• Title/Summary/Keyword: Statistical hypothesis

Search Result 797, Processing Time 0.025 seconds

Consumer Responses to Retailer's Location-based Mobile Shopping Service : Focusing on PAD Emotional State Model and Information Relevance (유통업체의 위치기반 모바일 쇼핑서비스 제공에 대한 소비자 반응 : PAD 감정모델과 정보의 상황관련성을 중심으로)

  • Lee, Hyun-Hwa;Moon, Hee-Kang
    • Journal of Distribution Research
    • /
    • v.17 no.2
    • /
    • pp.63-92
    • /
    • 2012
  • This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective responses. Information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) emotional state model in the present study as a conceptual framework. The results of an online survey of 335 mobile phone users in the U.S. indicated the positive effects of arousal and information relevancy on pleasure. In addition, there was a significant relationship between pleasure and intention to use a LBMSS. However, the relationship between dominance and pleasure was not statistically significant. The results of the present study provides insight to retailers and marketers as to what factors they need to consider to implement location-based mobile shopping services to improve their business performance. Extended Abstract : Location aware technology has expanded the marketer's reach by reducing space and time between a consumer's receipt of advertising and purchase, offering real-time information and coupons to consumers in purchasing situations (Dickenger and Kleijnen, 2008; Malhotra and Malhotra, 2009). LBMSS increases the relevancy of SMS marketing by linking advertisements to a user's location (Bamba and Barnes, 2007; Malhotra and Malhotra, 2009). This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective response. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship among information relevancy and affective variables and their effects on intention to use LBMSS. Thus, information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) model and generated the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1. There will be a positive influence of arousal concerning LBMSS on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 2. There will be a positive influence of dominance in LBMSS on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 3. There will be a positive influence of information relevancy on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 4. There will be a positive influence of pleasure about LBMSS on intention to use LBMSS. E-mail invitations were sent out to a randomly selected sample of three thousand consumers who are older than 18 years old and mobile phone owners, acquired from an independent marketing research company. An online survey technique was employed utilizing Dillman's (2000) online survey method and follow-ups. A total of 335 valid responses were used for the data analysis in the present study. Before the respondents answer any of the questions, they were told to read a document describing LBMSS. The document included definitions and examples of LBMSS provided by various service providers. After that, they were exposed to a scenario describing the participant as taking a saturday shopping trip to a mall and then receiving a short message from the mall. The short message included new product information and coupons for same day use at participating stores. They then completed a questionnaire containing various questions. To assess arousal, dominance, and pleasure, we adapted and modified scales used in the previous studies in the context of location-based mobile shopping service, each of the five items from Mehrabian and Russell (1974). A total of 15 items were measured on a seven-point bipolar scale. To measure information relevancy, four items were borrowed from Mason et al. (1995). Intention to use LBMSS was captured using two items developed by Blackwell, and Miniard (1995) and one items developed by the authors. Data analyses were conducted using SPSS 19.0 and LISREL 8.72. A total of usable 335 data were