• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.174-187
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• 2022

Purpose: This study was performed to evaluate an education program for housewives to reduce sodium intake based on the social cognitive theory. Methods: Housewives (n = 387) received 2 education sessions focused on food purchase and cooking, and completed a questionnaire on their perceptions of environmental, cognitive, and behavioral factors and the stages of behavioral change to reducing sodium intake both before and after the education program. Results: After the education program, the recognition of social efforts for sodium reduction and sodium labeling and experience with low-sodium products increased. Positive expectancies for the prevention of osteoporosis by the reduction of sodium were enhanced while the main barriers in practicing sodium reduction decreased, especially 'interrupting social relationships when dining with others', 'bad taste', 'preference for soup or stew', and 'limited knowledge and skills to practice'. In addition, cognition and nutrition knowledge related to reducing sodium intake were improved on all scores, but the effect on self-efficacy and dietary behavior was limited to only a few items. The percentage of participants in the pre-action stage (including pre-contemplation, contemplation, and preparation stages) for reducing sodium intake decreased from 43.2% before education to 21.5% after education, while that in the action stage increased from 19.6% before education to 43.5% after education (p < 0.001). The education program had the most significant impact on participants who were in the pre-action stage and showed improved scores in all sections. Conclusion: These results suggest that a customized education program for housewives could be an effective tool to reduce sodium intake by improving personal expectancies, cognition, and nutrition knowledge regarding sodium reduction and enabling a greater section of the population to move to the action stage of reducing sodium intake.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.9-18
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• 2024

The importance of active sonar systems is emerging due to the quietness of underwater targets and the increase in ambient noise due to the increase in maritime traffic. However, the low signal-to-noise ratio of the echo signal due to multipath propagation of the signal, various clutter, ambient noise and reverberation makes it difficult to identify underwater targets using active sonar. Attempts have been made to apply data-based methods such as machine learning or deep learning to improve the performance of underwater target recognition systems, but it is difficult to collect enough data for training due to the nature of sonar datasets. Methods based on mathematical modeling have been mainly used to compensate for insufficient active sonar data. However, methodologies based on mathematical modeling have limitations in accurately simulating complex underwater phenomena. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a sonar signal synthesis method based on a deep neural network. In order to apply the neural network model to the field of sonar signal synthesis, the proposed method appropriately corrects the attention-based encoder and decoder to the sonar signal, which is the main module of the Tacotron model mainly used in the field of speech synthesis. It is possible to synthesize a signal more similar to the actual signal by training the proposed model using the dataset collected by arranging a simulated target in an actual marine environment. In order to verify the performance of the proposed method, Perceptual evaluation of audio quality test was conducted and within score difference -2.3 was shown compared to actual signal in a total of four different environments. These results prove that the active sonar signal generated by the proposed method approximates the actual signal.

• The Korean Journal of Rehabilitation Nursing
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.257-270
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to investigate factors related to the intent of using home nursing of chronic disease patients who got out of a university hospital. For the purpose, the study selected 153 patients who were hospitalized and left K university hospital with diagnoses of cancer, hypertension, diabetes and cerebral vascular accident and ordered to be discharged and performed interviews with them and surveys on their medical records to obtain the following results. For this study a direct-interview survey and medical record review was conducted from June 28 to Aug. 30, 1998. The frequency and mean values were computed to find the characteristics of the study subjects, and $X^2$-test, t-test, factor analysis and multiple logistic regession analysis were applied for the analysis of the data. The following results were obtained. 1) When characteristics of the subjects were examined, men and women occupied for 58.8% and 41.2%, respectively. The subjects were 41.3 years old in aver age and had the monthly aver age earning of 0.99 million won or below, which was the most out of the total subjects at 34.6%. Among the total, 87.6% resided in cities and 12.4 in counties. The most left the hospital with diagnosis of cancer at 51.6%, followed by hyper tension at 24.2%, diabetes at 13.7% and cerebral vascular accident at 7.2%. 