• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.123-127
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• 1978

The major objective of this research is to identify those hospital characteristics that best explain cost variation among hospitals and to formulate linear models that can predict hospital costs. Specific emphasis is placed on hospital output, that is, the identification of diagnosis related patient groups (DRGs) which are medically meaningful and demonstrate similar patterns of hospital resource consumption. A casemix index is developed based on the DRGs identified. Considering the common problems encountered in previous hospital cost research, the following study requirements are estab-lished for fulfilling the objectives of this research: 1. Selection of hospitals that exercise similar medical and fiscal practices. 2. Identification of an appropriate data collection mechanism in which demographic and medical characteristics of individual patients as well as accurate and comparable cost information can be derived. 3. Development of a patient classification system in which all the patients treated in hospitals are able to be split into mutually exclusive categories with consistent and stable patterns of resource consumption. 4. Development of a cost finding mechanism through which patient groups' costs can be made comparable across hospitals. A data set of Medicare patients prepared by the Social Security Administration was selected for the study analysis. The data set contained 27,229 record abstracts of Medicare patients discharged from all but one short-term general hospital in Connecticut during the period from January 1, 1971, to December 31, 1972. Each record abstract contained demographic and diagnostic information, as well as charges for specific medical services received. The 'AUT-OGRP System' was used to generate 198 DRGs in which the entire range of Medicare patients were split into mutually exclusive categories, each of which shows a consistent and stable pattern of resource consumption. The 'Departmental Method' was used to generate cost information for the groups of Medicare patients that would be comparable across hospitals. To fulfill the study objectives, an extensive analysis was conducted in the following areas: 1. Analysis of DRGs: in which the level of resource use of each DRG was determined, the length of stay or death rate of each DRG in relation to resource use was characterized, and underlying patterns of the relationships among DRG costs were explained. 2. Exploration of resource use profiles of hospitals; in which the magnitude of differences in the resource uses or death rates incurred in the treatment of Medicare patients among the study hospitals was explored. 3. Casemix analysis; in which four types of casemix-related indices were generated, and the significance of these indices in the explanation of hospital costs was examined. 4. Formulation of linear models to predict hospital costs of Medicare patients; in which nine independent variables (i. e., casemix index, hospital size, complexity of service, teaching activity, location, casemix-adjusted death. rate index, occupancy rate, and casemix-adjusted length of stay index) were used for determining factors in hospital costs. Results from the study analysis indicated that: 1. The system of 198 DRGs for Medicare patient classification was demonstrated not only as a strong tool for determining the pattern of hospital resource utilization of Medicare patients, but also for categorizing patients by their severity of illness. 2. The wei틴fed mean total case cost (TOTC) of the study hospitals for Medicare patients during the study years was $11,27.02 with a standard deviation of $117.20. The hospital with the highest average TOTC ($1538.15) was 2.08 times more expensive than the hospital with the lowest average TOTC ($743.45). The weighted mean per diem total cost (DTOC) of the study hospitals for Medicare patients during the sutdy years was $107.98 with a standard deviation of $15.18. The hospital with the highest average DTOC ($147.23) was 1.87 times more expensive than the hospital with the lowest average DTOC ($78.49). 3. The linear models for each of the six types of hospital costs were formulated using the casemix index and the eight other hospital variables as the determinants. These models explained variance to the extent of 68.7 percent of total case cost (TOTC), 63.5 percent of room and board cost (RMC), 66.2 percent of total ancillary service cost (TANC), 66.3 percent of per diem total cost (DTOC), 56.9 percent of per diem room and board cost (DRMC), and 65.5 percent of per diem ancillary service cost (DTANC). The casemix index alone explained approximately one half of interhospital cost variation: 59.1 percent for TOTC and 44.3 percent for DTOC. Thsee results demonstrate that the casemix index is the most importand determinant of interhospital cost variation Future research and policy implications in regard to the results of this study is envisioned in the following three areas: 1. Utilization of casemix related indices in the Medicare data systems. 2. Refinement of data for hospital cost evaluation. 3. Development of a system for reimbursement and cost control in hospitals.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.4341-4347
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• 2016

