• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.17
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• pp.247-292
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• 2008

Investigations have been started to set the modern history and national spirit to rights after Commissions were established. Those Commissions are established and operated with time limit to finish its own missions. They creates three kinds of records as acquired materials which acquired or are donated for investigation; investigation records as investigation reports; and administrative records that created while supporting organization's operation. The Commissions use more past records to do special tasks asnation's slate clean and uncovering the truth than other agencies. In other words, the commissions take the most advantages of well-managed records, however, their record management environment and operation systems are relatively loose than other permanent machineries. It has three reasons that; first, there is no record management regulations and criteria for machineries that have time limit. This affected each commissions 'systems and 6 Truth Commissions' record management systems are built separately and on the different level; Second, members lack responsibility from frequent sending, reinstatement, change, and restructuring and that makes troubles to produce and manage records; Third, central archives pay less attention to machineries that operated limited period as the truth commissions. The Commissions rather need more systematic control because its records have historical value. To solve these problems, record management regulations have to be prepared first with features of organizations running limited time and commissions' records as acquired materials or investigation records. Furthermore, building up standard record management system for the Commissions, standardizing transfer data, imposing professional record personnel, and setting limits frequent personnel changes would finish practical problems. Besides, those records created to reveal the truth should use for education and research because Truth Commissions are established to set unfortunate history right and not to repeat it again. The records would serve as steppingstone for establishment of the Truth Record Center that does education, information work, publication, and research with the records. The record center would help using the records efficiently and improving knowledge for its people. And, the center should devote people to recognize importance of the records.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.57
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• pp.9-40
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• 2014

This article focuses on Yeheon's consideration and solution for the hostile of social circumstances during the time of the Japanese invasions. Yeheon thought that the Chosun dynasty must have faced such disorder before the war happened. People including the king and his subjects did not live their life according to the righteous principle, and the state was not under control in a way that it should accomplish the Dao. Yeheon thought that the Japanese invasion, which is more like a flood or certain disasters, was not primarily responsible for the harshest of environments. Yeheon paid his attention to the fact that even after the Japanese invasions ended, people were still in disorder losing their mind-and-heart. People's mind-and-heart became that of animals because of starvation and disease. This is because the government made people trapped in a difficult situation by forcing them to prepare for military operations, rather than taking care of them. As a result, in Yeheon's view, the main cause of the social disorder was people's lack of mind-and-heart, which brought about their actions of brutality like those of animals. Although Yeheon himself did not form righteous armies, he instead suggested a right path to overcome and solve the social disorder by describing and analyzing in detail the reality of the war as well as the problems of policies. In particular, Yeheon studied the Zhou yi at the time because understanding the principle of fortune and misfortune, as well as the rise and fall of a state, could give a proper solution to the social turmoil of his times. In Yeheon's eyes, the most important thing to do in the time of people's losing mind-and-heart was to follow li and accomplish the Dao in their daily life. And this was what he, as a gentleman, should do. Yeheon thought that in spite of the harshest of environments, one can still preserve one's grace and dignity, which would overcome one's adversity. This gives us the following questions: should one put aside one's grace and dignity to overcome wartime perils? Or in so doing, one should face more severe time after a short period of peace and stability? These questions concern the relationship between one's morality and the state's responsibility, and what is the right way of doing one's duty to the state is the main philosophical subject in this article.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.9-40
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• 2019