obtained after deleting the incomplete responses, which results in a response rate of 11.20%. A little over half of the respondents were male (53.9%) and approximately 60% of respondents were married (57.4%). The mean age of the sample was 29.44 years with a range from 19 to 60 years. In terms of the ethnicity there were European Americans (54.5%), Hispanic American (5.3%), African-American (3.6%), and Asian American (2.9%), respectively. The respondents were highly educated; close to 62.5% of participants in the study reported holding a college degree or its equivalent and 14.5% of the participants had graduate degree. The sample represents all income categories: less than $24,999 (10.8%), $25,000-$49,999 (28.34%), $50,000-$74,999 (13.8%), and $75,000 or more (10.23%). The respondents of the study indicated that they were employed in many occupations. Responses came from all 42 states in the U.S. To identify the dimensions of research constructs, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using a varimax rotation was conducted. As indicated in table 1, these dimensions: arousal, dominance, relevancy, pleasure, and intention to use, suggested by the EFA, explained 82.29% of the total variance with factor loadings ranged from .74 to .89. As a next step, CFA was conducted to validate the dimensions that were identified from the exploratory factor analysis and to further refine the scale. Table 1 exhibits the results of measurement model analysis and revealed a chi-square of 202.13 with degree-of-freedom of 89 (p =.002), GFI of .93, AGFI = .89, CFI of .99, NFI of .98, which indicates of the evidence of a good model fit to the data (Bagozzi and Yi, 1998; Hair et al., 1998). As table 1 shows, reliability was estimated with Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability (CR) for all multi-item scales. All the values met evidence of satisfactory reliability in multi-item measure for alpha (>.91) and CR (>.80). In addition, we tested the convergent validity of the measure using average variance extracted (AVE) by following recommendations from Fornell and Larcker (1981). The AVE values for the model constructs ranged from .74 through .85, which are higher than the threshold suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981). To examine discriminant validity of the measure, we again followed the recommendations from Fornell and Larcker (1981). The shared variances between constructs were smaller than the AVE of the research constructs and confirm discriminant validity of the measure. The causal model testing was conducted using LISREL 8.72 with a maximum-likelihood estimation method. Table 2 shows the results of the hypotheses testing. The results for the conceptual model revealed good overall fit for the proposed model. Chi-square was 342.00 (df = 92, p =.000), NFI was .97, NNFI was .97, GFI was .89, AGFI was .83, and RMSEA was .08. All paths in the proposed model received significant statistical support except H2. The paths from arousal to pleasure (H1: ${\ss}$=.70; t = 11.44), from information relevancy to intention to use (H3 ${\ss}$ =.12; t = 2.36), from information relevancy to pleasure (H4 ${\ss}$ =.15; t = 2.86), and pleasure to intention to use (H5: ${\ss}$=.54; t = 9.05) were significant. However, the path from dominance to pleasure was not supported. This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective responses. Information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) emotional state model as a conceptual framework. The results of the present study support previous studies indicating that emotional responses as well as cognitive responses have a strong impact on accepting new technology. The findings of this study suggest potential marketing strategies to mobile service developers and retailers who are considering the implementation of LBMSS. It would be rewarding to develop location-based mobile services that integrate information relevancy and which cause positive emotional responses.

