• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2005

Puruose : Thin glomerular basement membrane disease(TGBMD) is found in patients with family history of hematuria. TGBMD is autosomal dominant and is known to be one of the commonest causes of asymptomatic hematuria. This study was conducted to evaluate the histological and clinical features of patients with TGBMD. Methods : 150 cases diagnosed with TGBMD by renal biopsy while admitted in the department of pediatrics, Kyungpook National University Hospital between January 1999 and December 2003 comprised the study group. The following parameters were retrospectively anaIyzed age of onset, hematuria pattern, existence of proteinuria, process of diagnosis, laboratory findings, thickness and character of basement membrane and family history. Results : The mean age at the time of diagnosis was 7.9 years. The male to female ratio was 65:77. 94 patients or 66% visited the hospital with a chief complaint of persistent microscopic hematuria. Gross hematuria accounted for 13 cases or 9%. 78 cases(55%) were found to have hematuria for the first time from a routine school urinalysis screening. The renal biopsy showed the thickness of basement membrane to be 186$\pm$36 nm. Focal lamellation of the basement membrane was found in eight cases. In the family history, hematuria was shown in 10 cases on the Paternal side, 13 on The maternal side and none on both sides. In seven cases, hematuria was shown among siblings. No significant differences were found among the laboratory test results which were conducted at an average interval of fifteen months. Conclusion : TGBMD is one of the major causes of asymptomatic hematuria in children, which was diagnosed in increasing numbers since school urinary mass screening test started in 1998. In cases with familial progressive renal disease or focal duplication in the basement membrane Alport syndrome should be considered.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.11
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• pp.1317-1324
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• 2013

High-molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) have been shown to play a crucial role in determining the processing properties of the wheat grain. We have produced marker-free transgenic rice plants containing a wheat Glu-1Bx7 gene encoding the HMG-GS from the Korean wheat cultivar 'Jokyeong' using the Agrobacterium-mediated co-transformation method. The Glu-1Bx7-own promoter was inserted into a binary vector for seed-specific expression of the Glu-1Bx7 gene. Two expression cassettes comprised of separate DNA fragments containing only Glu-1Bx7 and hygromycin phosphotransferase II (HPTII) resistance genes were introduced separately to the Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA105 strain for co-infection. Each EHA105 strain harboring Glu-1Bx7 or HPTII was infected to rice calli at a 3:1 ratio of Glu-1Bx7 and HPTII, respectively. Then, among 216 hygromycin-resistant $T_0$ plants, we obtained 24 transgenic lines with both Glu-1Bx7 and HPTII genes inserted into the rice genome. We reconfirmed integration of the Glu-1Bx7 gene into the rice genome by Southern blot analysis. Transcripts and proteins of the wheat Glu-1Bx7 were stably expressed in the rice $T_1$ seeds. Finally, the marker-free plants harboring only the Glu-1Bx7 gene were successfully screened at the $T_1$ generation.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.177-200
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• 2009

AIn the advanced - economy, the services industry hasbecome a dominant sector. Evidently, the services sector has grown at a much faster rate than any other. For instance, in such developed countries as the U.S., the proportion of the services sector in its GDP is greater than 75%. Even in the developing countries including India and China, the magnitude of the services sector in their GDPs is rapidly growing. The increasing dependence on service gives rise to new initiatives including service science and service-dominant logic. These new initiatives propose a new theoretical prism to promote the better understanding of the changing economic structure. From the new perspectives, service is no longer regarded as a transaction or exchange, but rather co-creation of value through the interaction among service users, providers, and other stakeholders including partners, external environments, and customer communities. The purpose of this study is the following. First, we review previous literature on service, service innovation, and service systems and integrate the studies based on service dominant logic. Second, we categorize the ten propositions of service dominant logic into conceptual propositions and the ones that are directly related to service provision. Conceptual propositions are left out to form the research model. With the selected propositions, we define the research constructs for this study. Third, we develop measurement items for the new service concepts including service provider network, customer network, value co-creation, and convergence of service with product. We then propose a research model to explain the relationship among the factors that affect the value creation mechanism. Finally, we empirically investigate the effects of the factors on firm performance. Through the process of this research study, we want to show the value creation mechanism of service systems in which various participants in service provision interact with related parties in a joint effort to create values. To test the proposed hypotheses, we developed measurement items and distributed survey questionnaires to domestic companies. 