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STUDIES ON THE CYSTINE COMPONENT IN THE SERICULTURAL PROTEINS OF BOMBYX MORI L. (가잠사단백질의 각과정에서의 Cystine 성분에 대한 연구)

  • Choe, Byong-Hee
    • Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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    • v.2
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    • pp.1-31
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    • 1962
  • The purpose of this treatise is to prove the presence of cystine in silk fiber through wide sampling throughout all the sericultural processes of Bombyx mori.; also to show that disulfide cross linkages exist in the silk fiber. The conclusions reached were as follows: 1. Crystalline cystine was obtained from silk fibroin using Folin's Method. 2. Analytical data showing the cystine content of silk fiber and its related materials were obtained using Sullvan's Method as follows: Material Percent Cystine A. Mulberry leaf protein 0.175 B. Silkworm egg 0.33 C. Silkworm Body, matured, fat extracted, without silk gland 0.41 D. Silk gland, matured 1.23 E. Silkworm feces none F. Silkworm pupa, fat extracted 0.30 G. Silkworm moth, fat extracted 0.60 H. Raw Silk 0.22 I. Fibroin 0.175 J. Sericin 0.30 3. The presence of cystine in the silkworm was substantiated the existence of 0.175 % methionine in mulberry leaves and 0.12% methionine in the silk gland. 4. Part of the sulfhydryl compounds in the silk gland is believed to transfer to serine and methionine, with the former being secreted into the liquid silk finally as silk fiber and the latter used for nutritive purposes in the growing of silk gland tissue. 5. The cystine content is variable by mulberry species, silkworm species, sex, breeding process, and other culturing environments. 6. Hybrid silkworms require more nutritive amino acids for effective growth than the original parents, and secrete less of them as silk fiber. 7. From such an observation, the amino acid composition of silk fiber is believed to be fairly flexible. Cystine if included in the amorphous part of the fiber, especially in sericin. 8. The result from enriching the silkworm diet with pure cystine or wool cystine did not result in any advantage, therefore it is believed that the natural cystine and methionine contents in the mulberry leafaregoodenoughforsilkwormnutrition. 9. The disulfide cross linkage in silk fiber was verified by using the Harris Method. Contraction took place following the treatment of the fiber with various salts and acids. Comparisons were made with wool fiber. 10. During these experiments, the fibrious structure of silk fiber and the net-globular liquid form were photographed microscopically. It is believed that the globules of liquid silk are net-formed by the inter attraction of the OH ion of the globular peptide and the H ion of water as shown by the hair cracking behavior of the film. The net-globular protein precipitation from the mulberry protein solution showed that mulberry is a proper diet for the formation of fibrous protein in the silk fiber. 11. The significance of the presence of cystine in silk fiber as emphasized in this paper should result in modification of the general conception that cystine is absent from this fiber. NOTICE: A part of this treatise was presented at the annual Korea Sericultural Society meeting held in 1961.

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Memory Organization for a Fuzzy Controller.