Background: Patient safety is one of the key components of nursing care for cancer cases. Valid and reliable context-based instruments are necessary for accurate evaluation of patient safety in oncology units. The aim of the present study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Patient Safety Violation Scale in medical oncology units in Iran. Materials and Methods: In this methodological study, a pool of 58 items was generated through reviewing the existing literature. The validity of the 58-item scale was assessed through calculating impact score, content validity ratio, and content validity index for its items as well as conducting exploratory factor analysis. The reliability of the scale was evaluated by assessing its internal consistency and testretest stability. Study sample consisted of 300 oncology nurses who were recruited from thirteen teaching hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Results: Sixteen items were excluded from the scale due to having low impact scores, content validity ratios, or content validity indices. In exploratory factor analysis, the remaining 42 items were loaded on five factors including patient fall, verification of patientidentity, harm during care delivery, delay in care delivery, and medication errors. These five factors explained 62% of the total variance. The Cronbach's alpha of the scale and the test-retest interclass correlation coefficient were equal to 0.933 and 0.92, respectively. Conclusions: The 42-item Patient Safety Violation Scale is a simple and short scale which has acceptable validity and reliability. Consequently, it can be used for assessing patient safety in clinical settings such as medical oncology units and for research projects.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.118-127
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• 2016

Purpose: The study purposes were to construct and test structural equation modeling on the causal relationship of community residents' perceived quality of care, image, and role performance with satisfaction, intention to (re)visit and intention to recommend hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 3,900 community residents from 39 district public hospitals. The questionnaire was designed to collected information on personal characteristics and community awareness of public hospitals. Community awareness consisted of 6 factors and 18 items. The data were collected utilizing call-interview by a survey company. Research data were collected via questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 and AMOS version 20.0. Results: Model fit indices for the hypothetical model were suitable for the recommended level: ${\chi}^2=796.40$ (df=79, p<.001), GFI=.93, AGFI=.90, RMSR=.08, NFI=.94. Quality of care, image, and role performance explained 68.1% of variance in community awareness. Total effect of quality of care process factors on satisfaction (path coefficients=3.67), intention to (re)visit (path coefficients=2.67) and intention to recommend hospital (coefficients=2.45) were higher than other factors. Conclusion: Findings show that public hospitals have to make an effort to improve community image through the provision of quality care, and excellent role performance. Support for these activities is available from both Central and Local Governments.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.534-544
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was conducted to construct and test a structural model on family life satisfaction of aged individuals living at home. The conceptual model was based on Bandura's self-efficacy and social cognitive theories (1977; 1986) and Bowen's (1976) family systems theory. Methods: From January 25 to March 5, 2016, 227 older adults living at home completed a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed to calculate the direct and indirect effects of factors affecting family life satisfaction. SPSS WIN 20.0 and AMOS 20.0 were used. Results: The hypothetical model was a good fit for the data. The model fit indices were ${\chi}^2=78.05$, ${\chi}^2/df=1.35$, RMSR=.02, GFI=.98, AGFI=.96, NFI=.94, CFI=.98, and RMSEA=.05. Family life satisfaction was positively affected by perceived collective family efficacy, status of physical health, family communication, and family support. Depression resulted in a significant negative effect. Family differentiation had a significant indirect effect on family life satisfaction. The model explained 76% of variance in family life satisfaction. Conclusion: Perceived collective family efficacy, status of physical health, depression, family differentiation, family communication, and family support were significant factors explaining family life satisfaction among older adults staying at home. Further research should be conducted to seek intervention strategies to improve family life satisfaction among older adults living at home by focusing on the respective contributing factors.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.262-268
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• 2010