This study presents an investigation into South Korean films in the 1990s in the aspects of genre change and emotional reorganization. The 1990s witnessed a change of genres and a paradigm shift in the history of Korean films according to the revolutionary changes of the film industry structure and media environment. Believing that these changes had something to do with emotional changes driven by global capitalization symbolized by democratization in 1987 and the foreign currency crisis in 1998, the investigator analyzed the phenomena in film texts and examined the opportunities and context behind them. Unlike previous researches, this study made an approach to the history of Korean films in the 1990s with three points: first, this study focused on why the romantic comedy genre emerged in the 1990s and what stages its formation underwent since there had been no profound discussions about them; secondly, this study analyzed the biggest hits during the transitional period from 1987~1999 to figure out the mainstream genres and emotions during that period since these hits would provide texts to show the genre domain and public taste in a symbolic way; and finally, this study grew out of the separate investigation approach between melodramas and romantic comedies and looked into an emotional structure to encompass both genres to make a more broad and dynamic approach to South Korean films in the 1990s. History flows continuously without severance from previous times. When there is attention paid to inflection points and opportunities in the continuum, it can show the dynamics and structures of changes. This research led to the following conclusions: the mainstream genre of South Korean films had been melodramas until the 1980s. The old convention had been kept to offset or suture contradictions and excessive elements deviant from the structural consistency. Here, the structural consistency refers to no compliance to rational regulations or trade. The process of genre reorganization in the 1990s happened while securing some distance from the convention of making the structural consistency a sacrifice. The direction was to reinforce control through reasonable rationalism and logic of capital. It developed into romance, which would start with comedy to keep distance from the objects through laughter, heighten the level of remarks, and expand criticality, symbolize emotions with taste items, and build through the logic of mutual consensus and practical trade. In the 1990s, the South Korean films thus developed in a direction of moving away from the narrative of urgent pathos based on unconditional familism. It was on the same track as the entry of the South Korean society into the upgraded orbits of democracy and capitalism as the twins of modern rationalism since the latter part of the 1980s.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.28
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• pp.363-386
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between theory of Confucian moral cultivation and meditation. Recently our community is more interested in 'a disease of mind'. A view of world, life, values which derived from the distorted perception of 'a disease of mind' can not be treated by psychiatric methods. In this sense, 'a disease of mind' is different from psychiatric illness. In this reason, alternative therapies applying philosophy, literature, arts, and humanities are attracting attention. Meditation is also one of them. In general, Meditation has been developed in Buddhism, but its method is closely related with Confucianism. Buddhist meditation has a pessimistic view of the reality in human life, but that of Confucian philosophy has laid stress on the reality and ego in human life. At this point, the Confucian meditation could provide a clue of solution for us in treatment of a disease of human mind. So Confucian moral cultivation and meditation have a great significance for the treatment of this disease as a methodology. In general, mental healing or psychotherapy has been proceeded by way of dialogue. 'Talking Cure' was conceived to let clients themselves recognize their current situation and find out the problem: "what happened and what's wrong" in their minds. But it does not have a high possibility of successful cure for subjects who are in the state of frustration, confusion, and lost of value. And also it is very difficult to apply to special institutions such as correctional institutions and military soldier who are targeted by current application of Humanities therapy. On this sense, it seems to be valuable to apply Confucian cultivation of mind and meditation which have emphasized the importance of mind-control for this. This study tries to examine theoretically how to relate the Confucian cultivation of mind with meditation, and to suggest a model of Humanities therapy that could be applied by Toe-gye's 『The Method on Preservation of Human mind(活人心方)』. Although Confucian cultivation of mind could present a meaningful theory for curing the disease of mind, it is very difficult to put the theory into practice. It is because Confucian cultivation of mind in itself is a kind of instruction that you need to do in all of your life, and essentially it is difficult to expect a temporary effect by performance or practice. So a cure model of Confucian cultivation of mind will be suggested on this assumption and limitations. This model is attempted on the main purpose of Humanities therapy in accordance with the development of a Korean model.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.79-102
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• 2011

