• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.22 no.4 s.28
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• pp.542-554
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• 1989

The skyrocketing inflation of medical costs has become a major health problem among most developed countries. Korea, which recently covered the entire population with National Health Insurance, is facing the same problem. The proportion of health expenditure to GNP has increased from 3% to 4.8% during the last decade. This was remarkable, if we consider the rapid economic growth during that time. A few policy analysts began to raise cost containment as an agenda, after recognizing the importance of medical cost inflation. In order to Prepare an appropriate alternative for the agenda, it is necessary to find out reasons for the cost inflation. Then, we should focus on the reasons which are controllable, and those whose control are socially desirable. This study is designed to articulate the theory of medical cost inflation through literature reviews, to find out reasons for cost inflation, by analyzing aggregated data with a deterministic model. Finally to identify determinants of changes in both medical demand and service intensity which are major reasons for cost inflation. The reasons for cost inflation are classified into cost push inflation and demand pull inflation, The former consists of increases in price and intensity of services, while the latter is made of consumer derived demand and supplier induced demand. We used a time series (1983-1987), and cross sectional (over regions) data of health insurance. The deterministic model reveals, that an increase in service intensity is a major cause of inflation in the case of inpatient care, while, more utilization, is a primary attribute in the case of physician visits. Multiple regression analysis shows that an increase in hospital beds is a leading explanatory variable for the increase in hospital care. It also reveals, that an introduction of a deductible clause, an increase in hospital beds and degree of urbanization, are statistically significant variables explaining physician visits. The results are consistent with the existing theory, The magnitude of service intensity is influenced by the level of co-payment, the proportion of old age and an increase in co-payment. In short, an increase in co-payment reduced the utilization, but it induced more intensities or services. We can conclude that the strict fee regulation or increase in the level of co-payment can not be an effective measure for cost containment under the fee for service system. Because the provider can react against the regulation by inducing more services.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.95-111
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• 2015

The recommendation system automatically provides the predicted items which are expected to be purchased by analyzing the previous customer behaviors. This recommendation system has been applied to many e-commerce businesses, and it is generating positive effects on user convenience as well as the company's revenue. However, there are several limitations of the existing recommendation systems. They do not reflect specific criteria for evaluating products or the factors that affect customer buying decisions. Thus, our research proposes a collaborative recommendation model algorithm that utilizes each customer's online product reviews. This study deploys topic modeling method for customer opinion mining. Also, it adopts a kernel-based machine learning concept by selecting kernels explaining individual similarities in accordance with customers' purchase history and online reviews. Our study further applies a multiple kernel learning algorithm to integrate the kernelsinto a combined model for predicting the product ratings, and it verifies its validity with a data set (including purchased item, product rating, and online review) of BestBuy, an online consumer electronics store. This study theoretically implicates by suggesting a new method for the online recommendation system, i.e., a collaborative recommendation method using topic modeling and kernel-based learning.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.123-127
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• 2013

A new spray chrysanthemum (Dendranthema grandiflorum) 'Blue Hope' was bred by the Flower Research Institute, Gyeongsangnam-do Agricultural Research & Extension Services in 2009. The cultivar 'Blue Hope' was initially derived from the cross in 2005 between 'Ford', a spray chrysanthemum cultivar, with white anemone type, and 'Chopin', a spray chrysanthemum cultivar with white anemone type. The cultivar has anemone type with white petals. After the evaluation of the characteristics under shade culture in summer and retarding culture in spring and consecutive selection from 2007 to 2009, 'Blue Hope' was selected finality. The natural flowering time of 'Blue Hope' was October 24th, and year-round flowering is possible by shading or lighting treatment. The growth of plant was very vigorous and response time 6.5 weeks. The diameter of flower was 4.9 cm. Number of flowers per stem was 19.1 in autumn. Days to flowering under the short day treatment was about 45 in spring and its vase life was 23.8 days in the autumn season. This cultivar was resistance white rust and consumer's preference of new spray is high level than the control.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2016

Recently, the market for ready-to-use vegetables has increased largely due to consumer demands, which led to the production of minimally-processed frozen crushed garlic products. This study was designed to determine the effect of electron beam irradiation (0-7 kGy) on microbial decontamination, bioactive compounds, and antimicrobial activities of frozen crushed garlic obtained from Korea and China. The microbial counts (total bacteria, yeasts & molds) were reduced from log 3-4 CFU/g to non-detectable levels as a result of irradiation at 4 kGy. Irradiation treatment at 4 kGy did not affect the amount of alliin, allicin, total pyruvate, and total thiosulfinate of crushed garlic, however, this dose induced insignificant changes in antibacterial activities against pathogenic bacteria including Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enteritidis, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Yersinia enterocolitica. Therefore, electron beam irradiation less than 4 kGy can be considered suitable to improve the microbial decontamination without altering the biological activity of frozen garlics.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2018

This study was performed to examine the quality characteristics and antioxidant activities of the sponge cakes containing different concentrations (2-10%, w/w) of aronia powder (AP). The specific gravity of the dough and the baking loss rate were significantly increased with higher AP content. The specific volume, height, volume index, and pH were significantly decreased with the increase in AP. The lightness and redness values increased, while the yellowness values decreased with increasing amounts of AP. Textural characteristics, such as hardness, gumminess, and chewiness significantly increased on addition of AP. The DPPH radical scavenging activities of the cakes increased significantly with the increase in concentration of AP. In sensory evaluation, the group with cakes containing AP at 2% concentration was ranked higher than other cakes with respect to all parameters, except for color. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that sponge cakes prepared with 2% AP is the most suitable product, based on its sensory characteristics and antioxidant activities.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.157-165
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• 2002

