean unsupervised learning, with the high mental health risk group constituting 26.45% of the total sample (13,712 adolescents). This mental health risk group included most of the adolescents who had made suicide plans (95.1%) or attempted suicide (96.7%). Second, the predictive performance of the random forest model for classifying mental health risk groups significantly outperformed that of the reference model (AUC=.94). Predictors of high importance were 'difficulty recovering from daytime fatigue' and 'subjective health perception'. Conclusion: Based on an understanding of adolescent health behavior information, it is possible to predict the mental health risk levels of adolescents and make interventions in advance.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.209-237
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• 2012

1. Research Purpose Consumers rely on various clues to evaluate their decision to patronize a retail store, and store brand is one of them (Dodds 1991; Grewal et al. 1998). As consumers find ever increasing variety of contact points connecting them to specific store, the value of experiential shopping as a means of increasing store's brand equity warrants greater attention from scholars of retail management. Retail shopping values are credited for creating not only cognitive experiences like brand knowledge but also emotional experiences such as shopping pleasure and pride (Schmitt 1999). This may be because today's consumers place emphasis on emotional values associated with shopping pleasure, lifestyle brought to life, brand relationship, and store atmosphere more than utilitarian values such as product quality and price. Many previous literature found this to be true (Ahn and Lee 2011; Mathwick et al. 2001). This brings forth important research issues and questions regarding the roles of shopping experiential values and brand equity with regard to consumer's retail patronage choice. However, despite this importance, research on this area remains quite inadequate (Hwang 2010). For this reason, this study aims to verify the relationships among experiential shopping values, retail store brand equity and tries to link that with customer loyalty by surveying large-scale discount store shoppers in Korea and China. 2. Research Contents In order to carry out the research objective, this study conducted comprehensive literature survey on previous literature by discussing major findings and implications with regard to shopping values and retail brand equity and store loyalty. For data collection, researcher employed survey-based research method where data were collected in two major cities of Korea (Seoul) and China (Bejing) and sampling frame was based on patrons of large discount stores in both countries. Specific research questions raised in this study are as follows; RQ1: How do Korean and Chinese consumers differently perceive of shopping values regarding shopping at large-sclae discount stores? RQ2: Are there differences in consumers' emotional consumption propensities? RQ3: Do Korean and Chinese consumers display different perceptions of brand equity towards large-scale discount stores? RQ4: Are there differences in relationships between shopping values and brand equity for Korean and Chinese consumers? For statistical analysis, SPSS17.0, AMOS17.0 and SmartPLS were employed. 3. Research Results The data collected through face-to-face survey conducted in Seoul and Bejing revealed appropriate data validity and reliability as a result of exploratory/confirmatory factor analysis and reliability tests, andh SEM model yielding satisfactory model fitness. The result of the study may be summarized by three main points. First, as a result of testing differences in consumption dispositions, Chinese consumers showed higher scores in aesthetic and symbolic dispositions, whereas Korean consumers scored higher in hedonic disposition. Second, testing on perceptions toward brand equity of large discount stores showed that Korean consumers exhibited more positive perceptions of brand awareness and brand image than Chinese counterparts. Third, the result of exploratory factor analysis on the experiential shopping values revealed different factors for each country. On Korean side, consumer interest value, aesthetic value, and hedonic value were prominent, whereas on Chinese side, hedonic value, aesthetic value, consumer interest value, and service excellence value were found salient. 4. Research Implications While many previous studies on inter-country differences in retailing area mainly focused on cultural dispositions or orientations to explain the differences, this study sets itself apart by specifically targeting individual consumer's shopping values from an experiential viewpoint. The study result provides important theoretical as well as practical implications for large-scale discount store, especially the impotance of fully exploring the linkage between shopping values and brand equity, which has significant influence on loyalty. Therefore, the specific implications deriving from the result shed some important insights upon the consumption values based on shopping experiences and brand equity. The differences found in store shoppers between the two countries may also provide useful insights for Korean and Chinese retailers who plan to expand their operations globally. Related strategic implications derived from this study is the importance of localizing retail strategy which is based on the differences found in experiential shopping values between the two country groups. Especially the finding that Chinese consumers value consumer interest and service excellence, whereas Koreans place importance on hedonic or aesthetic values indicates the need to differentiate the consumer's psychographical profiles when it comes to expanding retail operations globally. Particularly important will be to pursue price-orienated strategy in China in consideration of the high emphasis on consumer interests and service excellence, but to emphasize the symbolic aspects of brand equity in Korea by maximizing the brand equity associated with aesthetic values and hedonic orientations. 5. Recommendations This study focused on generic retail branded discount stores in both countries, thus making it difficult to tease out store-specific strategies based on specific retail brands. Future studies may benefit fro employing actual brand names in survey questionnaire to verify relationship between shopping values and brand-based store strategy. As with other studies of this nature, this study needs to strengthen the result's generalizability by selecting respondents from a wider spectrum of respondents.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.147-187
