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The Clinical Characteristics According to the Risk Factors of Idiopathic Nonhemolytic Hyperbilirubinemia (신생아 특발성 비용혈성 고빌리루빈혈증의 위험 요인에 따른 임상 양상)

  • Park, Sook-Hyun;Kang, Ji-Hyun;Kwon, Soon-Hak;Kim, Heng-Mi;Kim, Yong-Sun
    • Neonatal Medicine
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.224-231
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    • 2010
  • Purpose: Hospital readmissions have recently increased due to early hospital discharge and increased trends in breast-feeding. Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia can lead to fatal permanent neurological sequelae without appropriate management. Early detection and intervention are critical. We evaluated the clinical features, risk factors, and brain MRI findings of Korean newborns with idiopathic nonhemolytic hyperbilirubinemia to determine the optimal management policy. Methods: A retrospective review of the medical records of 79 newborns with idiopathic nonhemolytic hyperbilirubinemia was performed at the NICU of the Kyungpook National University Hospital from January 2006 to September 2009. All patients were 35 or more weeks of gestation, and their peak level of serum total bilirubin was more than 20 mg/dL. Results: The mean gestational age was $38^{+3}{\pm}1^{+4}$ weeks, and the mean age on admission was 8.8$\pm$4.0 days. The mean body weight (3,105$\pm$479 g) was decreased by 2.8$\pm$6.4 percent compared to the mean birth weight (3,174$\pm$406 g). There were no statistically significant differences for the peak serum bilirubin level or the duration and effects of phototherapy between the patients with and without risk factors, which included: breastfeeding, cephalohematoma, subdural hemorrhage, and/or ABO incompatibility. Patients were grouped according to change of body weight. Group I consisted of patients that gained weight compared to birth weight, and group II of patients that lost weight compared to birth weight. There were significant differences in the peak serum total bilirubin level between the two groups. Thirty nine patients had brain MRI evaluation; 21 patients had bilateral symmetric signal intensity increases in the globus pallidus compared to adjacent corticospinal tract and putamen on T1-weighted images. Conclusion: Bilirubin encephalopathy is preventable with early screening and proper management. Parents require instruction on feeding practices and follow-up to prevent complications from idiopathic nonhemolytic hyperbilirubinemia.

The Health Status of Rural Farming Women (농촌여성(農村女性)의 건강실태(健康實態)에 관한 연구(硏究))