500 survey questionnaires were distributed and 180 were returned among which 171 were usable. The results of the empirical test can be summarized as the following. First, service providers' network which is to help offer required services to customers is found to affect customer network, while it does not have a significant effect on value co-creation and product-service convergence. Second, customer network, on the other hand, appears to influence both value co-creation and product-service convergence. Third, value co-creation accomplished through the collaboration of service providers and customers is found to have a significant effect on both product-service convergence and firm performance. Finally, product-service convergence appears to affect firm performance. To interpret the results from the value creation mechanism perspective, service provider network well established to support customer network is found to have significant effect on customer network which in turn facilitates value co-creation in service provision and product-service convergence to lead to greater firm performance. The results have some enlightening implications for practitioners. If companies want to transform themselves into service-centered business enterprises, they have to consider the four factors suggested in this study: service provider network, customer network, value co-creation, and product-service convergence. That is, companies becoming a service-oriented organization need to understand what the four factors are and how the factors interact with one another in their business context. They then may want to devise a better tool to analyze the value creation mechanism and apply the four factors to their own environment. This research study contributes to the literature in following ways. First, this study is one of the very first empirical studies on the service dominant logic as it has categorized the fundamental propositions into conceptual and empirically testable ones and tested the proposed hypotheses against the data collected through the survey method. Most of the propositions are found to work as Vargo and Lusch have suggested. Second, by providing a testable set of relationships among the research variables, this study may provide policy makers and decision makers with some theoretical grounds for their decision making on what to do with service innovation and management. Finally, this study incorporates the concepts of value co-creation through the interaction between customers and service providers into the proposed research model and empirically tests the validity of the concepts. The results of this study will help establish a value creation mechanism in the service-based economy, which can be used to develop and implement new service provision.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.77-100
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• 2009

Information Systems (IS) is an essential tool for any organizations. The last decade has seen an increasing body of knowledge on IS usage. Yet, IS often fails because of its misuse or non-use. In general, decisions regarding the selection of a system, which involve the evaluation of many IS vendors and an enormous initial investment, are made not through the consensus of employees but through the top-down decision making by top managers. In situations where the selected system does not satisfy the needs of the employees, the forced use of the selected IS will only result in their resistance to it. Many organizations have been either integrating dispersed legacy systems such as archipelago or adopting a new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to enhance employee efficiency. This study examines user resistance prior to the adoption of the selected IS or ERP system. As such, this study identifies the importance of managing organizational resistance that may appear in the pre-adoption context of an integrated IS or ERP system, explores key factors influencing user resistance, and investigates how prior experience with other integrated IS or ERP systems may change the relationship between the affecting factors and user resistance. This study focuses on organizational members' resistance and the affecting factors in the pre-adoption context of an integrated IS or ERP system rather than in the context of an ERP adoption itself or ERP post-adoption. Based on prior literature, this study proposes a research model that considers six key variables, including perceived benefit, system complexity, fitness with existing tasks, attitude toward change, the psychological reactance trait, and perceived IT competence. They are considered as independent variables affecting user resistance toward an integrated IS or ERP system. This study also introduces the concept of prior experience (i.e., whether a user has prior experience with an integrated IS or ERP system) as a moderating variable to examine the impact of perceived benefit and attitude toward change in user resistance. As such, we propose eight hypotheses with respect to the model. For the empirical validation of the hypotheses, we developed relevant instruments for each research variable based on prior literature and surveyed 95 professional researchers and the administrative