  • Jee, K.D.S.;Poluzzi, R.;Russo, B.
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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    • 1993.06a
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    • pp.1041-1043
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    • 1993
  • Fuzzy logic based Control Theory has gained much interest in the industrial world, thanks to its ability to formalize and solve in a very natural way many problems that are very difficult to quantify at an analytical level. This paper shows a solution for treating membership function inside hardware circuits. The proposed hardware structure optimizes the memoried size by using particular form of the vectorial representation. The process of memorizing fuzzy sets, i.e. their membership function, has always been one of the more problematic issues for the hardware implementation, due to the quite large memory space that is needed. To simplify such an implementation, it is commonly [1,2,8,9,10,11] used to limit the membership functions either to those having triangular or trapezoidal shape, or pre-definite shape. These kinds of functions are able to cover a large spectrum of applications with a limited usage of memory, since they can be memorized by specifying very few parameters ( ight, base, critical points, etc.). This however results in a loss of computational power due to computation on the medium points. A solution to this problem is obtained by discretizing the universe of discourse U, i.e. by fixing a finite number of points and memorizing the value of the membership functions on such points [3,10,14,15]. Such a solution provides a satisfying computational speed, a very high precision of definitions and gives the users the opportunity to choose membership functions of any shape. However, a significant memory waste can as well be registered. It is indeed possible that for each of the given fuzzy sets many elements of the universe of discourse have a membership value equal to zero. It has also been noticed that almost in all cases common points among fuzzy sets, i.e. points with non null membership values are very few. More specifically, in many applications, for each element u of U, there exists at most three fuzzy sets for which the membership value is ot null [3,5,6,7,12,13]. Our proposal is based on such hypotheses. Moreover, we use a technique that even though it does not restrict the shapes of membership functions, it reduces strongly the computational time for the membership values and optimizes the function memorization. In figure 1 it is represented a term set whose characteristics are common for fuzzy controllers and to which we will refer in the following. The above term set has a universe of discourse with 128 elements (so to have a good resolution), 8 fuzzy sets that describe the term set, 32 levels of discretization for the membership values. Clearly, the number of bits necessary for the given specifications are 5 for 32 truth levels, 3 for 8 membership functions and 7 for 128 levels of resolution. The memory depth is given by the dimension of the universe of the discourse (128 in our case) and it will be represented by the memory rows. The length of a world of memory is defined by: Length = nem (dm(m)+dm(fm) Where: fm is the maximum number of non null values in every element of the universe of the discourse, dm(m) is the dimension of the values of the membership function m, dm(fm) is the dimension of the word to represent the index of the highest membership function. In our case then Length=24. The memory dimension is therefore 128*24 bits. If we had chosen to memorize all values of the membership functions we would have needed to memorize on each memory row the membership value of each element. Fuzzy sets word dimension is 8*5 bits. Therefore, the dimension of the memory would have been 128*40 bits. Coherently with our hypothesis, in fig. 1 each element of universe of the discourse has a non null membership value on at most three fuzzy sets. Focusing on the elements 32,64,96 of the universe of discourse, they will be memorized as follows: The computation of the rule weights is done by comparing those bits that represent the index of the membership function, with the word of the program memor . The output bus of the Program Memory (μCOD), is given as input a comparator (Combinatory Net). If the index is equal to the bus value then one of the non null weight derives from the rule and it is produced as output, otherwise the output is zero (fig. 2). It is clear, that the memory dimension of the antecedent is in this way reduced since only non null values are memorized. Moreover, the time performance of the system is equivalent to the performance of a system using vectorial memorization of all weights. The dimensioning of the word is influenced by some parameters of the input variable. The most important parameter is the maximum number membership functions (nfm) having a non null value in each element of the universe of discourse. From our study in the field of fuzzy system, we see that typically nfm 3 and there are at most 16 membership function. At any rate, such a value can be increased up to the physical dimensional limit of the antecedent memory. A less important role n the optimization process of the word dimension is played by the number of membership functions defined for each linguistic term. The table below shows the request word dimension as a function of such parameters and compares our proposed method with the method of vectorial memorization[10]. Summing up, the characteristics of our method are: Users are not restricted to membership functions with specific shapes. The number of the fuzzy sets and the resolution of the vertical axis have a very small influence in increasing memory space. Weight computations are done by combinatorial network and therefore the time performance of the system is equivalent to the one of the vectorial method. The number of non null membership values on any element of the universe of discourse is limited. Such a constraint is usually non very restrictive since many controllers obtain a good precision with only three non null weights. The method here briefly described has been adopted by our group in the design of an optimized version of the coprocessor described in [10].