  • Park, Jung-Eun
    • Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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    • v.15 no.2
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    • pp.97-106
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    • 1990
  • 1. Background Women's health and their involvement in health care are essential to health for everyone. If they are ignorant, malnourished or over-worked, the health &-their families as well as their own health will suffer. Women's health depends on broad considerations beyond medicine. Among other things, it depends upon their work in farming. their subordination to their families, their accepted roles, and poor hygiene with poorly equipped housing and environmental sanitation. 2. Objectives and Contents a. The health status of rural women : physical and mental complaints, experience of pesticides intoxication, Farmer's syndrome, experiences of reproductive health problems. b. participation in and attitudes towards housework and farming c. accessibility of medical care d. status of maternal health : fertility, family planning practice. induced abortion, and maternal care 3. Research method A nationwide field survey, based on stratified random sampling, was conducted during July, 1986. Revised Cornell Medical index(68 out of 195 items). Kawagai's Farmers Syndrome Scale, and self-developed structured questionnaires were used to rural farming wives(n=2.028). aged between 26-55. 4. Characteristics of the respondents mean age : 40.2 marital status : 90.8% married mean no. of household : 4.9 average years of education : 4.7 yrs. average income of household : \235,000 average years of residence in rural area : 36.4 yrs average Working hours(household and farming) : 11 hrs. 23 min 5. Health Status of rural women a. The average number of physical and mental symptoms were 12.4, 4.7, and the rate of complaints were 22.1%, 38.8% each. revealing complaints of mental symptomes higher than physical ones. b. 65.4% of rural women complained of more than 4 symptoms out of 9, indicating farmer's syndrome. 11.9 % experienced pesticide overdue syndrome c. 57.6% of respondents experienced women-specific health problems. d. Age and education of respondents were the variables which affect on the level of their health 6. Utilization of medical services a. The number of symptoms and complaints of respondents were dependent on the distance to where the health-care service is given b. Drug store was the most commonly utilized due to low price and the distance to reach. while nurse practitioners were well utilized when there were nurse practitioner's office in their villages. c. Rural women were internalized their subordination to husbands and children, revealing they are positive(93%) in health-care demand for-them but negative(30%) for themselves d. 33.0% of respondents were habitual drug users, 4.5% were smokers and 32.3% were alcohol drinkers. and 86.3% experienced induced-abortion. But most of them(77.6%) knew that those had negative effects on health. 7. Maternal Health Care a. Practice rate of contraception was 48.1% : female users were 90.9% in permanent and 89.6% in temporary contraception b. Induced abortions were taken mostly at hospital(86.3%), while health centers(4.7%), midwiferies(4.3%). and others(4.5%) including drug stores were listed a few. The repeated numbers of induced abortion seemed affected on the increasing numbers of symptoms and complaints. c. The first pre-natal check-up during first trimester was 41.8%, safe delivery rate was 15.6%, post-natal check-up during two months after delivery. Rural women had no enough rest after delivery revealing average days of rest from home work and farming 8.3 and 17.2. d. 86.6% practised breast feeding, showing younger and more educated mothers depending on artificial milk 8. Recommendations a. To lessen the multiple role over burden housing and sanitary conditions should be improved, and are needed farming machiner es for women and training on the use of them b. Health education should begin at primary school including health behavior and living environment. c. Women should be encouraged to become policy-makers as well as administrators in the field of women specific health affairs. d. Women's health indicators should be developed and women's health surveillance system too.

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Analysis of the Present Condition and Demand for the Assistant Workforce in Korean Childcare Center (어린이집 보조인력의 노동실태 및 요구분석: 보조교사, 대체교사, 부담임 교사를 중심으로)

  • Park, Chang Hyun;Kim, Sang Lim
    • Korean Journal of Child Education & Care
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.85-102
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    • 2018
  • The purpose of this study is to determine the working conditions and demands of the assistant workforce at childcare centers, and to provide suggestions on policies for childcare teachers. To achieve the purpose of the study, a total of 190 assistant teachers, nursing helpers, alternative teachers and others were surveyed online during the month of August 2017. The survey examined the employment route and working motives, working conditions and environment, job and educational difficulties for analyzing the work conditions and demands of ancillary staff. For the analysis method, SPSS 12.0 was used to analyze frequency and difference. The main findings are as follows. First, childcare center assistants were able to work at their respective times, making it mandatory for them to enter the workforce, and making job openings for ancillary teachers. Second, 73.7% said the daily working hours were '4 hours to 8 hours' under the conditions and 57.9% said 'More than 510,000 won to less than 1 million won.' Average amount of rest time per day was about 30 minutes, and 17% had no rest periods. Third, based on the job and education status, ancillary personnel performed "infant and child guidance and interaction", "Cleaning and cleanliness related tasks" most actively, and "care for cleaning and cleanliness" and "care for morning and night care". Fourth, in the job trouble and difficulty, ancillary staff found it difficult to satisfy with wage related complaints and job insecurity, and the reason for agreeing to the non-regular workforce becoming a regular worker was found to be due to the stability of employment. Lastly, the most urgent tasks to solve the problem of non-regular workers were to fill the wage gap between regular and irregular workers, shorten the working hours and improve the working conditions. The policy implications are presented based on the above findings.