staff of the Korea Photonics Technology Institute (KOPTI). We examined the organizational characteristics of KOPTI, the reasons behind their adoption of an ERP system, process changes caused by the introduction of the system, and employees' resistance/attitude toward the system at the time of the introduction. The results of the multiple regression analysis suggest that, among the six variables, perceived benefit, complexity, attitude toward change, and the psychological reactance trait significantly influence user resistance. These results further suggest that top management should manage the psychological states of their employees in order to minimize their resistance to the forced IS, even in the new system pre-adoption context. In addition, the moderating variable-prior experience was found to change the strength of the relationship between attitude toward change and system resistance. That is, the effect of attitude toward change in user resistance was significantly stronger in those with prior experience than those with no prior experience. This result implies that those with prior experience should be identified and provided with some type of attitude training or change management programs to minimize their resistance to the adoption of a system. This study contributes to the IS field by providing practical implications for IS practitioners. This study identifies system resistance stimuli of users, focusing on the pre-adoption context in a forced ERP system environment. We have empirically validated the proposed research model by examining several significant factors affecting user resistance against the adoption of an ERP system. In particular, we find a clear and significant role of the moderating variable, prior ERP usage experience, in the relationship between the affecting factors and user resistance. The results of the study suggest the importance of appropriately managing the factors that affect user resistance in organizations that plan to introduce a new ERP system or integrate legacy systems. Moreover, this study offers to practitioners several specific strategies (in particular, the categorization of users by their prior usage experience) for alleviating the resistant behaviors of users in the process of the ERP adoption before a system becomes available to them. Despite the valuable contributions of this study, there are also some limitations which will be discussed in this paper to make the study more complete and consistent.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.81-99
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• 2010

Lately, in consumers' markets the number of new items is rapidly increasing at an overwhelming rate while consumers have limited access to information about those new products in making a sensible, well-informed purchase. Therefore, item providers and customers need a system which recommends right items to right customers. Also, whenever new items are released, for instance, the recommender system specializing in new items can help item providers locate and identify potential customers. Currently, new items are being added to an existing system without being specially noted to consumers, making it difficult for consumers to identify and evaluate new products introduced in the markets. Most of previous approaches for recommender systems have to rely on the usage history of customers. For new items, this content-based (CB) approach is simply not available for the system to recommend those new items to potential consumers. Although collaborative filtering (CF) approach is not directly applicable to solve the new item problem, it would be a good idea to use the basic principle of CF which identifies similar customers, i,e. neighbors, and recommend items to those customers who have liked the similar items in the past. This research aims to suggest a hybrid recommendation procedure based on the preference boundary of target customer. We suggest the hybrid recommendation procedure using the preference boundary in the feature space for recommending new items only. The basic principle is that if a new item belongs within the preference boundary of a target customer, then it is evaluated to be preferred by the customer. Customers' preferences and characteristics of items including new items are represented in a feature space, and the scope or boundary of the target customer's preference is extended to those of neighbors'. The new item recommendation procedure consists of three steps. The first step is analyzing the profile of items, which are represented as k-dimensional feature values. The second step is to determine the representative point of the target customer's preference boundary, the centroid, based on a personal information set. To determine the centroid of preference boundary of a target customer, three algorithms are developed in this research: one is using the centroid of a target customer only (TC), the other is using centroid of a (dummy) big target customer that is composed of a target customer and his/her neighbors (BC), and another is using centroids of a target customer and his/her neighbors (NC). The third step is to determine the range of the preference boundary, the radius. The suggested algorithm Is using the average distance (AD) between the centroid and all purchased items. We test whether the CF-based approach to determine the centroid of the preference boundary improves the recommendation quality or not. For this purpose, we develop