• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.55-80
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• 2012

I. Introduction Developing the relationships between companies is very important issue to ensure a competitive advantage in today's business environment (Bleeke & Ernst 1991; Mohr & Spekman 1994; Powell 1990). Partnerships between companies are based on having same goals, pursuing mutual understanding, and having a professional level of interdependence. By having such a partnerships and cooperative efforts between companies, they will achieve efficiency and effectiveness of their business (Mohr and Spekman, 1994). However, it is difficult to expect these ideal results only in the B2B corporate transaction. According to agency theory which is the well-accepted theory in various fields of business strategy, organization, and marketing, the two independent companies have fundamentally different corporate purposes. Also there is a higher chance of developing opportunism and conflict due to natures of human(organization), such as self-interest, bounded rationality, risk aversion, and environment factor as imbalance of information (Eisenhardt 1989). That is, especially partnerships between principal(or buyer) and agent(or supplier) of companies within supply chain, the business contract itself will not provide competitive advantage. But managing partnership between companies is the key to success. Therefore, managing partnership between manufacturer and supplier, and finding causes of conflict are essential to improve B2B performance. In conclusion, based on prior researches and Agency theory, this study will clarify how business hazards cause conflicts on supply chain and then identify how developed conflicts have been managed by two control mechanisms. II. Research model III. Method In order to validate our research model, this study gathered questionnaires from small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs). In Korea, SMEs mean the firms whose employee is under 300 and capital is under 8 billion won(about 7.2 million dollar). We asked the manufacturer's perception about the relationship with the biggest supplier, and our key informants are denied to a person responsible for buying(ex)CEO, executives, managers of purchasing department, and so on). In detail, we contact by telephone to our initial sample(about 1,200 firms) and introduce our research motivation and send our questionnaires by e-mail, mail, and direct survey. Finally we received 361 data and eliminate 32 inappropriate questionnaires. We use 329 manufactures' data on analysis. The purpose of this study is to identify the anticipant role of business hazard (environmental dynamism, asset specificity) and investigate the moderating effect of control mechanism(formal control, social control) on conflict-performance relationship. To find out moderating effect of control methods, we need to compare the regression weight between low versus. high group(about level of exercised control methods). Therefore we choose the structural equation modeling method that is proper to do multi-group analysis. The data analysis is performed by AMOS 17.0 software, and model fits are good statically (CMIN/DF=1.982, p<.000, CFI=.936, IFI=.937, RMSEA=.056). IV. Result V. Discussion Results show that the higher environmental dynamism and asset specificity(on particular supplier) buyer(manufacturer) has, the more B2B conflict exists. And this conflict affect relationship quality and financial outcomes negatively. In addition, social control and formal control could weaken the negative effect of conflict on relationship quality significantly. However, unlikely to assure conflict resolution effect of control mechanisms on relationship quality, financial outcomes are changed by neither social control nor formal control. We could explain this results with the characteristics of our sample, SMEs(Small and Medium sized Enterprises). Financial outcomes of these SMEs(manufacturer or principal) are affected by their customer(usually major company) more easily than their supplier(or agent). And, in recent few years, most of companies have suffered from financial problems because of global economic recession. It means that it is hard to evaluate the contribution of supplier(agent). Therefore we also support the suggestion of Gladstein(1984), Poppo & Zenger(2002) that relational performance variable can capture the focal outcomes of relationship(exchange) better than financial performance variable. This study has some implications that it tests the sources of conflict and investigates the effect of resolution methods of B2B conflict empirically. And, especially, it finds out the significant moderating effect of formal control which past B2B management studies have ignored in Korea.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.37-63
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• 2012