Analysis of the Effects of Radio Traffic Information on Urban Worker's Travel Choice Behavior (교통방송이 제공하는 교통정보가 직장인의 통행행태에 미치는 영향 분석)

  • 윤대식
    • Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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    • v.20 no.5
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    • pp.33-43
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    • 2002
  • Travel choice behavior is affected by real-time traffic information. Recently, in urban area, real-time traffic information is provided by several instruments such as transportation broadcasting, internet PC network and variable message sign, etc. Furthermore, it has been increasing for urban travelers to use real-time traffic information provided by several instruments. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of advanced traveler information on urban worker's travel choice behavior. Among several Advanced Traveler Information System(ATIS) employed in urban area. This study focuses on examining the effects of transportation broadcasting on urban worker's travel choice behavior. This study attempts to examine traveler's mode change behavior in the pre-trip stage and traveler's route change behavior in the on-route stage. For this study, the survey data collected from Daegu City in 2000 is used. For empirical analysis, several nested logit models are estimated, and among them, the best models are reported in this paper. Furthermore, based on the empirical models estimated for this research, important findings and their policy implications are discussed.

Quality and Antioxidant Characteristics of Roasted Maize Tea according to Cultivation Period and Variety (파종시기 및 품종별 볶음 옥수수차의 품질 및 항산화 특성)

  • Lee, Ji Hae;Kim, Hyun-Joo;Kim, Mi Jung;Jung, Gun-Ho;Lee, Byong Won;Lee, Byoung Kyu;Woo, Koan Sik
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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    • v.46 no.11
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    • pp.1316-1326
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    • 2017
  • We evaluated the proximate compositions of raw materials, total polyphenols, total flavonoids, and radical scavenging activities of roasted maize tea according to cultivation period and variety. Proximate compositions of raw materials were significantly different according to cultivation period and variety, and quality characteristics of roasted maize tea extracts were significantly different according to cultivation period. Total polyphenols, total flavonoids, and radical scavenging activities of roasted maize tea were significantly different before and after roasting. The total polyphenol content of Pyeonggangok cultivar sown on April 5th was elevated about 3.60-fold before and after roasting by $3.42{\pm}0.16$ and $12.22{\pm}0.67mg$ gallic acid equivalents/g, respectively. Overall, total polyphenol content was higher in roasted maize tea produced using maize sown on April 5th. 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging activity of Gangdaok cultivar sown on April 5th was elevated about 31.6-fold before and after roasting by $7.61{\pm}1.93$ and $240.37{\pm}8.82mg$ Trolox equivalents (TE)/g, respectively. 2,2'-Azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid radical scavenging activity of Pyeonggangok cultivar sown on April 5th was elevated about 5.5-fold before and after roasting by $153.84{\pm}1.32$ and $843.54{\pm}3.64mg$ TE/g, respectively. The correlation between proximate compositions of raw materials and quality as well as antioxidant characteristics of roasted maize tea showed overall significance.