Virtual communities (VCs) have developed rapidly, with more and more people participating in them to exchange information and opinions. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. A business-to-consumer virtual community (B2CVC) is a commercial group that creates a trustworthy environment intended to motivate consumers to be more willing to buy from an online store. B2CVCs create a social atmosphere through information contribution such as recommendations, reviews, and ratings of buyers and sellers. Although the importance of B2CVCs has been recognized, few studies have been conducted to examine members' word-of-mouth behavior within these communities. This study proposes a model of involvement, statistics, trust, "stickiness," and word-of-mouth in a B2CVC and explores the relationships among these elements based on empirical data. The objectives are threefold: (i) to empirically test a B2CVC model that integrates measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; (ii) to better understand the nature of these relationships, specifically through word-of-mouth as a measure of revenue generation; and (iii) to better understand the role of stickiness of B2CVC in CRM marketing. The model incorporates three key elements concerning community members: (i) their beliefs, measured in terms of their involvement assessment; (ii) their attitudes, measured in terms of their satisfaction and trust; and, (iii) their behavior, measured in terms of site stickiness and their word-of-mouth. Involvement is considered the motivation for consumers to participate in a virtual community. For B2CVC members, information searching and posting have been proposed as the main purpose for their involvement. Satisfaction has been reviewed as an important indicator of a member's overall community evaluation, and conceptualized by different levels of member interactions with their VC. The formation and expansion of a VC depends on the willingness of members to share information and services. Researchers have found that trust is a core component facilitating the anonymous interaction in VCs and e-commerce, and therefore trust-building in VCs has been a common research topic. It is clear that the success of a B2CVC depends on the stickiness of its members to enhance purchasing potential. Opinions communicated and information exchanged between members may represent a type of written word-of-mouth. Therefore, word-of-mouth is one of the primary factors driving the diffusion of B2CVCs across the Internet. Figure 1 presents the research model and hypotheses. The model was tested through the implementation of an online survey of CTrip Travel VC members. A total of 243 collected questionnaires was reduced to 204 usable questionnaires through an empirical process of data cleaning. The study's hypotheses examined the extent to which involvement, satisfaction, and trust influence B2CVC stickiness and members' word-of-mouth. Structural Equation Modeling tested the hypotheses in the analysis, and the structural model fit indices were within accepted thresholds: ${\chi}^2^$/df was 2.76, NFI was .904, IFI was .931, CFI was .930, and RMSEA was .017. Results indicated that involvement has a significant influence on satisfaction (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.809). The proportion of variance in satisfaction explained by members' involvement was over half (adjusted $R^2$=0.654), reflecting a strong association. The effect of involvement on trust was also statistically significant (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.751), with 57 percent of the variance in trust explained by involvement (adjusted $R^2$=0.563). When the construct "stickiness" was treated as a dependent variable, the proportion of variance explained by the variables of trust and satisfaction was relatively low (adjusted $R^2$=0.331). Satisfaction did have a significant influence on stickiness, with ${\beta}$=0.514. However, unexpectedly, the influence of trust was not even significant (p=0.231, t=1.197), rejecting that proposed hypothesis. The importance of stickiness in the model was more significant because of its effect on e-WOM with ${\beta}$=0.920 (p<0.001). Here, the measures of Stickiness explain over eighty of the variance in e-WOM (Adjusted $R^2$=0.846). Overall, the results of the study supported the hypothesized relationships between members' involvement in a B2CVC and their satisfaction with and trust of it. However, trust, as a traditional measure in behavioral models, has no significant influence on stickiness in the B2CVC environment. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on B2CVCs, specifically addressing gaps in the academic research by integrating measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in one model. The results provide additional insights to behavioral factors in a B2CVC environment, helping to sort out relationships between traditional measures and relatively new measures. For practitioners, the identification of factors, such as member involvement, that strongly influence B2CVC member satisfaction can help focus technological resources in key areas. Global e-marketers can develop marketing strategies directly targeting B2CVC members. In the global tourism business, they can target Chinese members of a B2CVC by providing special discounts for active community members or developing early adopter programs to encourage stickiness in the community. Future studies are called for, and more sophisticated modeling, to expand the measurement of B2CVC member behavior and to conduct experiments across industries, communities, and cultures.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.1058-1064
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• 2016

This study investigated the correlation between physicochemical (color, soluble solids content (SSC), pH, titratable acidity (TA), and firmness) and sensory (appearance, taste, odor, and texture) characteristics of environment-friendly 'Campbell early' grapes to identify quality indices. For analysis, samples of similar-sized grapes were collected from five orchards. The results showed that the physicochemical characteristics of CIE $L^*$, CIE $a^*/b^*$, SSC, pH, TA, and firmness and the sensorial characteristics of color intensity, freshness of stem, odor, sourness, sweetness, and elasticity were different among groups. Correlation analysis results showed that an increase in sweetness and firmness and a decrease in sourness were associated with an increase in overall acceptance. Sourness and sweetness were positively correlated with CIE $L^*$ (r=0.88) and firmness (r=0.95), individually. In the principal component analysis results, component F1 and F2 explained 44.35% and 33.77%, respectively, of the total variance (78.12%). F1 represented firmness, sweetness, elasticity, hardness, grape odor, color intensity, sweet odor, sourness, and damage degree. F2 represented CIE $L^*$, TA, CIE $a^*$, CIE $a^*/b^*$, SSC/TA, SSC, and peel thickness. The results showed that consumer acceptance of 'Campbell early' grapes can be determined by assessing physicochemical attributes of firmness, CIE $L^*$, TA, CIE $a^*$, CIE $a^*/b^*$, SSC/TA, and SSC and various sensorial attributes including sweetness, fruit elasticity, fruit hardness, grape odor, and color intensity.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.446-455
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• 2017

