• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.95-116
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• 2009

Increasingly the institutional theory has been an important theoretical view of decision making process and IT adoption in many academic researches. This study used the institutional theory as a lens through which we can understand the factors that enable the effective appropriation of advanced information technology. It posits that mimetic, coercive, and normative pressures existing in an institutionalized environment could influence the participation of top managers or decision makers and the involvement of users toward an effective use of IT in their tasks. Since the introduction of IT, organizational members have been using IT in their daily tasks, creating and recreating rules and resources according to their own methods and needs. That is to say, the adaptation process of the IT and outcomes are different among organizations. The previous studies on a diverse use of IT refer to the appropriation of technology from the social technology view. Users appropriate IT through not only technology itself, but also in terms of how they use it or how they make the social practice in their use of it. In this study, the concepts of institutional pressure, appropriation, participation of decision makers, and involvement of users toward the appropriation are explored in the context of the appropriation of the mobile electronic medical record system (M-EMRS) in particularly a hospital setting. Based on the conceptual definition of institutional pressure, participation and involvement, operational measures are reconstructed. Furthermore, the concept of appropriation is measured in the aspect of three sub-constructs-consensus on appropriation, faithful appropriation, and attitude of use. Grounded in the relevant theories to appropriation of IT, we developed a research framework in which the effects of institutional pressure, participation and involvement on the appropriation of IT are analyzed. Within this theoretical framework, we formulated several hypotheses. We developed a second order institutional pressure and appropriation construct. After establishing its validity and reliability, we tested the hypotheses with empirical data from 101 users in 3 hospitals which had adopted and used the M-EMRS. We examined the mediating effect of the participation of decision makers and the involvement of users on the appropriation and empirically validated their relationships. The results show that the mimetic, coercive, and normative institutional pressure has an effect on the participation of decision makers and the involvement of users in the appropriation of IT while the participation of decision makers and the involvement of users have an effect on the appropriation of IT. The results also suggest that the institutional pressure and the participation of decision makers influence the involvement of users toward an appropriation of IT. Our results emphasize the mediating effect of the institutional pressure on the appropriation of IT. Namely, the higher degree of the participation of decision makers and the involvement of users, the more effective appropriation users will represent. These results provide strong support for institutional-based variables as predictors of appropriation. These findings also indicate that organizations should focus on the role of participation of decision makers and the involvement of users for the purpose of effective appropriation, and these are the practical implications of our study. The theoretical contribution of this study is lies in the integrated model of the effect of institutional pressure on the appropriation of IT. The results are consistent with the institutional theory and support previous studies on adaptive structuration theory.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.195-221
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• 2009