Modern Paper Quality Control

  • Olavi Komppa
    • Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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    • 2000.06a
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    • pp.16-23
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    • 2000
  • The increasing functional needs of top-quality printing papers and packaging paperboards, and especially the rapid developments in electronic printing processes and various computer printers during past few years, set new targets and requirements for modern paper quality. Most of these paper grades of today have relatively high filler content, are moderately or heavily calendered , and have many coating layers for the best appearance and performance. In practice, this means that many of the traditional quality assurance methods, mostly designed to measure papers made of pure. native pulp only, can not reliably (or at all) be used to analyze or rank the quality of modern papers. Hence, introduction of new measurement techniques is necessary to assure and further develop the paper quality today and in the future. Paper formation , i.e. small scale (millimeter scale) variation of basis weight, is the most important quality parameter of paper-making due to its influence on practically all the other quality properties of paper. The ideal paper would be completely uniform so that the basis weight of each small point (area) measured would be the same. In practice, of course, this is not possible because there always exists relatively large local variations in paper. However, these small scale basis weight variations are the major reason for many other quality problems, including calender blacking uneven coating result, uneven printing result, etc. The traditionally used visual inspection or optical measurement of the paper does not give us a reliable understanding of the material variations in the paper because in modern paper making process the optical behavior of paper is strongly affected by using e.g. fillers, dye or coating colors. Futhermore, the opacity (optical density) of the paper is changed at different process stages like wet pressing and calendering. The greatest advantage of using beta transmission method to measure paper formation is that it can be very reliably calibrated to measure true basis weight variation of all kinds of paper and board, independently on sample basis weight or paper grade. This gives us the possibility to measure, compare and judge papers made of different raw materials, different color, or even to measure heavily calendered, coated or printed papers. Scientific research of paper physics has shown that the orientation of the top layer (paper surface) fibers of the sheet paly the key role in paper curling and cockling , causing the typical practical problems (paper jam) with modern fax and copy machines, electronic printing , etc. On the other hand, the fiber orientation at the surface and middle layer of the sheet controls the bending stiffness of paperboard . Therefore, a reliable measurement of paper surface fiber orientation gives us a magnificent tool to investigate and predict paper curling and coclking tendency, and provides the necessary information to finetune, the manufacturing process for optimum quality. many papers, especially heavily calendered and coated grades, do resist liquid and gas penetration very much, bing beyond the measurement range of the traditional instruments or resulting invonveniently long measuring time per sample . The increased surface hardness and use of filler minerals and mechanical pulp make a reliable, nonleaking sample contact to the measurement head a challenge of its own. Paper surface coating causes, as expected, a layer which has completely different permeability characteristics compared to the other layer of the sheet. The latest developments in sensor technologies have made it possible to reliably measure gas flow in well controlled conditions, allowing us to investigate the gas penetration of open structures, such as cigarette paper, tissue or sack paper, and in the low permeability range analyze even fully greaseproof papers, silicon papers, heavily coated papers and boards or even detect defects in barrier coatings ! Even nitrogen or helium may be used as the gas, giving us completely new possibilities to rank the products or to find correlation to critical process or converting parameters. All the modern paper machines include many on-line measuring instruments which are used to give the necessary information for automatic process control systems. hence, the reliability of this information obtained from different sensors is vital for good optimizing and process stability. If any of these on-line sensors do not operate perfectly ass planned (having even small measurement error or malfunction ), the process control will set the machine to operate away from the optimum , resulting loss of profit or eventual problems in quality or runnability. To assure optimum operation of the paper machines, a novel quality assurance policy for the on-line measurements has been developed, including control procedures utilizing traceable, accredited standards for the best reliability and performance.

Predicting Healthy Lifestyle Patterns in Older Community Dwelling Adults: A Latent Profile Analysis (잠재프로파일 분석을 활용한 한국 노인 라이프스타일 유형화와 영향요인 분석)

  • Park, Kang-Hyun;Yang, Min Ah;Won, Kyung-A;Park, Ji-Hyuk
    • Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.75-93
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    • 2021
  • Objective : The aim of this study was to identify subgroups of older adults with respect to their lifestyle patterns and examine the characteristics of each subgroup in order to provide a basic evidence for improving the health and quality of life. Methods : This cross-sectional study was conducted in South Korea. Community-dwelling older adults (n=184) above the age of 65 years were surveyed from April 2019 to May 2019. This study used latent profile analysis to examine the subgroups. Chi-squared (χ2) and multinomial logistic regression measures were then used to analyze individual characteristics and influencing factors. Results : The pattern of physical activity which is one of the lifestyle domains in elderly was categorized into three types: 'passive exercise type (31.1%)', 'low intensity exercise type (54.5%)', and 'balanced exercise type(14.5%)'. Activity participation was divided into three patterns: 'inactive type (12%)', 'self-management type (61%)', and 'balanced activity participation type (27%)'. In terms of nutrition, there were only two groups: 'overall malnutrition type (13.5%)' and 'balanced nutrition type (86.5%)'. Furthermore, as a result of the multinomial logistic regression analysis to understand the effects of lifestyle types on the health and quality of life of the elderly, it was confirmed that the health and quality of life were higher in those following an active and balanced lifestyle. In addition, gender, education level and residential area were analyzed as predictive factors. Conclusion : The health and quality of life of the elderly can be improved when they have balanced lifestyle. Therefore, an empirical and policy intervention strategy should be developed and implemented to enhance the health and quality of life of the elderly.

