• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.67-88
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• 2018

Until recently, as we recognize the significance of sustainable growth and competitiveness of small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), governmental support for tangible resources such as R&D, manpower, funds, etc. has been mainly provided. However, it is also true that the inefficiency of support systems such as underestimated or redundant support has been raised because there exist conflicting policies in terms of appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of business support. From the perspective of the government or a company, we believe that due to limited resources of SMEs technology development and capacity enhancement through collaboration with external sources is the basis for creating competitive advantage for companies, and also emphasize value creation activities for it. This is why value chain network analysis is necessary in order to analyze inter-company deal relationships from a series of value chains and visualize results through establishing knowledge ecosystems at the corporate level. There exist Technology Opportunity Discovery (TOD) system that provides information on relevant products or technology status of companies with patents through retrievals over patent, product, or company name, CRETOP and KISLINE which both allow to view company (financial) information and credit information, but there exists no online system that provides a list of similar (competitive) companies based on the analysis of value chain network or information on potential clients or demanders that can have business deals in future. Therefore, we focus on the "Value Chain Network System (VCNS)", a support partner for planning the corporate business strategy developed and managed by KISTI, and investigate the types of embedded network-based analysis modules, databases (D/Bs) to support them, and how to utilize the system efficiently. Further we explore the function of network visualization in intelligent value chain analysis system which becomes the core information to understand industrial structure ystem and to develop a company's new product development. In order for a company to have the competitive superiority over other companies, it is necessary to identify who are the competitors with patents or products currently being produced, and searching for similar companies or competitors by each type of industry is the key to securing competitiveness in the commercialization of the target company. In addition, transaction information, which becomes business activity between companies, plays an important role in providing information regarding potential customers when both parties enter similar fields together. Identifying a competitor at the enterprise or industry level by using a network map based on such inter-company sales information can be implemented as a core module of value chain analysis. The Value Chain Network System (VCNS) combines the concepts of value chain and industrial structure analysis with corporate information simply collected to date, so that it can grasp not only the market competition situation of individual companies but also the value chain relationship of a specific industry. Especially, it can be useful as an information analysis tool at the corporate level such as identification of industry structure, identification of competitor trends, analysis of competitors, locating suppliers (sellers) and demanders (buyers), industry trends by item, finding promising items, finding new entrants, finding core companies and items by value chain, and recognizing the patents with corresponding companies, etc. In addition, based on the objectivity and reliability of the analysis results from transaction deals information and financial data, it is expected that value chain network system will be utilized for various purposes such as information support for business evaluation, R&D decision support and mid-term or short-term demand forecasting, in particular to more than 15,000 member companies in Korea, employees in R&D service sectors government-funded research institutes and public organizations. In order to strengthen business competitiveness of companies, technology, patent and market information have been provided so far mainly by government agencies and private research-and-development service companies. This service has been presented in frames of patent analysis (mainly for rating, quantitative analysis) or market analysis (for market prediction and demand forecasting based on market reports). However, there was a limitation to solving the lack of information, which is one of the difficulties that firms in Korea often face in the stage of commercialization. In particular, it is much more difficult to obtain information about competitors and potential candidates. In this study, the real-time value chain analysis and visualization service module based on the proposed network map and the data in hands is compared with the expected market share, estimated sales volume, contact information (which implies potential suppliers for raw material / parts, and potential demanders for complete products / modules). In future research, we intend to carry out the in-depth research for further investigating the indices of competitive factors through participation of research subjects and newly developing competitive indices for competitors or substitute items, and to additively promoting with data mining techniques and algorithms for improving the performance of VCNS.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.3-50
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• 1984