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How Enduring Product Involvement and Perceived Risk Affect Consumers' Online Merchant Selection Process: The 'Required Trust Level' Perspective (지속적 관여도 및 인지된 위험이 소비자의 온라인 상인선택 프로세스에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 요구신뢰 수준 개념을 중심으로)

  • Hong, Il-Yoo B.;Lee, Jung-Min;Cho, Hwi-Hyung
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.29-52
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    • 2012
  • Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).

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The Impact of Perceived Risks Upon Consumer Trust and Purchase Intentions (인지된 위험의 유형이 소비자 신뢰 및 온라인 구매의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Hong, Il-Yoo B.;Kim, Woo-Sung;Lim, Byung-Ha
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.1-25
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    • 2011
  • Internet-based commerce has undergone an explosive growth over the past decade as consumers today find it more economical as well as more convenient to shop online. Nevertheless, the shift in the common mode of shopping from offline to online commerce has caused consumers to have worries over such issues as private information leakage, online fraud, discrepancy in product quality and grade, unsuccessful delivery, and so forth, Numerous studies have been undertaken to examine the role of perceived risk as a chief barrier to online purchases and to understand the theoretical relationships among perceived risk, trust and purchase intentions, However, most studies focus on empirically investigating the effects of trust on perceived risk, with little attention devoted to the effects of perceived risk on trust, While the influence trust has on perceived risk is worth studying, the influence in the opposite direction is equally important, enabling insights into the potential of perceived risk as a prohibitor of trust, According to Pavlou (2003), the primary source of the perceived risk is either the technological uncertainty of the Internet environment or the behavioral uncertainty of the transaction partner. Due to such types of uncertainty, an increase in the worries over the perceived risk may negatively affect trust, For example, if a consumer who sends sensitive transaction data over Internet is concerned that his or her private information may leak out because of the lack of security, trust may decrease (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), By the same token, if the consumer feels that the online merchant has the potential to profit by behaving in an opportunistic manner taking advantage of the remote, impersonal nature of online commerce, then it is unlikely that the merchant will be trusted, That is, the more the probable danger is likely to occur, the less trust and the greater need to control the transaction (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), In summary, a review of the related studies indicates that while some researchers looked at the influence of overall perceived risk on trust level, not much attention has been given to the effects of different types of perceived risk, In this context the present research aims at addressing the need to study how trust is affected by different types of perceived risk, We classified perceived risk into six different types based on the literature, and empirically analyzed the impact of each type of perceived risk upon consumer trust in an online merchant and further its impact upon purchase intentions. To meet our research objectives, we developed a conceptual model depicting the nomological structure of the relationships among our research variables, and also formulated a total of seven hypotheses. The model and hypotheses were tested using an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire survey of 206 college students. The reliability was evaluated via Cronbach's alphas, the minimum of which was found to be 0.73, and therefore the questionnaire items are all deemed reliable. In addition, the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) designed to check the validity of the measurement model indicate that the convergent, discriminate, and nomological validities of the model are all acceptable. The structural equation modeling analysis to test the hypotheses yielded the following results. Of the first six hypotheses (H1-1 through H1-6) designed to examine the relationships between each risk type and trust, three hypotheses including H1-1 (performance risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust), H1-2 (psychological risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) and H1-5 (online payment risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) were supported with path coefficients of -0.30, -0.27 and -0.16 respectively. Finally, H2 (trust ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intentions) was supported with relatively high path coefficients of 0.73. Results of the empirical study offer the following findings and implications. First. it was found that it was performance risk, psychological risk and online payment risk that have a statistically significant influence upon consumer trust in an online merchant. It implies that a consumer may find an online merchant untrustworthy if either the product quality or the product grade does not match his or her expectations. For that reason, online merchants including digital storefronts and e-marketplaces are suggested to pursue a strategy focusing on identifying the target customers and offering products that they feel best meet performance and psychological needs of those customers. Thus, they should do their best to make it widely known that their products are of as good quality and grade as those purchased from offline department stores. In addition, it may be inferred that today's online consumers remain concerned about the security of the online commerce environment due to the repeated occurrences of hacking or private information leakage. Online merchants should take steps to remove potential vulnerabilities and provide online notices to emphasize that their website is secure. Second, consumer's overall trust was found to have a statistically significant influence on purchase intentions. This finding, which is consistent with the results of numerous prior studies, suggests that increased sales will become a reality only with enhanced consumer trust.