  • PDF

The Analysis on the Relationship between Firms' Exposures to SNS and Stock Prices in Korea (기업의 SNS 노출과 주식 수익률간의 관계 분석)

  • Kim, Taehwan;Jung, Woo-Jin;Lee, Sang-Yong Tom
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
    • /
    • v.24 no.2
    • /
    • pp.233-253
    • /
    • 2014
  • Can the stock market really be predicted? Stock market prediction has attracted much attention from many fields including business, economics, statistics, and mathematics. Early research on stock market prediction was based on random walk theory (RWT) and the efficient market hypothesis (EMH). According to the EMH, stock market are largely driven by new information rather than present and past prices. Since it is unpredictable, stock market will follow a random walk. Even though these theories, Schumaker [2010] asserted that people keep trying to predict the stock market by using artificial intelligence, statistical estimates, and mathematical models. Mathematical approaches include Percolation Methods, Log-Periodic Oscillations and Wavelet Transforms to model future prices. Examples of artificial intelligence approaches that deals with optimization and machine learning are Genetic Algorithms, Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Neural Networks. Statistical approaches typically predicts the future by using past stock market data. Recently, financial engineers have started to predict the stock prices movement pattern by using the SNS data. SNS is the place where peoples opinions and ideas are freely flow and affect others' beliefs on certain things. Through word-of-mouth in SNS, people share product usage experiences, subjective feelings, and commonly accompanying sentiment or mood with others. An increasing number of empirical analyses of sentiment and mood are based on textual collections of public user generated data on the web. The Opinion mining is one domain of the data mining fields extracting public opinions exposed in SNS by utilizing data mining. There have been many studies on the issues of opinion mining from Web sources such as product reviews, forum posts and blogs. In relation to this literatures, we are trying to understand the effects of SNS exposures of firms on stock prices in Korea. Similarly to Bollen et al. [2011], we empirically analyze the impact of SNS exposures on stock return rates. We use Social Metrics by Daum Soft, an SNS big data analysis company in Korea. Social Metrics provides trends and public opinions in Twitter and blogs by using natural language process and analysis tools. It collects the sentences circulated in the Twitter in real time, and breaks down these sentences into the word units and then extracts keywords. In this study, we classify firms' exposures in SNS into two groups: positive and negative. To test the correlation and causation relationship between SNS exposures and stock price returns, we first collect 252 firms' stock prices and KRX100 index in the Korea Stock Exchange (KRX) from May 25, 2012 to September 1, 2012. We also gather the public attitudes (positive, negative) about these firms from Social Metrics over the same period of time. We conduct regression analysis between stock prices and the number of SNS exposures. Having checked the correlation between the two variables, we perform Granger causality test to see the causation direction between the two variables. The research result is that the number of total SNS exposures is positively related with stock market returns. The number of positive mentions of has also positive relationship with stock market returns. Contrarily, the number of negative mentions has negative relationship with stock market returns, but this relationship is statistically not significant. This means that the impact of positive mentions is statistically bigger than the impact of negative mentions. We also investigate whether the impacts are moderated by industry type and firm's size. We find that the SNS exposures impacts are bigger for IT firms than for non-IT firms, and bigger for small sized firms than for large sized firms. The results of Granger causality test shows change of stock price return is caused by SNS exposures, while the causation of the other way round is not significant. Therefore the correlation relationship between SNS exposures and stock prices has uni-direction causality. The more a firm is exposed in SNS, the more is the stock price likely to increase, while stock price changes may not cause more SNS mentions.

Effects on cooperative spirit of a cohort by instruction types of Taekwondo (태권도 지도자의 지도유형이 집단응집력에 미치는 영향)

  • Jeong, Chan-Sam
    • Korean Security Journal
    • /
    • no.13
    • /
    • pp.471-485
    • /
    • 2007
  • This study is performed to find out what type instructions are produced to players by coaches and what effects are resulted in cooperative spirit of the concerned group. Furthermore the study has its aims at advancing instructors' skills by using finding of it. The study used 'SPSS 11.0 FOR WINDOW - Statistical Package' to analyze the collected samples and dealt with data of 174 individuals. Statistical analysis of the research for hypothesis verification was about frequency, trust level, mutual relationship, variables, and T-verification. The meaningful level for any result was ranged within 95%(p< .05), 99%(p<.01). The finding are as follows. Effects on pleasure, one of elements of team spirits taken by instructor's training style are analyzed as follows. It was proved to be meaningful in relation with a series of activities like training, democratic, social, compensatory aspects and showed also considerable relation with power based behaviors. That says, players are found to enjoy high pleasure when social and bureaucratic behaviors of instructors are very energetic. In addition to that, training, democratic, and compensatory activities didn't show any meaningful effect. Team spirit was found to play a main role between instructor's behaviors and training, democratic, social rewarding activities. Democratic and social acts influence on team spirit. Looking into the detailed aspects, team spirit was resulted very high in the individuals with low democratic mind and was shown high group spirit by groups with high sociable activities. Teamworks was found to be affected by relation between instructor's acts and training, democratic, social and compensatory aspects and it showed meaningful relations with training, social, bureaucratic behaviors. Low degree of training and bureaucratic activities are found to prefer for power team spirit, and high social activities led a strong teamworks. Group binding spirit was influenced by training, democratic, social compensatory, bureaucratic behaviors and it showed to give effects on democratic, social, and bureaucratic activities of instructors. Low degree of democratic and bureaucratic behaviors are found to produce strong team spirit. In contrast with that, strong social activities was found to be motive of powerful team spirit. Value of team spirit was found to play a main role between instructor's behaviors and training, democratic, social, rewarding activities. It didn't show any meaningful effect on behavior of instructors.