2) 93.5% of the selected patients had the intent of using home nursing and 6.5%, didn't. Among those patients having the intent, 85.6% had the intent of paying for home nursing and 14.4%, didn't. The subjects expected that the nursing would be paid 9,143 won in aver age and 47.7% of them preferred national authorities as the main servers. 86.3% of the subjects thought that home nursing business had the main advantage of making it possible to learn nursing methods at home and thereby contributing to improving the ability of patients and their facilities to solve health problems. 3) Relations between the intent of use and characteristics of the subjects such as demography-related social, home environment, disease and physical function characteristics did not show statistically significant differences among one another. Compared to those who had no intent of using home nursing, the group having the intent had more cases of male patients, the age of 39 or below, residence in cities, 5 family member s or more, no existence of home nursing servers, leaving the hospital from a non-hospitalized building, disease development for five months or below, hospitalization for ten days or more, non-hospitalization with in the recent one month, two times or over of hospitalization, leaving the hospital with no demand of special treatment, operation underwent, poor results of treatment, leaving the hospital with demand of rehabilitation services, physical disablement and high evaluation point of daily life. 4) Among those patients having the intent of using home nursing, 47.6% demanded technical nursing and 55.9%, supportive nursing. As technical nursing,' inject into a blood vessel ' and 'treat pustule and teach basic prevention methods occupied for 57.4%, respectively, topping the list. Among demands of supportive nursing, 'observe patients 'status and refer them to hospitals or community resources as available, if necessary' was the most with percent age point of 59.5. Regarding the intent of paying for home nursing, 39.2% of those patients wishing to use the nursing responded paying for technical services and 20.2, supportive services. In detail, 70.0% wanted to pay for a service stated as 'inject into a blood vessel', highest among the former services and 30.7%, a service referred to as 'teaching exercises needed to make the body of patients move', highest among the latter. When this was analyzed in terms of a relation between the need(the need for home nursing) and the demand(the intent of paying for home nursing), The rate of the need to the demand was found two or three times higher in technical nursing(0.82) than in supportive nursing(0.35). In aspects of tech ical nursing, muscle injection(1.26, the 1st rank) was highest in the rate while among aspects of supportive nursing, a service referred to as 'teach exercises needed for making patients move their bodies normally'(0.58, the 1st rank). 5) factors I(satisfaction with hospital services), II(recognition of disease state), III(economy) and IV(period of disease) occupied for 34.4, 13.8, 11.9 and 9.2 percents, respectively among factors related to the intent by the subjects of using home nursing, totaled 59.3%. In conclusion, most of chronic disease patients have the intent of using hospital-based home nursing and satisfaction with hospital services is a factor affecting the intent most. Thus a post-management system is needed to continue providing health management to those patients after they leave the hospital. Further, supportive services should be provided in order that those who are satisfied with hospital services return to their community and live their in dependent lives. Based on these results, the researcher would make the following recommendation. 1) Because home nursing becomes more and more needed due to a sharp increase in chronic disease patients and elderly people, related rules and regulations should be made and implemented. 2) Hospital nurses specializing in home nursing should be cultivated.

• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.66-83
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to learn both effects of the vocal psychotherapy on the self-consciousness and the variety of the self-consciousness on the vocal psychotherapy in return. The research for this study was performed to three subjects who were students of E university, Seoul, ten times for sixty minutes. The subjects were all volunteers for the advertisement on a music-therapy program searching for them on the web site of E university. The vocal psychotherapy program consists of four steps and each of them consists of two to four short terms again. Both before and after the experiment, examinations on self-consciousness were done to recognize the change of the subjects' self-consciousness which would be caused by the vocal psychotherapy activity. After every short term, the subjects were asked to write reports to closely analyze the change of self-consciousness according to the terms and the variety of the subjects. The effect of the vocal psychotherapy activity on the changes of scores in the self-consciousness examination is the first thing to point out on this study. There appeared some personal varieties on the total scores of the