• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.35-69
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• 2014

The impact of competition on pricing has been studied in the context of counterfactual merger analyses where expected optimal prices in a hypothetical monopoly are compared with observed prices in an oligopolistic market. Such analyses would typically assume static decision making by consumers and firms and thus have been applied mostly to data obtained from consumer packed goods such as cereal and soft drinks. However such static modeling approach is not suitable when decision makers are forward looking. When it comes to the markets for durable products with indirect network effects, consumer purchase decisions and firm pricing decisions are inherently dynamic as they take into account future states when making purchase and pricing decisions. Researchers need to take into account the dynamic aspects of decision making both in the consumer side and in the supplier side for such markets. Firms in a two-sided market typically subsidize one side of the market to exploit the indirect network effect. Such pricing behaviors would be more prevalent in competitive markets where firms would try to win over the battle for standard. While such qualitative expectation on the relationship between pricing behaviors and competitive structures could be easily formed, little empirical studies have measured the extent to which the distinct pricing structure in two-sided markets depends on the competitive structure of the market. This paper develops an empirical model to measure the impact of competition on optimal pricing of durable products under indirect network effects. In order to measure the impact of exogenously determined competition among firms on pricing, we compare the equilibrium prices in the observed oligopoly market to those in a hypothetical monopoly market. In computing the equilibrium prices, we account for the forward looking behaviors of consumers and supplier. We first estimate a demand function that accounts for consumers' forward-looking behaviors and indirect network effects. And then, for the supply side, the pricing equation is obtained as an outcome of the Markov Perfect Nash Equilibrium in pricing. In doing so, we utilize numerical dynamic programming techniques. We apply our model to a data set obtained from the U.S. video game console market. The video game console market is considered a prototypical case of two-sided markets in which the platform typically subsidizes one side of market to expand the installed base anticipating larger revenues in the other side of market resulting from the expanded installed base. The data consist of monthly observations of price, hardware unit sales and the number of compatible software titles for Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64 from September 1996 to August 2002. Sony PlayStation was released to the market a year before Nintendo 64 was launched. We compute the expected equilibrium price path for Nintendo 64 and Playstation for both oligopoly and for monopoly. Our analysis reveals that the price level differs significantly between two competition structures. The merged monopoly is expected to set prices higher by 14.8% for Sony PlayStation and 21.8% for Nintendo 64 on average than the independent firms in an oligopoly would do. And such removal of competition would result in a reduction in consumer value by 43.1%. Higher prices are expected for the hypothetical monopoly because the merged firm does not need to engage in the battle for industry standard. This result is attributed to the distinct property of a two-sided market that competing firms tend to set low prices particularly at the initial period to attract consumers at the introductory stage and to reinforce their own networks and eventually finally to dominate the market.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.14-18
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• 2004

Analysis methods of artificial sweeteners, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sodium saccharin, and sucralose isolated from foods were developed using high performance liquid chromatography, HPLC conditions for aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and sodium saccharin were: column, Symmetry $C_{18}(3.9mm\;i.d{\times}150mm,\;5{\mu}m)$; mobile phase, 0.05M sodium phosphate monobasic : acetonitrile (9 : 1, pH 3.5, containing 0.01M tetrapropylammonium hydroxide); detector, UV detector at 210 nm. HPLC condition for sucralose were : column, Symmetry $C_{18}(3.9mm\;i.d{\times}150mm,\;5{\mu}m)$; mobile phase, water:methanol (7 : 3); detector, refractive index detection (sensitivity = 16). Recoveries of artificial sweeteners in foods including soft drinks, fruit and vegetable beverages, alcoholic beverages, fermented milk beverages, soybean milk, ice cream, snacks, chewing gums, jam, honey, kimchi salted food, special dietary products, processed fish products, candies, food additive mixtures, chocolate and cocoa were 76.1-101.3%, 82.3-103.2%, 83.1-103.7%, and 80,6-99.5% for aspartame, acesulfame potassium, sodium saccharin, and sucralose, respectively.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.271-280
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• 2001

