• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.21-32
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• 2017

Motivated by the recent cases of negligent social responsibility as manifested by foreign luxury fashion brands in Korea, this study investigates whether agency costs depend on the sustainability of different types of corporate governance. Agency costs refer either to vertical costs arising from the relationship between stockholders and managers, or to horizontal costs associated with the potential conflicts between majority and minority stockholders. The firms with luxury fashion brand could spend large sums of money on maintenance of magnificent brand image, thereby increasing the agency cost. On the contrary, the firms may hold down wasteful spending to report a gaudily financial achievement. This results in mitigation of the agency cost. Agency costs are measured by the value of the principal component. First, three ratios are constructed: asset turnover, operating expense to sales, and earnings before interest, tax, and depreciation. Then, the scores of each of these ratios for individual firms in the sample are differenced from the ratios for the benchmark firm of S-OIL. S-OIL was designated as the best superior governance model firm for 2013 by CGS. We perform regression analysis of each agency cost index, luxury fashion brand dummy and a set of control variables. The regression results indicate that the agency costs of the firms with luxury fashion brand exceed those of control group in the fashion industry in the part of operating expenses, but the agency cost falls short of those of control group in the part of EBITD, thus the aggregate agency costs are not differential of those of the control group. In sensitivity test, the results are same that the agency cost of the firms are higher than those of the matching control group with PSM(propensity matching method). These results are corroborated by an additional analysis comparing the group of the companies with the best brands with the control group. The results raise doubts about the effectiveness of management of the firms with luxury fashion brand. This study has a limitation that the research has performed only for 2013 and this paper suggests that there is room for improvement in the current research methodology.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 2006

Japan's first pilot-scale $CO_2$ sequestration experiment has been conducted in Nagaoka, where 10400 t of $CO_2$ have been injected in an onshore aquifer at a depth of about 1100 m. Among various measurements conducted at the site for monitoring the injected $CO_2$, we conducted time-lapse crosswell seismic tomography between two observation wells to determine the distribution of $CO_2$ in the aquifer by the change of P-wave velocities. This paper reports the results of the crosswell seismic tomography conducted at the site. The crosswell seismic tomography measurements were carried out three times; once before the injection as a baseline survey, and twice during the injection as monitoring surveys. The velocity tomograms resulting from the monitoring surveys were compared to the baseline survey tomogram, and velocity difference tomograms were generated. The velocity difference tomograms showed that velocity had decreased in a part of the aquifer around the injection well, where the injected $CO_2$ was supposed to be distributed. We also found that the area in which velocity had decreased was expanding in the formation up-dip direction, as increasing amounts of $CO_2$ were injected. The maximum velocity reductions observed were 3.0% after 3200 t of $CO_2$ had been injected, and 3.5% after injection of 6200 t of $CO_2$. Although seismic tomography could map the area of velocity decrease due to $CO_2$ injection, we observed some contradictions with the results of time-lapse sonic logging, and with the geological condition of the cap rock. To investigate these contradictions, we conducted numerical experiments simulating the test site. As a result, we found that part of the velocity distribution displayed in the tomograms was affected by artefacts or ghosts caused by the source-receiver geometry for the crosswell tomography in this particular site. The maximum velocity decrease obtained by tomography (3.5%) was much smaller than that observed by sonic logging (more than 20%). The numerical experiment results showed that only 5.5% velocity reduction might be observed, although the model was given a 20% velocity reduction zone. Judging from this result, the actual velocity reduction can be more than 3.5%, the value we obtained from the field data reconstruction. Further studies are needed to obtain more accurate velocity values that are comparable to those obtained by sonic logging.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.15-24
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• 2018