Nationwide Survey of Laparoscopic Gastric Surgery in Korea (전국 복강경 위 수술 현황 설문조사)

  • Kim, M.C.;Yang, H.K.;Kim, Y.W.;Kim, Y.I.;Kim, E.K.;Kim, H.H.;Park, K.K.;Bae, J.M.;Baik, H.G.;Sul, J.Y.;Shin, S.H.;Lee, Y.B.;Lee, J.M.
    • Journal of Gastric Cancer
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    • v.4 no.3
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    • pp.196-203
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    • 2004
  • The Information Committee of the Korean Gastric Cancer Association sent questionnaires to 31 laparoscopic gastric surgeons about their personal experiences with laparoscopic gastric surgery from 2001 to 2003. Twenty-four surgeons responded to the questionnaires (response rate: $77.4\%$).The number of laparoscopic gastric surgeries from 2001 to 2003 was 1,130 and increased from 209 in 2001 to 593 in 2003. The number of operations for a gastric adenocarcinoma also increased from 87 cases in 2001 to 403 cases in 2003. Laparoscopic radical procedures, such as a laparoscopyassisted distal gastrectomy or total gastrectomy (LADG or LATG), have increased rapidly during this period. (55 cases in 2001, 150 cases in 2002, and 364 cases in 2003). Laparoscopic function-preserving gastrectomies were not performed until 2003, during which year one pylorus- preserving gastrectomy and six proximal gastrectomies were performed laparoscopically. A wedge resection for a gastric submucosal tumor was performed in 71 cases in 2001, 82 in 2002, and 103 in 2003. Hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS) was performed in 39 cases in 2001, 55 in 2002, and 49 in 2003. As for personal indications for a LADG, 14 surgeons performed a LADG only for a T1 lesion, and 5 surgeons extended their indications to T2N0 lesions. In the near future, laparoscopic procedures for gastric cancer will be widely adopted in Korea if the medical-insurance obstacle is overcome and the long-term survival results are verified.

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Relationships between osteoporosis, alveolar bone density and periodontal disease in postmenopausal women (골다공증과 악골의 골밀도 및 치주 질환과의 상관 관계)

  • Han, E.Y.;Rhyu, I.C.;Lee, Y.M.;Ku, Y.;Han, S.B.;Choi, S.M.;Shin, J.Y.;Yang, S.M.;Chung, C.P.
    • Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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    • v.31 no.3
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    • pp.565-571
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    • 2001
  • The purpose of this study is to determine if a relationship exists among osteoporosis, alveolar bone density and periodontal disease in postmenopausal osteoporotic women and postmenopausal healthy women. Twenty-two women were evaluated for this study. They were attending the postmenopausal clinic, Seoul National University Hospital and generally healthy except osteoporosis. They had experienced menopause not less than one year when we began to examine them. Bone densities of lumbar area(L2-L4) was determined by DEXA(LUNAR-expert Co,. U.S.A). We diagnosed osteoporosis when T-score was below -2.5 and healthy state when T-score was over -1. Osteoporotic(10 female), not hormone-treated group and healthy control group(12 female) were asked for their age, menopausal age, menopausal period and the number of remaining teeth and examined clinically for plaque index(PI), gingival index(GI), clinical attachment loss(CAL) on their 6 Ramfjord index teeth. Intraoral radiographs were taken in maxillary anterior zone. All films were equally exposed and developed. Each films was digitized and analysed using image processing software, Scion image. Alveolar bone regions of interest were selected and Intensity of each pixel was quantized in the array ranging from 0(white) to 255(black). The two groups were comparable with respect age, menopausal age, menopausal period and number of remaining teeth. The osteoporotic women had significantly lower alveolar bone density than controls in maxilla. But no significant difference was found with respect clinical attachment loss, plaque index and gingival index. Supported by the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare, Korea (HMP-00-CH-10-0009).