According to an industry report, a large number of organizations have invested in Organizational Information System(OIS) in the past few years. Several research results indicate that successful investments in OIS lead to productivity enhancement, while failed ones result in undesirable consequences such as financial losses and dissatisfaction among employees. In spite of huge investments, however, many organizations have failed in achieving the hoped-for returns from OIS. Thus, understanding user acceptance, adoption, and usage of new IS(Information Systems) is an important issue for IS practitioners. Indeed, study of the user acceptance of new information system has been one of the most important research topics in the contemporary IS literature. Several theoretical models are tested to examine 'user acceptance' and 'usage behavior' in IS context. While many research models incorporate 'ease of use' or 'usefulness' as important factors in explaining user acceptance, Technology Acceptance Model(TAM) has been one of the most widely applied models in user acceptance and usage behavior. Even in recent IS studies that employ theories of innovation diffusion in the area of IS implementation, a major focus has been on the user's perception of information technologies. In this research, we study 'voluntariness' as an important factor in IS acceptance by users. Voluntariness is defined as "the degree to which the use of the innovation is perceived as being voluntary, or of free will" When examining the diffusion of accepting OIS, a thoughtful consideration should be given to 'perceived voluntariness.' Current article has following research questions: 1) What models are appropriate to explain the success of OIS? and 2) How does the 'voluntariness' affect the success of OIS? In order to answer these questions, a research model is proposed to describe the detailed nature of association among three independent variables (IT usage level, task interdependency, and organizational support), a mediating variable (IS usage), a dependent variable (perceived performance), and a moderating variable(perceived voluntariness). The central claim of this article is that organizations hardly realize expected returns from OIS investments unless perceived voluntariness is effectively managed after operating OIS. As an example of OIS in this study we have selected the Intranet of Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF). ROKAF has implemented the Intranet in an attempt to improve communication and coordination within the organization. To test our research model and hypotheses, survey questionnaires were first sent out to 400 Intranet users. With the assistance of ROKAF, Intranet users were initially identified among its members, and subjects were randomly drawn from the pool. 377 survey responses were finally returned. The unit of measurement and analysis in this research is a personal level. Path analysis based on structural equation modeling was used to test research hypotheses. Construct validity represents accordance between the theoretical base concept of constructs and its measurement items. Tests for the reliability and discriminant validity are accepted, thus verifying our survey instrument. In this research, we have proposed a conceptual framework to highlight the importance of perceived voluntariness after organization deploys OIS. The results of our analysis present several key finding. First, all three independent variables (IT usage level, task interdependency, and organizational support) have significant effects on IS usage, which will eventually improve performance. Thus, IS usage plays a mediating role between antecedent variables (IT usage level. task interdependency, and organizational support) and performance improvement. Second, the effect of the task dependency was the highest for IS usage among the three antecedent variables. This is highly plausible since one of the Intranet's major capabilities is to facilitate communication among members within an organization. Accordingly, we conclude that the higher the task dependency, the higher Intranet usage. The effect of user's IT usage level was the second, while the effect of the organizational support was the third. Finally, the perceived voluntariness plays a pivotal role in enhancing perceived performance in personal level after launching the Intranet. Relationships among investigated variables were significantly different between groups with a high level and a low level of voluntariness. The impact of the Intranet usage on the performance was greater in the higher level voluntariness group than in the lower one. For the lower level voluntariness group, the user's IT usage had the highest effect on the Intranet usage among the three antecedent variables. In short, our study suggests that the higher the perceived voluntariness is the more IS usage will be. Perceived voluntariness was found to have a moderating effect on the relationships among user IT usage level, task interdependency, IS usage, and perceived performance, supporting all the hypotheses on the moderating effect. Most of all, user IT usage level has the strongest influence on IS usage, indicating that users with superior IT usage are more likely to enjoy a high level of perceived performance.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.42 no.7
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• pp.615-621
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• 2009

This study was conducted to evaluate the change of nutritional status and to analyze related factors in hospitalized tuberculosis (TB) patients during their hospitalization. The subjects were 398 men patients (mean age: 47.3 ${\pm}$ 14.4 y) who had hospitalized more than 3 months at TB hospital located in Seoul. The anthropometric and blood biochemical indices were measured, and dietary intakes were assessed. At the time of admission the body weight of subjects was about 76% of the average body weight of Korean men with same age, Body mass index (BMI) of subjects was 18.5 kg/$m^2$, and 53.8% of subjects were under weight status. Average level of blood hemoglobin and hematocrit of subjects was lower than the normal value. After 3 months of hospitalization period, the body weight and body mass index were significantly increased compared to admission by 3.9 kg (7.41%) and 1.4 kg/$m^2$ (7.61%)(p < 0.001), respectively. Blood levels of hemoglobin, hematocrit, albumin, and total protein were also significantly increased after 3 months of hospitalization period compared to admission (p < 0.001). The increment in the body weight and blood indices was significantly higher in below 29 years group than over 60 years group (p < 0.05). The increment in the body weight and body mass index was significantly higher in the under-body weight group compared to the normal-body weight group (p < 0.05). In conclusion the body weight and body mass index of subjects were significantly increased after 3 months of hospitalization period, and the age and body weight of subjects at admission were supposed to influence the degree of change in the nutritional status.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.97 no.6
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• pp.605-610
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• 2008

This study was carried out to investigate the short-term (3 years) effect of thinning on aboveground carbon storage for 34-year-old (site 1) and 45-year-old (site 2) Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis Siebold et Zuccarini) plantations with different diameter class and site quality located in Gwangneung experimental forest. Thinning was manually carried out in consideration of basal area in 2004 (site 1 : 30% and 60% of basal area removed and site 2 : 60% of basal area removed). In 2004 and 2007, DBH and tree height were measured to analyze the changes in carbon storage after thinning. In the sites of 60% of basal area removed, although the mean DBH of site 1 was higher than that of site 2, mean annual carbon storage increment in site 2 ($6.5Mg\;C\;ha^{-1}yr^{-1}$) was about 3 times higher than that in site 1 ($2.3Mg\;C\;ha^{-1}yr^{-1}$). The reason for this result was probably due to higher stem density and site quality in site 2 compared to site 1. In site 2, mean annual carbon storage increment in thinned plot ($6.5Mg\;C\;ha^{-1}yr^{-1}$) was about 1.3 times higher than that in control ($5.2Mg\;C\;ha^{-1}yr^{-1}$). The results suggest that the stem density and site quality may be much more related to the aboveground carbon storage compared to diameter class. In addition, it is needed to consider these two factors for determining whether thinning is a feasible management alternative for the increase in aboveground carbon sequestration.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.375-381
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• 2007