Researchers in channel dyads have devoted much attention to relationship between interdependence (i.e. interdependence enymmetry and total interdependence) and conflict that promote channel performance. In social science, in spite of the inconsistent results in marketing practice, there are two contradictory theories explain the relationship between interdependence and conflict - bilateral deterrence theory and conflict spiral theory. The authors apply these theories to co-marketing alliance situation in terms that this relationship is also incorporated both company's dependence, either from one company's perspective or each partner about its respective dependence. Using survey data and archival data from 181 companies enlisted in a telecommunication membership program, the authors find out the relationship between interdependence and conflict as well as investigate the antecedents of interdependence - transaction age, transaction frequency, the numbers of alliance partner, and co-marketing alliance specific assets according to previous researches. Using PLS analysis, the authors demonstrate that, with increasing total interdependence in a telecommunication membership program, two co-marketing partners' conflict level is increased in accord with the author's conflict spiral theory predictions. As expected, higher interdependence asymmetry has negative value to level of conflict even though this result is not statistically significant. Other findings can be summarized as follows. In the perspective of telecommunication company, transaction age, transaction frequency, and co-marketing alliance specific assets have influence on its dependence on a partner as independent variables. To the contrary, in a partner's perspective, transaction frequency, co-marketing alliance specific assets and the numbers of alliance partner have significantly impact on its dependence on a telecommunication company. In direct effect analysis, it is shown that transaction age, frequency and co-marketing alliance specific assets have direct influence on conflict. This results suggest that it is more useful for a telecommunication company to select a co-marketing partner which is frequently used by customers and earned high rates of mileage. In addition, the results show that dependence of a telecommunication company on a co-marketing partner is more significantly effected to co-marketing alliance conflict than partner's one. It provide an effective conflict management strategy to a telecommunication company for controling customer's usage rate or having the co-marketing partner deposit high level of alliance specific investment (i.e. mileage). To a co-marketing partner of telecommunication company, it is required control the percentage of co-marketing sales in total sales revenue or seek various co-marketing partners in order for co-marketing conflict management. The research implications, limitation and future research of these results are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.83-101
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• 1981

Under the full consideration of the growing need and importance of population education in the field of home economics in Korea, the study was carried out to verify and assess the following facts on the current issues of population education of home economists who are presently engaging in teaching professions as the teachers of middle and high school and professors of college and universities by setting its primary objectives of the study as followings; 1) to assess the degree of general knowledge and attitudes of home economists toward population education in the field of home economics, 2) to verify the problems encountered in implementing population education by home economists in its field, 3) to find an existing status of previous trainings received and other activities of population education of home economists aimed at utilizing these findings as a part of reference materials when the population education is conducted in the field of home economics. In order to attain these objectives described above, the questionnaire was carefully designed to house a total of 40 questions with good combination of multiple-choice and the simple answer questions. The mail questionnaire survey was conducted by establishing teachers of home economics at middle/high schools and college/universities as Senior Home Economists(SHE) who are from public, private liberal arts and vocational schools. The rate of response observed during the survey was 45.6 percent and the findings of the survey research are as follows: 1) Examining the status of the respondents by residence and religion, it was found that 45 percent of middle & high school teachers ar.d 59. 1 percent of college professors are residing in Seoul city area and that the largest percent of them are christian in their religion. Analyzing respondents by their ages, 56 percent of middle/high school teachers are in their 30s, 45 percent of college professors are in their 40s, and 37 percent of college teachers are in their 30s. In addition, 13 percent of the total respondents are found to be unmarried. The study also revealed that 71 percent of the college professors finished Master Degree course and 82 percent of middle/high school teachers are graduated from college level lasting 4 years. Looking over the status cf major fields of respondents, 68.4 percent of middle/high school teachers are specialized in home economic education and the college professors, on the other hand, show relatively even prortion by specializing in the order of food & nutrition science, clothes & textile science and home managerial science. As far as the length of teaching experience is concerned, a relatively longer period of teaching experience is observed in the college professors in comparison with that of middle/high school teachers. In other words, 33.3 percent of middle/high school teachers are experienced in teaching from 6 to 10 years on average while 43.9 percent of college professors show more than 16 years of experience. 