two hybrid algorithms, BC and NC, which use neighbors when deciding centroid of the preference boundary. To test the validity of hybrid algorithms, BC and NC, we developed CB-algorithm, TC, which uses target customers only. We measured effectiveness scores of suggested algorithms and compared them through a series of experiments with a set of real mobile image transaction data. We spilt the period between 1st June 2004 and 31st July and the period between 1st August and 31st August 2004 as a training set and a test set, respectively. The training set Is used to make the preference boundary, and the test set is used to evaluate the performance of the suggested hybrid recommendation procedure. The main aim of this research Is to compare the hybrid recommendation algorithm with the CB algorithm. To evaluate the performance of each algorithm, we compare the purchased new item list in test period with the recommended item list which is recommended by suggested algorithms. So we employ the evaluation metric to hit the ratio for evaluating our algorithms. The hit ratio is defined as the ratio of the hit set size to the recommended set size. The hit set size means the number of success of recommendations in our experiment, and the test set size means the number of purchased items during the test period. Experimental test result shows the hit ratio of BC and NC is bigger than that of TC. This means using neighbors Is more effective to recommend new items. That is hybrid algorithm using CF is more effective when recommending to consumers new items than the algorithm using only CB. The reason of the smaller hit ratio of BC than that of NC is that BC is defined as a dummy or virtual customer who purchased all items of target customers' and neighbors'. That is centroid of BC often shifts from that of TC, so it tends to reflect skewed characters of target customer. So the recommendation algorithm using NC shows the best hit ratio, because NC has sufficient information about target customers and their neighbors without damaging the information about the target customers.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.103-128
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• 2013

When a consumer needs a product or service and multiple sellers are available online, the process of selecting a seller to buy online from is complex since the process involves many behavioral dimensions that have to be taken into account. As a part of this selection process, consumers may set minimum trust expectation that can be used to screen out less trustworthy sellers. In the previous research, the level of consumers' trust expectation has been anchored on two important factors: product involvement and perceived risk. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a consumer perceives a specific product important. Thus, the higher product involvement may result in the higher trust expectation in sellers. On the other hand, other related studies found that when consumers perceived a higher level of risk (e.g., credit card fraud risk), they set higher trust expectation as well. While abundant research exists addressing the relationship between product involvement and perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the integrative view of the link between the two constructs and their impacts on the trust expectation. The present paper is a step toward filling this research gap. The purpose of this paper is to understand the process by which a consumer chooses an online merchant by examining the relationships among product involvement, perceived risk, trust expectation, and intention to buy from an e-tailer. We specifically focus on the mediating role of perceived risk in the relationships between enduring product involvement and the trust expectation. That is, we question whether product involvement affects the trust expectation directly without mediation or indirectly mediated by perceived risk. The research model with four hypotheses was initially tested using data gathered from 635 respondents through an online survey method. The structural equation modeling technique with partial least square was used to validate the instrument and the proposed model. The results showed that three out of the four hypotheses formulated were supported. First, we found that the intention to buy from a digital storefront is positively and significantly influenced by the trust expectation, providing support for H4 (trust expectation ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intention). Second, perceived risk was found to be a strong predictor of trust expectation, supporting H2 as well (perceived risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust expectation). Third, we did not find any evidence of direct influence of product involvement, which caused H3 to be rejected (product involvement ${\rightarrow}$ trust expectation). Finally, we found significant positive relationship between product involvement and perceived risk (H1: product involvement ${\rightarrow}$ perceived risk), which suggests that the possibility of complete mediation of perceived risk in the relationship between enduring product involvement and the trust expectation. As a result, we conducted an additional test for the mediation effect by comparing the original model with the revised model without the mediator variable of perceived risk. Indeed, we found that there exists a strong influence of product involvement on the trust expectation (by