In franchise business, exclusive sales territory (sometimes EST in table) protection is a very important issue from an economic, social and political point of view. It affects the growth and survival of both franchisor and franchisee and often raises issues of social and political conflicts. When franchisee is not familiar with related laws and regulations, franchisor has high chance to utilize it. Exclusive sales territory protection by the manufacturer and distributors (wholesalers or retailers) means sales area restriction by which only certain distributors have right to sell products or services. The distributor, who has been granted exclusive sales territories, can protect its own territory, whereas he may be prohibited from entering in other regions. Even though exclusive sales territory is a quite critical problem in franchise business, there is not much rigorous research about the reason, results, evaluation, and future direction based on empirical data. This paper tries to address this problem not only from logical and nomological validity, but from empirical validation. While we purse an empirical analysis, we take into account the difficulties of real data collection and statistical analysis techniques. We use a set of disclosure document data collected by Korea Fair Trade Commission, instead of conventional survey method which is usually criticized for its measurement error. Existing theories about exclusive sales territory can be summarized into two groups as shown in the table below. The first one is about the effectiveness of exclusive sales territory from both franchisor and franchisee point of view. In fact, output of exclusive sales territory can be positive for franchisors but negative for franchisees. Also, it can be positive in terms of sales but negative in terms of profit. Therefore, variables and viewpoints should be set properly. The other one is about the motive or reason why exclusive sales territory is protected. The reasons can be classified into four groups - industry characteristics, franchise systems characteristics, capability to maintain exclusive sales territory, and strategic decision. Within four groups of reasons, there are more specific variables and theories as below. Based on these theories, we develop nine hypotheses which are briefly shown in the last table below with the results. In order to validate the hypothesis, data is collected from government (FTC) homepage which is open source. The sample consists of 1,896 franchisors and it contains about three year operation data, from 2006 to 2008. Within the samples, 627 have exclusive sales territory protection policy and the one with exclusive sales territory policy is not evenly distributed over 19 representative industries. Additional data are also collected from another government agency homepage, like Statistics Korea. Also, we combine data from various secondary sources to create meaningful variables as shown in the table below. All variables are dichotomized by mean or median split if they are not inherently dichotomized by its definition, since each hypothesis is composed by multiple variables and there is no solid statistical technique to incorporate all these conditions to test the hypotheses. This paper uses a simple chi-square test because hypotheses and theories are built upon quite specific conditions such as industry type, economic condition, company history and various strategic purposes. It is almost impossible to find all those samples to satisfy them and it can't be manipulated in experimental settings. However, more advanced statistical techniques are very good on clean data without exogenous variables, but not good with real complex data. The chi-square test is applied in a way that samples are grouped into four with two criteria, whether they use exclusive sales territory protection or not, and whether they satisfy conditions of each hypothesis. So the proportion of sample franchisors which satisfy conditions and protect exclusive sales territory, does significantly exceed the proportion of samples that satisfy condition and do not protect. In fact, chi-square test is equivalent with the Poisson regression which allows more flexible application. As results, only three hypotheses are accepted. When attitude toward the risk is high so loyalty fee is determined according to sales performance, EST protection makes poor results as expected. And when franchisor protects EST in order to recruit franchisee easily, EST protection makes better results. Also, when EST protection is to improve the efficiency of franchise system as a whole, it shows better performances. High efficiency is achieved as EST prohibits the free riding of franchisee who exploits other's marketing efforts, and it encourages proper investments and distributes franchisee into multiple regions evenly. Other hypotheses are not supported in the results of significance testing. Exclusive sales territory should be protected from proper motives and administered for mutual benefits. Legal restrictions driven by the government agency like FTC could be misused and cause mis-understandings. So there need more careful monitoring on real practices and more rigorous studies by both academicians and practitioners.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.40-68
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• 2001

In this study, grade of subjective symptom appealed by laborer of Jeollabuk-do was evaluated using questionary regarding factor made effect on musculoskeletal disease and in addition, studied relationship with health promotion life style of them. Based on the result, relationship of general characteristics of musculoskeletal subjective symptom and life-style of the subjects was concluded as below. 