Occlusal stabilization appliance is one of the most common treatment option for management of temporomandibular disorders. It acts in oral cavity for several hours per day, and usually it will take at least 6 months to 2 years of total wearing periods to take a treatment goal. In the oral cavity, occlusal stabilization appliance, unintentional manner, is able to acts as a reservoir of bacteria and protect bacteria from saliva and oxygen. This condition is so favorable to many bacteria such as S. mutans and other anaerobes, usually have been reported as causative factors of dental caries, periodontal disease and oral malodor. In this study, we investigated anaerobic bacteria and S. mutans count before and after occlusal stabilization appliance use to evaluate the possible role of occlusal stabilization appliance as protector of these bacteria. Four men(average 27.5 years) wore maxillary occlusal stabilization appliance at each night(average 9 hours) for 5 days. we swabbed saliva-plaque mixed sample at 3 different site(maxillary left 2nd molar, maxillary left central incisor, mandibular left 2nd molar) before and after occlusal stabilization appliance use. Each samples were plated in (1) anaerobic blood agar medium, (2) selective S. mutans medium(MS-MUTV) and incubated in anaerobic chamber($CO^2$ 10%, $37^{\circ}C$) for 72 hours. Each bacterial colony forming unit(CFU) were counted with naked eyes. From obtained data, we can conclude as follows: 1. There was some changes about anaerobic bacteria and S. mutans count in oral cavity after occlusal stabilization appliance use. 2. The number of anaerobic bacteria was significantly increased at maxillary 2nd molar(P=0.003), maxillary central incisor(P=0.020) after occlusal stabilization appliance use compared with before. 3. Occlusal stabilization appliance use itself had indirect effect to increase the number of anaerobic bacteria at other uncovered opponent tooth site. 4. The number of S. mutans was significantly increased at maxillary 2nd molar(P=0.043), maxillary central incisor (P=0.049) after occlusal stabilization appliance use compared with before. 5. Occlusal stabilization appliance use itself had not any effect on the number of S. mutans at other uncovered opponent tooth site.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.161-172
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to classify, evaluate and grade the existing highway tunnels to increase landscape and natural statistics keeping the structural safety about tunnel gates area and induce the ones that will be constructed in the future by drawing the improvements and restoring the techniques as an environment-friendly. To examine the types of tunnel gate area, total 54 tunnels were investigated by selecting Gyeongbu Expressway, Yeongdong Expressway, and Jungang Expressway. Tunnel entrances and exit ports were classified as a Wall-closed type and Protruding type, which is based on tunnel gate type. Vegetation Landscape types were classified as Multilayer-Same as the surrounding landscape_(MS), Multilayer-Difference of surrounding landscape_(MD), Single layer-Same as the surrounding landscape_(SS), Single layer-Difference of surrounding landscape_(SD), and a Desolate type which based on vegetation layers and environment-friendly. Potential vegetation recovery was identified based on the structural stability and revegetation potential of the tunnel. The factors include the structural stability of the slope height and slope gradient were selected. Revegetation potential was identified as a growth potential. This factor was used in the step to classify vegetation recovery potential of a tunnel. The result, which investigated the types of tunnel entrances and exit parts has found that the most typical in 33 places was a Wall closed type with 61.1% of the total ones. The case of vegetation landscape types was created but different from the ones surrounding it with 85.2% of the total ones. It is judged that the currently constructed vegetation of tunnel entrance and exit parts had put convenience on the safety and management before landscape consideration. In addition, tunnel entrance and exit parts with excellent potential for vegetation recovery were all Protruding type. In addition, it is judged that slope stability can easily obtain growth. Therefore, entrance and exist of the highway tunnels, which will be constructed in the future, should reflect location and the result of the natural and ecological survey in design by performing it in advance and their types, which minimize the damage area range, should be applied to the local characteristics suitably. In addition, the ecologically healthy tunnel construction should be done by introducing active vegetation recovery techniques based on its safety.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.191-204
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• 1994