  • PDF

The Relationship between the Stage of Exercise Behavior Change and Physical Self-Concept and Self-Efficacy of Casino Security Employees (카지노 시큐리티 종사자의 운동변화단계에 따른 신체적 자기개념과 자기 효능감의 관계)

  • Chun, Yong-Tae;Oh, Jung-Il
    • Korean Security Journal
    • /
    • no.21
    • /
    • pp.95-120
    • /
    • 2009
  • This study was designed to investigate the relationship between the stages of exercise behavior change and physical self-concept and self-efficacy of security employees in hotel casinos. The sampling was drawn from employees at 8 casinos which had more than 30 employees. Participants were selected by convenience sampling method and they completed questionnaires about Physical Self-Concept and Self- Efficacy by self-administration method under supervision of trained researchers SPSS 16.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Science) was used for data analysis in the present study. Reliability and validity were examined for the present study. The principle component factor analysis and varimax rotation were used for the present study. Eigen value 1.0 was the criterion for selecting factors. Chi-square (X) 2 test was utilized for measuring the difference in gender and types of job duties at the stages of exercise behavior change. One-way ANOVA was employed to examine the relationship between the stages of exercise behavior change as an independent variable and physical self-concept and self-efficacy as dependent variables. The Scheffe method was used to determine mean differences of groups as a follow-up test. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to test the difference of physical self-concept as dependent variable and self-efficacy as independent variable. To verify hypothesis for the study, a statistical significance level of $\alpha$=.05 was used. The results were as follow: first, there were differences found for gender and types of job responsibilities in the stages of exercise behavior change. Secondly, as security employees progressed through the stages of exercise behavior change, their physical self-concept and self-efficacy improved. Finally, physical activity and body fat had significant main effects on self-efficacy.

  • PDF

Functional Brain Mapping Using $H_2^{15}O$ Positron Emission Tomography ( II ): Mapping of Human Working Memory ($H_2^{15}O$ 양전자단층촬영술을 이용한 뇌기능 지도 작성(II): 작업 기억의 지도 작성)

  • Lee, Jae-Sung;Lee, Dong-Soo;Lee, Sang-Kun;Nam, Hyun-Woo;Kim, Seok-Ki;Park, Kwang-Suk;Jeong, Jae-Min;Chung, June-Key;Lee, Myung-Chul
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
    • /
    • v.32 no.3
    • /
    • pp.238-249
    • /
    • 1998
  • Purpose: To localize and compare the neural basis of verbal and visual human working memory, we performed functional activation study using $H_2^{15}O$ PET. Materials and Methods: Repeated $H_2^{15}O$ PET scans with one control and three different activation tasks were performed on six right-handed normal volunteers. Each activation task was composed of 13 match-ing trials. On each trial, four targets, a fixation dot and a probe were presented sequentially and subject's task was to press a response button to indicate whether or not the probe was one of the previous targets. Short meaningful Korean words, simple drawings and monochromic pictures of human faces were used as matching objects for verbal or visual memory. All the images were spatially normalized and the differences between control and activation states were statistically analyzed using SPM96. Results: Statistical analysis of verbal memory activation with short words showed activation in the left Broca's area, promoter cortex, cerebellum and right cingulate gyrus. In verbal memory with simple drawings, activation was shown in the larger regions including where activated with short words and left superior temporal cortex, basal ganglia, thalamus, prefrontal cortex, anterior portion of right superior temporal gyrus and right infero-lateral frontal cortex. On the other hand, the visual memory task activated predominantly right-sided structures, especially inferior frontal cortex, supplementary motor cortex and superior parietal cortex. Conclusion: The results are consistent with the hypothesis of the laterality and dissociation of the verbal and visual working memory from the invasive electrophysiological studies and emphasize the pivotal role of frontal cortex and cingulate gyrus in working memory system.