intentionally eliminating the variable of perceived risk) that was suppressed (i.e., mediated) by the perceived risk in the original model. The Sobel test statistically confirmed the complete mediation effect. Results of this study offer the following key findings. First, enduring product involvement is positively related to perceived risk, implying that the higher a consumer is enduringly involved with a given product, the greater risk he or she is likely to perceive with regards to the online purchase of the product. Second, perceived risk is positively related to trust expectation. A consumer with great risk perceptions concerning the online purchase is likely to buy from a highly trustworthy online merchant, thereby mitigating potential risks. Finally, product involvement was found to have no direct influence on trust expectation, but the relationship between the two constructs was indirect and mediated by the perceived risk. This is perhaps an important theoretical integration of two separate streams of literature on product involvement and perceived risk. The present research also provides useful implications for practitioners as well as academicians. First, one implication for practicing managers in online retail stores is that they should invest in reducing the perceived risk of consumers in order to lower down the trust expectation and thus increasing the consumer's intention to purchase products or services. Second, an academic implication is that perceived risk mediates the relationship between enduring product involvement and trust expectation. Further research is needed to elaborate the theoretical relationships among the constructs under consideration.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.398-404
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• 1999

Purpose: Diabetic nephropathy is the most common cause of end stage renal disease and the incidence is progressively increasing. The aim of this study was to investigate the differences of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA renal uptake among diabetic patients with normoalbuminuria, microalbuminuria and overt proteinuria, and then to determine the clinical usefulness of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA in predicting early diabetic nephropathy Materials and Methods: $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA scan was performed and a total renal uptake of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA was measured in 145 diabetic patients. Patients were divided into 3 groups according to the amount of 24 hour urinary albumin excretion as Group I (normoalbuminuria, 74 cases), Group II (microalbuminuria, 39 cases), and Group III (overt proteinuria, 32 cases). The differences of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA renal uptake among the 3 groups and the correlation between the renal uptake of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA and other clinical parameters were analyzed. Results: The total renal uptake of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA of Group II ($40.8{\pm}11.0%$) was significantly lower than that of Group I ($54.4{\pm}6.3%$, p<0.001). The uptake of Group III ($27.7{\pm}12.0%$) was significantly lower than those of both Group I and Group II (p<0.001). $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA total renal uptakes correlated negatively with serum creatinine level (r=-0.629, p<0.001) and positively correlated with creatinine clearance rate (r=0.102, p<0.001). Conclusion: $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA total renal uptake of diabetic patients with microalbuminuria was significantly decreased compared with that of patients of normoalbuminuria. Therefore, $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA scan can be used as a diagnostic study for early detection of the diabetic nephropathy.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.51-56
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• 2015

Purpose As medical radiation exposures on patients are being social issues an interest in a relief of radiation exposures on patients is increasing. Further, there are many cases where some patients among who are getting PET/CT tests choose to get implanted with metal artifacts in their bodies. This study is to find out effects of presence or absence of metal artifacts when dose change or CT attenuation correction for the relief of radiation exposures are applied using phantoms through changes in standard uptake value (SUV). Materials and Methods GE company's Discovery 710 machine was used for PET/CT test equipments. We used NEMA IEC body phantoms. We also used screw and mesh cage made of titanium which are used in real clinical processes for the metal artifacts. Two experiments were conducted: One is to test and measure repeatedly about SUV about differences in CT attenuation corrections according to dose changes and another is to do the same procedure for SUV about the presence and absence of the metal artifacts. We injected $^{18}F-FDG$ into NEMA IEC body phantoms with a TBR ratio of 4:1 and then put the metal material into the transformation phantoms. Once a scanning for the metal artifacts was done we eliminated the metal artifacts and went on non-metal artifacts. For the each two experiments, we scanned repeatedly with CT kVp (140, 120, 100, 80) and mA (120, 80, 40, 20, 10) for an experimental condition. For PET, we reconstructed each with standard AC (STD) technique