Due to its topographic complexities and various climatical condition, Korea exhibits diverse forest types. Dominant tree species in this zone are Quercus spp., Betula spp., Zelkova spp., Fraxinus spp., Pinus densiflora, Pinus koraiensis, and Pinus thunbergii ete. Genetic conservation in forest species in Korea there are three ways ; one is in situ, other is ex situ and third is in-facility conservation. In situ conservation include that are the present status of conservation of rare and endangered flora and ecosystem, the reserved forest, the national and provincial park, and the gene pool of natural forests. Ex situ conservation means to be established the new forest from in situ forest stands, progeny and provenance test populations, seed orchard and clone banks, and gene conservation in-facility. As a tool for low temperature storage, several aspects on in vitro system were studied ; (1) establishment of in vitro cultures from juvenile and/or rejuvenated tissues, (2) induction of multiple shoots from the individual micropropagules, (3) elongation of the proliferated shoots. Studies on cold storage for short-and long-term maintenance of in vitro cultures under $4^{\circ}C$ in the refrigerator were conducted. For the cryopreservation at $-196^{\circ}C$, various factors affecting survivability of the plant materials are being examined. The necessity of gene conservation of forest trees is enlarged not only to increase the adaptability for various environments but also to gain the breeding materials in the future. For effective gene conservation of forest trees, I would like to suggest followings ; 1. Forest stands reserved for other than the gene conservation purposes such as national parks should be investigated by botanical and gene-ecological studies for selecting bio-diversity and gene conservation stands. 2. Reserved forest for gene pool should be extented both economically important tree spp. and non-economical species. 3. Reserved forest for progeny test and clone bank should be systematically investigated for the use of Ex situ forest gene conservation. 4. We have to find out a new methodology of genetic analysis determining the proper and effective size of subpopulation for in situ gene conservation. 5. We should develop a new tree breeding systems for successful gene conservation and utilization of the genetic resources. 6. New method of in-facility gene conservation using advanced genetic engineering should be developed to save time and economic resources. 7. For the conservation of species with short-life span of seed or shortage of knowledge of seed physiology, tissue culture techniques will be played a great role for gene conservation of those species. 8. It is are very useful conservation not only of genes but of genotypes which were selected already by breeding program. 9. Institutional and administrative arrangements including legistlation must be necessarily taken for gene conservation of forest trees. 10. It is national problems for conservation of forest resources which have been rapidly destroyed because of degenerating environmental condition and of inexperienced management system of bio-diversity and gene conservation. 11. In order to international cooperation for exchanging data of bio-diversity and gene conservation, we should connect to international net works as soon as possible.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.105-110
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• 2006

A three-layer, feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) with sixteen input neurons, three hidden neurons, and one output neuron was developed to identify the presence of infectious bronchitis (IB) infection as early as possible in laying hen flocks. Retrospective data from flocks that enrolled IB surveillance program between May 2003 and November 2005 were used to build the ANN. Data set of 86 flocks was divided randomly into two sets: 77 cases for training set and 9 cases for testing set. Input factors were 16 epidemiological findings including characteristics of the layer house, management practice, flock size, and the output was either presence or absence of IB. ANN was trained using training set with a back-propagation algorithm and test set was used to determine the network's capability to predict outcomes that it has never seen. Diagnostic performance of the trained network was evaluated by constructing receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve with the area under the curve (AUC), which were also used to determine the best positivity criterion for the model. Several different ANNs with different structures were created. The best-fitted trained network, IBV_D1, was able to predict IB in 73 cases out of 77 (diagnostic accuracy 94.8%) in the training set. Sensitivity and specificity of the trained neural network was 95.5% (42/44, 95% CI, 84.5-99.4) and 93.9% (31/33, 95% CI, 79.8-99.3), respectively. For testing set, AVC of the ROC curve for the IBV_D1 network was 0.948 (SE=0.086, 95% CI 0.592-0.961) in recognizing IB infection status accurately. At a criterion of 0.7149, the diagnostic accuracy was the highest with a 88.9% with the highest sensitivity of 100%. With this value of sensitivity and specificity together with assumed 44% of IB prevalence, IBV_D1 network showed a PPV of 80% and an NPV of 100%. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that neural network can be successfully applied to the development of a screening model for identifying IB infection in laying hen flocks.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.123-137
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• 2007