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A Study of the shade of between maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth in the Korean (한국인의 상하악 전치부 색조에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Tae-Jin; Kwon, Kung-Rock;Kim, Hyeong-Seob;Woo, Yi-Hyung
    • The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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    • v.46 no.4
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    • pp.343-350
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    • 2008
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study was to spectrophotometrically evaluate the shade difference between of maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth in the Korean by the standard of vita classical shade guide using $SpectroShade^{TM}$. Material and methods: In this study, the shades of healthy anterior teeth were examined and analyzed using the digital shade analysis of $SpectroShade^{TM}$. This study examined 80 individuals in their twenties, thirties, fourties, fifities ages and 40 males and 40 females, presenting 12 healthy, unrestored maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth. Tooth brushing and oral prophylaxis were performed prior to evaluation. The $SpectroShade^{TM}$ was used to acquire images of the 12 maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth. These images were analyzed using $SpectroShade^{TM}$ Software, and shade maps of each tooth were acquired. The shade difference of upper and lower, and gender differences and ages difference were investigated and analyzed with CIE $L^{*}a^{*}b^{*}$ color order system. One-Way ANOVA test was used to find out if there were significant differences between groups tested and Sheffe multiple comparison was used to identify where the differences were. Results: 1. Shade differences were significant (P < .05) between maxillary and mandibular central incisor, lateral incisor, canine. 2. No significant differences in shade distribution were seen between lateral incisors and central incisors. 3. Canine's shade difference were more significant than central incisor's and lateral incisors's. 4. No significant differences in shade distribution were seen between genders in maxillary and mandibulr central incisor, lateral incisor, canine. 5. No significant differences in shade distribution were seen in order of years in maxillary and mandibulr central incisor, lateral incisor, canine. Conclusions: The results of this study show that 1. Shade difference was founded in maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth and ${\Delta}E^{*}$ value was more than 2.0. 2. Canine's shade difference were more significant than central incisor's and lateral incisors's and between central incisors and lateral incisors shade differences were no significant. 3. No significant differences in shade distribution were seen between genders in maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth. 4. No significant differences in shade distribution were seen in order of years grade in maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth.

A Study on the Effect of Water Soluble Extractive upon Physical Properties of Wood (수용성(水溶性) 추출물(抽出物)이 목재(木材)의 물리적(物理的) 성질(性質)에 미치는 영향(影響))

  • Shim, Chong-Supp
    • Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.13-44
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    • 1982
  • 1. Since long time ago, it has been talked about that soaking wood into water for a long time would be profitable for the decreasing of defects such as checking, cupping and bow due to the undue-shrinking and swelling. There are, however, no any actual data providing this fact definitly, although there are some guesses that water soluble extractives might effect on this problem. On the other hand, this is a few work which has been done about the effect of water soluble extractives upon the some physical properties of wood and that it might be related to the above mentioned problem. If man does account for that whether soaking wood into water for a long time would be profitable for the decreasing of defects due to the undue-shrinking and swelling in comparison with unsoaking wood or not, it may bring a great contribution on the reasonable uses of wood. To account for the effect of water soluble extractives upon physical properties of wood, this study has been made at the wood technology laboratory, School of Forestry, Yale university, under competent guidance of Dr. F. F. Wangaard, with the following three different species which had been provided at the same laboratory. 1. Pinus strobus 2. Quercus borealis 3. Hymenaea courbaril 2. The physical properties investigated in this study are as follows. a. Equilibrium moisture content at different relative humidity conditions. b. Shrinkage value from gre condition to different relative humidity conditions and oven dry condition. c. Swelling value from oven dry condition to different relative humidity conditions. d. Specific gravity 3. In order to investigate the effect of water soluble extractives upon physical properties of wood, the experiment has been carried out with two differently treated specimens, that is, one has been treated into water and the other into sugar solution, and with controlled specimens. 4. The quantity of water soluble extractives of each species and the group of chemical compounds in the extracted liquid from each species have shown in Table 36. Between species, there is some difference in quantity of extractives and group of chemical compounds. 5. In the case of equilibrium moisture contents at different relative humidity condition, (a) Except the desorption case at 80% R. H. C. (Relative Humidity Condition), there is a definite line between untreated specimens and treated specimens that is, untreated specimens hold water more than treated specimens at the same R.H.C. (b) The specimens treated into sugar solution have shown almost the same tendency in results compared with the untreated specimens. (c) Between species, there is no any definite relation in equilibrium moisture content each other, however E. M. C. in heartwood of pine is lesser than in sapwood. This might cause from the difference of wood anatomical structure. 6. In the case of shrinkage, (a) The shrinkage value of the treated specimen into water is more than that of the untreated specimens, except anyone case of heartwood of pine at 80% R. H. C. (b) The shrinkage value of treated specimens in the sugar solution is less than that of the others and has almost the same tendency to the untreated specimens. It would mean that the penetration of some sugar into the wood can decrease the shrinkage value of wood. (c) Between species, the shrinkage value of heartwood of pine is less than sapwood of the same, shrinkage value of oak is the largest, Hymenaea is lesser than oak and more than pine. (d) Directional difference of shrinkage value through all species can also see as other all kind of species previously tested. (e) There is a definite relation in between the difference of shrinkage value of treated and untreated specimens and amount of extractives, that is, increasing extractives gives increasing the difference of shrinkage value between treated and untreated specimens. 7. In the case of swelling, (a) The swelling value of treated specimens is greater than that of the untreated specimens through all cases. (b) In comparison with the tangential direction and radial direction, the swelling value of tangential direction is larger than that of radial direction in the same species. (c) Between species, the largest one in swelling values is oak and the smallest pine heartwood, there are also a tendency that species which shrink more swell also more and, on the contrary, species which shrink lesser swell also lesser than the others. 8. In the case of specific gravity, (a) The specific gravity of the treated specimens is larger than that of untreated specimens. This reversed value between treated and untreated specimens has been resulted from the volume of specimen of oven dry condition. (b) Between species, there are differences, that is, the specific gravity of Hymenaea is the largest one and the sapwood of pine is the smallest. 9. Through this investigation, it has been concluded that soaking wood into plain water before use without any special consideration may bring more hastful results than unsoaking for use of wood. However soaking wood into the some specially provided solutions such as salt water or inorganic matter may be dissolved in it, can be profitable for the decreasing shrinkage and swelling, checking, shaking and bow etc. if soaking wood into plain water might bring the decreasing defects, it might come from even shrinking and swelling through all dimension.

