• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2018

Purpose - With the worldwide aging problem and the development of globalization, customers prefer to seek affordable medical services with the higher quality overseas. This new trend has urged some destination countries to improve their services for the more competitive advantages over other countries. Literature research indicate that medical quality and cost may be the key factors influencing global patients' decisions. In the international environment, however, medical tourism destinations are selected due to cultural similarity between the hosting country and the customers' own country. The more similarity perceived between the two countries leads foreign patients to choose the considering country as the destination for medical tourism. However, little research has been conducted on this topic. Thus, we empirically investigate how cultural similarity influences Chinese medical customers' choice of the destinations. We also consider the factors related to medical competency and travel attribute which might affect customers' decisions along with some moderating roles of disease types. Research design, data, and methodology - We proposed a research model in order to confirm the relations among different variables of cultural similarity, medical competency, travel attractiveness, disease types, and destination choice. The questionnaire survey is processed in the more economically developed regions of China such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. Conditional logit regression is applied to analyze the data of 881. Results - Results indicate that cultural similarity is the important predictor of Chinese customers' decision to select a medical country. However, the effects of cultural similarity vary according to the disease types. We also find that medical competency and travel attractiveness influence their decisions with the moderating role of disease types. Conclusions - Cultural similarity is the important factor that influences Chinese potential medical tourists' decisions to select a destination. Marketing managers should consider the effects of cultural similarity when developing strategies for attracting Chinese medical tourists. Since medical competency and travel attractiveness are still the critical key elements for them to evaluate the destination countries, it is necessary to continuously improve medical service quality and facilities. The results also recommend that medical managers should sharpen their marketing strategies by segmenting Chinese potential customers in terms of disease types.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Design Studies Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.6-7
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• 1998

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.53-64
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• 2021

Purpose: Even though arranging images of products is a common practice in the online retail context, relatively little attention has been paid to the distance effect among alternatives, that is, how distance among displayed products can impact consumers' responses. Drawing on contagion theory, the primary goal of the current study is to investigate how spatial distance between two products in a product display can influence consumers' perceived similarity. Research design, data and methodology: This study used a 2(spatial distance: close vs. far) experimental design and collected data from undergraduate students in Korea through an online survey using Qualtrics. ANOVA was conducted to test the proposed effect, in which the dependent variables are the perceived similarity of usage occasion/purpose (Study 1) and the indexed differences of perceived brand statuses between two products (Study 2). Results: The results of both experiments indicated that the displayed products were perceived to be more similar to one another when products were presented close together (vs. far). Conclusions: The results help to fill a research gap and provide a better understanding of the role of physical distance in diverse marketing communications. This is especially useful when designing online shopping websites to form perceptions of brand images.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.12-23
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is in planning clothing and bag design and VMD. For this purpose, the pret-a-porter fashion collection is divided into the following sectors: brands, years, and seasons, focusing on the design elements. The results of this study are as follows: 1. It is these three ways that determine the relevance of clothing and bag design planning. first, we have analyzed design properties analogously with one design element, like Louis Vuitton. Second, we considered design properties analogously with two design elements, like Chanel, Gucci, Prada. Third, we examined design properties analogously with three design elements, like Christian dior, Fendi, Etro. 2. The comparison of clothing and bag design properties year by year shows that they were mainly designed with an analogous aspect with pattern and decoration. 3. Clothing does well to match a bag between analogous design properties of design elements to express similarity coordination and between contrast design properties of design elements to express plus one coordination or crossover coordination. 4. The aspect of coordination of clothing and bags year by year is different period. This is because of clothing and bag design's change according fashion trend. 5. S/S coordination of clothing and bags is effective to present plus one coordination or crossover coordination. And F/W coordination of clothing and bags is effective to present similarity in coordination.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1404-1414
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• 2019

Educational books commonly use some copyrighted images with various kinds of deformation for helping students understanding. When using several copyrighted images made by merging or editing distortion in legal, we need to pay a charge to original copyright holders for each image. In this paper, we propose an efficient matching algorithm by separating each copyrighted image with the merged and edited type including rotation, illumination change, and change of size. We use the Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF (ORB) method as a basic feature matching scheme. To improve the matching accuracy, we design a new MIN-MAX similarity in matching stage. With the distorted dataset, the proposed method shows up-to 97% of precision in experiments. Also, we demonstrate that the proposed similarity measure also outperforms compared to other measure which is commonly used.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.21-30
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• 2017