1. General characteristics of study subjects were as following. Ratio of male was higher as 57.7% of male and 42.2% female and age distribution was 5.1% of 20s, 34.99% of 30s, 36.3% of 40s and 23.7% of 50s and therefore, $30{\sim}40$ aged groups showed highest ratio. Most subjects (74.9%) was married status and in case of education level, high-school graduate and dropout (23.3%) and over-college graduate (46.8%) showed highest distribution. $1{\sim}2$ Mil. KRW (29.5%) and $2{\sim}2.99$ Mil. KRW (21.2%) is the main income distribution and however there was high ratio of non-reply (29.0%). In case of employment period, $10{\sim}14$ years (15.3%) and over 15 years (29.6%) showed highest ratio and there were many non-reply (39.4%) and in addition, 67.6% replied as own house and 14.3% as lease on deposit base in question of residence type. 2. Subjects showed high ratio of subjective symptom appeal of 62.79% and many cases (50.23%) appealed 1 or 2 symptoms. Symptom by body region was 29.8% (waist), 27% (shoulder), 21.2% (knee), 15.5% (neck), 9.5% (ankle), 8.1% (wrist) and 5.0% (elbow) in order. In case of relationship with general characteristics, female comparing with male, non-residence of own house, subjects with lower education level and employment period of $10{\sim}14$ years showed higher appeal rate and kind of symptoms than others. Therefore, it was concluded that rate of musculoskeletal symptom appeal have close relationship with gender, level of living, education level, age and employment period. 3. In case of severe pain of upper body except waist and ankle, it was appealed in both or right side and it means that upper body pain is originated from right side and right region pain is transited to both region pain. In addition, there was 39.41% of non-reply to existence of right-left region pain and therefore, it was evaluated that, in may cases, there was no awareness of their own symptom condition even on subjective symptom. 4. Degree of pain was, as pain over middle level, evaluated as 2.79 on full mark of 4.0 and in order of waist (2.97), ankle (2.83), knee (2.82), wrist (2.82), neck (2.79), shoulder (2.70) and elbow (2.62). In addition, 71.97% appealed $2{\sim}3$ cases for the latest 1 week. Owing to subjective symptom, 54.95% drop into hospital or pharmacy, 10.32% made temporary retirement or absence, 7.99% transferred into more comfortable duty and $39.4{\sim}54%$ experienced one or more managing mentioned above. 5. Fulfillment of health promotion life style of subjects was evaluated on full mark of 4.0 and total score was 2.63. Average mark of each area was personal relationship (3.05), self-realization (2.92), stress management (2.63), health control (2.48), physical exercise (2.19) and nutrition management (2.19) and personal relationship was highest and physical exercise and nutrition management were lowest. As general characteristics influencing health promotion life style, gender, residence style and employment period showed significant difference. Male showed higher mark than female and showed higher mark in order of own house, others, lease on deposit base, monthly rent. Subjects with longer employment period showed higher mark with significant difference. 6. Accounting of factor influencing each area of health promotion life style, self-realization showed significance in marriage status, income, residence style and education level and health control in age, residence style and employment period. Physical exercise showed significant difference in gender, age, residence style and employment period and nutrition in gender, age, residence style and employment period. Stress management showed significant difference in residence style and employment period and however not in personal relationship. 7. Health promotion life style relating with existence and kind of pain showed significant difference in all area except personal relationship area. In absence of pain, there was statistically significant high score in all area even in total health promotion life style and all area. Accounting of kind of pain, cases of $1{\sim}2$ kinds of pain and $5{\sim}6$ kinds of pain showed relatively high score and it was lower than mark of subject stated absence of pain. 8. Subjects appeal symptom were classified by symptom region and difference of total and each areas were evaluated. General area (p=0.002), self-realization (p=0.012), health management (p=0.023), physical exercise (p=0.028), nutrition management (p=0.028) and stress control (p=0.001) showed statistically significant difference and not in personal relationship area. Especially, elbow, shoulder and neck area marked high and group appealed pain of knee, arm and elbow, foot and ankle marked low. Based on those results, subjective symptom should be accounted seriously in diagnosis of occupational musculoskeletal disease of laborer and among subjective symptom, general characteristics of gender, age, condition of living, education level and employment period make effect. Generally subject appeal symptom marked lower than subject without symptom appeal and it means that life management of subject appealing musculoskeletal pain make important role in management and treatment of occupational musculoskeletal disease.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.193-216
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• 2020

Due to the recent mid- to long-term slump and falling growth rates in the global economy, interest in organizational structures that create new products or services as a new alternative to survive and develop in an opaque environment both internally and externally, and enhance organizational sustainability through changes in production methods and business innovation is increasing day by day. In this atmosphere, we agree that the growth of small and medium-sized venture companies has a significant impact on the national economy, and various efforts are being made to enhance the technological innovation capabilities of the members so that these small and medium-sized venture companies can enhance and sustain their performance. The purpose of this study is also to investigate how the technological innovation capabilities of small and medium-sized venture companies correlate with the performance of knowledge management and to analyze the role of network capabilities to organize the strategic activities of enterprise to obtain the resources and