The levels of health knowledge, attitude and practice of housewives considerably effect to the health of households, communities and the nation. This study was designed to grasp the levels of health knowledge, attitude and practice of houswives and analyse the various factors effecting to health in order to provide health education services as well as materials for effective formulation and implementation of health policy to improve the health of the nation. This study has been conducted through interviews by trained surveyers for 4,281 housewives selected from 4,500 households throughout the country for 40 days during July 11-August 20, 1983. The results of survey were analysed by stepwise multiple regression and path analysis are summarized as follows; 1. Based on the measurement instrument applied to this study, the levels of health knowledge, attitude and practice of housewives were extremely low with 54.5 points out of 100 points in full. Higher level with 72 points and above was approximately 21 percent and lower level with 39 points and below was approx. 24 percent. The middle level was approx. 55 percent. In order to implement health programs successively, health education should be more strengthened and to improve the level of health knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of the nation, political consideration as a part of spiritual reformation must be concentrated on health. 2. The level of health knowledge indicated the highest points with 57.3 the level of attitude was the second with 55.0 points and the practice level was the lowest with 50.0 point. Therefore, planning and implementation of health education program must be based on the persuasion and motivation that health knowledge turn into practice. 3. Housewives who had higher level of health knowledge, showed their practice level was relatively lower and those who had middle or low level of it practice level was the reverse. 4. Correlations among health knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) were generally higher and statistically significant at 0.1 percent level. Correlation between total health KAP level and health knowledge was the highest with r=.8092. 5. Health KAP levels showed significant differences according to the age, number of children, marital status, self-assessed health status and concern on health of the housewives interviewed (p<0.001) 6. Health KAP levels also showed significant differences according to the education level, economic status, employment before marriage and grown-up area of the housewives interviewed. (p<0.001) 7. Heath KAP levels showed significant differences according to health insurance benificiary and the existence of patients in the family. (p<0.001). 8. Health KAP levels showed significant differences according to distance to government organizations, schools, distance to health facilities, telephone possession rate, television possession rate, newspaper reading rate and activities of Ban meeting and Women's club. (p<0.001) 9. Health KAP levels showed significant differences according to electric mass communication media such as television, radio and village broadcasting etc. and printed media such as newspaper, magazine and booklets etc., IEC variables such as individual consultation and husband-wife communication, however, there was no significance with group training. 10. Health KAP of the housewives showed close correlation with personal characteristics variables, i.e., education level (r=.5302), age (r=-.3694) grown-up area (r=.3357) and employment before marriage. In general, correlation of health knowledge level was higher than the levels of attitude or practice. In case of health concern and health insurance, correlation of practice level was higher than health knowledge level. 11. Health KAP levels showed higher correlation with community environmental characteristics, Ban meeting and activity of Women's club, however, no correlation with New-village movement. 12. Among IEC variables, husband-wife communication showed the highest correlation with health KAP levels and printed media, electric mas communication media and health consultation in order. Therefore, encouragement of husband-wife communication and development of training program for men should be included in health education program. 13. Mass media such as electric mass com. and printed media were effective for knowledge transmission and husband-wife communication and individual consultation were effective for health practice. Group training was significant for knowledge transmission, however, but not significant for attitude formation or turning to health practice. To improve health KAP levels, health knowledge should be transmitted via mass media and health consultation with health professionals and field health workers should be strengthened. 14. Correlation of health KAP levels showed that knowledge level was generally higher than that of practice and recognized that knowledge was not linked with attitude or practice. 15. The twenty-five variables effecting health KAP levels of housewives had 41 per cent explanation variances among which education level had great contribution (β=.2309) and electric mass com. media (β=.1778), husband-wife communication (β=.1482), printed media, grown-up area, and distance to government organizations in order. Variances explained (R²) of health KAP were 31%, 15%, and 30% respectively. 16. Principal variables contributed to health KAP were education level (β=.12320, β=.1465), electric mass comm. media (β=.1762, β=.1839), printed media, (β=.1383, β=.1420) husband-wife communication (β=.1004, β=.1067), grown-up area and distance to government organizations, in order. Since education level contributes greatly to health KAP of the housewives, health education including curriculum development in primary, middle and high schools must be emphasized and health science must be selected as one of the basic liberal arts subject in universities. 