  • PDF

A Study on the Lifestyle and Coffee Consumption Motivation (라이프스타일과 커피소비동기에 관한 연구)

  • Jung, Ja Young;Kim, Kwang Jin
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
    • /
    • v.8 no.3
    • /
    • pp.53-65
    • /
    • 2013
  • In Korea recently the consumption of coffee has been drastically increased and majority of people who are more than $20^{th}$ are drinking more than a cup of coffee every day. Nowadays coffee a kind of essential items in modern urban society. As the popularity of the coffee is increasing, As the coffee consumption is growing, the studies on coffee also have been increased. Many of the studies on coffee were focused on the consumer attitudes, coffee shops and franchise coffee shops, and coffee components or ingredients. As the products of the coffee are becoming diverse, the consumers of coffee also becoming diverse. There was a study showing that coffee has variety of types, and that motivations and attitudes for coffee consumption are different depend on demographic statistics such as age and life styles. On this study main focus was life style and consumer's motivation on coffee consumption. For this study the survey was conducted on the people living in Seoul City and Kyengkido from March 1, 2013 to March 31, 2013. 600 questionnaires were distributed and 480 were collected and 470 were used for analysis of this study. The statistics program used in this study was SPSS. The method used in the analysis wee factors analysis test, reliability test, validity test, t-testy, One-Way ANOVA, and regression analysis. In this study according to the factor analysis, the life styles were classified the following six categories ; wellbeing pursuit, taste pursuit, atmosphere pursuit, dine-out pursuit, instant pursuit, and economic value pursuit. The factors of coffee consumption motivation were 6; wellbeing consumption motivation, changing mood consumption motivation, social consumption motivation, habitual consumption motivation, and emotional consumption motivation. The demographic factors used in this study were age, marital status, occupation, educational background, residence, income, and eating-out expenses. The hypothesis used in this study were two. The first hypo-thesis was whether the coffee consumption was affected by the life styles. The second hypo-thesis was whether there was any statistical differences on the motivation of coffee consumption according to the characteristics of life style. The outcome of this study demonstrated that life styles had partial impact on coffee consumption motivations. According to the characteristics of the life style, except for the habitual consumption motivation, all the other factors showed statistical differences on coffee consumption motivations according the characteristics of life styles.

  • PDF

Relationship between XRCC1 Polymorphism and Acute Complication of Chemoradiation Therapy in the Patients with Colorectal Cancer (대장, 직장암 환자에서 화학방사선치료의 급성 부작용과 XRCC1 유전자 다형성과의 상관관계)

  • Kim Woo-Chul;Hong Yun-Chul;Choi Sun-Keun;Woo Ze-Hong;Nam Jeong-Hyun;Choi Gwang-Seong;Lee Moon-Hee;Kim Soon-Ki;Song Sun-U.;Loh John-Jk
    • Radiation Oncology Journal
    • /
    • v.24 no.1
    • /
    • pp.30-36
    • /
    • 2006
  • Purpose: It is well known from clinical experience that acute complications of chemoradiation therapy vary from patients to patients. However, there are no known factors to predict these acute complications before treatment starts. The human XRCC1 gene is known as a DNA base excision repair gene. We investigated the possibilities of XRCC1 gene polymorphisms as a predictor for the acute complications of chemoradiation therapy in colorectal cancer patients. Materials and Methods: From July 1997 to June 2003, 86 colorectal cancer patients (71 rectal cancer, 13 sigmoid colon cancer and 2 colon cancer patients) were treated with chemoradiation therapy at the Department of Radiation Oncology, Inha University Hospital. Twenty-two patients were in stage B, 50 were in stage C, 8 were in stage D and 6 patients were unresectable cases. External radiation therapy was delivered with 10MV X-ray at a 1.8 Gy fraction per day for a total dose of radiation of $30.6{\sim}59.4 Gy$ (median: 54 Gy). All the patients received 5-FU based chemotherapy regimen. We analyzed the acute complications of upper and lower gastrointestinal tract based on the RTOG complication scale. The initial and lowest WBC and platelet count were recorded during both the RT period and the whole treatment period. Allelic variants of the XRCC1 gene at codons 194, 280 and 399 were analyzed in the lymphocyte DNA by performing PCR-RFLP. Statistical analyses were carried out with the SAS (version 6.12) statistical package. Results: When all the variables were assessed on the multivariate analysis, recurrent disease revealed the factors that significantly correlated with upper gastrointestinal acute complications. Arg399Gln polymorph isms of the XRCC1 gene, the radiation dose and the frequencies of chemotherapy during radiation therapy were significantly correlated with lower gastrointestinal complications. Arg399Gln polymorph isms also affected the decrease of the WBC and platelet count during radiation therapy. Conclusion: Although the present sample size was too small for fully evaluating this hypothesis, this study suggests that Arg399Gln polymorph isms of the XRCC1 genes may be used as one of the predictors for acute complications of chemoradiation therapy in colorectal cancer patients.