organizational capabilities to be used for value creation from external networks. In other words, research was conducted on the impact of technological innovation capabilities of small and medium venture companies on knowledge management performance by using network capabilities as parameters. Therefore, in this study, we would like to verify the hypothesis that innovation capabilities will have a positive impact on knowledge management performance by using network capabilities of small and medium venture companies. Economic activities based on technological innovation capabilities should respond quickly to new changes in an environment where uncertainty has increased, and lead to macro-economic growth and development as well as overcoming long-term economic downturns so that they can become the nation's new growth engine as well as sustainable growth and survival of the organization. In addition, this study was conducted by setting the most important knowledge management performance within the organization as a dependent variable. As a result, R&D and learning capabilities among technological innovation capabilities have no impact on financial performance. In contrast, it was shown that corporate innovation activities have a positive impact on both financial and non-financial performance. The fact that non-financial factors such as quality and productivity improvement are identified in the management of small and medium-sized venture companies utilizing their technological innovation capabilities is contrary to a number of studies by those corporate innovation activities affect financial performance during prior research. The reason for this result is that research companies have been out of start-up companies for more than seven years, but sales are less than 10 billion won, and unlike start-up companies, R&D and learning capabilities have more positive effects on intangible non-financial performance than financial performance. Corporate innovation activities have been shown to have a positive (+) impact on both financial and non-financial performance, while R&D and learning capabilities have a positive (+) impact on financial performance by parameters of network capability. Corporate innovation activities have been shown to have no impact on both financial and non-financial performance, and R&D and learning capabilities have no impact on non-financial performance. It could be seen that the parameter effects of network competency are limited to when R&D and learning competencies are derived from quantitative financial performance. It could be seen that the parameter effects of network competency are limited to when R&D and learning competencies are derived from quantitative financial performance.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 1997

This study was carried out to reveal the status of health examination among farmers and to attract more attention to the health care system for farmers. Ten pre-trained medical students interviewed the rural residents 18 years of age and older in eight villages which were randomly selected from a county near Taegu city in Korea, in August 1996. Finally 751 persons were interviewed of whom the percentages of male and female were 41.8%, 58.2% respectively. Among the subjects, 361(48.3%) were fully engaged in farming, 184(24.4%) were partly engaged, and the remaining 206(27.3%) were not engaged in farming at all. The overall prevalence of farmer's disease was 23.0% and there was no significant difference between the group of fully engaged in farming(23.3%) and the group of not-fully engaged(22.9%). But the prevalence of farmer's disease in female subjects(27.8%) was significantly higher than that in male(16.2%)(p<0.01). Among the 288 farmer engaged in spraying pesticide, 113(39.2%) had experienced one or more pesticide related symptoms during last one year, but only 18(15.9%) of them had visited medical facilities due to their symptoms. The experience of receiving education about pesticide was significantly correlated with the degree of wearing protectors during pesticide spraying(p<0.001). Among the 736 persons excluding non-respondents, 281(38.2%) received health examination during last one year ; 176(62.6%) of them received free health examination, and 105(37.4%) received charged one. Among the 533 persons 40 years age and older, only 124(23.3%) had received the 'health examination for the elderly' during last one year, which is provided for the 40 years age and older by Korea medical insurance corporation and medical insurance societies. Most of all beneficiaries of self-employed medical insurance thought the imposed contributions as very expensive(77.4%) or moderately expensive(13.2%). The great majority of farmers are exposed to various health risk factors including pesticide, high temperature, overwork etc. comparable to industrial workers. But farmers are excluded from the regular yearly worker's health examination because of not belonging to a company despite they pay relatively more medical insurance contributions compared with the industrial workers and the urban self-employed medical insureds. It is necessary to develop special health management program for farmers such as the special health examination for the industrial workers exposed harmful agents.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.1538-1546
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• 2009