A two-year survey of consumers'awareness and perception of genetically-modified (GM) foods was conducted during May through September of 2000 and 2001 with a random sample of Korean consumers. More than 68% of the respondents were exposed to some information related to GM foods. The greatest benefit of the development of GM foods was thought to be the remedy for the food shortage in the future. More than 90% of Korean consumers wanted GM foods to be labeled. About 18% of the respondents would buy GM foods voluntarily, whereas over 49% would not until they found out more. Only 40% of Korean consumers were found to realize that food items originated ken plants contain genes. More consumers responded that they would not buy herbicide-tolerant GM soybean but buy vitamin-enriched GM soybean. It seemed to be that many Korean consumers do not make decisions of acceptance or rejection of GM foods not on the basis of biotechnology but on the basis of the word(5) used to describe the products, such as herbicide and vitamin. Only 4% of Korean consumers responded that GM foods were the greatest safety-threatening factor of Korean foods.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.289-294
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• 2015

The aim of this study was to develop rapid screening method for the identification of Chinese herbal medicine species with similar appearance, Polygonum multiflorum, Cynanchum wilfordii and C. auriculatum, by using genetic markers. As a genetic marker, psbA-trnH gene in chloroplast was selected due to differences in sequence among the three species. Species-specific primers were designed based on the sequences of the marker gene of P. multiflorum, C. wilfordii, and C. auriculatum, and the expected size of PCR products was 160, 147, and 119 bp, respectively. Under the developed conditions, cross-reaction was not detected among these three plant species. To confirm the efficiency of our species-specific primers, the optimized method was applied to a variety of processed products composed of mostly P. multiflorum and C. wilfordii, demonstrating that our method was a rapid and easy screening assay. Our findings suggest this screening method can be utilized to prevent the distribution of economically motivated adulteration food and to improve consumer's right.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.236-242
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• 2008

In this study, sponge cakes were prepared with 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15% red ginseng marc powder. The samples and a control were then compared in terms of quality characteristics, including batter viscosity and specific gravity, moisture content, water activity, volume index, weight, color, textural characteristics, and sensory qualities, in order to determine the optimal ratio of red ginseng marc powder in the formulation. The batter samples containing 0, 12, and 15% red ginseng marc powder had significantly higher viscosity than the other samples. Specific gravity of batter was not significantly different among the batter samples. The control group presented significantly higher moisture content as compared to the samples containing red ginseng marc powder samples. Water activity, volume index, and weight of all samples were not significantly different among the samples. In terms of crust color, lightness, redness, and yellowness of the crust samples decreased as the level of red ginseng marc powder content increased. For the crumb color, lightness and yellowness decreased, and redness increased, with increasing red ginseng marc powder content. Hardness, cohesiveness, gumminess, and springiness were not significantly different among the samples; however, the red ginseng marc powder samples had significantly higher chewiness than the control group. In the sensory evaluation, as the content of red ginseng marc powder increased, scores for color, flavor, softness, overall acceptability, moistness, and egg-flavor decreased, while scores for red ginseng taste, bitterness, astringency, and off-flavor incresed. Overall, the 3 and 6% red ginseng marc powder samples obtained fairly good sensory scores. In conclusion, the results indicate that adding $3{\sim}6%$ red ginseng marc powder to sponge cake is optimal, providing good physiological properties as well as reasonably high overall consumer acceptability.

• Korean Journal of Breeding Science
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.552-555
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• 2009

A new standard rose cultivar "Snow Day" was bred from the cross between pink standard cultivar "Saphia" and pink standard cultivar "Bridal Beauty" at the National Institute of Horticulture & Herbal Science. The cross was made in 2003 and "Snow Day" was finally selected in 2008 after evaluating characteristics for three years from 2006 to 2008. A white standard cultivar, "Snow Day" grows vigorously and resistant to powder mildew. The major characteristics of this cultivar are $152stems/m^2/year$ in yield, 81.8 cm in length of cut flower, 11.3 cm in flower diameter, 29.2 in petal number, and 13.7 days in vase life. This cultivar can be propagated by both cutting and grafting. The consumer's preference for this cultivar is relatively higher than that for the control cultivar, "Tineke".

• Korean Journal of Breeding Science
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.616-619
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• 2009

A new standard rose cultivar "Red Charm" was bred from the cross between deep red standard cultivar "First Red" and light red standard cultivar "Cardinal" at the Jeollanamdo Agricultural Research and Extention Services (JARES). The cross was made in 2003 and, "Red Charm" was finally selected in 2008 after investigating characteristics for three times from 2007 to 2008. "Red Charm", a red standard cultivar has good flower shape and velvet flower color. The major characteristics of this cultivar are on average $119.3stems/m^2/year$ in yield, 69.5 cm in length of cut flower, 10.3 cm in flower diameter, 36.9 in petal number, and 9.8 days in vase life. This cultivar can be propagated by both cutting and grafting. The consumer's preference of this cultivar, "Red Charm" is relatively higher than that of control cultivar, "Red Velvet".