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• 2008

Online game researchers focus on the flow and factors influencing flow. Flow is conceptualized as an optimal experience state and useful explaining game experience in online. Many game studies focused on the customer loyalty and flow in playing online game, In showing specific game experience, however, it doesn't examine multidimensional experience process. Flow is not construct which show absorbing process, but construct which show absorbing result. Hence, Flow is not adequate to examine multidimensional experience of games. Online game is included in hedonic consumption. Hedonic consumption is a relatively new field of study in consumer research and it explores the consumption experience as a experiential view(Hirschman and Holbrook 1982). Hedonic consumption explores the consumption experience not as an information processing event but from a phenomenological of experiential view, which is a primarily subjective state. It includes various playful leisure activities, sensory pleasures, daydreams, esthetic enjoyment, and emotional responses. In online game experience, therefore, it is right to access through a experiential view of hedonic consumption. The objective of this paper was to make up for lacks in our understanding of online game experience by developing a framework for better insight into the hedonic experience of online game. We developed this framework by integrating and extending existing research in marketing, online game and hedonic responses. We then discussed several expectations for this framework. We concluded by discussing the results of this study, providing general recommendation and directions for future research. In hedonic response research, Lacher's research(1994)and Jongho lee and Yunhee Jung' research (2005;2006) has served as a fundamental starting point of our research. A common element in this extended research is the repeated identification of the four hedonic responses: sensory response, imaginal response, emotional response, analytic response. The validity of these four constructs finds in research of music(Lacher 1994) and movie(Jongho lee and Yunhee Jung' research 2005;2006). But, previous research on hedonic response didn't show that constructs of hedonic response have cause-effect relation. Also, although hedonic response enable to different by stimulus properties. effects of stimulus properties is not showed. To fill this gap, while largely based on Lacher(1994)' research and Jongho Lee and Yunhee Jung(2005, 2006)' research, we made several important adaptation with the primary goal of bringing the model into online game and compensating lacks of previous research. We maintained the same construct proposed by Lacher et al.(1994), with four constructs of hedonic response:sensory response, imaginal response, emotional response, analytical response. In this study, the sensory response is typified by some physical movement(Yingling 1962), the imaginal response is typified by images, memories, or situations that game evokes(Myers 1914), and the emotional response represents the feelings one experiences when playing game, such as pleasure, arousal, dominance, finally, the analytical response is that game player engaged in cognition seeking while playing game(Myers 1912). However, this paper has several important differences. We attempted to suggest multi-dimensional experience process in online game and cause-effect relation among hedonic responses. Also, We investigated moderate effects of perceived complexity. Previous studies about hedonic responses didn't show influences of stimulus properties. According to Berlyne's theory(1960, 1974) of aesthetic response, perceived complexity is a important construct because it effects pleasure. Pleasure in response to an object will increase with increased complexity, to an optimal level. After that, with increased complexity, pleasure begins with a linearly increasing line for complexity. Therefore, We expected this perceived complexity will influence hedonic response in game experience. We discussed the rationale for these suggested changes, the assumptions of the resulting framework, and developed some expectations based on its application in Online game context. In the first stage of methodology, questions were developed to measure the constructs. We constructed a survey measuring our theoretical constructs based on a combination of sources, including Yingling(1962), Hargreaves(1962), Lacher (1994), Jongho Lee and Yunhee Jung(2005, 2006), Mehrabian and Russell(1974), Pucely et al(1987). Based on comments received in the pretest, we made several revisions to arrive at our final survey. We investigated the proposed framework through a convenience sample, where participation in a self-report survey was solicited from various respondents having different knowledges. All respondents participated to different degrees, in these habitually practiced activities and received no compensation for their participation. Questionnaires were distributed to graduates and we