The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education on Entrepreneurial Intentions and Entrepreneurial Behavior of Continuing Education Enrolled Students in University: Focusing on the Mediating Effect of Self-efficacy (창업교육이 성인학습자의 창업의지와 창업행동에 미치는 영향: 자기효능감 매개효과를 중심으로)

  • Yu, So Young;Yang, Young Seok;Kim, Myung Seuk
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
    • /
    • v.18 no.1
    • /
    • pp.107-124
    • /
    • 2023
  • As getting in 4th Industrial Revolution Times, Continuing Education Enrolled Students(CEES) trying to find loophole for jepordized current life and need job transfer have surged their interest significantly on starting new business to bring up their post career after retirement through self-improvement. Government and university have actively initiated diverse policies of promoting startup for CEES in kicking off entrepreneurship courses and programs. However, relevant main policy, 'The 2nd University Startup Education Five-Year Plan (draft)' have too chiefly focused on theoretical start-up education rather than practical courses, causing the problem of inappropriate support for implementing real startup and business (Ministry of Education, 2018). This study is brought to empirically investigate the effect of self-efficacy as perspective of the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention and behavior to come up with problem of poor entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurship education to CEES. As to empirical research, this paper deliver on-line survey to CEES from September to October 2022, collect 207 effective feedbacks, In order to verify the reliability of the scale, the Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient (Cronbach's α) was calculated, analyzed, and measured. For hypothesis test, this paper utilize the multiple regression analysis statistical analysis method and use the SPSS 22.0 statistical processing program. Empirical results show, first, it was found that self-efficacy had a significant effect on start-up education. Second, start-up education had a significant effect on the intention to start a business of adult learners. Third, start-up education had a significant effect on the start-up behavior of adult learners. Fourth, self-efficacy had a significant effect on the intention of adult learners to start a business. Fifth, self-efficacy had a significant effect on the start-up behavior of adult learners. Sixth, self-efficacy had a mediating effect in the relationship between entrepreneurship education and adult learners' intention to start a business. Seventh, self-efficacy had a complete mediating effect in the relationship between start-up education and adult learners' start-up behavior. This paper is brought three significant implications. First, main consideration developing entrepreneurship education tools for CEES need to falls on defining potential needs of CEES as segmenting as to coming up with diversity of CEES's characteristics such as gender, age, experience, education, and occupation. Second, as to design specific entrepreneurship education program, both practical training program of utilizing CEES's career field experience benchmarking best practice startup and venture cases from domestic and global, and professional startup program of CEES initiating directly startup from ideation to develop business plan with pitching and discussing. Third, entrepreneurship education for CEES should be designed to incubate self-efficacy to enhance entrepreneurial intention of implementing entrepreneurial behavior as a real, eventually leading solid support system of self-improvement for CEES' Retirement life planning.