This study was conducted to estimate the in vitro fermentation characteristics and in situ degradabilities of total mixed rations fermented by the synbiotic co-cultures composed of various anaerobic microorganisms in the rumen of cow. Seventy two TMR bags (4 treatments $\times$ 6 fermentation days $\times$ 3 replications) were manufactured for in vitro and in situ experiments. The experiment was composed of four treatments including the control, the mould and bacteria synbiotics (T1), the mould and yeast synbiotics (T2) and the bacteria and yeast synbiotics (T3). Each treatment had six fermentation days (1, 3, 5, 7, 14, 21 day) with three replications. Two rumen cannulated Holstein cows (550 ㎏ of mean body wt) were used for in situ trial, and a total of 96 nylon bags were retrieved from the rumen according to eight fermentation times (1, 3, 6, 9, 18, 24, 48 and 72 hr). The mean fermentation temperatures of TMRs by supplementation of anaerobic micoorganism co-cultures ranged from $22.97^{\circ}C$ to $26.07^{\circ}C$, and tended to increase steadily during the entire period. pH values of the F-TMRs ranged from 4.39 to 4.98 and tended to decrease with the extension of the fermentation period, and decreased by supplementation of synbiotics (p<0.05). The ammonia concentrations of F-TMRs were not affected by addition of synbiotic co-cultures during the early fermentation period (within 7 days), but was lowest (p<0.05) in T3 during the late fermentation periods (after 14 days). Lactic acid concentration of F-TMR was lowest in T3 at 1 day of fermentation, but was not different from treatments in the other fermentation days. Microbial growth rates of F-TMR reached a peak at 7 days of fermentation, and afterward tended to decrease. In in situ experiment, the DM disappearance rates were higher in T1 than the control during early fermentation times (within 3 hours), but was vice versa at 48 hours of fermentation (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in effective DM degradability among treatments. NDF and ADF disappearance rates in situ were similar to those of DM. From the above results, the supplementation of synbiotics, particularly the mould and bacteria synbiotics, resulted in improving the pH and concentration of lactic acid of F-TMR as parameters of fermentation compare to the control, and also had higher in situ disappearance rates of DM, NDF and ADF than the control at early fermentation time. However, effective DM degradability was not affected by supplementation of synbiotics.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.1-10
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• 2013

RFID(Radio Frequency Identification) system is non-contact identification technology. A basic RFID system consists of a reader, and a set of tags. RFID tags can be divided into active and passive tags. Active tags with power source allows their own operation execution and passive tags are small and low-cost. So passive tags are more suitable for distribution industry than active tags. A reader processes the information receiving from tags. RFID system achieves a fast identification of multiple tags using radio frequency. RFID systems has been applied into a variety of fields such as distribution, logistics, transportation, inventory management, access control, finance and etc. To encourage the introduction of RFID systems, several problems (price, size, power consumption, security) should be resolved. In this paper, we proposed an algorithm to significantly alleviate the collision problem caused by simultaneous responses of multiple tags. In the RFID systems, in anti-collision schemes, there are three methods: probabilistic, deterministic, and hybrid. In this paper, we introduce ALOHA-based protocol as a probabilistic method, and Tree-based protocol as a deterministic one. In Aloha-based protocols, time is divided into multiple slots. Tags randomly select their own IDs and transmit it. But Aloha-based protocol cannot guarantee that all tags are identified because they are probabilistic methods. In contrast, Tree-based protocols guarantee that a reader identifies all tags within the transmission range of the reader. In Tree-based protocols, a reader sends a query, and tags respond it with their own IDs. When a reader sends a query and two or more tags respond, a collision occurs. Then the reader makes and sends a new query. Frequent collisions make the identification performance degrade. Therefore, to identify tags quickly, it is necessary to reduce collisions efficiently. Each RFID tag has an ID of 96bit EPC(Electronic Product Code). The tags in a company or manufacturer have similar tag IDs with the same prefix. Unnecessary collisions occur while identifying multiple tags using Query Tree protocol. It results in growth of query-responses and idle time, which the identification time significantly increases. To solve this problem, Collision Tree protocol and M-ary Query Tree protocol have been proposed. However, in Collision Tree protocol and Query Tree protocol, only one bit is identified during one query-response. And, when similar tag IDs exist, M-ary Query Tree Protocol generates unnecessary query-responses. In this paper, we propose Adaptive M-ary Query Tree protocol that improves the identification performance using m-bit recognition, collision information of tag IDs, and prediction technique. We compare our proposed scheme with other Tree-based protocols under the same conditions. We show that our proposed scheme outperforms others in terms of identification time and identification efficiency.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.744-757
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• 2012