used 381 completed questionnaires to analysis. The sample consisted of more men(n=225) than women(n=156). In measure, the study used multi-item scales based previous study. We analyze the data using structural equation modeling(LISREL-VIII; Joreskog and Sorbom 1993). First, we used the entire sample(n=381) to refine the measures and test their convergent and discriminant validity. The evidence from both the factor analysis and the analysis of reliability provides support that the scales exhibit internal consistency and construct validity. Second, we test the hypothesized structural model. And, we divided the sample into two different complexity group and analyze the hypothesized structural model of each group. The analysis suggest that hedonic response plays different roles from hypothesized in our study. The results indicate that hedonic response-sensory response, imaginal response, emotional response, analytical response- are related positively to respondents' level of game satisfaction. And game satisfaction is related to higher levels of game loyalty. Additionally, we found that perceived complexity is important to online game experience. Our results suggest that importance of each hedonic response different by perceived game complexity. Understanding the role of perceived complexity in hedonic response enables to have a better understanding of underlying mechanisms at game experience. If game has high complexity, analytical response become important response. So game producers or marketers have to consider more cognitive stimulus. Controversy, if game has low complexity, sensorial response respectively become important. Finally, we discussed several limitations of our study and suggested directions for future research. we concluded with a discussion of managerial implications. Our study provides managers with a basis for game strategies.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 2012

This study is focused on traditional market's competitiveness in Korea. Ever since the Korean retail industry had been opened to the big conglomerates, the traditional markets have faced very serious competition from various types of distribution channels. In particular, this study has been conducted to find another way to help the Korean traditional market from the perspective of college students who are consumers of the future. This study examines the relationships among store choice attributions, consumption emotion, consumer's value, and relationship quality from the perspective of college students. In order to verify the relationship, and moderating and mediating effects, data were collected from 126 college students in Whasung, Gyeonggi Province to test the theoretical model and its hypotheses. The results of this study are as follows: First, service (= .263, p < .01) and advertising (= .188, p < .05) are significantly positively related to relationship quality. However, store atmosphere (= .176, p = .052) is not statistically significantly related to relationship quality. The result that students have stereotypes about the atmosphere of traditional markets and are therefore excluded from their store choice attributions can be expected. Second, college students selected service division (= .230, p < .05) as the most important factor among the traditional market's store choice attributions. This result reflected that enhancing service strategy would strengthen the traditional market against discount stores. The process of product selection by customers in discount stores is based on the concept of self-service. However, traditional market traders can make various contacts with their customers. If traditional market traders can enhance various service factors just like in the process of product selection, it will effect strong competitive advantages. Third, it is also revealed that consumer's value exhibit complete mediation effect in the relationships between service and advertising. These results showed that traditional markets must be considered for consumer value. Because previous studies showed that values refer to "enduring belief that … specific mode of conduct or end-stat of existence … personally or socially preferable to an opposite of converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence" (Rokeach, 1973; George and Jones, 1996). Furthermore, Schwartz (1994) defined values as desirable trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or other social entity. As conceptions of desirable end-states of existence or modes of conduct, values help people choose, evaluate, and give meaning to their experiences (Rokeach, 1973). Efforts (e.g. promote the consumers value) of the traditional market traders will improve the preferences for the traditional market of consumers and college students. Implications and future research directions are also discussed.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.53-62
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• 2012

Well-being is a reflection of current sociocultural trends that focus on the quality of life based on economic growth. Furthermore, organic food is believed to help people maintain good health and therefore leads to increased consumption of organic foods. Therefore, consumer interest in organic food is increasing, causing its market to grow, and this trend will be maintained in the future. The abuse of agricultural pesticides, gene manipulation, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy has caused consumers to worry about food safety. The well-being trend has also contributed to consumers' growing interest inorganic food and organic agricultural products. A consumer's choice offood is a complex processes affected by various factors. In particular, organic food is considered an individualistic merit good, considering the consumers' preferences related to certification policies. Therefore, various factors such as personal characteristics