2) Examining the status of existing number of children cf the respondents, one boy and one daughter pattern is predominant, showing 28.5 percent in middle/high school teachers and 21.1 percent in college professors. As for the desired number of children of unmarried respondents, it is observed that 43.8 percent of middle/high school teachers desire to have one boy and one girl, and 31.3 percent of college professors want to have one child regardless of the sex. By assessing the degree of awareness of the population education through their students, it is observed that 53 percent of middle/high school teachers and 50 percent of college professors are aware of population education in some extent and that a majority of respondents took the positive attitudes toward an inclusion of family planning components into the formal school education. Another noteworthy to observe is that a total of 84.8 percent out of middle/high school teachers pointed that the population education currently conducted at schools as a part of home economics are less sufficient than it should be. 3) Analyzing the tendency as to whether the respondents were experienced in receiving population education during the time when they were students, 75 percent of college professors and 59 percent of middle/high school teachers responded negative answers in the survey. In the mean time, a total of 50 percent of the respondents replied that they began to acknowledge the importance of population education mainly through the participation of some sort of population-education orientend seminars, experienced by 40 percent of college professors and 80 percent of middle/high school teachers. 4) What it calls attention in this study was to find that 96.5 percent of middle/high school teachers and 72 percent of college professors conduct population education to some extent during their lecture hours and that more than 80 percent of them are never experienced in teaching population and family planning contents in their regular classes. It is, on the other hand, found that no more than once was the response of those who believe themselves that they are experienced in teaching these relevant components to their students. Analyzing the contents of the subjects being taught in the class, a large percent of them are found to be consisted of population and family planning contents. According to this study, the current population education through the formal school is quite inactive. Analyzing the facts, 44.9 percent of the college professors responded that the population and family planning components are quite apart from their specialization which eventually generates lack of interest in the field. 5) It is also noticed through the study that the degree of frequency of commenting on population and family planning contents during the classes was depending significantly on their specializations which means that the degree of frequency varies from a major to another. Those who majored in home managerial science was the first one, as compared to others who majored in different specializations. Glancing over the status of correlations between ages of the respondents and numbers of seminar paticipation, it is quite clear that the aged group participated more than the younger group did, and that the most highest number of participations made by college professors were those who are in 50s. In addition, it is also found that those who are aged 20s and 60s of the respondents were the group who comments least on the contents of population and family planning at their classes. The suggestions and recommendation made through this survey research are as follows. 1) No one denies that the rapid increase of population, as compared to the limited size of land and resources, will certainly affect adversly to an enhancement of individual life quality which will, eventually, bring forth the poverty of the nation. This is the reasson why we are insisting that the world population be controlled up to an optimum level with a matter of global concerns. It is our understading that the primary aim for reducing number of population is believed to be attained only by conducting the systematic and comprehensive population education through the formal schools. Therefore, the role of home economists in the field of population/family planning education is considered very importment due to the fact that an ultimate goal of population education is placed in elevating the quality of family life by having optimum number of children through family planning program. 2) It is quite clear that home economists as teachers of formal school in all level are invited to pay their attention on redefining the ultimate goal of education and that of population education. We also understant that the primary objective of population education is to change the norm and value of the clients by replenishing the students with pertinent knowledge and attitudes on population and its related problems through a sort of education in order to attain the ultimate goal for enhancing the quality of life. There is no exception in the theory of home economics. An altimate goal of home economics is to elevate the general quality of life through an establishment of value existed in daily life. Considering the relations between population education and home economics, it is quite indespensable to bandle population components as an integral part in the field of home economics. We believe, therefore, that the senior home economists positive participation in the effort population control is more needed than it has been. 3) It is also strongly urged that population education should be a part of instructor training course for home economics. In other words, the teacher of home economics should be well aware of population and its problems by teaching interrelationship between population education and home