• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.87-100
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• 2012

Smart wear integrates computing technology into fabric or a garment for additional functionality. This research explored the attitudes and opinions of the use of smart wear from the viewpoint of caregivers. Thirty two individuals including care providers of children and adult family members with health problems participated in focus group interviews. Participants reported being interested in smart wear because of the potential to detect the location (GPS) of a dependent (e.g., child, elderly) and to monitor vital signs. Participants indicated perceived advantages of smart wear such as identifying geographical location and effectiveness. Perceived concerns mentioned were privacy/security issues and accuracy of data. Participants taking care of dependents without a specific disease were hesitant to adopt and pay for smart wear. However, caregivers of elderly individuals expressed positive adoption intentions and willingness to reasonably pay for smart wear. They indicated expectations that potential insurance would provide coverage for cost savings. Caregivers expressed the need of specific requirements for future adoption such as customizability, and comfort/safety. Specific to smart wear clothing, most respondents preferred it be an undershirt or a jacket with a sensor located in the shoulder area. The findings from this study can be used in product development, promotion and marketing of smart wear.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.75-87
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• 2000

The aims of this study are to establish a mode of housing life style that meet the demands of families living in big cities, and the contribute to the development of a better housing life style pattern by considering metropolitan residents' choice of housing and basic concepts of their behavioral patterns. The results of this study were as follows: 1. Value orientation of family life was divided into value orientation of family and value orientation of housing. Value orientation of family was constituted of four factors such as 'harmony', 'leisure and hobbies', 'individual development and its support' , 'education' . Value orientation of housing is constituted of three factors such as 'physical characteristics of house' , '\`environmental condition', 'socio-economic conditions of housing'. The comprehensive life values were constituted of six factors such as 'the importance of communal family', 'the importance of housing decoration and housing life benefits', 'the importance of security and holding environment' , 'the importance of familial harmony', 'the importance of privacy', 'the importance of convenience and natural environment'. Based on three factors, were found to be fine types of value orientation of family life which were 'pursue healthy of family', 'comfort of family', 'clean environment', 'convenient environment', and 'harmonious relationship among family members'. Variables influencing the value orientation of family life were property and price of housing. 2. Consumption propensity when buying house, furniture and durables were constituted of four factors which were propensity to 'beauty', 'fashion', 'tradition and symbol', and 'pragmatic use'. Based on these factors, there were found to be four types of consumption propensity when buying house, furniture and durables which were 'fashion', 'tradition and symbol', 'beauty', and 'pragmatic use'. Variables influencing spending habits were found to be objective social class (SES), types of residence, wife's educational background, and price of housing. 3. Propensity to using space were constituted of three factors which were 'convenience', 'politeness and social grace', and 'housekeeping'. Based on these factors, there were found to be three types of propensity to using space which were 'individuality', 'convenience', and 'politeness and housekeeping'. Variables influencing propensity to use of space were found to be objective social class (SES), wife's educational background, types of homeownership and price of housing 4. According to this study, there were found to be six patterns of housing life style: 1) family that seeks formalist life, 2) family that seeks harmonious life, 3) family that seeks active healthy life, 4) family that combine various factors, 5) family that seeks convenience, 6) family that stresses environment.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.493-513
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• 2014

With the development of related technologies, Location-Based Services (LBS) are growing fast and being used in many ways. Past LBS studies have focused on adoption of LBS because of the fact that LBS users have privacy concerns regarding revealing their location information. Meanwhile, the number of LBS users and revenues from LBS are growing rapidly because users can get some benefits by revealing their location information. Little research has been done on how LBS affects consumers' information search behavior in product purchase. The purpose of this paper is examining the effect of LBS information filtering on buyers' uncertainty and their information search behavior. When consumers purchase a product, they try to reduce uncertainty by searching information. Generally, there are two types of uncertainties - knowledge uncertainty and choice uncertainty. Knowledge uncertainty refers to the lack of information on what kinds of alternatives are available in the market and/or their important attributes. Therefore, consumers having knowledge uncertainty will have difficulties in identifying what alternatives exist in the market to fulfil their needs. Choice uncertainty refers to the lack of information about consumers' own preferences and which alternative will fit in their needs. Therefore, consumers with choice uncertainty have difficulties selecting best product among available alternatives.. According to economics of information theory, consumers narrow the scope of information search when knowledge uncertainty is high. It is because consumers' information search cost is high when their knowledge uncertainty is high. If people do not know available alternatives and their attributes, it takes time and cognitive efforts for them to acquire information about available alternatives. Therefore, they will reduce search breadth. For people with high knowledge uncertainty, the information about products and their attributes is new and of high value for them. Therefore, they will conduct searches more in-depth because they have incentive to acquire more information. When people have high choice uncertainty, people tend to search information about more alternatives. It is because increased search breadth will improve their chances to find better alternative for them. On the other hand, since human's cognitive capacity is limited, the increased search breadth (more alternatives) will reduce the depth of information search for each alternative. Consumers with high choice uncertainty will spend less time and effort for each alternative because considering more alternatives will increase their utility. LBS provides users with the capability to screen alternatives based on the distance from them, which reduces information search costs. Therefore, it is expected that LBS will help users consider more alternatives even when they have high knowledge uncertainty. LBS provides distance information, which helps users choose alternatives appropriate for them. Therefore, users will perceive lower choice uncertainty when they use LBS. In order to test the hypotheses, we selected 80 students and assigned them to one of the two experiment groups. One group was asked to use LBS to search surrounding restaurants and the other group was asked to not use LBS to search nearby restaurants. The experimental tasks and measures items were validated in a pilot experiment. The final measurement items are shown in Appendix A. Each subject was asked to read one of the two scenarios - with or without LBS - and use a smartphone application to pick a restaurant. All behaviors on smartphone were recorded using a recording application. Search breadth was measured by the number of restaurants clicked by each subject. Search depths was measured by two metrics - the average number of sub-level pages each subject visited and the average time spent on each restaurant. The hypotheses were tested using SPSS and PLS. The results show that knowledge uncertainty reduces search breadth (H1a). However, there was no significant correlation between knowledge uncertainty and search depth (H1b). Choice uncertainty significantly reduces search depth (H2b), but no significant relationship was found between choice uncertainty and search breadth (H2a). LBS information filtering significantly reduces the buyers' choice uncertainty (H4) and reduces the negative relationship between knowledge uncertainty and search breadth (H3). This research provides some important implications for service providers. Service providers should use different strategies based on their service properties. For those service providers who are not well-known to consumers (high knowledge uncertainty) should encourage their customers to use LBS. This is because LBS would increase buyers' consideration sets when the knowledge uncertainty is high. Therefore, less known services have chances to be included in consumers' consideration sets with LBS. On the other hand, LBS information filtering decrease choice uncertainty and the near service providers are more likely to be selected than without LBS. Hence, service providers should analyze geographically approximate competitors' strength and try to reduce the gap so that they can have chances to be included in the consideration set.