• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.271-281
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• 2014

This study aimed to investigate the types that readers enjoying cartoons appreciated cartoons under the premise that cartoons enjoyed over the internet would expand their sensitivity through media such as monitors and mice. The sensitivity of readers enjoying digital cartoons can be stimulated through communication with carton writers or other readers as the interaction of the real-time response to the network. The choice and control are possible with a vertical scroll bar. Accordingly, readers can be absorbed in a work and focus on its story much more. As a result of extracting emotional stimulation factors to verify these assumptions, factors were able to classify the sensitivity that readers enjoying cartoons obtained from digital cartoons into two types, communication and story-focus type, based on the phases that emotional stimuli were strengthened. This study will be significant as a study to identify the relationship between media-technological factors and readers enjoying cartoons in relation to digital cartoons.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.503-512
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• 2014

People would like to be socially engaged not only with humans but also with robots. One of the most common ways in the robotic field to enhance human robot interaction is to use emotion and integrate emotional concepts into robots. Many researchers have been focusing on developing a robot's emotional expressions. However, it is first necessary to establish the psychological background of a robot's emotion generation model in order to implement the whole process of a robot's emotional behavior. Therefore, this article suggests a robot's motivational emotion model with value effectiveness from a Higgins' motivation definition, regulatory focus theory, and Circumplex model. For the test, a game with the best-two-out-of-three rule is introduced. Each step of the game was evaluated by the proposed model. As the results imply, the proposed model generated psychologically appropriate emotions for a robot in the given situation. The empirical survey remains for future work to prove that this research improves social human robot interaction.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.93-113
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• 2016

Objectives : The focus of the review was laid on differences in research pertaining to thread embedding acupuncture between domestic and foreign journals. Methods : We collected 53 Korean articles on thread embedding acupuncture study from 4 Korean article searching sites, and 80 foreign articles from Pubmed. We analyzed the number of the theses according to the publication year, study method, journal, and subject. Results : A total number of 134 thread embedding acupuncture articles were categorized as 100 clinical trials, 14 experimental papers, and 19 literature reviews. Of the collected clinical trials, 55 were case studies, 6 were CCTs and 39 were RCTs. The domestic clinical trials were comprised of 36 case studies, 1 CCT, and 2 RCTs, and foreign clinical trials were comprised of 19 case studies, 5 CCTs, and 37 RCTs. Although only 12 of the 39 domestic clinical trials exclusively treated thread embedding acupuncture to the experimental group, 38 out of 61 foreign clinical trials undertook thread embedding acupuncture as the sole treatment. While the 2 domestic RCTs research had no significant evidence that the experimental group was different from the control group, the experimental group demonstrated better responses than the control group in 31 of the 37 foreign RCT studies. Conclusions : Studies on thread embedding acupuncture are more intensively studied in the foreign field in comparison to the domestic field. Referring to the results from the foreign thread embedding acupuncture studies, domestic use of thread embedding acupuncture should be expanded. Also, more refined research needs to be conducted in the domestic field in order for the Koran medicine to lead the thread embedding acupuncture. This study is limited in that the literature search in the foreign journals were restricted.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.44-51
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• 2015

As the domestic communication industry has been made rapid progresses, the construction of base stations are also expanded yearly from more than 86,000 ones in the year 2005 to over 300,000 ones in 2013. While the new construction and rebuilt works have been rapidly increased, there has been not tried about the analysis as well as the control of hazards for the construction works. This study is conducted to do not only the focus interview for 27 expert groups who are engaged in the construction works and safety, but also the questionnaires for AHP analysis which is suggested by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency for 92 persons who are engaged in the construction works in order to analyze the hazards of construction works for base stations. The high ranked risk works which are acquired from the two methods are fall under installation of antennae, struck by the hand tools and construction materials under installation of antennae, fall during going up and down the steel tower and telegraph poles and the fall by electric shock during the underground cable works. The control for the above hazards are the installation of fall protection equipments, the installation of safety nets for falling objects and the installation of protection equipment of electric shock.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.188-199
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• 2015

Purpose: This study aims to understand schools' response to infectious disease, perceived problems and suggestions, with regard to the 2015 MERS outbreak in South Korea, in order to improve the infectious disease response system. Methods: Data were collected by focus group interviews with three groups composed of school health teachers, other teachers, and parents in Seoul-located schools. Results: The major theme was "Schools' Discretionary Response in the Absence of the Control Tower." Four major categories and 11 sub-categories were drawn from the findings. Four major categories were as follows: (a) Temperature monitoring caused lots of complaints, (b) Closure decisions were left at the discretion of schools, (c) Precautions are now being more emphasized, and (d) The support system were malfunctioning. Conclusion: The main areas to be improved are as follows: (1) School district offices should have an expanded role in infectious disease response and build cooperative partnerships with health authorities. (2) Preparedness for infectious disease should be strengthened. (3) Temperature monitoring systems should be improved, (4) Closure decisions should be made at a local community level. These are expected to help schools establish advanced infectious disease response systems.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.75-82
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• 2019