An Analysis of the Trends in Academic Research on Invention Gifted Education (발명영재교육에 관한 학술연구 동향 분석)

  • Lee Minhye;Hillenblink Maximilian Ludwig
    • Journal of the International Relations & Interdisciplinary Education
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.1-28
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    • 2023
  • This study was conducted to examine the quantitative trend of domestic studies in invention gifted education, identify the intrinsic meaning and connection attributes in these research analysis, and provide basic data to explore future development plans. To this end, 97 domestic academic papers were finally selected as "Invention Gifted Education" by the Korea Research and Information Service (RISS), technical statistical analysis was conducted with SPSS on publication year, author composition, researcher's affiliation and location area, and published journal. The trend, which had been on the rise since 2007, confirmed by academic papers on gifted education in invention, peaked at the time of the 3rd comprehensive plan for gifted education and has since declined again. As a result of technical statistical analysis of the author's characteristics, half of the papers were jointly published, followed by a number of independent authors. The papers published alone were identified as belonging to universities, research institutes, elementary schools, and middle schools, and the cooperative papers were many studies cooperated with young researchers and professional researchers, and only one collaborative study was conducted between young researchers. When looking at the regions and journals in which the Invention Gifted Education thesis was published, it was concentrated in some regions or journals, and the deviation was very large. As a result of language network analysis using academic paper keywords, creativity and programs were identified as meaningful keywords that showed top appearance, and the keyword pair with high co-appearance was invention gifted-creativity. The keyword of connection-centeredness at the top served as an intermediary for creativity, problem-solving, development, and company to expand to other research topics, and served as a research topic that could be expanded to various topics. In the case of mediation-centeredness, creativity, programs, and effects showed high mediation-centeredness, indicating that it is an important keyword that plays a role in mediating or mediating other keywords. Through these research results, national policy measures need to be prepared for the development of gifted education, and the need to create an invention ecological culture that can enhance teachers' expertise while increasing social responsibility for gifted education.

The Impact of Market Environments on Optimal Channel Strategy Involving an Internet Channel: A Game Theoretic Approach (시장 환경이 인터넷 경로를 포함한 다중 경로 관리에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 게임 이론적 접근방법)

  • Yoo, Weon-Sang
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.2
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    • pp.119-138
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    • 2011
  • Internet commerce has been growing at a rapid pace for the last decade. Many firms try to reach wider consumer markets by adding the Internet channel to the existing traditional channels. Despite the various benefits of the Internet channel, a significant number of firms failed in managing the new type of channel. Previous studies could not cleary explain these conflicting results associated with the Internet channel. One of the major reasons is most of the previous studies conducted analyses under a specific market condition and claimed that as the impact of Internet channel introduction. Therefore, their results are strongly influenced by the specific market settings. However, firms face various market conditions in the real worlddensity and disutility of using the Internet. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of various market environments on a firm's optimal channel strategy by employing a flexible game theory model. We capture various market conditions with consumer density and disutility of using the Internet.

