Clinical Outcome and Long Term Follow-up of Chronic Functional Constipation in Children (소아 만성 기능성 변비의 치료 성적과 장기적 예후)
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- Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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- v.9 no.2
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- pp.200-209
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- 2006
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long term outcome and the factors contributing to treatment outcome for chronic functional constipation in children. Methods: Sixty three children were enrolled who had chronic functional constipation and could be followed by telephone contact. They were treated at the Bucheon Soonchunhyang Hospital for more than 1 month and observed from March 2001 to June 2005. We analyzed the clinical features, symptoms and signs, as well as the course and results of treatment. Results: The male to female ratio was 35 (55.6%) : 28 (44.4%). The mean age at the onset of symptoms and diagnosis was
Uniform scions and rootstocks should be produced to ensure grafting success. Light quality is an important environmental factor that regulates seedling growth. The effects of warm- and cool-white light emitting diode (LED) ratios on seedling growth were investigated. Scions and rootstocks of cucumber, tomato, and watermelon were grown in a closed transplant production system using LED as the sole lighting source. The LED treatments were W1C0 (only warm-white), W1C1 (warm-white: cool-white = 1:1), W3C1 (warm-white: cool-white = 3:1), and W5C2 (warm-white: cool-white = 5:2). The seedlings grown in W1C1 had the shortest hypocotyls, and the seedlings grown in W1C0 had the longest hypocotyls among the three tested vegetables. The hypocotyls of watermelon scions, watermelon rootstocks, and tomato rootstocks were shortest in W1C1, followed by those in W3C1, W5C2, and W1C0, but there was no significant difference between W3C1 and W5C2, which remained the same as the ratio of cool-white LEDs increased. In addition, tomato scions had the first and second longest hypocotyls in W1C0 and W3C1, respectively, and the shortest hypocotyls in W5C2 and W1C1, along with W5C2 and W1C1, although the difference was not significant. The stem diameter was highest in W1C0 except for tomato seedlings and rootstocks of watermelon. The shoot fresh weight of scions and rootstocks of cucumber and watermelon and the root fresh weight of cucumber scions were lowest in W1C1. These results indicated that different ratios of LED lighting sources had a strong effect on the hypocotyl elongation of seedlings.
The Korean film industry with significant increase every year exceeded the number of cumulative audiences of 200 million people in 2013 finally. However, starting from 2015 the Korean film industry entered a period of low growth and experienced a negative growth after all in 2016. To overcome such difficulty, stakeholders like production company, distribution company, multiplex have attempted to maximize the market returns using strategies of predicting change of market and of responding to such market change immediately. Since a film is classified as one of experiential products, it is not easy to predict a box office record and the initial number of audiences before the film is released. And also, the number of audiences fluctuates with a variety of factors after the film is released. So, the production company and distribution company try to be guaranteed the number of screens at the opining time of a newly released by multiplex chains. However, the multiplex chains tend to open the screening schedule during only a week and then determine the number of screening of the forthcoming week based on the box office record and the evaluation of audiences. Many previous researches have conducted to deal with the prediction of box office records of films. In the early stage, the researches attempted to identify factors affecting the box office record. And nowadays, many studies have tried to apply various analytic techniques to the factors identified previously in order to improve the accuracy of prediction and to explain the effect of each factor instead of identifying new factors affecting the box office record. However, most of previous researches have limitations in that they used the total number of audiences from the opening to the end as a target variable, and this makes it difficult to predict and respond to the demand of market which changes dynamically. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to predict the weekly number of audiences of a newly released film so that the stakeholder can flexibly and elastically respond to the change of the number of audiences in the film. To that end, we considered the factors used in the previous studies affecting box office and developed new factors not used in previous studies such as the order of opening of movies, dynamics of sales. Along with the comprehensive factors, we used the machine learning method such as Random Forest, Multi Layer Perception, Support Vector Machine, and Naive Bays, to predict the number of cumulative visitors from the first week after a film release to the third week. At the point of the first and the second week, we predicted the cumulative number of visitors of the forthcoming week for a released film. And at the point of the third week, we predict the total number of visitors of the film. In addition, we predicted the total number of cumulative visitors also at the point of the both first week and second week using the same factors. As a result, we found the accuracy of predicting the number of visitors at the forthcoming week was higher than that of predicting the total number of them in all of three weeks, and also the accuracy of the Random Forest was the highest among the machine learning methods we used. This study has implications in that this study 1) considered various factors comprehensively which affect the box office record and merely addressed by other previous researches such as the weekly rating of audiences after release, the weekly rank of the film after release, and the weekly sales share after release, and 2) tried to predict and respond to the demand of market which changes dynamically by suggesting models which predicts the weekly number of audiences of newly released films so that the stakeholders can flexibly and elastically respond to the change of the number of audiences in the film.