Despite the recognition of the need for productivity information and its importance, the feedback of productivity information is not well-established in the construction industry. Effective use of productivity information is required to improve the reliability of construction planning. However, in many cases, on-site productivity information is hardly management effectively, but rather it relies on the experience and/or intuition of project participants. Based on the literature review and expert interviews, the authors recognized that one of the possible solutions is to develop a systematic approach in dealing with productivity information of the construction job-sites. It is required that the new system should not be burdensome to users, purpose-oriented information management, easy-to follow information structure, real-time information feedback, and productivity-related factor recognition. Based on the preliminary investigations, this study proposed a framework for a novel system that facilitate the effective management of construction productivity information. This system has utilized Sketchup software which has good user accessibility by minimizing additional data input and related workload. The proposed system has been designed to input, process, and output the pertinent information through a four-stage process: preparation, input, processing, and output. The inputted construction information is classified into Task Breakdown Structure (TBS) and Material Breakdown Structure (MBS), which are constructed by referring to the contents of the standard specification of building construction, and converted into productivity information. In addition, the converted information is also graphically visualized on the screen, allowing the users to use the productivity information from the job-site. The productivity information management system proposed in this study has been pilot-tested in terms of practical applicability and information availability in the real construction project. Very positive results have been obtained from the usability and the applicability of the system and benefits are expected from the validity test of the system. If the proposed system is used in the planning stage in the construction, the productivity information and the continuous information is accumulated, the expected effectiveness of this study would be conceivably further enhanced.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.45 no.7
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• pp.1071-1076
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• 2016

The feasibility of incorporating aronia powder (AP) as a value-added food ingredient into convenient food products was investigated using cookie as a model system. AP was incorporated into cookies at amounts of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4% (w/w) based on total weight of wheat flour. The pH level of cookie dough decreased significantly with increasing levels of AP (P<0.05), whereas moisture content and density were not directly affected by levels of AP incorporation. The spread ratio increased significantly upon addition of AP; however, it was not significantly affected by level of AP incorporation. The loss rate of cookies decreased significantly with increasing levels of AP (P<0.05). In terms of color, lightness and yellowness decreased while redness increased significantly (P<0.05) with increasing levels of AP. Use of AP significantly decreased hardness of cookies (P<0.05), but no significant differences were found between control and 1% sample, 1% and 2% sample, 2% and 3% sample, and 3% and 4% sample (P>0.05). 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2'-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS) radical scavenging activities were significantly elevated by AP addition, and they increased significantly as AP concentration increased in the formulation (P<0.05). Correlation analysis indicated that acceptances of color and chewiness were negatively correlated well with the level of AP incorporation, density and moisture content of cookie dough, and cookie redness, whereas they were positively correlated with pH of cookie dough, loss rate, and hardness (P<0.01 or P<0.05). Finally, consumer acceptance test indicated that the highest levels of AP incorporation (4%) had an adverse effect on general consumer preferences. In contrast, cookies with moderate levels of AP (2%) are recommended based on overall scores to take advantage of the antioxidant properties of AP without sacrificing consumer acceptability.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.414-429
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• 1990

Numerous research reports have substantiated the role of stressful life events in relation to the onset of health changes. The relationship tends to hold across different age groups. Theoretically, adolescence has been considered a developmental crisis period of great stress, impoverished coping skills and high vulnerability to biological, social and psychological demands. The research problem addressed by this study was to examine the relationships between stressful life events and health symptom patterns, and the effect of two variables, coping and social, support, theoretically considered to mediate the relationship between stress and health symptoms in adolescents. The following five hypotheses were tested in this research : 1. Health symptoms are positively related to stressful life events in adolescents, 2. Health symptoms are negatively related to coping in adolescents, 3. Health symptoms are negatively related to social support in adolescents, 4. When coping is controlled, the relationship between health symptoms and stressful life events will decrease, and 5. When social support is controlled, the relationship between health symptoms and stressful life events will increase. The study subjects consisted of 1090 high school students of the metropolitan city of Seoul. The following sampling procedure was used : 1. Of the 169 high schools in nine school administrative districts in the city, a proportional sample of ten schools was selected. 2. One class from each of the freshman and sophomore was randomly selected and all the students who were in the sampled class were used as the study sample. The study was limited to freshman and sophomore adolescents, aged 15 to 18(mean＝16.6). Of the 1090 subjects 688(63%) were boys and 402(37%) were girls. An Adolescent Inventory of Stressful Life Events, a Health Symptom Questionnaire and an Adolescent Coping Inventory were adapted for this study. The Norbeck Social Support questionnaire was utilized to collect the data on perceived social support. Five high school teachers in the areas of school health and counselling reviewed the items of each questionnaire for content validity. A pilot study was undertaken to ascertain reliability. Fifty three high school students responded to the questionnaires and gave their opinions on the items. For stressful life events, health symptoms, coping, and social support, the Cronbach's alpha's on the study were .70, .94, .77, and .76, respectively. Research assistants attended all the sampled classes with the school proctor to explain the purpose and procedures of the study to the students. The questionnaires along with a ballpoint pen were distributed to the students who were asked to complete each item. The research assistants left the ballpoint pen with the students as a gift for their cooperation. An average of 50 minutes was required to complete the questionnaires. Using an SPSS, the first, three hypotheses were tested using Gamma, a measure of association for ordinal variables. Partial gamma was used to test the fourth and fifth hypotheses. Patterns of elaboration described by Babbie were selected to interpret the relationship of the three variable analyses. The significance of gamma was determined by Chisquare at a .05 level of significance. There was a positive relationship between health symptoms and stressful life events(Gamma＝.35, p＝.000). Thus the first hypothesis was supported. Unexpectedly, coping was positively related with health symptoms(Gamma＝.13, p＝.000). That is, the higher the coping levels, the greater number of health problems. The third hypothesis, the higher the level of social support, the fewer the health symptoms, was not accepted in this adolescent study group. When coping was controlled, under the condition of low coping the association between health symptoms and stressful life events increased significantly to a partial gamma of .39, and under the condition of high coping it was .30. According to the elaboration model, when one partial relationship is the same or greater than the original and the other is smaller, the control variable should be considered to be specifying the conditions. When social support was controlled the relationship between stressful life events and health symptoms increased under the condition of low social support, but with high social support, the relationship decreased. Both partial gamma were statistically significant at .05 level(.43 and .26 relatively). It can be interpreted that stressful life events are strongly and positively related to health symptoms under the condition of low social support, however this relationship can not be expected with high social support. Thus, the last two hypotheses were conditionally sustained. In this study, the relationships between stressful life events and health symptoms, and the specified me diating roles of coping and social support were found to have statistical interaction. This finding supports the theoretical position of this study. It suggests that stressful life events would create high susceptability to biological social and psychological health symptoms and coping and social support buffering the relationship between stressful life events and health symptom. The findings of this study have implications for nursing practice. When adolescents are confronted with non-developmental life events that are perceived as stressful, nurses should recognize the evidence of the stress-buffering effect of coping and social support on health symptoms and utilize the diverse sources of social support that are readily available to adolescents.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.515-525
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• 2007