economics, needs, contents and methods of population education during the instructor training courese for home economics. In addition, the senior home economists should be encouraged through positive participation on the short term training by types of domestic and international seminar, workshop, etc. 4) We certainly believe that the population education can not sustain itself without any backing-up of information and findings' of various and comprehensive researches of natural and social sciences. Accordingly, every senior home economist is invited to exert their maximum effort to conduct systematic study with an aim to utilize these findings and information at best in population education in the field of home economics. Therefore, we consider that the development of training material is imminent in order to provide effective and efficient population education through the for training of home economies. It should be noted that these training materials must be carefully designed, tailored and developed to meet the different classes of trainees under the considerations as to whether it is easily adaptable and infusable into the curricula of every field of home economics, and it is acceptable in the degree of difficulty and quality in its contents. 5) It is true that there are many domestic and international research rapers, reports and findings in the field of population education and family planning. However, there is a tendency that the most of research papers are heavily relying on the authors intension and preferences in its expression and publication. Under these circumstances, it is urged that the home economists should aware of the growing need of the technical training in order to keep these available information and research findings reprocessed and redesigned to insure the practical application into the population education in the field of home economics in Korea.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.279-294
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• 2008

This study aimed to make an analysis of the occlusion in the state of muscle fatigue produced by excessive mouth opening and clenching during the dental treatment to control the dental pain and to evaluate the sensory nerve in the muscle pain state. Most of the reasons why patients visit the dental office result in pain-either conceivably the dental origin pain or the non-dental origin pain. The dental offices have many therapeutic actions to produce the masticatory muscle fatigue for the treatment. Dental treatment with long minutes of mouth opening can cause some headaches, masticatory muscle pain and mouth opening difficulties. Patients with mastication problems who visits a dental office to alleviate pain run against another unexpected pain with other aspects. This study uses T-scan II system(Tekscan Co., USA) for the evaluation on the occlusal pattern in the experimental muscle fatigue after clenching, opening the mouth excessively and chewing gum. The occlusal contact pattern is analyzed by the contact timing, namely first, intercuspal, maximum and end point of contact. This inspection was performed at frequencies of 2000Hz, 250 Hz and 5 Hz before and after each experimental muscle pain was produced to 24 subjects who had normal occlusion without the orthodontic treatment or a wide range of the prosthesis by using $neurometer^{\circledR}$ CPT/C(Neurotron, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland, USA). The measuring sites were mandibular nerve experimental muscle fatigue respectively. This study could obtain the following results after the assessment of occlusion and sensory nerve of the experimental muscle fatigue. 1. There were the fastest expression after the excessive mouth opening in muscle fatigue and after tooth clenching in muscle pain. In the visual analog scale that records the subjective level, there was the highest scale after the clenching in the muscle fatigue in jumping off the point of pain. 2. Tooth contact time, contact force, relative contact force on the point of the first contact had no difference, and there were decreases in the contact force after the excessive mouth opening on intercuspal position point, after the excessive mouth opening and the gum chewing on the point of the maximum, and in the contact time after all the experimental muscle fatigue state on the point of the end contact. 3. There was no statistic significance in the current perception threshold before and after the experimental muscle fatigue. 4. There was no significant difference in the contact number, the maximal contact number on the point of the first contact, and the contact number after the mouth opening and gum chewing on the point of the intercuspal position and the contact number after the experimental muscle fatigue on the maximum point, and showed significant decreases. In conclusion, it was found that the occlusal pattern can cause the changes on the case of the clinical muscle weakness by intra-external oral events. It was important that the sedulous attention to details is required during dental treatment in case of excessive mouth opening, mastication and clenching.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.217-227
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• 2006