    shows the channel structures analyzed in this study. Before the Internet channel is introduced, a monopoly manufacturer sells its products through an independent physical store. From this structure, the manufacturer could introduce its own Internet channel (MI). The independent physical store could also introduce its own Internet channel and coordinate it with the existing physical store (RI). An independent Internet retailer such as Amazon could enter this market (II). In this case, two types of independent retailers compete with each other. In this model, consumers are uniformly distributed on the two dimensional space. Consumer heterogeneity is captured by a consumer's geographical location (ci) and his disutility of using the Internet channel (${\delta}_{N_i}$).
    shows various market conditions captured by the two consumer heterogeneities.
    (a) illustrates a market with symmetric consumer distributions. The model captures explicitly the asymmetric distributions of consumer disutility in a market as well. In a market like that is represented in
    (c), the average consumer disutility of using an Internet store is relatively smaller than that of using a physical store. For example, this case represents the market in which 1) the product is suitable for Internet transactions (e.g., books) or 2) the level of E-Commerce readiness is high such as in Denmark or Finland. On the other hand, the average consumer disutility when using an Internet store is relatively greater than that of using a physical store in a market like (b). Countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria, or the market for "experience goods" such as shoes, could be examples of this market condition. summarizes the various scenarios of consumer distributions analyzed in this study. The range for disutility of using the Internet (${\delta}_{N_i}$) is held constant, while the range of consumer distribution (${\chi}_i$) varies from -25 to 25, from -50 to 50, from -100 to 100, from -150 to 150, and from -200 to 200.
    summarizes the analysis results. As the average travel cost in a market decreases while the average disutility of Internet use remains the same, average retail price, total quantity sold, physical store profit, monopoly manufacturer profit, and thus, total channel profit increase. On the other hand, the quantity sold through the Internet and the profit of the Internet store decrease with a decreasing average travel cost relative to the average disutility of Internet use. We find that a channel that has an advantage over the other kind of channel serves a larger portion of the market. In a market with a high average travel cost, in which the Internet store has a relative advantage over the physical store, for example, the Internet store becomes a mass-retailer serving a larger portion of the market. This result implies that the Internet becomes a more significant distribution channel in those markets characterized by greater geographical dispersion of buyers, or as consumers become more proficient in Internet usage. The results indicate that the degree of price discrimination also varies depending on the distribution of consumer disutility in a market. The manufacturer in a market in which the average travel cost is higher than the average disutility of using the Internet has a stronger incentive for price discrimination than the manufacturer in a market where the average travel cost is relatively lower. We also find that the manufacturer has a stronger incentive to maintain a high price level when the average travel cost in a market is relatively low. Additionally, the retail competition effect due to Internet channel introduction strengthens as average travel cost in a market decreases. This result indicates that a manufacturer's channel power relative to that of the independent physical retailer becomes stronger with a decreasing average travel cost. This implication is counter-intuitive, because it is widely believed that the negative impact of Internet channel introduction on a competing physical retailer is more significant in a market like Russia, where consumers are more geographically dispersed, than in a market like Hong Kong, that has a condensed geographic distribution of consumers.
    illustrates how this happens. When mangers consider the overall impact of the Internet channel, however, they should consider not only channel power, but also sales volume. When both are considered, the introduction of the Internet channel is revealed as more harmful to a physical retailer in Russia than one in Hong Kong, because the sales volume decrease for a physical store due to Internet channel competition is much greater in Russia than in Hong Kong. The results show that manufacturer is always better off with any type of Internet store introduction. The independent physical store benefits from opening its own Internet store when the average travel cost is higher relative to the disutility of using the Internet. Under an opposite market condition, however, the independent physical retailer could be worse off when it opens its own Internet outlet and coordinates both outlets (RI). This is because the low average travel cost significantly reduces the channel power of the independent physical retailer, further aggravating the already weak channel power caused by myopic inter-channel price coordination. The results implies that channel members and policy makers should explicitly consider the factors determining the relative distributions of both kinds of consumer disutility, when they make a channel decision involving an Internet channel. These factors include the suitability of a product for Internet shopping, the level of E-Commerce readiness of a market, and the degree of geographic dispersion of consumers in a market. Despite the academic contributions and managerial implications, this study is limited in the following ways. First, a series of numerical analyses were conducted to derive equilibrium solutions due to the complex forms of demand functions. In the process, we set up V=100, ${\lambda}$=1, and ${\beta}$=0.01. Future research may change this parameter value set to check the generalizability of this study. Second, the five different scenarios for market conditions were analyzed. Future research could try different sets of parameter ranges. Finally, the model setting allows only one monopoly manufacturer in the market. Accommodating competing multiple manufacturers (brands) would generate more realistic results.