In this investigation, results of laboratory tests on four reinforced concrete flat plate interior connections with elongated rectangular column support which has been used widely in tall residential buildings are presented. The purpose of this study is to evaluate an effect of column aspect ratio (${\beta}_c={c_1}/{c_2}$=side length ratio of column section in the direction of lateral loading $(c_1)$ to the direction of perpendicular to $c_1$) on the hysteretic behavior under earthquake type loading. The aspect ratio of column section was taken as $0.5{\sim}3\;(c_1/c_2=1/2,\;1/1,\;2/1,\;3/1)$ and the column perimeter was held constant at 1200mm in order to achieve nominal vertical shear strength $(V_c)$ uniformly. Other design parameters such as flexural reinforcement ratio $(\rho)$ of the slab and concrete strength$(f_{ck})$ was kept constant as ${\rho}=1.0%$ and $f_{ck}=40MPa$, respectively. Gravity shear load $(V_g)$ was applied by 30 percent of nominal vertical shear strength $(0.3V_o)$ of the specimen. Experimental observations on punching failure pattern, peak lateral-load and story drift ratio at punching failure, stiffness degradation and energy dissipation in the hysteresis loop, and steel and concrete strain distributions near the column support were examined and discussed in accordance with different column aspect ratio. Eccentric shear stress model of ACI 318-05 was evaluated with experimental results. A fraction of transferring moment by shear and flexure in the design code was analyzed based on the test results.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.93-124
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• 2003

This paper studies the financial analyst's forecasting activities on the firm's operating performance during the period from 1999 to 2003. In this study, financial analyst's forecasting activities are focused on the sales, operating income and net income and financial analyst's forecasting accuracy, forecasting revising patterns and forecasting activities to the unexpected firm's operating performance are studied. Some empirical findings in this study are as follows. First, standard estimate error on the sales, operating income and net income are all significantly negative value and so financial analyst's forecast on the firm's operating performance are upwardly biased. Second, domestic financial analyst's forecasting activities is relatively more accuracy than foreign financial analyst's forecasting activities. Third, forecasting time is more close to the end of the operating performance announcement day, forecasting activities are more accuracy. Fourth, comparing with individual financial analyst's forecast, consensus forecast is more accuracy. Fifth, in the comparative forecasting activities study according to the prior firm's operating performance, financial analyst's forecasting revision activities are found to be upward or downward. Sixth, financial analysts overreact in the sales forecast and underreact in the operating income and net income forecast. Seventh, in the empirical analysis on the Easterwood-Nutt's test model(1999) which the firm's performance change are divided into the expected performance change and the unexpected performance change, it is found that financial analyst's forecasting activities on the firm's operating performance are systematically optimistic.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.1-40
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• 2007