17. Variences explained of IEC variables to health KAP were 19% in total, 14% in knowledge, 9% in attitude, and 10% in health practice. Contributions of IEC variables to health KAP levels were printed media (β=.3882), electric mass comm media (β=.3165), husb-band wife com. (β=.2095,) and consultation on health (β=.0841) in order, however, group training showed negative effect (β=-.0402). National fund must be invested for the development of Health Program through mass media such as TV and radio etc. and for printed materials such as newspaper, magazines, phamplet etc. needed for transmission of health knowledge. 18. Variables contributed to health KAP levels through IEC variables with indirect effects were education level (Ind E=0.0410), health concern (Ind E=.0161), newspaper reading rate (Ind E=.0137), TV possession rate and activity of Ban meeting in order, however, health facility showed negative effect (Ind E=-.0232) and other variables showed direct effect but not indirect effect. 19. Among the variables effecting health KAP level, education level showed the highest in total effect (TE=.2693) then IEC (TE=.1972), grown-up city (TE=.1237), newspaper reading rate (TE=.1020), distance to government organization (TE=.095) in order. 20. Variables indicating indirect effects to health KAP levels were; at knowledge level with R²=30%, education level (Ind E=.0344), newspaper reading rate (Ind E=.0112), TV possession rate (Ind E=.0689), activity of Ban meeting (Ind E=.0079) in order and at attitude level with R²=13%, education level (Ind E=. 0338), activity of Ban meeting (Ind E=.0079), and at practice level with R²=29%. education level (Ind E=.0268), health facility (Ind E=.0830) and concern on health (Ind E=.0105). 21. Total effect to health KAP levels and IEC by variable characteristics, personal characteristics variables indicated larger than community characteristics variables. 22. Multiple Correlation Coefficient (MCC) expressed by the Personal Characteristic Variable was .5049 and explained approximately 25% of variances. MCC expressed by total Community environment variable was .4283 and explained approx. 18% of variances. MCC expressed by IEC Variables was .4380 and explained approx. 19% of variances. The most important variable effected to health KAP levels was personal characteristic and then IEC variable, Community Environment variable in order. When the IEC effected with personal characteristic or community characteristic, the MCC or the variances were relatively higher than effecting alone. Therefore it was identified that the IEC was one of the important intermediate variable.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.81-115
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• 1992

The problem addressed by this study was to determine the effect of nurse - patient agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period of primiparous mothers. It was hypothesized that the experimental treatment would result in hegher self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance. This purpose was to contribute to the planning of nursing care to enhance self- confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance and to the development of relevant nursing theory. Especially, the early postpartum period is crucial toward in recovery from childbirth and attainment of the maternal role. Maternal role attaintment is a complex social and cognitive process of stimulus -response accomplished by learning. Most women attain the maternal role sucessfully. But, some primiparous mothers experience difficultites in attainment of the maternal role due to lack of experience and knowledge. Self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance are important factors in attainment and adjustment to the maternal role (Mercer, 1981a, 1981b ; Lederman, Weigarten, and Lederman, 1981 :Bobak and Jensen, 1985). Nursing is defined as behaviors of nurses add patients that attain nursing goals through action, reaction, interaction, and transaction. For attainment of nursing goals, active participating transactions must occur by agreement on the means to achieve those goals through nurse -patient mutual goal setting and establishment of their active relationships(King, 1981, Ha, 1977). Based on King's theory of goal attainment (1981), this stuy was planned as a non-equivalent control group, non -synchronized quasi -experimental design using agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in early postpartum as the experimental treatment. The data were collected from July 20 to Sep. 1, 1991 by questionnaires with 60 primiparous mothers planing to breast feed after normal deliveries at W hospital in Pusan, Korea. The subjects were divided into a control group(conventional group) -those admitted from July 20 to Aug. 12, and an experimental group(agreement group) - those admitted from Aug. 13 to Sep. 1. The instument for agreement on the means to nursing goals in the early postpartum period included five steps - identification of disturbances of problems through action, reaction, and interaction with primiparous mothers : mutual early postpartal nursing goal setting : exploration of the means to achieve goals ; agreement on the means (self- care, ealry maternal -infant contact, performance of mothering behavior, and communicating about the infant's behavior and health condition) : implementation of the means. This instrument was developed on the basis of King's elements that lead to transactions in nurse-patient interactions. Lederman et al's (1981) scale for Confidence in ability to cope with tasks of motherhood and Lederman et al's(1981) scale for Mother's satisfaction with motherhood and infant care were used to measure self-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance ·with the subjects immediately after admission and on the day of discharge. Self-care performance in the experimental group was measured by self -evaluation tool developed by the investigator from the literature concerned. The tools to measure Pelf-confidence and satisfaction in maternal role performance, and the tool to measure self-evaluation of self-care performance were tested for internal reliability. Cronbach's Alphas were 0.94, 0.94, and 0.63. The data were analysed by using in S.P.S.S. computerized program and included percentage, x²-test, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson Correlation Coefficient. The conclusions obtained from this study are summerized as follows : 1. The degree of self-confidence in maternal role performance of the total subjects group measured before the experimental treatment was above average with a mean score of 2.77(range 2.14-3.64). Out of 14 items, those with relatively high mean scores were ‘I would like to be a better mother than I am’(3.95), and ‘I have my doubts about whether I am a good mother’(2.87). Those with low mean scores were ‘I know that my baby wants most of the times’(2.28), ‘When the baby cries, I can tell what she /he wants’(2.37), and ‘I have confidence in my ability to care for the baby’(2;50). That is, the self - confidence of Primiparous mothers was considerably high in mothering, but rather low in activities concerning the infant care and understanding of the infant behavior. The degree of satisfaction in maternal role performance of the total subjects group measured before the experimental treatment was high with a mean score of 3.18(range 1.92-3.92). Out of 13 items, those with relatively high mean scores were ‘I am glad 1 had this baby now’(3.75), ‘I play with the baby between feedings when s/he is awake and quiet’(3.67), and ‘I enjoy being a mother’(3.27). Those with low mean scores were ‘I am upset about having too many responsibilities as a mother’(2.78), ‘It bothers me to get up for the baby at night’(2.82), and ‘I get annoyed if the baby frequently interrupts my activities’.(2.82), That is, the satisfaction of primiparous mothers was considerably high in mothering and infant care, but rather low in restraints in time or on the mother's self accomplishment and development. 2. Agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period included process of mutual goal setting, exploration of the means to achieve goals, and ahreement in concert means to achieve goals based on the mothers' condition, concerns, self-perception of the nurse - patient interactions. In the process of agreement, there was agreement that the means to achieve goals should be through trust and establishment of active relationships with the nurse through identification of problems according to planned nursing goals and active interaction, such as explanations, teaching, changing of opinions, acceptance or rejection of explanations, and proposing of questions. Therefore agreement on the means to achieve nursing goals in the early postpartum period appears to be an effective nursing intervention for primiparous mothers. 3. The degree of self- confidence in maternal role performance of the exprimental group was higher than that of the control group(t＝3.95, p＜0.01). Out of 14 items, those with higher score in the experimental group were ‘I would like to be a better mother than I am’(t＝1.93, p＜0.05), ‘I know that my baby wants most of the times’(t＝2.75, p＜0.01), ‘When the baby cries, 1 can tell what she/he wants’(t＝2.10, p＜0.05), ‘I have confidence in my ability to care for the baby’(t＝3.72, p＜0.01), ‘I trust my own judement in deciding how to care for the baby’(t＝1.96, p＜0.05), ‘I feel that I know my baby and what to do for him /her’(t＝2.44, p＜0.01), ‘I am concerned about being able to meet the baby's needs’(t＝2.87, p＜0.01), ‘I know what my baby likes and dislikes’(t＝3.26, p＜0.01), ‘I don't know to care for the baby as well as I should’(t＝2.07, p＜0.05), and ‘I am unsure about whether I give enough attention to the baby’(t＝3.04, p＜0.01), That is, the degree of self-confidence in mothering, activities concerning infant care, and understanding of infant behavior of the experimental group was higher than that of the control group. Therefore, the first hypothesis, that the degree of self-confidence in maternal role performance of the experimental group would be higher than that of the control group, was supported(t＝3.95, p＜0.01). 4. The degree of satisfaction in the maternal role performance of the exprimental group was higer than that or the control group(t＝2.31, p＜0.05). Out of 13 items, those with higher score in the experimental group were ‘I am glad I had this baby now’(t＝2.29, p＜0.05), ‘I enjoy taking care of the baby’(t＝2.4g, p＜0.01), ‘It is boring for me to care for the baby and do the same thing over and over’(t＝2.87, P＜0.01), ‘I am unhappy with the amount of time I have for activities other than childcare’(t＝2.51, p＜0.01), and ‘When bathing and diapering the baby, I would like to be doing something else’(t＝2.43, p＜0.01). That is, the degree of satisfaction in mothering, infant care, and restraints in time of on the mother's self accomplishment and development in the experimental group was higher than that of the control group. Therefore, the second hypothesis, that the degree of satisfaction in maternal role performance of the experimental group would be higher than that of the control group, was supported(t＝2.31, p＜0.05). 5. The third hypothesis, that the higher the degree of satisfaction in materenal role performance, the higher the degree of self-confidence in materenal role performance in the experimental group, was supported (r＝0.57, p＜0.01)