We investigated the physicochemical and sensory characteristics of oriental melon (Cucumis melo L.) to provide a consumer-oriented quality index. Oriental melon fruits were harvested at 20, 25, or 30 days after fruit set (DAFS), and each group was sorted by size (small, medium, and large). Fruits harvested at 25 and 30 DAFS had higher CIE $a^*$ and $b^*$ values, higher soluble solids content (SSC), and lower CIE $L^*$, firmness, and titratable acidity (TA) values than fruits harvested at 20 DAFS. Fruits harvested at 25 and 30 DAFS scored more highly for overall acceptance. A significant correlation was found between physicochemical characteristics and overall acceptance. In the delayed-harvest sample, increased sweetness and yellowness, and decreased sensorial texture were associated with an increase in overall acceptance. In principal component analysis, F1 and F2 explained 62.16% and 17.91% of the total variance (80.07%), respectively. Regression analysis of overall acceptance and F1 gave a coefficient of determination ($r^2$) of 0.87. Our results show that consideration of the physicochemical characteristics (CIE value, SSC, pH, SSC/TA ratio, and firmness) and sensory characteristics (yellowness, placenta area condition, oriental melon odor, sweetness, oriental melon flavor, texture, and off odor) of oriental melon in this way can be used as quality indices to predict consumer acceptance.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.78-87
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• 2018

This study constructed a structural model and examined the fit and significance of the model to identify the influencing factors on the organizational commitment of ROTC cadets. The subjects of this study were 209 male students in grades 3 and 4 ROTC cadets of eight universities located in D, P, and G cities. Data were collected from April 13 to May 29, 2018. The data collected were analyzed by SPSS / WIN 20.0 and AMOS 21.0 programs. A positive correlation was observed between the ROTC instructor's leadership, self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Six of the six pathways of the hypothetical structural model were statistically significant. The hypothetical model showed a good fit for the data. The model fit indices were ${\chi}^2/df=1.51$, GFI=.98, AGFI=.90, NFI=0.98, NFI=.97, RMR=.02, RMSEA=.05, and TLI=.98. The ROTC Instructor's leadership and self-efficacy had direct and indirect effects on the organizational commitment. Job satisfaction had the strongest direct influence on organizational commitment. This model explained 73% of the variance in organizational commitment. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an effective education and intervention program that can enhance the ROTC instructor's leadership, self-efficacy, and job satisfaction to increase the organizational commitment of the ROTC cadets.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2022.10a
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• pp.25-25
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• 2022

Drought becomes frequent and severe because of continuous global warming, leading to a significant loss of crop yield. In soybean (Glycine max [L.]), most of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) analyses for drought tolerance have conducted by investigating yield changes under water-restricted conditions at the reproductive stages. More recently, the necessity of QTL studies to use physiological indices responding to drought at the early growth stages besides the reproductive ones has arisen due to the unpredictable and prevalent occurrence of drought throughout the soybean growing season. In this study, we thus identified QTLs conferring wilting scores and moisture contents of soybean subjected to drought stress in the early vegetative stage using an recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from a cross between Taekwang (drought-sensitive) and SS2-2 (drought-tolerant). For the two traits, the same major QTL was located on chromosome 10, accounting for up to 11.5% of phenotypic variance explained with LOD score of 12.5. This QTL overlaps with a reported QTL for the limited transpiration trait in soybean and harbors an ortholog of the Arabidopsis ABA and drought-induced RING-D UF1117 gene. Meanwhile, one of important features of plant drought tolerance is their ability to limit transpiration rates under high vapor pressure deficiency in response to mitigate water loss. However, monitoring their transpiration rates is time-consuming and laborious. Therefore, only a few population-level studies regarding transpiration rates under the drought condition have been reported so far. Via employing an Arduino-based platform, for the reasons addressed, we are measuring and recording total pot weights of soybean plants every hour from the 1^st day after water restriction to the days when the half of the RILs exhibited permanent tissue damage in at least one trifoliate. Gradual decrease in moisture of soil in pots as time passes refers increase in the severity of drought stress. By tracking changes in the total pot weights of soybean plants, we will infer transpiration rates of the mapping parents and their RILs according to different levels of VPD and drought stress. The profile of transpiration rates from different levels of severity in the stresses facilitates a better understanding of relationship between transpiration-related features, such as limited maximum transpiration rates, to water saving performances, as well as those to other drought-responsive phenotypes. Our findings will provide primary insights on drought tolerance mechanisms in soybean and useful resources for improvement of soybean varieties tolerant to drought stress.