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APPLICATION OF FUZZY SET THEORY IN SAFEGUARDS

  • Fattah, A.;Nishiwaki, Y.
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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    • 1993.06a
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    • pp.1051-1054
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    • 1993
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency's Statute in Article III.A.5 allows it“to establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure that special fissionable and other materials, services, equipment, facilities and information made available by the Agency or at its request or under its supervision or control are not used in such a way as to further any military purpose; and to apply safeguards, at the request of the parties, to any bilateral or multilateral arrangement, or at the request of a State, to any of that State's activities in the field of atomic energy”. Safeguards are essentially a technical means of verifying the fulfilment of political obligations undertaken by States and given a legal force in international agreements relating to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The main political objectives are: to assure the international community that States are complying with their non-proliferation and other peaceful undertakings; and to deter (a) the diversion of afeguarded nuclear materials to the production of nuclear explosives or for military purposes and (b) the misuse of safeguarded facilities with the aim of producing unsafeguarded nuclear material. It is clear that no international safeguards system can physically prevent diversion. The IAEA safeguards system is basically a verification measure designed to provide assurance in those cases in which diversion has not occurred. Verification is accomplished by two basic means: material accountancy and containment and surveillance measures. Nuclear material accountancy is the fundamental IAEA safeguards mechanism, while containment and surveillance serve as important complementary measures. Material accountancy refers to a collection of measurements and other determinations which enable the State and the Agency to maintain a current picture of the location and movement of nuclear material into and out of material balance areas, i. e. areas where all material entering or leaving is measurab e. A containment measure is one that is designed by taking advantage of structural characteristics, such as containers, tanks or pipes, etc. To establish the physical integrity of an area or item by preventing the undetected movement of nuclear material or equipment. Such measures involve the application of tamper-indicating or surveillance devices. Surveillance refers to both human and instrumental observation aimed at indicating the movement of nuclear material. The verification process consists of three over-lapping elements: (a) Provision by the State of information such as - design information describing nuclear installations; - accounting reports listing nuclear material inventories, receipts and shipments; - documents amplifying and clarifying reports, as applicable; - notification of international transfers of nuclear material. (b) Collection by the IAEA of information through inspection activities such as - verification of design information - examination of records and repo ts - measurement of nuclear material - examination of containment and surveillance measures - follow-up activities in case of unusual findings. (c) Evaluation of the information provided by the State and of that collected by inspectors to determine the completeness, accuracy and validity of the information provided by the State and to resolve any anomalies and discrepancies. To design an effective verification system, one must identify possible ways and means by which nuclear material could be diverted from peaceful uses, including means to conceal such diversions. These theoretical ways and means, which have become known as diversion strategies, are used as one of the basic inputs for the development of safeguards procedures, equipment and instrumentation. For analysis of implementation strategy purposes, it is assumed that non-compliance cannot be excluded a priori and that consequently there is a low but non-zero probability that a diversion could be attempted in all safeguards ituations. An important element of diversion strategies is the identification of various possible diversion paths; the amount, type and location of nuclear material involved, the physical route and conversion of the material that may take place, rate of removal and concealment methods, as appropriate. With regard to the physical route and conversion of nuclear material the following main categories may be considered: - unreported removal of nuclear material from an installation or during transit - unreported introduction of nuclear material into an installation - unreported transfer of nuclear material from one material balance area to another - unreported production of nuclear material, e. g. enrichment of uranium or production of plutonium - undeclared uses of the material within the installation. With respect to the amount of nuclear material that might be diverted in a given time (the diversion rate), the continuum between the following two limiting cases is cons dered: - one significant quantity or more in a short time, often known as abrupt diversion; and - one significant quantity or more per year, for example, by accumulation of smaller amounts each time to add up to a significant quantity over a period of one year, often called protracted diversion. Concealment methods may include: - restriction of access of inspectors - falsification of records, reports and other material balance areas - replacement of nuclear material, e. g. use of dummy objects - falsification of measurements or of their evaluation - interference with IAEA installed equipment.As a result of diversion and its concealment or other actions, anomalies will occur. All reasonable diversion routes, scenarios/strategies and concealment methods have to be taken into account in designing safeguards implementation strategies so as to provide sufficient opportunities for the IAEA to observe such anomalies. The safeguards approach for each facility will make a different use of these procedures, equipment and instrumentation according to the various diversion strategies which could be applicable to that facility and according to the detection and inspection goals which are applied. Postulated pathways sets of scenarios comprise those elements of diversion strategies which might be carried out at a facility or across a State's fuel cycle with declared or undeclared activities. All such factors, however, contain a degree of fuzziness that need a human judgment to make the ultimate conclusion that all material is being used for peaceful purposes. Safeguards has been traditionally based on verification of declared material and facilities using material accountancy as a fundamental measure. The strength of material accountancy is based on the fact that it allows to detect any diversion independent of the diversion route taken. Material accountancy detects a diversion after it actually happened and thus is powerless to physically prevent it and can only deter by the risk of early detection any contemplation by State authorities to carry out a diversion. Recently the IAEA has been faced with new challenges. To deal with these, various measures are being reconsidered to strengthen the safeguards system such as enhanced assessment of the completeness of the State's initial declaration of nuclear material and installations under its jurisdiction enhanced monitoring and analysis of open information and analysis of open information that may indicate inconsistencies with the State's safeguards obligations. Precise information vital for such enhanced assessments and analyses is normally not available or, if available, difficult and expensive collection of information would be necessary. Above all, realistic appraisal of truth needs sound human judgment.