examination and scores of some sub-categories. Especially, there were different scores on the private self-consciousness, the public self-consciousness, and the social anxiety between before and after performing the vocal psychotherapy program. Subject A, who had got the best score of all on the scope of the private self-consciousness, showed the steepest decrease on the very scope. On the contrary, the subject showed decrease of scores of the public self-consciousness and the social anxiety in the relatively little rate. Subject B, who had got the highest score of the three on the public self-consciousness, showed the steepest decrease on that of all scopes and showed no difference on the social anxiety scope. In the case of the last one, subject C, who had relatively low scores on the private and public self-consciousness than the others, the private self-consciousness score increased but the public self-consciousness and the social anxiety scores decreased. The changes of the scores of each questions were examined in order to see possible other changes that had not been exposed on the changes of the total and sub-categories scores. As a result of that, of all twenty-eight questions, there were changes about one to two points. Subject A showed the difference with thirteen questions, subject B with sixteen and subject C with nineteen questions. The rate of change of subject C was relatively small but more questions changed and the change of score was wider than the others. Considering all those results, It can be possibly said that the vocal psychotherapy affects the changes of the scores of sub-categories in self-consciousness examination. The next thing to point out on this study is the change of recognition that was exposed on the subjects' report after every short term of the program. As a result of the close analyzing, according to the short terms and variety of self-consciousness, recognizing the way express subjects themselves by voice and recognizing their own voices appeared to be different. How much they cared about others and why they did so were also different. According to the self reports, subject A cared much about her inner thought and emotion and tended to concentrate herself as a social object. There appeared some positive emotional experiments such as emotional abundance and art curiosities on her reports but at the same time some negative emotions such as state-trait anxiety and neuroticism also appeared. Subject B, who showed high scores on the private and public self-consciousness like subject A, had a similar tendency that concentrates on herself as a social object but she showed more social anxiety than subject A. Subject C got relatively lower points in self-consciousness examination, tended to care about herself, and had less negative emotions such as state-trait anxiety than other subjects. Also, with terms going on, she showed changes in the way of caring about her own voice and others. This study has some unique significances in helping people who have problems caused by self-estimation activated with self-consciousness, using voices closely related to one's own self, performing the vocal skills discipline to solve the technical problems. Also, this study has a potentiality that the vocal psychotherapy activity can be effectively used as a way affects the mental health and developing personality.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.18 no.3 s.41
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• pp.1-22
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is that I should look for a desirous directions about home economics by studying the requirements and perception of the high school parents who have finished the course of home economics. It was about 600 parents whom I have searched Seoul-Pusan, Ganwon. Ghynggi province, Choongcheong-Gyungsang province, Cheonla and Jeju province of 600, I chose only 560 as apparently suitable research. The questions include 61 requirements about home economics and one which we never fail to keep among the contents, whenever possible and one about the perception of home economics aims 11 about the perception of home economics courses and management. The collections were analyzed frequency, percent, mean. standard deviation t-test by using SAS program. The followings is the summary result of studying of it. 1. All the boys and girls learning together about the Idea of healthy lives and desirous human formulation and knowledge together are higher. 2. Among the teaching purposes of home economics, the item of the scientific principle and knowledge for improvements of home life shows 15.7% below average value. 3. The recognition degree about the quality of home economics is highly related with the real life, and about the system. we recognize lacking in periods and contents of home economics field and about guiding content, accomplishment and application qualities are higher regardless of sex. 4. The important term which we should emphasize in the subject of home economics is family part. 5. Among the needs of home economic requirement in freshman, in the middle unit, their growth and development are higher than anything else, representing 4.11, and by contrast the basic principle and actuality is 3.70, which is lowest among them. 6. In the case of second grade requirement of home economics content for parents in the middle unit young man and consuming life is 4.09 highest. 7. In the case of 3rd grade requirement of economics contents in the middle unit the choice of coming direction and job ethics is highest 4.16, and preparing meals and evaluation is lowest 3.50.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.29-74