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.13-40
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• 1972

Much has teed changed in the field of hospital administration in the It wake of the rapid development of sciences, techniques ana systematic hospital management. However, we still have a long way to go in organization, in the quality of hospital employees and hospital equipment and facilities, and in financial support in order to achieve proper hospital management. The above factors greatly effect the ability of hospitals to fulfill their obligation in patient care and nursing services. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal methods of standardization and quality nursing so as to improve present nursing services through investigations and analyses of various problems concerning nursing administration. This study has been undertaken during the six month period from October 1971 to March 1972. The 41 comprehensive hospitals have been selected iron amongst the 139 in the whole country. These have been categorized according-to the specific purposes of their establishment, such as 7 university hospitals, 18 national or public hospitals, 12 religious hospitals and 4 enterprise ones. The following conclusions have been acquired thus far from information obtained through interviews with nursing directors who are in charge of the nursing administration in each hospital, and further investigations concerning the purposes of establishment, the organization, personnel arrangements, working conditions, practices of service, and budgets of the nursing service department. 1. The nursing administration along with its activities in this country has been uncritical1y adopted from that of the developed countries. It is necessary for us to re-establish a new medical and nursing system which is adequate for our social environments through continuous study and research. 2. The survey shows that the 7 university hospitals were chiefly concerned with education, medical care and research; the 18 national or public hospitals with medical care, public health and charity work; the 2 religious hospitals with medical care, charity and missionary works; and the 4 enterprise hospitals with public health, medical care and charity works. In general, the main purposes of the hospitals were those of charity organizations in the pursuit of medical care, education and public benefits. 3. The survey shows that in general hospital facilities rate 64 per cent and medical care 60 per-cent against a 100 per cent optimum basis in accordance with the medical treatment law and approved criteria for training hospitals. In these respects, university hospitals have achieved the highest standards, followed by religious ones, enterprise ones, and national or public ones in that order. 4. The ages of nursing directors range from 30 to 50. The level of education achieved by most of the directors is that of graduation from a nursing technical high school and a three year nursing junior college; a very few have graduated from college or have taken graduate courses. 5. As for the career tenure of nurses in the hospitals: one-third of the nurses, or 38 per cent, have worked less than one year; those in the category of one year to two represent 24 pet cent. This means that a total of 62 per cent of the career nurses have been practicing their profession for less than two years. Career nurses with over 5 years experience number only 16 per cent: therefore the efficiency of nursing services has been rated very low. 6. As for the standard of education of the nurses: 62 per cent of them have taken a three year course of nursing in junior colleges, and 22 per cent in nursing technical high schools. College graduate nurses come up to only 15 per cent; and those with graduate course only 0.4 per cent. This indicates that most of the nurses are front nursing technical high schools and three year nursing junior colleges. Accordingly, it is advisable that nursing services be divided according to their functions, such as professional, technical nurses and nurse's aides. 7. The survey also shows that the purpose of nursing service administration in the hospitals has been regulated in writing in 74 per cent of the hospitals and not regulated in writing in 26 per cent of the hospitals. The general purposes of nursing are as follows: patient care, assistance in medical care and education. The main purpose of these nursing services is to establish proper operational and personnel management which focus on in-service education. 8. The nursing service departments belong to the medical departments in almost 60 per cent of the hospitals. Even though the nursing service department is formally separated, about 24 per cent of the hospitals regard it as a functional unit in the medical department. Only 5 per cent of the hospitals keep the department as a separate one. To the contrary, approximately 12 per cent of the hospitals have not established a nursing service department at all but surbodinate it to the other department. In this respect, it is required that a new hospital organization be made to acknowledge the independent function of the nursing department. In 76 per cent of the hospitals they have advisory committees under the nursing department, such as a dormitory self·regulating committee, an in-service education committee and a nursing procedure and policy committee. 