The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.
The conflict between major corporations and small and medium-sized businesses is being aggravated, the trickle down effect is not working properly, and, as the controversy surrounding the effectiveness of the business limiting system continues to swirl, the plan proposed to protect the business domain of small and medium-sized businesses, resolve polarization between these businesses and large corporations, and protect small family run stores is the suitable business type designation system for small and medium-sized businesses. The current status of carrying out this system of selecting suitable business types among small and medium-sized businesses involves receiving applications for 234 items among the suitable business types and items from small and medium-sized businesses in manufacturing, and then selecting the items of the consultative group by analyzing and investigating the actual conditions. Suitable business type designation in the service industry will involve designation with priority on business types that are experiencing social conflict. Three major classifications of the service industry, related to the livelihood of small and medium-sized businesses, will be first designated, and subsequently this will be expanded sequentially. However, there is the concern that when designated as a suitable business type or item, this will hinder the growth motive for small to medium-sized businesses, and designation all cause decrease in consumer welfare. Also it is highly likely that it will operate as a prior regulation, cause side-effects by limiting competition systematically, and also be in violation against the main regulations of the FTA system. Moreover, it is pointed out that the system does not sufficiently reflect reverse discrimination factor against large corporations. Because conflict between small to medium sized businesses and large corporations results from the expansion of corporations to the service industry, which is unrelated to their key industry, it is necessary to introduce an advanced contract method like a master franchise or local franchise system and to develop local small to medium sized businesses through a franchise system to protect these businesses and dealers. However, this method may have an effect that contributes to stronger competitiveness of small to medium sized franchise businesses by advancing their competitiveness and operational methods a step further, but also has many negative aspects. First, as revealed by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the franchise industry is contributing to the strengthening of competitiveness through the economy of scale by organizing existing individual proprietors and increasing the success rate of new businesses. It is also revealed to be a response measure by the government to stabilize the economy of ordinary people and is emphasized as a 'useful way' to revitalize the service industry and improve the competitiveness of individual proprietors, and has been involved in contributions to creating jobs and expanding the domestic market by providing various services to consumers. From this viewpoint, franchises fit the purpose of the suitable business type system and is not something that is against it. Second, designation as a suitable business type may decrease investment for overseas expansion, R&D, and food safety, as well negatively affect the expansion of overseas corporations that have entered the domestic market, due to the contraction and low morale of large domestic franchise corporations that have competitiveness internationally. Also because domestic franchise businesses are hard pressed to secure competitiveness with multinational overseas franchise corporations that are operating in Korea, the system may cause difficulty for domestic franchise businesses in securing international competitiveness and also may result in reverse discrimination against these overseas franchise corporations. Third, the designation of suitable business type and item can limit the opportunity of selection for consumers who have up to now used those products and can cause a negative effect that reduces consumer welfare. Also, because there is the possibility that the range of consumer selection may be reduced when a few small to medium size businesses monopolize the market, by causing reverse discrimination between these businesses, the role of determining the utility of products must be left ot the consumer not the government. Lastly, it is desirable that this is carried out with the supplementation of deficient parts in the future, because fair trade is already secured with the enforcement of the franchise trade law and the best trade standard of the Fair Trade Commission. Overlapping regulations by the suitable business type designation is an excessive restriction in the franchise industry. Now, it is necessary to establish in the domestic franchise industry an environment where a global franchise corporation, which spreads Korean culture around the world, is capable of growing, and the active support by the government is needed. Therefore, systems that do not consider the process or background of the growth of franchise businesses and harm these businesses for the sole reason of them being large corporations must be removed. The inhibition of growth to franchise enterprises may decrease the sales of franchise stores, in some cases even bankrupt them, as well as cause other problems. Therefore the suitable business type system should not hinder large corporations, and as both small dealers and small to medium size businesses both aim at improving competitiveness and combined growth, large corporations, small dealers and small to medium sized businesses, based on their mutual cooperation, should not include franchise corporations that continue business relations with them in this system.