and quantitation achieved cnsistently QAC) technique among CT attenuation correction methods. We conducted a comparative analysis on measured average values and variations which were measured through repeated measure of SUV of region 1, 2, 3 spheres for each conditions of non-metal /metal scan. Results For each kVp, 120, 80, 40 (mA) of non/metal (screw, mesh cage) showed low frequency of fluctuation rates of above 2%. In 20, 10 mA above 2% of fluctuation rates appeared in high frequency. Also, when we compared the fluctuation rates of STD and QAC techniques in non/metal (screw, mesh cage) tests QAC technique showed about 1-10% of differences for each conditions compared to STD technique. In addition, metal types did not have significant effects on fluctuation rates. Conclusion We confirmed that SUV fluctuation rates for both STD and QAC techniques increase as dosage is lower. We also found that the SUV of PET data was maintained steadily in a low dosage for QAC technique when compared with STD technique. Hence, when the low dosage is used for the relief of radiation exposures on patients QAC technique may be exploited helpfully and this could be applied in the same way for patients with metal artifacts implanted in their bodies.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.667-682
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• 2014

The effects of liquid pig manure (LM) on the yield and quality of rice as well as soil chemical properties were determined in the field of sandy loam soil under the different fertilizer management. Treatments consisted of 100%, 130% and 160% N application rates of liquid manure as calculated on the basis of the recommended rate of nitrogen (9 kg N/10a) for rice cultivation. Chemical fertilizer (CF) was used as control. Concentrations of T-N and T-P in paddy water were measured by 5-day intervals up to 20days after application. LM treatments significantly increased T-N concentrations in paddy water proportionally with increasing rates of LM (13.2 to 25.7 mg/L). Similarly Total-P content in paddy water was increased right after LM applications but was well below the quality standard of wastewater and manure. Plant height and tillers in 100% and 130% N LM treatments were lower than those in CF control. In the 160% LM treatment, however, plant height and numbers of tillers were higher than those in the CF control. Yields in 100% LM and 160% LM plots were decreased by 3 and 5%, respectively, as compared with 422 kg per 10a in the CF plot. Rice protein contents were similar between 100% LM and CF control (about 6.8%) but it was increased to 7.2% and 7.7% in 130% LM and 160% LM treatments, respectively. Toyo-taste value in the 100% LM treatment was higher than in CF control plot. The proportions of perfect grain of the brown rice were lower in 130% LM and 160% LM treatments than that in CF control. Soil organic matter content, heavy metal and exchangeable cations were highest in the 160% LM plot. Thus considering yield and quality of rice and heavy metals contents in soil, 130% N basal application of liquid manure can be recommended for rice cultivation in this experiment.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.71-84
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• 2017

Hot pepper growth in no-tillage cultivation on recycled ridge was increased by 22% compared with tillage cultivation. At 3 years after no-tillage cultivation, hot pepper growth was increased by 12% compared with tillage cultivation. Dry weight of unripe hot pepper at 2 years of no-tillage cultivation was 348.4 kg/10a increasing 16% compared with tillage cultivation while dry weight of unripe hot pepper was decreased at 3 years of no-tillage cultivation. Bacteria flora at 2 years of no-tillage cultivation was significantly increased compared with tillage cultivation. Bacteria flora was not significantly different at 3 years of no-tillage cultivation. Actinomyces flora at 2 years of no-tillage cultivation was significantly increased compared with tillage cultivation. Actinomyces flora was decreased at 3 years of no-tillage cultivation. Fungi flora at 2 and 3 years of no-tillage cultivation was increased by 1.3 and 1.7 times respectively, compared with tillage cultivation. Generation amount of carbon dioxide at no-tillage cultivation soil was remarkably decreased by 41% compared with tillage cultivation. Population of animalcule in early stage of hot pepper soil was 2 species and 6 individuals on Collembola and Acari at tillage cultivation. Population of animalcule in hot pepper soil was 5 species and 11 individuals including Chilopode at one year of no-tillage cultivation. Population of animalcule in hot pepper soil was 3 species and 5 individuals including Coleoptera and Chilopode at 2 years of no-tillage cultivation. Population of animalcule was 4 species and 40 individuals including Hypogastrurigae and 8 species and 97 individuals including Earwig (Labidura japornica) at 46 days after transplanting on tillage cultivation. Population of animalcule was 9~10 species and 101~107 individuals on no-tillage cultivation. Nature status for environmental change as index organism was 19 points and 33 points, at tillage and no-tillage cultivation, respectively. These results indicate that no-tillage agriculture of korean-style on recycled ridge plays a very important roles on pepper growth, biodiversity of animalcule, and greenhouse gases at plastic film greenhouse soil in no-tillage systems.