and sense of value could affect consumers' decisions. This research focused on an analysis of the factors influencing consumers' purchasing intention for organic food on the basis of an increase in organic food consumption. The research method was based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Factors such as consumer characteristics regarding food consumption, purchasing frequency, and other factors affecting purchasing intention were presented. The hypothesis was set using advanced research and stated that it is easier to forecast purchasing intentions by combining the theory of planned behavior and personal characteristics of consumer. The results show that two dimensions, attitude and perceived behavioral control, have statistically significant influence on the purchasing intention. It can be said that a positive attitude toward organic foods in particular increases the possibility of purchasing intention. In addition, consumers who consume more organic food products are more likely to have positive attitudes, and, in the past, purchasing frequency has positively influenced purchasing intention of organic foods. Consumers' negative feelings about the non-purchase of organic foods also showed a negative influence on purchasing intentions. In other words, even though consumers feel uncomfortable when not consuming organic food products, they do not try to purchase such products because of this feeling of discomfort. Furthermore, the subjective norm and the behavioral control of food-related involvement do not have a statistically significant influence on the purchasing intention or attitudes. This research verified the influence of factors related to purchasing intention. This study has several limitations: (1) even though consumers' responses can change based on the type of food, the types of food were not classified in this study; (2) future studies are necessary to analyze the attitudes of consumers on the basis of their purchasing experiences with organic foods.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.68-79
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• 2009

The interplay between hedonic and utilitarian attributes has assumed special significance in recent years; it has been proposed that consumption offerings should be viewed as experiences that stimulate both cognitions and feelings rather than as mere products or services. This research builds on previous work on hedonic versus utilitarian benefits, regulatory focus theory, customer satisfaction to address two question: (1) Is the shopping goal at the point of purchase different from the shopping value? and (2) Is the customer loyalty after the use different from the shopping value and shopping goal? We surveyed 345 peoples those who have bought the electronic-goods within 6 months. This research dealt with the shopping value which is consisted of 2 types, hedonic and utilitarian. Those who pursue the hedonic shopping value may prefer the pleasure of purchasing experience to the product itself. They tend to prefer atmosphere, arousal of the shopping experience. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "hedonic" to refer to their aesthetic, experiential and enjoyment-related value. On the contrary, Those who pursue the utilitarian shopping value may prefer the reasonable buying. It may be more functional. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "utilitarian" to refer to the functional, instrumental, and practical value of consumption offerings. Holbrook(1999) notes that consumer value is an experience that results from the consumption of such benefits. In the context of cell phones for example, the phone's battery life and sound volume are utilitarian benefits, whereas aesthetic appeal from its shape and color are hedonic benefits. Likewise, in the case of a car, fuel economics and safety are utilitarian benefits whereas the sunroof and the luxurious interior are hedonic benefits. The shopping goals are consisted of the promotion focus goal and the prevention focus goal, based on the self-regulatory focus theory. The promotion focus is characterized into focusing ideal self because they are oriented to wishes and vision. The promotion focused individuals are tend to be more risk taking. They are more sensitive to hope and achievement. On the contrary, the prevention focused individuals are characterized into focusing the responsibilities because they are oriented to safety. The prevention focused individuals are tend to be more risk avoiding. We wanted to test the relation among the shopping value, shopping goal and customer loyalty. Customers show the positive or negative feelings comparing with the expectation level which customers have at the point of the purchase. If the result were bigger than the expectation, customers may feel positive feeling such as delight or satisfaction and they would want to share their feelings with other people. And they want to buy those products again in the future time. There is converging evidence that the types of goals consumers expect to be fulfilled by the utilitarian dimension of a product are different from those they seek from the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004). Specifically, whereas consumers expect the fulfillment of product prevention goals on the utilitarian dimension, they expect the fulfillment of promotion goals on the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan, and Majahan 2007; Higgins 1997, 2001) According to the regulatory focus theory, prevention goals are those that ought to be met. Fulfillment of prevention goals in the context of product consumption eliminates or significantly reduces the probability of a painful experience, thus making consumers experience emotions that result from fulfillment of prevention goals such as confidence and securities. On the contrary, fulfillment of promotion goals are those that