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• 2022

As social disasters occur under the Disaster Management Act, which can damage the people's "life, body, and property" due to the rapid spread and spread of unexpected COVID-19 infectious diseases in 2020, information collected through inspection and reporting of infectious disease pathogens (Article 11), epidemiological investigation (Article 18), epidemiological investigation for vaccination (Article 29), artificial technology, and prevention policy Decision), (3) It was used as an important basis for decision-making in the context of an infectious disease crisis, such as promoting vaccination and understanding the current status of damage. In addition, medical policy decisions using infectious disease data contribute to quarantine policy decisions, information provision, drug development, and research technology development, and interest in the legal scope and limitations of using infectious disease data has increased worldwide. The use of infectious disease data can be classified for the purpose of spreading and blocking infectious diseases, prevention, management, and treatment of infectious diseases, and the use of information will be more widely made in the context of an infectious disease crisis. In particular, as the serious stage of the Disaster Management Act continues, the processing of personal identification information and sensitive information becomes an important issue. Information on "medical records, vaccination drugs, vaccination, underlying diseases, health rankings, long-term care recognition grades, pregnancy, etc." needs to be interpreted. In the case of "prevention, management, and treatment of infectious diseases", it is difficult to clearly define the concept of medical practicesThe types of actions are judged based on "legislative purposes, academic principles, expertise, and social norms," but the balance of legal interests should be based on the need for data use in quarantine policies and urgent judgment in public health crises. Specifically, the speed and degree of transmission of infectious diseases in a crisis, whether the purpose can be achieved without processing sensitive information, whether it unfairly violates the interests of third parties or information subjects, and the effectiveness of introducing quarantine policies through processing sensitive information can be used as major evaluation factors. On the other hand, the collection, provision, and use of infectious disease data for research purposes will be used through pseudonym processing under the Personal Information Protection Act, consent under the Bioethics Act and deliberation by the Institutional Bioethics Committee, and data provision deliberation committee. Therefore, the use of research purposes is recognized as long as procedural validity is secured as it is reviewed by the pseudonym processing and data review committee, the consent of the information subject, and the institutional bioethics review committee. However, the burden on research managers should be reduced by clarifying the pseudonymization or anonymization procedures, the introduction or consent procedures of the comprehensive consent system and the opt-out system should be clearly prepared, and the procedure for re-identifying or securing security that may arise from technological development should be clearly defined.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.286-305
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the recognition and satisfaction with the menu quality of food services in an immigration detention center. The survey was conducted from January 22, 2010 to April 22, 2010 by questionnaires. A survey with 265 respondents was conducted and data analyzed by the SAS Program. In analyzing leftovers, the most common was kimchi (37.61%), followed by breads (21.52%), and beans/bean curd (17.99%). The common cause for leftover were undesirable taste (31.84%), sickness or a lack of desire for eating (19.85%). In terms of cooking methods, stir-frying, broiling, and frying were highly preferred to steaming, boiling, and salting. In the analysis of preferences in the taste and satisfaction of food service, there were significant differences in hot, sour, bitter, and light tastes (p<0.05, p<0.01, p<0.001). Satisfaction was low with hot and light tastes, whereas sour and the bitter tastes showed a high degree of satisfaction. In the opinions for quality improvement, most immigrants wanted a tastier food supply (58.69%), a diverse food supply (40.54%), and clean utensils (36.68%). In the analysis of the gap between importance and performance, food taste, variety, and sanitation were recognized as poorly performed, causing major dissatisfaction with the food. The overall satisfaction score was 'average' (3 points out of 5 points) with 3.26 points. The satisfaction score showed insignificant difference depending on religions and duration of stay in Korea, but showed significant differences depending on nationality (p<0.001).