With the MICE(Meeting, Incentive travel, Convention, Exhibition) industry coming into the spotlight, there has been a growing interest in the domestic exhibition industry. Accordingly, in Korea, various studies of the industry are being conducted to enhance exhibition performance as in the United States or Europe. Some studies are focusing particularly on analyzing visiting patterns of exhibition visitors using intelligent information technology in consideration of the variations in effects of watching exhibitions according to the exhibitory environment or technique, thereby understanding visitors and, furthermore, drawing the correlations between exhibiting businesses and improving exhibition performance. However, previous studies related to booth recommendation systems only discussed the accuracy of recommendation in the aspect of a system rather than determining changes in visitors' behavior or perception by recommendation. A booth recommendation system enables visitors to visit unplanned exhibition booths by recommending visitors suitable ones based on information about visitors' visits. Meanwhile, some visitors may be satisfied with their unplanned visits, while others may consider the recommending process to be cumbersome or obstructive to their free observation. In the latter case, the exhibition is likely to produce worse results compared to when visitors are allowed to freely observe the exhibition. Thus, in order to apply a booth recommendation system to exhibition halls, the factors affecting the performance of the system should be generally examined, and the effects of the system on visitors' unplanned visiting behavior should be carefully studied. As such, this study aims to determine the factors that affect the performance of a booth recommendation system by reviewing theories and literature and to examine the effects of visitors' perceived performance of the system on their satisfaction of unplanned behavior and intention to reuse the system. Toward this end, the unplanned behavior theory was adopted as the theoretical framework. Unplanned behavior can be defined as "behavior that is done by consumers without any prearranged plan". Thus far, consumers' unplanned behavior has been studied in various fields. The field of marketing, in particular, has focused on unplanned purchasing among various types of unplanned behavior, which has been often confused with impulsive purchasing. Nevertheless, the two are different from each other; while impulsive purchasing means strong, continuous urges to purchase things, unplanned purchasing is behavior with purchasing decisions that are made inside a store, not before going into one. In other words, all impulsive purchases are unplanned, but not all unplanned purchases are impulsive. Then why do consumers engage in unplanned behavior? Regarding this question, many scholars have made many suggestions, but there has been a consensus that it is because consumers have enough flexibility to change their plans in the middle instead of developing plans thoroughly. In other words, if unplanned behavior costs much, it will be difficult for consumers to change their prearranged plans. In the case of the exhibition hall examined in this study, visitors learn the programs of the hall and plan which booth to visit in advance. This is because it is practically impossible for visitors to visit all of the various booths that an exhibition operates due to their limited time. Therefore, if the booth recommendation system proposed in this study recommends visitors booths that they may like, they can change their plans and visit the recommended booths. Such visiting behavior can be regarded similarly to consumers' visit to a store or tourists' unplanned behavior in a tourist spot and can be understand in the same context as the recent increase in tourism consumers' unplanned behavior influenced by information devices. Thus, the following research model was established. This research model uses visitors' perceived performance of a booth recommendation system as the parameter, and the factors affecting the performance include trust in the system, exhibition visitors' knowledge levels, expected personalization of the system, and the system's threat to freedom. In addition, the causal relation between visitors' satisfaction of their perceived performance of the system and unplanned behavior and their intention to reuse the system was determined. While doing so, trust in the booth recommendation system consisted of 2nd order factors such as competence, benevolence, and integrity, while the other factors consisted of 1st order factors. In order to verify this model, a booth recommendation system was developed to be tested in 2011 DMC Culture Open, and 101 visitors were empirically studied and analyzed. The results are as follows. First, visitors' trust was the most important factor in the booth recommendation system, and the visitors who used the system perceived its performance as a success based on their trust. Second, visitors' knowledge levels also had significant effects on the performance of the system, which indicates that the performance of a recommendation system requires an advance understanding. In other words, visitors with higher levels of understanding of the exhibition hall learned better the usefulness of the booth recommendation system. Third, expected personalization did not have significant effects, which is a different result from previous studies' results. This is presumably because the booth recommendation system used in this study did not provide enough personalized services. Fourth, the recommendation information provided by the booth recommendation system was not considered to threaten or restrict one's freedom, which means it is valuable in terms of usefulness. Lastly, high performance of the booth recommendation system led to visitors' high satisfaction levels of unplanned behavior and intention to reuse the system. To sum up, in order to analyze the effects of a booth recommendation system on visitors' unplanned visits to a booth, empirical data were examined based on the unplanned behavior theory and, accordingly, useful suggestions for the establishment and design of future booth recommendation systems were made. In the future, further examination should be conducted through elaborate survey questions and survey objects.