a person aspires to meet, such as "looking cool" or "being sophisticated." Fulfillment of promotion goals in the context of product consumption significantly increases the probability of a pleasurable experience, thus enabling consumers to experience emotions that result from the fulfillment of promotion goals. The proposed conceptual framework captures that the relationships among hedonic versus utilitarian shopping values and promotion versus prevention shopping goals respectively. An analysis of the consequence of the fulfillment and frustration of utilitarian and hedonic value is theoretically worthwhile. It is also substantively relevant because it helps predict post-consumption behavior such as the promotion versus prevention shopping goals orientation. Because our primary goal is to understand how the post consumption feelings influence the variable customer loyalty: word of mouth (Jacoby and Chestnut 1978). This research result is that the utilitarian shopping value gives the positive influence to both of the promotion and prevention goal. However the influence to the prevention goal is stronger. On the contrary, hedonic shopping value gives influence to the promotion focus goal only. Additionally, both of the promotion and prevention goal show the positive relation with customer loyalty. However, the positive relation with promotion goal and customer loyalty is much stronger. The promotion focus goal gives the influence to the customer loyalty. On the contrary, the prevention focus goal relates at the low level of relation with customer loyalty than that of the promotion goal. It could be explained that it is apt to get framed the compliment of people into 'gain-non gain' situation. As the result, for those who have the promotion focus are motivated to deliver their own feeling to other people eagerly. Conversely the prevention focused individual are more sensitive to the 'loss-non loss' situation. The research result is consistent with pre-existent researches. There is a conceptual parallel between necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits and luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha 2007; Higginns 1997; Kivetz and Simonson 2002b). In addition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the precedence principle contends luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits higher than necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits. Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha (2007) show that consumers are focused more on the utilitarian benefits than on the hedonic benefits of a product until their minimum expectation of fulfilling prevention goals are met. Furthermore, a utilitarian benefit is a promise of a certain level of functionality by the manufacturer or the retailer. When the promise is not fulfilled, customers blame the retailer and/or the manufacturer. When negative feelings are attributable to an entity, customers feel angry. However in the case of hedonic benefit, the customer, not the manufacturer, determines at the time of purchase whether the product is stylish and attractive. Under such circumstances, customers are more likely to blame themselves than the manufacturer if their friends do not find the product stylish and attractive. Therefore, not meeting minimum utilitarian expectations of functionality generates a much more intense negative feelings, such as anger than a less intense feeling such as disappointment or dissatisfactions. The additional multi group analysis of this research shows the same result. Those who are unsatisfactory customers who have the prevention focused goal shows higher relation with WOM, comparing with satisfactory customers. The research findings in this article could have significant implication for the personal selling fields to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of the sales such that they can develop the sales presentation strategy for the customers. For those who are the hedonic customers may be apt to show more interest to the promotion goal. Therefore it may work to strengthen the design, style or new technology of the products to the hedonic customers. On the contrary for the utilitarian customers, it may work to strengthen the price competitiveness. On the basis of the result from our studies, we demonstrated a correspondence among hedonic versus utilitarian and promotion versus prevention goal, WOM. Similarly, we also found evidence of the moderator effects of satisfaction after use, between the prevention goal and WOM. Even though the prevention goal has the low level of relation to WOM, those who are not satisfied show higher relation to WOM. The relation between the prevention goal and WOM is significantly different according to the satisfaction versus unsatisfaction. In addition, improving the promotion emotions of cheerfulness and excitement and the prevention emotion of confidence and security will further improve customer loyalty. A related potential further research could be to examine whether hedonic versus utilitarian, promotion versus prevention goals improve customer loyalty for services as well. Under the budget and time constraints, designers and managers are often compelling to choose among various attributes. If there is no budget or time constraints, perhaps the best solution is to maximize both hedonic and utilitarian dimension of benefits. However, they have to make trad-off process between various attributes. For the designers and managers have to keep in mind that without hedonic benefit satisfaction of the product it may hard to lead the customers to the customer loyalty.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2012