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.33-54
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• 2021

With the fourth industrial revolution and the arrival of the New Normal era due to Corona, the importance of Non-contact technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data research has been increasing. Convergent research is being conducted in earnest to keep up with these research trends, but not many studies have been conducted in the area of nuclear research using artificial intelligence and big data-related technologies such as natural language processing and text mining analysis. This study was conducted to confirm the applicability of data science analysis techniques to the field of nuclear research. Furthermore, the study of identifying trends in nuclear spent fuel recognition is critical in terms of being able to determine directions to nuclear industry policies and respond in advance to changes in industrial policies. For those reasons, this study conducted a media trend analysis of pyroprocessing, a spent nuclear fuel treatment technology. We objectively analyze changes in media perception of spent nuclear fuel dry treatment techniques by applying text mining analysis techniques. Text data specializing in Naver's web news articles, including the keywords "Pyroprocessing" and "Sodium Cooled Reactor," were collected through Python code to identify changes in perception over time. The analysis period was set from 2007 to 2020, when the first article was published, and detailed and multi-layered analysis of text data was carried out through analysis methods such as word cloud writing based on frequency analysis, TF-IDF and degree centrality calculation. Analysis of the frequency of the keyword showed that there was a change in media perception of spent nuclear fuel dry treatment technology in the mid-2010s, which was influenced by the Gyeongju earthquake in 2016 and the implementation of the new government's energy conversion policy in 2017. Therefore, trend analysis was conducted based on the corresponding time period, and word frequency analysis, TF-IDF, degree centrality values, and semantic network graphs were derived. Studies show that before the 2010s, media perception of spent nuclear fuel dry treatment technology was diplomatic and positive. However, over time, the frequency of keywords such as "safety", "reexamination", "disposal", and "disassembly" has increased, indicating that the sustainability of spent nuclear fuel dry treatment technology is being seriously considered. It was confirmed that social awareness also changed as spent nuclear fuel dry treatment technology, which was recognized as a political and diplomatic technology, became ambiguous due to changes in domestic policy. This means that domestic policy changes such as nuclear power policy have a greater impact on media perceptions than issues of "spent nuclear fuel processing technology" itself. This seems to be because nuclear policy is a socially more discussed and public-friendly topic than spent nuclear fuel. Therefore, in order to improve social awareness of spent nuclear fuel processing technology, it would be necessary to provide sufficient information about this, and linking it to nuclear policy issues would also be a good idea. In addition, the study highlighted the importance of social science research in nuclear power. It is necessary to apply the social sciences sector widely to the nuclear engineering sector, and considering national policy changes, we could confirm that the nuclear industry would be sustainable. However, this study has limitations that it has applied big data analysis methods only to detailed research areas such as "Pyroprocessing," a spent nuclear fuel dry processing technology. Furthermore, there was no clear basis for the cause of the change in social perception, and only news articles were analyzed to determine social perception. Considering future comments, it is expected that more reliable results will be produced and efficiently used in the field of nuclear policy research if a media trend analysis study on nuclear power is conducted. Recently, the development of uncontact-related technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data research is accelerating in the wake of the recent arrival of the New Normal era caused by corona. Convergence research is being conducted in earnest in various research fields to follow these research trends, but not many studies have been conducted in the nuclear field with artificial intelligence and big data-related technologies such as natural language processing and text mining analysis. The academic significance of this study is that it was possible to confirm the applicability of data science analysis technology in the field of nuclear research. Furthermore, due to the impact of current government energy policies such as nuclear power plant reductions, re-evaluation of spent fuel treatment technology research is undertaken, and key keyword analysis in the field can contribute to future research orientation. It is important to consider the views of others outside, not just the safety technology and engineering integrity of nuclear power, and further reconsider whether it is appropriate to discuss nuclear engineering technology internally. In addition, if multidisciplinary research on nuclear power is carried out, reasonable alternatives can be prepared to maintain the nuclear industry.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.177-207
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• 2012

Today's consumers perceive consumption as a representation of themselves. It is not simply an act that fulfills a consumer's physical and practical needs. Even in terms of life quality, consumers increasingly want to achieve an emotional and sensible experience through consumption. Consumers now make decisions based on their need to express their position in relation to other people, pursue emotional satisfaction, and try to improve the quality of life. Culture-art products that meet such internal and external demands of consumers have made significant improvements in both quantity and quality, because of the social interest and policy support. The recognition of personal and social values of culture and arts has brought about interest in and need for culture-art products. Businesses have agilely embraced such change and actively implemented various marketing strategies utilizing culture and arts. For example, businesses began to sponsor artists who produce culture-art products while building facilities for cultural and art performances or exhibitions. Businesses have also provided performances and exhibitions free-of-charge or at affordable prices. As a result, the supply in the market has