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The Effects of Online Service Quality on Consumer Satisfaction and Loyalty Intention -About Booking and Issuing Air Tickets on Website- (온라인 서비스 품질이 고객만족 및 충성의도에 미치는 영향 -항공권 예약.발권 웹사이트를 중심으로-)

  • Park, Jong-Gee;Ko, Do-Eun;Lee, Seung-Chang
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.71-110
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    • 2010
  • 1. Introduction Today Internet is recognized as an important way for the transaction of products and services. According to the data surveyed by the National Statistical Office, the on-line transaction in 2007 for a year, 15.7656 trillion, shows a 17.1%(2.3060 trillion won) increase over last year, of these, the amount of B2C has been increased 12.0%(10.2258 trillion won). Like this, because the entry barrier of on-line market of Korea is low, many retailers could easily enter into the market. So the bigger its scale is, but on the other hand, the tougher its competition is. Particularly due to the Internet and innovation of IT, the existing market has been changed into the perfect competitive market(Srinivasan, Rolph & Kishore, 2002). In the early years of on-line business, they think that the main reason for success is a moderate price, they are awakened to its importance of on-line service quality with tough competition. If it's not sure whether customers can be provided with what they want, they can use the Web sites, perhaps they can trust their products that had been already bought or not, they have a doubt its viability(Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra, 2005). Customers can directly reserve and issue their air tickets irrespective of place and time at the Web sites of travel agencies or airlines, but its empirical studies about these Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets are insufficient. Therefore this study goes on for following specific objects. First object is to measure service quality and service recovery of Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets. Second is to look into whether above on-line service quality and on-line service recovery have an impact on overall service quality. Third is to seek for the relation with overall service quality and customer satisfaction, then this customer satisfaction and loyalty intention. 2. Theoretical Background 2.1 On-line Service Quality Barnes & Vidgen(2000; 2001a; 2001b; 2002) had invented the tool to measure Web sites' quality four times(called WebQual). The WebQual 1.0, Step one invented a measuring item for information quality based on QFD, and this had been verified by students of UK business school. The Web Qual 2.0, Step two invented for interaction quality, and had been judged by customers of on-line bookshop. The WebQual 3.0, Step three invented by consolidating the WebQual 1.0 for information quality and the WebQual2.0 for interactionquality. It includes 3-quality-dimension, information quality, interaction quality, site design, and had been assessed and confirmed by auction sites(e-bay, Amazon, QXL). Furtheron, through the former empirical studies, the authors changed sites quality into usability by judging that usability is a concept how customers interact with or perceive Web sites and It is used widely for accessing Web sites. By this process, WebQual 4.0 was invented, and is consist of 3-quality-dimension; information quality, interaction quality, usability, 22 items. However, because WebQual 4.0 is focusing on technical part, it's usable at the Website's design part, on the other hand, it's not usable at the Web site's pleasant experience part. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2002; 2005) had invented the measure for measuring on-line service quality in 2002 and 2005. The study in 2002 divided on-line service quality into 5 dimensions. But these were not well-organized, so there needed to be studied again totally. So Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) re-worked out the study about on-line service quality measure base on 2002's study and invented E-S-QUAL. After they invented preliminary measure for on-line service quality, they made up a question for customers who had purchased at amazon.com and walmart.com and reassessed this measure. And they perfected an invention of E-S-QUAL consists of 4 dimensions, 22 items of efficiency, system availability, fulfillment, privacy. Efficiency measures assess to sites and usability and others, system availability measures accurate technical function of sites and others, fulfillment measures promptness of delivering products and sufficient goods and others and privacy measures the degree of protection of data about their customers and so on. 2.2 Service Recovery Service industries tend to minimize the losses by coping with service failure promptly. This responses of service providers to service failure mean service recovery(Kelly & Davis, 1994). Bitner(1990) went on his study from customers' view about service providers' behavior for customers to recognize their satisfaction/dissatisfaction at service point. According to them, to manage service failure successfully, exact recognition of service problem, an apology, sufficient description about service failure and some tangible compensation are important. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) approached the service recovery from how to measure, rather than how to manage, and moved to on-line market not to off-line, then invented E-RecS-QUAL which is a measuring tool about on-line service recovery. 2.3 Customer Satisfaction The definition of customer satisfaction can be divided into two points of view. First, they approached customer satisfaction from outcome of comsumer. Howard & Sheth(1969) defined satisfaction as 'a cognitive condition feeling being rewarded properly or improperly for their sacrifice.' and Westbrook & Reilly(1983) also defined customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction as 'a psychological reaction to the behavior pattern of shopping and purchasing, the display condition of retail store, outcome of purchased goods and service as well as whole market.' Second, they approached customer satisfaction from process. Engel & Blackwell(1982) defined satisfaction as 'an assessment of a consistency in chosen alternative proposal and their belief they had with them.' Tse & Wilton(1988) defined customer satisfaction as 'a customers' reaction to discordance between advance expectation and ex post facto outcome.' That is, this point of view that customer satisfaction is process is the important factor that comparing and assessing process what they expect and outcome of consumer. Unlike outcome-oriented approach, process-oriented approach has many advantages. As process-oriented approach deals with customers' whole expenditure experience, it checks up main process by measuring one by one each factor which is essential role at each step. And this approach enables us to check perceptual/psychological process formed customer satisfaction. Because of these advantages, now many studies are adopting this process-oriented approach(Yi, 1995). 2.4 Loyalty Intention Loyalty has been studied by dividing into behavioral approaches, attitudinal approaches and complex approaches(Dekimpe et al., 1997). In the early years of study, they defined loyalty focusing on behavioral concept, behavioral approaches regard customer loyalty as "a tendency to purchase periodically within a certain period of time at specific retail store." But the loyalty of behavioral approaches focuses on only outcome of customer behavior, so there are someone to point the limits that customers' decision-making situation or process were neglected(Enis & Paul, 1970; Raj, 1982; Lee, 2002). So the attitudinal approaches were suggested. The attitudinal approaches consider loyalty contains all the cognitive, emotional, voluntary factors(Oliver, 1997), define the customer loyalty as "friendly behaviors for specific retail stores." However these attitudinal approaches can explain that how the customer loyalty form and change, but cannot say positively whether it is moved to real purchasing in the future or not. This is a kind of shortcoming(Oh, 1995). 3. Research Design 3.1 Research Model Based on the objects of this study, the research model derived is