Micronutrient status in soils and crops of plastic film house and their relationship were investigated. Total 203 plastic film houses were selected (red pepper, 66; cucumber, 63; tomato, 74) in Yeongnam region and soil and leaf samples were collected. Hot-water extractable B and 0.1 N HCl extractable Cu, Zn, Fe, and Mn in soil samples and total micronutrients in leaf samples were analyzed. Contents Zn, Fe, and Mn in most of the investigated soils were higher than the upper limits of optimum level for general crop cultivation. Contents of Cu in most soils of cucumber and tomato cultivation were higher than the upper limit of optimum level, but Cu contents in about 30% of red pepper cultivation soils were below the sufficient level. Contents of B in most soils of cucumber and tomato were above the sufficient level but in 48% of red pepper cultivation soils B were found to be deficient. Micronutrient contents in leaf of investigated crops were much variable. Contents of B, Fe, and Mn were mostly within the sufficient levels, while in 71% of red pepper samples Cu was under deficient level and in 44% of cucumber samples Cu contents were higher than the upper limit of sufficient level. Contents of Zn in red pepper and cucumber samples were mostly within the sufficient level but in 62% of tomato samples Zn contents were under deficient condition. However, any visible deficiency or toxicity symptoms of micronutrients were not found in the crops. No consistent relationships were found between micronutrient contents in soil and leaf, and this indicates that growth and absorption activity of root and interactions among the nutrients in soil might be important factors in overall micronutrient uptake of crops. For best management of micronutrients in plastic film house, much attention should be focused on the management of soil and plant characteristics which control the micronutrient uptake of crops.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.31-54
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• 2007

The exchange between buyers and sellers in the industrial market is changing from short-term to long-term relationships. Long-term relationships are governed mainly by formal contracts or informal agreements, but many scholars are now asserting that controlling relationship by using formal contracts under environmental dynamism is inappropriate. In this case, partners will depend on each other's flexibility or interdependence. The former, flexibility, provides a general frame of reference, order, and standards against which to guide and assess appropriate behavior in dynamic and ambiguous situations, thus motivating the value-oriented performance goals shared between partners. It is based on social sacrifices, which can potentially minimize any opportunistic behaviors. The later, interdependence, means that each firm possesses a high level of dependence in an dynamic channel relationship. When interdependence is high in magnitude and symmetric, each firm enjoys a high level of power and the bonds between the firms should be reasonably strong. Strong shared power is likely to promote commitment because of the common interests, attention, and support found in such channel relationships. This study deals with environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Firms in the high-tech industry regard it as a key success factor to successfully cope with environmental changes. However, due to the lack of studies dealing with environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry, it is very difficult to find effective strategies to cope with them. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry. We examined the effects of consumer, competitor, and technological dynamism on supply chain commitment. Additionally, we examined the moderating effects of flexibility and dependence of supply chains. This study was confined to the type of high-tech industry which has the characteristics of rapid technology change and short product lifecycle. Flexibility among the firms of this industry, having the characteristic of hard and fast growth, is more important here than among any other industry. Thus, a variety of environmental dynamism can affect a supply chain relationship. The industries targeted industries were electronic parts, metal product, computer, electric machine, automobile, and medical precision manufacturing industries. Data was collected as follows. During the survey, the researchers managed to obtain the list of parts suppliers of 2 companies, N and L, with an international competitiveness in the mobile phone manufacturing industry; and of the suppliers in a business relationship with S company, a semiconductor manufacturing company. They were asked to respond to the survey via telephone and e-mail. During the two month period of February-April 2006, we were able to collect data from 44 companies. The respondents were restricted to direct dealing authorities and subcontractor company (the supplier) staff with at least three months of dealing experience with a manufacture (an industrial material buyer). The measurement validation procedures included scale reliability; discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.70. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. A series of chi-square difference tests were conducted so that the discriminant validity could be ensured. For each pair, we estimated two models-an unconstrained model and a constrained model-and compared the two model fits. All these tests supported discriminant validity. Also, all items loaded significantly on their respective constructs, providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than.70. The AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the multiple regression analysis, customer dynamism had a negative effect and competitor dynamism had a positive effect on a supplier's commitment. In addition, flexibility and dependence had significant moderating effects on customer and competitor dynamism. On the other hand, all hypotheses about technological dynamism had no significant effects on commitment. In other