This study was designed to obtain basic data for the globalization of Korean food and the expansion of food exports through contract foodservices. A survey of dietary habits and attitudes toward school foodservices was given to students in three American international schools served by a domestic contract foodservice management company located in Seoul and Gyeonggi area. The results showed an average of three meals taken daily 3.39 times for male students and 2.95 times for female students and the time required for a meal was about 24~26 minutes. The average breakfast frequency was 5.10 times(4.59 times for male students and 5.35 times for female students) and many students reported skipping breakfast due to a lack of time. The average weekly frequency of dining out was 1.78 times(2.15 times for male students and 1.60 times for female students). In all schools, irrespective of gender and grade, students responded that a desire for snacking was 'why they want to have cookies', and snacking hours were frequently listed as 'between noon and evening'. Many also responded that an unbalanced diet is the reason some snacks are 'not to their taste'. Overall, students were highly satisfied with the foodservice menu, although there was a significant difference in what was considered proper food temperature, proper food seasoning, suitable amounts of food, and freshness of food. Male and female students were specifically highly satisfied with the 'freshness of food materials' and 'variety of menu' respectively. Overall, all students were highly satisfied with the foodservice, including the 'cleanliness of tables and trays'.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.495-505
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• 2016

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate and analyze the association between stress from shift and non-shift work as well as the effects living habits have on eating habits in order to identify why and how workers can improve their health and form proper eating habits for higher working efficiency. Methods: The subjects of this study were 361 workers from K manufacturing company from April 7 to 11, 2014 and they were surveyed using a questionnaire. The subjects were divided into two groups according to working pattern: shift workers (n = 216) and non-shift workers (n = 110). Results: In the general characteristics, there were significant differences in age, work career, work time, marriage, monthly income, and education levels between the two groups. For healthy behaviors, significant differences in subjective health status, moderate physical activity, drinking, smoking, and sleep time were observed between shift workers and non-shift workers. For eating habits, scores of non-shift workers having a regular mealtime, balanced meal composition, and vegetable and seaweed intakes were significantly higher than those of shift workers. The sum score of dietary habits in non-shift workers was also significantly lower than that in shift workers (p < 0.05). Total job stress score did not significantly differ between the two groups. Conclusion: The sum of eating habit scores according to work types was $16.1{\pm}0.6$ in non-shift workers and $14.0{\pm}0.3$ in shift workers. These results suggest that it is necessary to provide food suitable to characteristics of different workers according to work type which should be provided along with daily nutrition counseling to help subjects recognize their status.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.52-66
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• 2001

Background : NF-${\kappa}B$ is the most important transcriptional factor in IL-8 gene expression. Triptolide is a new compound that recently has been shown to inhibit NF-${\kappa}B$ activation. The purpose of this study is to investigate how triptolide inhibits NF-${\kappa}B$-dependent IL-8 gene transcription in lung epithelial cells and to pilot the potential for the clinical application of triptolide in inflammatory lung diseases. Methods : A549 cells were used and triptolide was provided from Pharmagenesis Company (Palo Alto, CA). In order to examine NF-${\kappa}B$-dependent IL-8 transcriptional activity, we established stable A549 IL-8-NF-${\kappa}B$-luc. cells and performed luciferase assays. IL-8 gene expression was measured by RT-PCR and ELISA. A Western blot was done for the study of $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ degradation and an electromobility shift assay was done to analyze NF-${\kappa}B$ DNA binding. p65 specific transactivation was analyzed by a cotransfection study using a Gal4-p65 fusion protein expression system. To investigate the involvement of transcriptional coactivators, we perfomed a transfection study with CBP and SRC-1 expression vectors. Results : We observed that triptolide significantly suppresses NF-${\kappa}B$-dependent IL-8 transcriptional activity induced by IL-$1{\beta}$ and PMA. RT-PCR showed that triptolide represses both IL-$1{\beta}$ and PMA-induced IL-8 mRNA expression and ELISA confirmed this triptolide-mediated IL-8 suppression at the protein level. However, triptolide did not affect $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ degradation and NF-$_{\kappa}B$ DNA binding. In a p65-specific transactivation study, triptolide significantly suppressed Gal4-p65T Al and Gal4-p65T A2 activity suggesting that triptolide inhibits NF-${\kappa}B$ activation by inhibiting p65 transactivation. However, this triptolide-mediated inhibition of p65 transactivation was not rescued by the overexpression of CBP or SRC-1, thereby excluding the role of transcriptional coactivators. Conclusions : Triptolide is a new compound that inhibits NF-${\kappa}B$-dependent IL-8 transcriptional activation by inhibiting p65 transactivation, but not by an $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$-dependent mechanism. This suggests that triptolide may have a therapeutic potential for inflammatory lung diseases.