We test a model of investment-cashflow-growth opportunities relationship in order to estimate the sensitivities to investments. In this study, we use a new proxy variable for the value of growth opportunities(hereafter "VGO"), which is based on the seminal papers of M&M(1958:1961:1963) and Lee(2006;2007). The empirical findings on the sensitivities of cashflow and growth opportunities are as follows. First, when the traditional proxy variables for the growth opportunities such as Tobin's Q, MBR and sales growth are included with the new proxy VGO in the estimation, their coefficients are turned out to be insignificant. Second, only the new proxy variable VGO shows a statistically significant positive sensitibity to investment, which can be regarded that the growth opportunities hold the positive influences to investments. Third, the Tobin's Q can be decomposed into three factors such as the value of growth opportunities(VGO), the value of asset-in-place and valuation errors. It turns out that only the VGO shows a statistically significant positive relationship with investment among others. This means that the new variable VGO is a good proxy variable for the growth opportunities in the investment-cashflow sensitivity analysis. In sum, thanks to the above findings in this study, we can say that it will not be proper to choose a proxy variable for the growth opportunities from the traditional set of proxies such as Tobin's Q, MBR, or sales growth rate.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.643-652
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the size and morphologic characteristics of maxillary primary first molars in Korean children using three-dimensional laser scanner and compare three-dimensional image with preformed stainless steel crown. Scanned three-dimensional images of dental cast taken from 132 children(male 62, female 70) by three-dimensional laser scanner(Breuckmann opto-Top HE100, INUS, Korea) were used. Mesiodistal diameter, buccolingual diameter, occlusogingival height and crown shape of each image were calculated by Rapidform 2004 program(INUS, Korea). The values were statistically compared by independent samples t-test with 95% of significant level. The results were as follows : 1. No significant difference in crown size was found between left and right maxillay primary first molar(p>0.05). 2, Significant difference in mesiodistal diameter, buccolingual diameter, buccal occlusogingival height was found between male and female (p<0.05), and crown size of male was bigger than that of female. 3. Average image of maxillay primary first molar was shaped three-dimensionally and measured. In comparison with 3M stainless steel crown, this image was similar with No.4 or No.5 SS crown in male, No.4 in female. In comparison with ILSUNG SS crown, this image was similar with No.5 in male, No.4 in female. 4 Mesiolingual line angle area, distolingual line angle area and buccogingival ridge were more obvious in average image than 3M stainless steel crown. ILSUNG SS crown was more square and had longer mesiodistal diameter than average 3D image.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.5 no.4 s.20
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• pp.281-287
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• 2005

Purpose: This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness and the role of post-operative adjuvant chemoradiation therapy in a stage-II (UICC, 1997) primary gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: From September 1994 to December 2004, 954 stage-II gastric-cancer patients were seen, and all of them underwent a curative resection with extensive (D2) lymph-node dissection. The chemotherapy consisted of fluorouracil $(400mg/m^2)$ plus leucovorin $(20mg/m^2)$ for 5 days, followed by 4,500 cGy of radiotherapy for 5 weeks with fluorourcil and leucovorin on the first 4 days and the last 3 days of radiotherapy. Two five-day cycles of chemotherapy were given four weeks after the completion of radiotherapy. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate the survival rates. To assess the importance of potential prognostic factors, we performed univariate and multivariate analyses using a log-rank test and Cox's proportional hazards regression model. A P value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: Univariate analysis revealed that age, tumor size, gross type, surgical method, and postoperative adjuvant therapy had statistical significance. Among these factors, age, surgical method, tumor size, surgical method, and postoperative adjuvant therapy were found to be independent prognostic factors by using a multivariate analysis. The postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy group and the chemoradiation therapy group had survival benefit compared to the surgery-only group. However the chemoradiation therapy group had no significant survival benefit compared to the chemotherapy group. Conclusion: The postoperative adjuvant therapy in stage-II gastric-cancer patients had significant benefit. Therefore, postoperative adjuvant chemoradiation therapy has an acceptable effect. A large-scale, randomized study is needed to evaluate the effectiveness and the role of postoperative radiation therapy.