words, technological dynamism had no direct effect on supplier's commitment and was not moderated by the flexibility and dependence of the supply chain. This study makes its contribution in the point of view that this is a rare study on environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the field of high-tech industry. Especially, this study verified the effects of three sectors of environmental dynamism on supplier's commitment. Also, it empirically tested how the effects were moderated by flexibility and dependence. The results showed that flexibility and interdependence had a role to strengthen supplier's commitment under environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Thus relationship managers in high-tech industry should make supply chain relationship flexible and interdependent. The limitations of the study are as follows; First, about the research setting, the study was conducted with high-tech industry, in which the direction of the change in the power balance of supply chain dyads is usually determined by manufacturers. So we have a difficulty with generalization. We need to control the power structure between partners in a future study. Secondly, about flexibility, we treated it throughout the paper as positive, but it can also be negative, i.e. violating an agreement or moving, but in the wrong direction, etc. Therefore we need to investigate the multi-dimensionality of flexibility in future research.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.111-131
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• 2002

Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer) received a great deal of attention from the Orient and West as a tonic agent, health food and/or alternative herbal therapeutic agent. However, controversy with respect to scientific evidence on pharmacological effects especially, evaluation of clinical efficacy and the methodological approach still remains to be solved. Author reviewed those articles published since 1980 when pharmacodynamic studies on ginseng have intensively started. Special concern was paid on metabolic disorders including diabetes mellitus, circulatory disorders, malignant tumor, sexual dysfunction, and physical and mental performance to give clear information to those who are interested in pharmacological study of ginseng and to promote its clinical use. With respect to chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, malignant disorders, and sexual disorders, it seems that ginseng plays preventive and restorative role rather than therapeutics. Particularly, ginseng plays a significant role in ameliorating subjective symptoms and preventing quality of life from deteriorating by long term exposure of chemical therapeutic agents. Also it seems that the potency of ginseng is mild, therefore it could be more effective when used concomitantly with conventional therapy. Clinical studies on the tonic effect of ginseng on work performance demonstrated that physical and mental dysfunction induced by various stresses are improved by increasing adaptability of physical condition. However, the results obtained from clinical studies cannot be mentioned in the indication, which are variable upon the scientist who performed those studies. In this respect, standardized ginseng product and providing planning of the systematic clinical research in double-blind randomized controlled trials are needed to assess the real efficacy for proposing ginseng indication. Pharmacological mode of action of ginseng has not yet been fully elucidated. Pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic researches reveal that the role of ginseng not seem to be confined to a given single organ. It has been known that ginseng plays a beneficial role in such general organs as central nervous, endocrine, metabolic, immune systems, which means ginseng improves general physical and mental conditons. Such multivalent effect of ginseng can be attributed to the main active component of ginseng,ginsenosides or non-saponin compounds which are also recently suggested to be another active ingredients. As is generally the similar case with other herbal medicines, effects of ginseng cannot be attributed as a given single compound or group of components. Diversified ingredients play synergistic or antagonistic role each other and act in harmonized manner. A few cases of adverse effect in clinical uses are reported, however, it is not observed when standardized ginseng products are used and recommended dose was administered. Unfavorable interaction with other drugs has also been suggested, which the information on the products and administered dosage are not available. However, efficacy, safety, interaction or contraindication with other medicines has to be more intensively investigated in order to promote clinical application of ginseng. For example, daily recommended doses per day are not agreement as 1-2g in the West and 3-6 g in the Orient. Duration of administration also seems variable according to the purpose. Two to three months are generally recommended to feel the benefit but time- and dose-dependent effects of ginseng still need to be solved from now on. Furthermore, the effect of ginsenosides transformed by the intestinal microflora, and differential effect associated with ginsenosides content and its composition also should be clinically evaluated in the future. In conclusion, the more wide-spread use of ginseng as a herbal medicine or nutraceutical supplement warrants the more rigorous investigations to assess its effacy and safety. In addition, a careful quality control of ginseng preparations should be done to ensure an acceptable standardization of commercial products.