Purpose - This research approaches to the new niche market of medical tourism to investigate how factors of cultural similarity influence the international distribution management. This study also estimates the interaction effects of distribution channel on the relationships of facility attributes and customers' destination choice behavior. Research design, data, and methodology - We collected the sample of 881 potential customers from the more economically developed regions in China. Regression analysis is used to confirm the relationships in the research model. Results - The result shows that cultural similarity plays an important moderating role in the relationships of facility attributes and destination choice intention. For instance, power distance and masculinity interact with the distribution facility characteristics of medical quality and reputation to influence customers' selection of the destination country. Individualism, powder distance, and masculinity play moderating roles when social environment affects destination choice intention. Especially, all the elements of cultural similarity moderate the relationships between travel cost and destination choice intention. This research also proves that depending on distribution channel, determinants of distribution facility are the critical predictors of intention to select the medical service outside of China. Conclusions - The study enables managers to develop the more effective strategies reflecting the interaction effects of cultural similarity and distribution channel on customers' decision-making process.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.1-25
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• 2024

Purpose Live commerce, a real-time product promotion method using portable hardware, is experiencing significant growth. This approach involves product experts or celebrities endorsing products, providing consumers with valuable information to mitigate uncertainty. This research underscores the significance of the seller's authenticity and their value similarity with consumers in live commerce. The study's first objective enhance the seller's authenticity and elucidate the mechanism that influences purchase intention. The second objective is to demonstrate the interactive effect of value similarity and the seller's authenticity on positively influencing purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach This research utilized previous studies to develop models and hypotheses, focusing on adults experienced in live commerce product purchasing. The study tested the research hypothesis using 330 samples. The study analyzed the path from seller authenticity to purchase intention via structural equation modeling (AMOS 22.0), and also explored the interaction between value similarity and seller authenticity using the Process 3.1 macro. Findings The research validates that the seller's channel activities and external perception amplify the seller's authenticity, influencing purchase intentions. It also affirms that value similarity fosters seller authenticity and interactive effects, thereby boosting purchase intentions. These findings provide insights for devising seller management strategies on live commerce platforms.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.16-23
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• 2012

At present, the significance of a new manufacturing system that can shift from 'mass production' and consider life cycles of a product is pointed out and extremely expected. In such a situation, it is recognized that the modular design, often called 'unit design,' is the important design methodology which realizes the new production system enabling 'cost reduction,' 'flexible production of a multi-functional artifact,' 'settlement of an environmental issue,' and so on. A module (unit) of a product is generally defined as 'the parts group made into the sub-system from a certain specific viewpoint.' So far, there have been many researches related to the modular design. However, they are often limited to a certain viewpoint (objective). This paper proposes a simple but effective method for multi-objective modular design. In the proposed method, a new design metric, called similarity index, is proposed to evaluate the modular design candidates from the multiple viewpoints.

• Archives of design research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.337-346
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• 2002

Among many design processes such as learning, storing, retrieving and applying, the process that learns design knowledge is very important for producing creative results that solve design purposes in design computations. The computer should have the ability similar to human in learning design knowledge. It should recognize not only physical properties but also high level design knowledge constructed from the first level physical properties. The high level design knowledge are recognised in terms of isometric translation relationships. This paper explains properties of isometric translation and methods how the computer can recognize high level shape design knowledge using shape pattern representation.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.522-537
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to develop a knitwear design with the potential for practical use through a combination of science and design by examining the concept and formative characteristics of fractal geometry and applying them to the development of 3D virtual clothing knitwear design. This study produced five main conclusions. First, the sub-concepts of "Repeatability," "Scale variability," and "complexity," which are based on self-similarity, appear together with simple regularity in the fractal formative characteristics shown in fashion design. Second, fashion fields apply fractal geometry in three-dimensional surface textures and optical textile patterns as a method of expression. Third, it was confirmed that various expressions can be created with fractal patterns by using the SDS-ONE APEX 3-4 design system; moreover, fractal patterns are a suitable design source for the development of Jacquard knitwear patterns. Fourth, in the development of knitted jacquard fractal patterns, by arranging the patterns in perspective, the effect of emphasizing or reducing the human body by optical illusion was shown. Fifth, a knit Jacquard structure with a pattern that exhibits fractal modeling characteristics and applying it to a 3D virtual clothing sample design reduces the time required for sample production while expanding the knit design's expression area and reducing costs. Thus, the clothing sample confirmed the effectiveness of practical knitwear design development.