    . 3.2 Hypotheses 3.2.1 The Hypothesis of On-line Service Quality and Overall Service Quality The relation between on-line service quality and overall service quality I-1. Efficiency of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-2. System availability of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-3. Fulfillment of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-4. Privacy of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. 3.2.2 The Hypothesis of On-line Service Recovery and Overall Service Quality The relation between on-line service recovery and overall service quality II-1. Responsiveness of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. II-2. Compensation of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. II-3. Contact of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. 3.2.3 The Hypothesis of Overall Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction The relation between overall service quality and customer satisfaction III-1. Overall service quality may have a significant effect on customer satisfaction. 3.2.4 The Hypothesis of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Intention The relation between customer satisfaction and loyalty intention IV-1. Customer satisfaction may have a significant effect on loyalty intention. 3.2.5 The Hypothesis of a Mediation Variable Wolfinbarger & Gilly(2003) and Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra(2005) had made clear that each dimension of service quality has a significant effect on overall service quality. Add to this, the authors analyzed empirically that each dimension of on-line service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. With that viewpoint, this study would examine if overall service quality mediates between on-line service quality and each dimension of customer satisfaction, keeping on looking into the relation between on-line service quality and overall service quality, overall service quality and customer satisfaction. And as this study understands that each dimension of on-line service recovery also has an effect on overall service quality, this would examine if overall service quality also mediates between on-line service recovery and each dimension of customer satisfaction. Therefore these hypotheses followed are set up to examine if overall service quality plays its role as the mediation variable. The relation between on-line service quality and customer satisfaction V-1. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of efficiency of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-2. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of system availability of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-3. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of fulfillment of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-4. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of privacy of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. The relation between on-line service recovery and customer satisfaction VI-1. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of responsiveness of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. VI-2. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of compensation of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. VI-3. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of contact of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. 4. Empirical Analysis 4.1 Research design and the characters of data This empirical study aimed at customers who ever purchased air ticket at the Web sites for reservation and issue. Total 430 questionnaires were distributed, and 400 were collected. After surveying with the final questionnaire, the frequency test was performed about variables of sex, age which is demographic factors for analyzing general characters of sample data. Sex of data is consist of 146 of male(42.7%) and 196 of female(57.3%), so portion of female is a little higher. Age is composed of 11 of 10s(3.2%), 199 of 20s(58.2%), 105 of 30s(30.7%), 22 of 40s(6.4%), 5 of 50s(1.5%). The reason that portions of 20s and 30s are higher can be supposed that they use the Internet frequently and purchase air ticket directly. 4.2 Assessment of measuring scales This study used the internal consistency analysis to measure reliability, and then used the Cronbach'$\alpha$ to assess this. As a result of reliability test, Cronbach'$\alpha$ value of every component shows more than 0.6, it is found that reliance of the measured variables are ensured. After reliability test, the explorative factor analysis was performed. the factor sampling was performed by the Principal Component Analysis(PCA), the factor rotation was performed by the Varimax which is good for verifying mutual independence between factors. By the result of the initial factor analysis, items blocking construct validity were removed, and the result of the final factor analysis performed for verifying construct validity is followed above. 4.3 Hypothesis Testing 4.3.1 Hypothesis Testing by the Regression Analysis(SPSS) 4.3.2 Analysis of Mediation Effect To verify mediation effect of overall service quality of and , this study used the phased analysis method proposed by Baron & Kenny(1986) generally used. As shows, Step 1 and Step 2 are significant, and mediation variable has a significant effect on dependent variables and so does independent variables at Step 3, too. And there needs to prove the partial mediation effect, independent variable's estimate ability at Step 3(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : efficiency=.164, system availability=.074, fulfillment=.108, privacy=.107) is smaller than its estimate ability at Step 2(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : efficiency=.409, system availability=.227, fulfillment=.386, privacy=.237), so it was proved that overall service quality played a role as the partial mediation between on-line service quality and satisfaction. As
    shows, Step 1 and Step 2 are significant, and mediation variable has a significant effect on dependent variables and so does independent variables at Step 3, too. And there needs to prove the partial mediation effect, independent variable's estimate ability at Step 3(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : responsiveness=.164, compensation=.117, contact=.113) is smaller than its estimate ability at Step 2(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : responsiveness=.409, compensation=.386, contact=.237), so it was proved that overall service quality played a role as the partial mediation between on-line service recovery and satisfaction. Verified results on the basis of empirical analysis are followed. First, as the result of , it shows that all were chosen, so on-line service quality has a positive effect on overall service quality. Especially fulfillment of overall service quality has the most effect, and then efficiency, system availability, privacy in order. Second, as the result of , it shows that all were chosen, so on-line service recovery has a positive effect on overall service quality. Especially responsiveness of overall service quality has the most effect, and then contact, compensation in order. Third, as the result of and , it shows that and all were chosen, so overall service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction has a positive effect on loyalty intention. Fourth, as the result of and , it shows that and all were chosen, so overall service quality plays a role as the partial mediation between on-line service quality and customer satisfaction, on-line service recovery and customer satisfaction. 5. Conclusion This study measured and analyzed service quality and service recovery of the Web sites that customers made a reservation and issued their air tickets, and by improving customer satisfaction through the result, this study put its final goal to grope how to keep loyalty customers. On the basis of the result of empirical analysis, suggestion points of this study are followed. First, this study regarded E-S-QUAL that measures on-line service quality and E-RecS-QUAL that measures on-line service recovery as variables, so it overcame the limit of existing studies that used modified SERVQUAL to measure service quality of the Web sites. Second, it shows that fulfillment and efficiency of on-line service quality have the most significant effect on overall service quality. Therefore the Web sites of reserving and issuing air tickets should try harder to elevate efficiency and fulfillment. Third, privacy of on-line service quality has the least significant effect on overall service quality, but this may be caused by un-assurance of customers whether the Web sites protect safely their confidential information or not. So they need to notify customers of this fact clearly. Fourth, there are many cases that customers don't recognize the importance of on-line service recovery, but if they would think that On-line service recovery has an effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty intention, as its importance is very significant they should prepare for that. Fifth, because overall service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty intention, they should try harder to elevate service quality and service recovery of the Web sites of reserving and issuing air tickets to maximize customer satisfaction and to secure loyalty customers. Sixth, it is found that overall service quality plays a role as the partial mediation, but now there are rarely existing studies about this, so there need to be more studies about this.

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