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  • Media Habits of Sensation Seekers (감지추구자적매체습관(感知追求者的媒体习惯))

    • Blakeney, Alisha;Findley, Casey;Self, Donald R.;Ingram, Rhea;Garrett, Tony
      • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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      • v.20 no.2
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      • pp.179-187
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      • 2010
    • Understanding consumers' preferences and use of media types is imperative for marketing and advertising managers, especially in today's fragmented market. A clear understanding assists managers in making more effective selections of appropriate media outlets, yet individuals' choices of type and use of media are based on a variety of characteristics. This paper examines one personality trait, sensation seeking, which has not appeared in the literature examining "new" media preferences and use. Sensation seeking is a personality trait defined as "the need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experiences and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experiences" (Zuckerman 1979). Six hypotheses were developed from a review of the literature. Particular attention was given to the Uses and Gratification theory (Katz 1959), which explains various reasons why people choose media types and their motivations for using the different types of media. Current theory suggests that High Sensation Seekers (HSS), due to their needs for novelty, arousal and unconventional content and imagery, would exhibit higher frequency of use of new media. Specifically, we hypothesize that HSS will use the internet more than broadcast (H1a) or print media (H1b) and more than low (LSS) (H2a) or medium sensation seekers (MSS) (H2b). In addition, HSS have been found to be more social and have higher numbers of friends therefore are expected to use social networking websites such as Facebook/MySpace (H3) and chat rooms (H4) more than LSS (a) and MSS (b). Sensation seekers can manifest into a range of behaviors including disinhibition,. It is expected that alternative social networks such as Facebook/MySpace (H5) and chat rooms (H6) will be used more often for those who have higher levels of disinhibition than low (a) or medium (b) levels. Data were collected using an online survey of participants in extreme sports. In order to reach this group, an improved version of a snowball sampling technique, chain-referral method, was used to select respondents for this study. This method was chosen as it is regarded as being effective to reach otherwise hidden population groups (Heckathorn, 1997). A final usable sample of 1108 respondents, which was mainly young (56.36% under 34), male (86.1%) and middle class (58.7% with household incomes over USD 50,000) was consistent with previous studies on sensation seeking. Sensation seeking was captured using an existing measure, the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (Hoyle et al., 2002). Media usage was captured by measuring the self reported usage of various media types. Results did not support H1a and b. HSS did not show higher levels of usage of alternative media such as the internet showing in fact lower mean levels of usage than all the other types of media. The highest media type used by HSS was print media, suggesting that there is a revolt against the mainstream. Results support H2a and b that HSS are more frequent users of the internet than LSS or MSS. Further analysis revealed that there are significant differences in the use of print media between HSS and LSS, suggesting that HSS may seek out more specialized print publications in their respective extreme sport activity. Hypothesis 3a and b showed that HSS use Facebook/MySpace more frequently than either LSS or MSS. There were no significant differences in the use of chat rooms between LSS and HSS, so as a consequence no support for H4a, although significant for MSS H4b. Respondents with varying levels of disinhibition were expected to have different levels of use of Facebook/MySpace and chat-rooms. There was support for the higher levels of use of Facebook/MySpace for those with high levels of disinhibition than low or medium levels, supporting H5a and b. Similarly there was support for H6b, Those with high levels of disinhibition use chat-rooms significantly more than those with medium levels but not for low levels (H6a). The findings are counterintuitive and give some interesting insights for managers. First, although HSS use online media more frequently than LSS or MSS, this groups use of online media is less than either print or broadcast media. The advertising executive should not place too much emphasis on online media for this important market segment. Second, social media, such as facebook/Myspace and chatrooms should be examined by managers as potential ways to reach this group. Finally, there is some implication for public policy by the higher levels of use of social media by those who are disinhibited. These individuals are more inclined to engage in more socially risky behavior which may have some dire implications, e.g. by internet predators or future employers. There is a limitation in the study in that only those who engage in extreme sports are included. This is by nature a HSS activity. A broader population is therefore needed to test if these results hold.


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