  • PDF

The Increased Expression of Gelatinolytic Proteases Due to Cigarette Smoking Exposure in the Lung of Guinea Pig (기니픽에서 흡연 노출에 의한 젤라틴 분해 단백 효소의 발현 양상에 관한 연구)

  • Kang, Min-Jong;Lee, Jae-Ho;Yoo, Chul-Gyu;Lee, Choon-Taek;Chung, Hee-Soon;Seo, Jeong-Wook;Kim, Young-Whan;Han, Sung-Koo;Shim, Young-Soo
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
    • /
    • v.50 no.4
    • /
    • pp.426-436
    • /
    • 2001
  • Background : Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD) is one of the major contributors to morbidity and mortality among the adult population. Cigarette smoking(CS) is undoubtedly the single most important factor in the pathogenesis of COPD. However, its mechanism is unclear. The current hypothesis regarding the pathogenesis of COPD postulates that an imbalance between proteases and antiproteases leads to the destructive changes in the lung parenchyma. This study had two aims. First, to evaluate the effect of CS exposure on histologic changes of the lung parenchyme, and second, to evaluate the effect of CS exposure on the expression of the gelatinolytic enzymes in BAL fluid cells in guinea pigs. Methods : Two groups of five guinea pigs were exposed to the whole smoke of 20 commercial cigarettes per day, 5 hours/day, 5 days/week, for 6weeks, and 12 weeks, respectively, using a smoking apparatus. Five age-matched guinea pigs exposed to room air were used as controls. Five or more sections were microscopically extamined(${\times}400$) and the number of cellular infiltration of the alveolar wall was measured in order to evaluate the effect of CS exposure on the histologic changes of lung parenchyme. The statistical significance was analyzed by a linear regression method. To evaluate the expression of the gelatinolytic enzymes in intraalveolar cells, BAL fluid was obtained and the intraalveolar cells were separated by centrifugation (500 g for 10 min at $4^{\circ}C$). Two sets of culture plates were loaded with $1{\times}10^6$ intraalveolar cells. One plate, contained O.1mM EDTA, a inhibitor of matrix metalloproteases(MMPs), and the other plate had no EDTA. Both plates were incubated for 48 hours at $37^{\circ}C$. After incubation, gelatinolytic protease expression in the supernatants was analyzed by gelatin zymography. Results : At the end of CS exposure, the level of blood carboxy Hb had increased significantly(4.1g/dl in control group, 24g/dl immediately after CS exposure, 18g/dl 30 min after CS exposure, 15g/dl 1 hour after CS exposure). Alveolar inflammatory cells were identified in the CS exposed guinea pigs. The number of alveolar cellular cells observed in a microscopic field ($400{\times}$) was $121.4{\pm}7.2$, $158.0{\pm}20.2$, $196.8{\pm}32.8$, in the control, the 6 weeks, and the 12 weeks group, respectively. The increased extent of inflammatory cellular infiltration of the lung parenchema showed a statistically significant linear relationship with the duration of CS exposure(p=0.001, $r^2=0.675$). Several types of gelatinolytic enzymes in the intraalveolar cells of CS exposed guinea pigs were expressed, of which some were inhibited by EDT A. However, the gelatinolytic enzymes were not expressed in the control groups. Conclusion : CS exposure increases inflammatory cellular infiltration of the alveolar wall and the expression of gelatinolytic proteases in guinea pigs. EDTA inhibits some of the gelatinolytic proteases. These findings suggest a possibility that CS exposure may increase MMP expression in the lungs of guinea pigs.