9. Personnel arrangement and working conditions of nurses 1) The ratio of nurses to patients is as follows: In university hospitals, 1 to 2.9 for hospitalized patients and 1 to 4.0 for out-patients; in religious hospitals, 1 to 2.3 for hospitalized patients and 1 to 5.4 for out-patients. Grouped together this indicates that one nurse covers 2.2 hospitalized patients and 4.3 out-patients on a daily basis. The current medical treatment law stipulates that one nurse should care for 2.5 hospitalized patients or 30.0 out-patients. Therefore the statistics indicate that nursing services are being peformed with an insufficient number of nurses to cover out-patients. The current law concerns the minimum number of nurses and disregards the required number of nurses for operation rooms, recovery rooms, delivery rooms, new-born baby rooms, central supply rooms and emergency rooms. Accordingly, tile medical treatment law has been requested to be amended. 2) The ratio of doctors to nurses: In university hospitals, the ratio is 1 to 1.1; in national of public hospitals, 1 to 0.8; in religious hospitals 1 to 0.5; and in private hospitals 1 to 0.7. The average ratio is 1 to 0.8; generally the ideal ratio is 3 to 1. Since the number of doctors working in hospitals has been recently increasing, the nursing services have consequently teen overloaded, sacrificing the services to the patients. 3) The ratio of nurses to clerical staff is 1 to 0.4. However, the ideal ratio is 5 to 1, that is, 1 to 0.2. This means that clerical personnel far outnumber the nursing staff. 4) The ratio of nurses to nurse's-aides; The average 2.5 to 1 indicates that most of the nursing service are delegated to nurse's-aides owing to the shortage of registered nurses. This is the main cause of the deterioration in the quality of nursing services. It is a real problem in the guest for better nursing services that certain hospitals employ a disproportionate number of nurse's-aides in order to meet financial requirements. 5) As for the working conditions, most of hospitals employ a three-shift day with 8 hours of duty each. However, certain hospitals still use two shifts a day. 6) As for the working environment, most of the hospitals lack welfare and hygienic facilities. 7) The salary basis is the highest in the private university hospitals, with enterprise hospitals next and religious hospitals and national or public ones lowest. 8) Method of employment is made through paper screening, and further that the appointment of nurses is conditional upon the favorable opinion of the nursing directors. 9) The unemployment ratio for one year in 1971 averaged 29 per cent. The reasons for unemployment indicate that the highest is because of marriage up to 40 per cent, and next is because of overseas employment. This high unemployment ratio further causes the deterioration of efficiency in nursing services and supplementary activities. The hospital authorities concerned should take this matter into a jeep consideration in order to reduce unemployment. 10) The importance of in-service education is well recognized and established. 1% has been noted that on the-job nurses. training has been most active, with nursing directors taking charge of the orientation programs of newly employed nurses. However, it is most necessary that a comprehensive study be made of instructors, contents and methods of education with a separate section for in-service education. 10. Nursing services'activities 1) Division of services and job descriptions are urgently required. 81 per rent of the hospitals keep written regulations of services in accordance with nursing service manuals. 19 per cent of the hospitals do not keep written regulations. Most of hospitals delegate to the nursing directors or certain supervisors the power of stipulating service regulations. In 21 per cent of the total hospitals they have policy committees, standardization committees and advisory committees to proceed with the stipulation of regulations. 2) Approximately 81 per cent of the hospitals have service channels in which directors, supervisors, head nurses and staff nurses perform their appropriate services according to the service plans and make up the service reports. In approximately 19 per cent of the hospitals the staff perform their nursing services without utilizing the above channels. 3) In the performance of nursing services, a ward manual is considered the most important one to be utilized in about 32 percent of hospitals. 25 per cent of hospitals indicate they use a kardex; 17 per cent use ward-rounding, and others take advantage of work sheets or coordination with other departments through conferences. 4) In about 78 per cent of hospitals they have records which indicate the status of personnel, and in 22 per cent they have not. 5) It has been advised that morale among nurses may be increased, ensuring more efficient services, by their being able to exchange opinions and views with each other. 6) The satisfactory performance of nursing services rely on the following factors to the degree indicated: approximately 32 per cent to the systematic nursing activities and services; 27 per cent to the head nurses ability for nursing diagnosis; 22 per cent to an effective supervisory system; 16 per cent to the hospital facilities and proper supply, and 3 per cent to effective in·service education. This means that nurses, supervisors, head nurses and directors play the most important roles in the performance of nursing services. 11. About 87 per cent of the hospitals do not have separate budgets for their nursing departments, and only 13 per cent of the hospitals have separate budgets. It is recommended that the planning and execution of the nursing administration be delegated to the pertinent administrators in order to bring about improved proved performances and activities in nursing services.