The advent of the Internet and related Web technologies has created an easily accessible link between a firm and its customers, and has provided opportunities to a firm to use information technology to support supplementary after-sale services associated with a product or service. It has been widely recognized that supplementary services are an important source of customer value and of competitive advantage as the characteristics of the product itself. Many of these supplementary services are information-based and need not be co-located with the product, so more and more companies are delivering these services electronically. Net-based customer service, which is defined as an Internet-based computerized information system that delivers services to a customer, therefore, is the core infrastructure for supplementary service provision. The importance of net-based customer service in delivering supplementary after-sale services associated with product has been well documented. The strategic advantages of well-implemented net-based customer service are enhanced customer loyalty and higher lock-in of customers, and a resulting reduction in competition and the consequent increase in profits. However, not all customers utilize such net-based customer service. The digital divide is the phenomenon in our society that captures the observation that not all customers have equal access to computers. Socioeconomic factors such as race, gender, and education level are strongly related to Internet accessibility and ability to use. This is due to the differences in the ability to bear the cost of a computer, and the differences in self-efficacy in the use of a technology, among other reasons. This concept, applied to e-commerce, has been called the "e-commerce divide." High Internet penetration is not eradicating the digital divide and e-commerce divide as one would hope. Besides, to accommodate personalized support, a customer must often provide personal information to the firm. This personal information includes not only name and address, but also preferences information and perhaps valuation information. However, many recent studies show that consumers may not be willing to share information about themselves due to concerns about privacy online. Due to the e-commerce divide, and due to privacy and security concerns of the customer for sharing personal information with firms, limited numbers of customers adopt net-based customer service. The limited level of customer adoption of net-based customer service affects the firm profits and the customers' welfare. We use a game-theoretic model in which we model the net-based customer service system as a mechanism to enhance customers' loyalty. We model a market entry scenario where a firm (the incumbent) uses the net-based customer service system in inducing loyalty in its customer base. The firm sells one product through the traditional retailing channels and at a price set for these channels. Another firm (the entrant) enters the market, and having observed the price of the incumbent firm (and after deducing the loyalty levels in the customer base), chooses its price. The profits of the firms and the surplus of the two customers segments (the segment that utilizes net-based customer service and the segment that does not) are analyzed in the Stackelberg leader-follower model of competition between the firms. We find that an increase in adoption of net-based customer service by the customer base is not always desirable for firms. With low effectiveness in enhancing customer loyalty, firms prefer a high level of customer adoption of net-based customer service, because an increase in adoption rate decreases competition and increases profits. A firm in an industry where net-based customer service is highly effective loyalty mechanism, on the other hand, prefers a low level of adoption by customers.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.221-228
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• 2011

Weed control is of fundamental importance when planting horticultural crops, particularly during the establishment phase. Weeds compete for nutrients, water and light, and can severely threaten the survival and early growth of newly planted crops. Failure to control weeds represents one of the single most important factors leading to crop loss. Knowledge on the existence of the diversity of weed species in greenhouses is of our main concern in this study in order to develop a most efficient and effective weed control strategies. Sixty-two greenhouses were surveyed in 3 cities and counties of Gyeongnam area in March to October 2009 to investigate the feature of weed occurrence in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) after harvesting of the main crops. Forty-one weed species were identified and classified to 18 families which were composed of 14 annual weeds, 18 summer annual weeds and 9 perennial weeds. On the other hand, broadleaf, grasses and sedges recorded with 30, 7 and 4 weed species, respectively. Asteraceae was the most dominant weed species (9 species) noted followed by Poaceae (7 species), Cyperaceae (4 species), Caryophyllaceae and Brassicaceae (3 species respectively) and other families have 1~2 species. The dominant weed species occurred in the greenhouse based on the summed dominance ratio. These weeds were Digitaria sanguinalis, Cyperus iria, Portulaca oleracea, Rorippa islandica, Mazus japonicas, Cardamine flexousa, and Eclipta prostrata and others. Weed occurrence in the greenhouse after horticultural crops consisted of summer annuals (4 species), winter annuals (3 species), and perennial annuals (1 specie). The dominant species occurred in tilled soil based on summed dominance ratio of weeds were Cardamine flexousa (88.1%), Eclipta prostrate (57.4%) and Portulaca oleracea (55.2%). Comparison of weed occurrence was thoroughly surveyed also in which field without PVC, weed species were Portulaca oleracea (55.2), Eclipta prostrata (57.9%) and Trigonotis peduncularis (25.1%) and field with PVC, the identified weeds were Portulaca oleracea (98.75), Trigonotis peduncularis (49.1%), and Eclipta prostrata (36.8%).