This qualitative analysis was conducted to analyze the effects of teeth and eating foods in the elderly on their subjective happiness based on a focus-group interview (FGI). The study subjects were 10 people over 65 years old who visited a social welfare center in D City and agreed to participate in the study. One group consisted of five members and FGIs were performed for about 40 minutes per group. Based on the study results, five topics were evaluated, status of teeth, methods of dental health control, inconvenience within mouth, eating foods, and eating foods and subjective happiness. The study subjects answered that they felt distressed and annoyed if they could only see, but not eat favorite foods and that this made them feel old. One respondent even mentioned it made them want to stop living. Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to develop customized dental health control programs by age, gender, income level, education level, and health status, and to build the specialists.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.142-145
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• 2003

Many control applications using Neural Network need a priori information about the objective system. But it is impossible to get exact information about the objective system in real world. To solve this problem, several control methods were proposed. Reinforcement learning control using neural network is one of them. Basically reinforcement learning control doesn't need a priori information of objective system. This method uses reinforcement signal from interaction of objective system and environment and observable states of objective system as input data. But many methods take too much time to apply to real-world. So we focus on faster learning to apply reinforcement learning control to real-world. Two data types are used for reinforcement learning. One is reinforcement signal data. It has only two fixed scalar values that are assigned for each success and fail state. The other is observable state data. There are infinitive states in real-world system. So the number of observable state data is also infinitive. This requires too much learning time for applying to real-world. So we try to reduce the number of observable states by classification of states with Self-Organizing Map. We also use neural dynamic programming for controller design. An inverted pendulum on the cart system is simulated. Failure signal is used for reinforcement signal. The failure signal occurs when the pendulum angle or cart position deviate from the defined control range. The control objective is to maintain the balanced pole and centered cart. And four states that is, position and velocity of cart, angle and angular velocity of pole are used for state signal. Learning controller is composed of serial connection of Self-Organizing Map and two Multi-layer Feed-Forward Neural Networks.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.24 no.E1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2008

Mercury (Hg), which is mainly emitted from coal-fired power plants, remains one of the most toxic compounds to both humans and ecosystems. Hg pollution is not a local or regional issue, but a global issue. Hg compounds emitted from anthropogenic sources such as coal-fired power plants, incinerators, and boilers, can be transported over long distances. Since the last decade, many European countries, Canada, and especially the United States, have focused on technology to control Hg emissions. Korea has also recently showed an interest in managing Hg pollution from various combustion sources. Previous studies indicate that coal-fired power plants are one of the major sources of Hg in Korea. However, lack of Hg emission data and feasible emission controls have been major obstacles in Hg study. In order to achieve effective Hg control, understanding the characteristics of current Hg sampling methods and control technologies is essential. There is no one proven technology that fits all Hg emission sources, because Hg emission and control efficiency depend on fuel type, configuration of air pollution control devices, flue gas composition, among others. Therefore, a broad knowledge of Hg sampling and control technologies is necessary to select the most suitable method for each Hg-emitting source. In this paper, various Hg sampling methods, including wet chemistry, dry sorbents trap, field, and laboratory demonstrated control technologies, and international regulations, are introduced, with a focus on coal-fired power plants.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.527-536
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• 2015

Studies for the reduction of lighting energy have been done using technologies such as user and location awareness. However, the focus of current research on location-based lighting control has been on energy reduction, which can lead to other issues including an imbalance in indoor illumination. This study proposes a lighting control system applying general illumination and technology for user and location awareness. The proposed lighting control system reduced lighting energy by 72.1%, 66.5% and 62.3% for 1, 2 and 3 users, respectively, compared to the On/Off lighting control system. This lighting control system causes an increase in lighting energy of 35.8% and 10.9% for 1 and 2 users compared to the lighting control system with user and location awareness, while a reduction of 9.4% was seen for 3 users. This means that the proposed system provides more effective energy reduction for a room with multiple occupants as it is based on the general lighting control scheme. The lighting control system applying general illumination and technology of user and location awareness improved the uniformity factor by 32.0%, 39.4% and 33.4% for 1, 2 and 3 users, respectively.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.69-98
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• 2009

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as independent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically. Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experienced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild's offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable. To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: 'WoW playforum,' 'WoW gamemeca,' and 'Wow invent.' The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statistically significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, character control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players' loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow indicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support. Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express themselves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up through social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.