started to exceed its demand as is often the case in many of other markets. However, such imbalance has occurred not because of over-supply but because of a lack of demand. Given these circumstances, the government and culture and art related organizations, which had mainly concentrated on the supply side, started to recognize the importance of creating personal and social values in culture and arts. As a result, the government and various organizations are now creating various strategies that include policy measures to achieve their new found goal. Unfortunately however, such efforts are not meeting the expectations. Focusing on above-mentioned circumstances and problems, this study aims to find measures to create demand for culture-art products in the internal conditions of those who consume culture-art products. In other words, given that the demand for culture-art products has not increased despite all external conditions to encourage consumption, this study aims to find the reasons in consumers' value judgment on culture-art products. Though there were recent studies on culture-art products that applied consumer behavior on marketing theories, most of them focused on peripheral aspects such as people's motivation for or satisfaction from watching culture-art events. Hence, there is a need to understand what kind of value consumers perceive from culture-art products and how such value cognition leads to consumption in a comprehensive manner. This study acts as follow-up to a separate study entitled "Qualitative Study about Value Cognition and Benefits of Consumer on Culture-Art Products". The current study aims to extend practical implications that enhance the effectiveness of marketing strategies among the producing and policy agencies in the industry. The purpose of this study is to investigate dimensions of value cognition, benefits and attributes of culture-art products, and identify the effects of consumer value cognition on benefits and attributes. The questionnaire was developed based on the conceptual structure of qualitative research and previous researches. It was composed of value cognition, benefits, attributes of culture-art products and demographic variables. This survey was conducted on-line and off-line among a total of 662 persons ranging from their teens to their 50's who were living in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, various metropolitan cities, and small and medium-sized cities. The data collected was analyzed by factor analysis and path analysis using SPSS WIN 18.0 and AMOS 16.0. This empirical study found that the dimensions of value cognition of culture-art products were categorized into personal goods, aesthetic goods and public property. This shows that the consumers perceive culture-art products as products that are worthy enough to pay the costs not just for personal benefits but also for their social values. Also the formation of value cognition for culture-art products requires special conditions unlike that for physical consumer goods and services, which simply require marketing stimuli. The dimensions of benefits pursued by consuming culture-art products were found to be composed of four types - pursuit of aesthetic benefits, pursuit of actual benefits, pursuit of emotional benefits, and pursuit of conspicuous character. This result implies that people consume culture-art products not just to pursue pleasure from emotional and intelligent satisfaction as well as social relations, but also to seek the needs and benefits embodied at a social level. The dimensions of attributes of culture-art products had seven different factors, - environmental, price, evaluation, people, artwork, composition, and personal relations - which is plentiful. This is because the attributes of culture-art products are very complicated compared to other consumer goods or services. Since culture-art products include not just cultural or artistic works but also all physical, human, environmental, and systemic elements of the products in a comprehensive manner, consumers perceive everything they experience in the process of consuming culture-art products as part of the products. The dimensions of value cognition was found to affect attributes of the products, mostly using pursued benefits as a mediating factors. This result is consistent with the result of qualitative research, and proves that applying the means-end chain theory in the reverse direction is reasonable. The result can be interpreted that consumers' value cognitions for culture-art products turns into actual benefits leading to consumers' decisions. Furthermore, this result reveals that when consumers choose culture-art products, they take into account the attributes of culture-art products depending on the benefits they pursue. These results confirm that despite their conceptual and abstract attributes, culture-art products have values that contribute to actual benefits for individual consumers and society. Hence, value cognition generates benefits to be pursued and this in turn affects the consumers' choices of attributes on products. Based on the conceptual structure of consumers' value cognitions on culture-art products and its dimensions, it is possible to find detailed methods to provide opportunities for education and training to form and reinforce positive value cognition on culture-art products. And through those methods, it will be possible to develop attributes of culture-art products according to the dimensions of pursued benefits, and allow conceptual products become the subject to valuable consumption in real life. These results provide theoretical understanding of consumer behavior in culture marketing and useful information to culture-art producers, companies that use culture and art, and government agencies that use culture-art as a mean to improve the public perception of quality of life. As a follow up on this study, there should be experimental studies that can develop criteria visualizing the demands of consumers who purchase culture-art products and identify their detailed attributes. Studies that compare characteristics of different areas within the culture-art product category and in-depth studies on a specific area or genre will also be needed. In order to develop marketing strategies for culture-art products, studies on the formation and reinforcement of positive value cognition on culture-art products and education for the development of consumer demand as well as on the development and differentiation of attributes of culture-art products depending on types of consumer groups should also follow.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.141-173
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• 2007

The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.