Objectives : We investigated the prevalence and functional impairment of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and premenstrual syndrome(PMS) in young women. Methods : A total of 1063 female college students were recruited from two urban areas(Seoul and Suwon) of Korea. Questionnaires for sociodemographic data and risk factors of PMDD, attitude about menstruation, and the Premenstrual Symptoms Screening Tool(PSST) were applied. Results : The prevalence of severe moderate to severe PMS and PMDD were 16.9% and 11.7%, respectively. There were differences in the alcohol and coffee consumption, severity of menstrual cramp, and family history of PMS among the moderate to severe PMS, PMDD, and no/mild PMS groups. Although some participants did not fulfill diagnostic criteria for PMDD, they showed significant functional impairment. Participants with negative attitude about menstruation reported premenstrual symptoms more frequently than those with positive or ambivalent attitude about menstruation. Conclusion : These results suggest that PMS and PMDD were prevalent and associated with functional impairment in young females. Some participants reported significant functional impairments although they did not meet the full DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for PMDD. Negative attitude about menstruation was associated with more premenstrual symptoms experiences.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.2169-2175
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• 2009

This research aims to evaluate the concept of eco-efficient water infrastructure and provides a list of case studies in order to help understand the applicability of eco-efficient water infrastructure to Asia and the Pacific. A set of indicators have been explored to assess eco-efficiency in water infrastructure for the region on a micro and macro scale. The core idea of eco-efficiency, 'more value with less impact (on the environment)', has proven to be applicable in management of water infrastructure. The fundamental elements in eco-efficient water infrastructure should encompass physical infrastructure and non-physical infrastructure, which is more needed particularly in Asian countries. The case studies have demonstrated the applicability of the concept of eco-efficient water infrastructure. The Republic of Korea has provided the case of the eco-friendly approaches to enhance dam management and its innovative solutions how to use water more efficiently through state-of-art technologies. The experiences of Singapore are some of the best evidence to establish eco-efficient water infrastructure, for instance, the NEWater project via application of cutting edge technologies (recycled water) and institutional reform in water tariff systems to conserve water as well as enhance water quality. A list of indicators to assess eco-efficiency in water infrastructure have been discussed, and the research presents a myriad of project cases which are good to represent eco-efficiency in water infrastructure, including multipurpose small dams, customized flood defense systems, eco-efficient ground water use, and eco-efficient desalination plants. The study has presented numerous indicators in five different categories: 1) the status of water availability and infrastructure; 2) production and consumption patterns of freshwater; 3) agricultural products and sources of environmental loads; 4) damages from water-caused natural disaster; and 5) urban water supply and sanitation. There are challenges as well as benefits in such indicators, since the indicators should be applied very carefully in accordance with specific socio-economic, political and policy contexts in different countries in Asia and the Pacific Region. The key to success of establishment of eco-efficient water infrastructure in Asia primarily depends on the extent to which each country is committed to balancing its development of physical as well as non-physical water infrastructure. Particularly, it is imperative for Asian countries to transform its policy focus from physical infrastructure to non-physical infrastructure. Such shift will help lead to implementation of sustainable in Asian countries.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.297-319
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• 2014

This research started from bringing up a problem about special situation of the library and information science, which is not easy to investigate its academic characteristics, although it has settled down as a powerful science studying related phenomena as well as education required for the whole process from production of information to consumption of it. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to questingly investigate whether the personal specialty and the experience of taking courses affect recognition of the term 'library and information', and if so, through which channel it influences. In this background, data were collected from 328 students of Chonnam National University for this research, and the following are the analysis results: first, as for the personal characteristics, differences were not generated according to gender and age, but according to scholastic year the results were different; second, as for the experience of taking courses, there were not differences according to whether or not of the experience, but the results varied according to the number and type of the experience; and third, most of the respondents surveyed understood the meaning of a term 'library and information' as the conception of covering the information contained in literature and information of it, regardless of the personal characteristics and the experience of taking courses. Through these results, it can be identified that the term 'library and information' meant in the library and information science is generally understood as expansion of range, rather than chemical combination of literature and information, it is a terminology with various meanings sometimes understood differently according to the special personal experiences, and it also needs scientific investigation of it.