  • PDF

Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty of Mobile Communication Industry in China (중국이동통신산업중적복무질량(中国移动通信产业中的服务质量), 고객만의도화고객충성도(顾客满意度和顾客忠诚度))

  • Zhang, Ruijin;Li, Xiangyang;Zhang, Yunchang
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
    • /
    • v.20 no.3
    • /
    • pp.269-277
    • /
    • 2010
  • Previous studies have shown that the most important factor affecting customer loyalty in the service industry is service quality. However, on the subject of whether service quality has a direct or indirect effect on customer loyalty, scholars' views apparently vary. Some studies suggest that service quality has a direct and fundamental influence on customer loyalty (Bai and Liu, 2002). However, others have shown that service quality not only directly affects customer loyalty, it also has an indirect impact on customer loyalty by influencing customer satisfaction and perceived value (Cronin, Brady, and Hult, 2000). Currently, there are few domestic articles that specifically address the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry. Moreover, research has studied customer loyalty as a whole variable, rather than breaking it down further into multiple dimensions. Based on this analysis, this paper summarizes previous study results, establishes an effect mechanism model among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry, and presents a statistical test on model assumptions by using customer investigation data from Heilongjiang Mobile Company. It provides theoretical guidance for mobile service management based on the discussion of the hypothesis test results. For data collection, the sample comprised mobile users in Harbin city, and the survey was taken by random sampling. Out of a total of 300 questionnaires, 276 (92.9%) were recovered. After excluding invalid questionnaires, 249 remained, for an effective rate of 82.6 percent for the study. Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficient was adapted to assess the scale reliability, and validity testing was conducted on the questionnaire from three aspects: content validity, construct validity. and convergent validity. The study tested for goodness of fit mainly from the absolute and relative fit indexes. From the hypothesis testing results, overall, four assumptions have not been supported. The ultimate affective relationship of service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty is demonstrated in Figure 2. On the whole, the service quality of the communication industry not only has a direct positive significant effect on customer loyalty, it also has an indirect positive significant effect on customer loyalty through service quality; the affective mechanism and extent of customer loyalty are different, and are influenced by each dimension of service quality. This study used the questionnaires of existing literature from home and abroad and tested them in empirical research, with all questions adapted to seven-point Likert scales. With the SERVQUAL scale of Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988), or PZB, as a reference point, service quality was divided into five dimensions-tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy-and the questions were simplified down to nineteen. The measurement of customer satisfaction was based mainly on Fornell (1992) and Wang and Han (2003), ending up with four questions. Based on the study’s three indicators of price tolerance, first choice, and complaint reaction were used to measure attitudinal loyalty, while repurchase intention, recommendation, and reputation measured behavioral loyalty. The collection and collation of literature data produced a model of the relationship among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in mobile communications, and China Mobile in the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province was used for conducting an empirical test of the model and obtaining some useful conclusions. First, service quality in mobile communication is formed by the five factors mentioned earlier: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. On the basis of PZB SERVQUAL, the study designed a measurement scale of service quality for the mobile communications industry, and obtained these five factors through exploratory factor analysis. The factors fit basically with the five elements, indicating the concept of five elements of service quality for the mobile communications industry. Second, service quality in mobile communications has both direct and indirect positive effects on attitudinal loyalty, with the indirect effect being produced through the intermediary variable, customer satisfaction. There are also both direct and indirect positive effects on behavioral loyalty, with the indirect effect produced through two intermediary variables: customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty. This shows that better service quality and higher customer satisfaction will activate the attitudinal to service providers more active and show loyalty to service providers much easier. In addition, the effect mechanism of all dimensions of service quality on all dimensions of customer loyalty is different. Third, customer satisfaction plays a significant intermediary role among service quality and attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, indicating that improving service quality can boost customer satisfaction and make it easier for satisfied customers to become loyal customers. Moreover, attitudinal loyalty plays a significant intermediary role between service quality and behavioral loyalty, indicating that only attitudinally and behaviorally loyal customers are truly loyal customers. The research conclusions have some indications for Chinese telecom operators and others to upgrade their service quality. Two limitations to the study are also mentioned. First, all data were collected in the Heilongjiang area, so there might be a common method bias that skews the results. Second, the discussion addresses the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty, setting customer satisfaction as mediator, but does not consider other factors, like customer value and consumer features, This research will be continued in the future.