The aim of the present study was to analyze relationship between dietary habits and dental caries experience in preschool children. All 143 boys and 124 girls living in a chonju city were investigated dmf index by dentists through oral examination and dietary habit by children's mothers through questionaires such as infant diets and food preferences. The statistical analysis were performed to evaluate whether variations in dietary habits are related to dental caries experience. The obtained results were as follows; 1. The average dmf index scores of all children were examined $2.92{\pm}1.05$. The girls had higher than the boys, but no significant differences between the genders were seen the dmf index(P>0.05). 2. The higher were their age of children, the higher dmf index was investigated. The dmf index of 5 and 6-yr old childrens was higher than that in 3 and 4-yr old children(P<0.05). 3. No significant difference was found between the present of mother's occupation (P>0.05) and type of infant dietary habits(P>0.05). 4. The fruits and sea weeds were showed high degree of preference and fats and vegetables were showed low degree generally. Among 13 food groups, there was no significant difference between boys and girls except for sea weeds(P>0.05). 5. Among 13 food groups, the dmf index was positively associated with sugars(r=0.3854, P<0.05), dairy products(r=0.4328, P<0.05) and soft drinks(r=0.2586, P<0.05), and negatively associated with other food groups.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.1471-1476
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• 1999

A simple and practical method for determination of caffeine in foods was developed. The analysis of caffeine was performed by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography using a ${\mu}-Bondapak\;C_{18}$ column at isocratic condition with methanol-acetic acid-water(20 : 1 : 79) on UV detector at 280 nm. The clean-up and extraction of caffeine in samples were based on a simple pretreatment using a Sep-Pak $C_{18}$ cartridge. Recovery rates obtained with this method for cider, candy, cookie, milk, ice cream and persimmon leaf tea were 99.23%, 99.50%, 99.17%, 99.37%, 98.93% and 99.10% respectively. And the detection limit of caffeine was $0.1\;{\mu}g/mL$. With this method, the range of caffeine contents extracted from coffee, green tea, black tea, Oolong tea(tea bag), soft drinks, ice cream, milk and commercial confectionery were $3.38{\sim}37.50\;mg/g,\;16.30{\sim}26.10\;mg/g,\;10.80{\sim}16.65\;mg/g,\;11.25\;mg/g,\;0.06{\sim}0.11\;mg/g,\;0.04{\sim}0.44\;mg/g,\;0.04{\sim}0.39\;mg/g\;and\;0.10{\sim}1.80\;mg/g$, respectively. But caffeine was not detected in the other tea such as Acanthopanax sessiliflorum tea, Angelica gigas tea, Angelica tea, Arrow root tea, Duchu'ng tea, Dunggulle tea, Ganoerma lucidum tea, Ginger tea powder, Persimmon leaf tea, Ssanghwa tea and Cocoa mix powder.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.227-241
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• 2019

Purpose: This study examined the relationship between caffeine intake and metabolic syndrome in Korean adults using the 2013 ~ 2016 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data (KNHANES). Methods: The caffeine database (DB) developed by Food and Drug Safety Assessment Agency in 2014 was used to estimate the caffeine consumption. The food and beverage consumption of the 24 hr recall data of 2013 ~ 2016 KNHANES were matched to items in the caffeine DB and the daily caffeine intakes of the individuals were calculated. The sample was limited to non-pregnant healthy adults aged 19 years and older, who were not taking any medication for disease treatment. Results: The average daily caffeine intake was 41.97 mg, and the daily intake of caffeine of 97% of the participants was from coffee, teas, soft drinks, and other beverages. Multivariate analysis showed that the caffeine intake did not affect metabolic syndrome, hypertension, low HDL-cholesterol, and abdominal obesity. Diabetes and hypertriglyceridemia, however, were 0.76 (95% CI: 0.63 ~ 0.93), and 0.87 (95% CI: 0.77 ~ 0.98) in third quintile (Q3), and 0.66 (95% CI: 0.53 ~ 0.82) and 0.83 (95% CI: 0.73 ~ 0.94) in fourth quintile (Q4) compared to Q1, respectively. Therefore, caffeine intake of 3.66 ~ 45.81 mg per day is related to a lower risk of diabetes and hypertriglyceridemia. Conclusion: The study showed that adequate caffeine intake (approximately 45 mg) was associated with a lower prevalence of diabetes and hypertriglyceridemia. Therefore, it can be used as a guideline for the adequate level of caffeine intake for maintaining health.