• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.2901-2907
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• 2016

Background: Despite increasing debate about overdiagnosis and overtreatment of thyroid cancer in Korea, information to guide decisions on whether or not to undergo screening for and treatment of abnormal lesions of the thyroid is lacking. Moreover, studies have yet to outline what lay people know and want to know about thyroid cancer. The primary aim of this study was to explore general awareness of thyroid cancer among Korean women, their sources of information, and their satisfaction with the information they are provided. The secondary aim was to investigate information needs about thyroid cancer. Materials and Methods: A qualitative study using focus group interviews was conducted. Twenty-nine women were divided into four groups: (1) participants who had never undergone thyroid ultrasound screening; (2) those who had undergone screening, (3) those who continued to undergo regular check-ups with ultrasonography for benign nodules of the thyroid; and (4) participants who had undergone surgery for thyroid cancer. Results: A widespread lack of awareness of information on thyroid cancer was noted among participants in groups 1 and 2 who were not well aware of thyroid cancer and generally recognized it as a 'good cancer'. Surprisingly, instead of doctors and medical personnel, most participants reported obtaining information from acquaintances and media outlets. Moreover, most participants described dissatisfaction with their experience with screening and a lack of explanation on treatment and test results from medical personnel. Conclusions: Women in Korea seek reliable information on thyroid cancer that could help them to better understand the disease and make informed decisions regarding screening and treatment. More effort is needed from medical personnel to communicate the implications of thyroid cancer, screening results, and treatments thereof to lay people.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.253-266
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• 2009

This study was focused on analyzing students' informal reasoning patterns and their considerations in decision-making on socioscientific issues. This study involved 20 undergraduate students (10 biology majors and 10 non-biology majors) and showed how the two groups responded on socioscientific issues. Semi-structured interviews were conducted twice respectively based on six scenarios of gene therapy and human cloning. The result showed 93% of the total number of participants' decisions were made by rationalistic reasoning, whereas emotional reasoning was 49%, and intuitive reasoning was 27%. Students usually used two or three informal reasoning patterns together. Most of the students took more consideration on social factors. Some perceived ethical and moral implications of the issues, but they did not consider them seriously. They made their decisions depending on their own values, etc. 65% of the participants got their information on socioscientific issues from the mass media. Biology majors hardly used intuitive reasoning compared to non-biology majors. The Biology major group took into deep considerations on socioscientific issues while the non-biology major group seemed to interpret the given scenarios simply. This implied that the content knowledge was a significant factor of their decision-making. Therefore, it is necessary to develop proper science courses for non-major students to improve their decision-making on socioscientific issues. So, when we develop educational materials or programs, we should consider students' reasoning patterns, their considerations in decision-making, and their content knowledge. And because the mass media has the potential to play a key role for an effective education, we need to make a plan to make a practical application.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.261-270
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• 2009

To make measurable regulatory decisions of chemicals, it is necessary to consider their effect on the human health and ecosystem. In principle, this is based on relevant toxicity studies conducted by accepted guidelines. However, current regulatory programs in various countries confront challenges related to risk assessment of large numbers of chemicals within the restricted resources and time. Therefore there is a need for more efficient approach to limit the number of tests to be conducted. This promotes the development of powerful nontesting methods (e.g. (Q)SARs) and permits to use the predicted data for regulatory purpose. In this article, current status of non-testing methods in various chemical regulatory programs was reviewed in terms of their application and research activity on them. Finally, their usefulness associated with development of domestic regulatory program was suggested.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.445-452
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• 2002

The main objective of modern reproductive technologies in pig reproduction is to increase reproductive efficiency and rates of genetic improvement. They also offer potential for greatly extending the multiplication and transport of genetic materials and the conservation of unique genetic resources in reasonably available forms for possible future use. The development and refinement of these technologies is concentrating on gamete and embryo collection, sorting and preservation, in vitro production of embryos, culturing, manipulation of embryos (splitting, nuclear transfer, production of chimeras, establishment embryo stem cells, and gene transfer) and embryo transfer. Also, the development of these novel technologies is facilitated by modern equipment for ultrasonography, microscopy, cryopreservation, endoscopy, and flow cytometry, microinjectiors, micromanipulators and centrifugation. The real impact on herd productivity will come from combining new reproductive techniques with powerful DNA technologies. The new reproductive techniques will allow a rapid turnover of generations, whereas the DNA technology can provide selection, which does not need phenotypic information when the selection decisions are made.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.127-147
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• 2001

This paper presents an analysis of Korean middle managers' decision-making processes. The sample included the observations of decisions made by 17 groups with 5 to 7 members each. The 5 hour-long, in average, decision processes were analysed by a modified system of Fisher's(1970) Interaction Process Analysis. The results showed that Korean managers followed alternative-focused decision processes, as opposite to value-focused ones. That is, the decision-making groups showed a strong trend to elaborate on alternative generation and evaluation right after the situation analysis. They tended to discuss the objectives of decision and relevant criteria only to resolve conflicts arisen during the evaluation process of alternatives. The analysis also showed that a decision proposition was more frequently followed by negative responses than positive ones and by interpretative evaluations than substantiative ones. The lessons from this study suggest a direction for the development of group decision support systems tailored for Korean cultural characteristics. This study is also meaningful as the first observation and empirical analysis of Korean middle managers' decision-making processes.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.233-238
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• 2002

The product process is sequence of all the required activities that a company must perform to develop, and manufacture a product. These activities include marketing, research, engineering design, quality assurance, manufacturing, and a whole chain of suppliers and vendors. The process also comprises all strategic planning, capital investments, management decisions, and tasks necessary to create a new product. manufacturing processes must be created so that the product can be produced in the product facility Purchasing new equipment and training workers may be required if new technology is to be used. Tools, fixtures, and the sequence of steps in the manufacturing processes must all be developed to allow rapid, high-quality, cost effective production. Also, it may be needed to be rearrange the production facility to adapt to the new manufacturing processes. Therefore, this study tries to proposed that Scheduling by customer needs group for minimizing the problem and reducing inventory, product development time, cycle time, and order lead time.

• The International Journal of Costume Culture
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 1999

This study was designed to identify the information sources of reference used by male college students. Theoretical framework is based upon social comparison theory, reference group theory, and Kotler's model of personal and non-personal sources of reference. The subjects were 287 male college students. The questionnaire were distributed to the school area and the commercial area such as Shinchon, Myung-Dong, and Apkujung-Dong in Seoul. Means, standard deviation, frequency, T-test, one-way ANOVA, and Duncan's multiple range test were applied for the analyses of data. The result of hyporthesis 1 showed that male college student utilize personal and non-personal sources of reference indiscriminately. The result of hypothesis 2 showed that male college students consult the socially high-proximal group such as a girl friend(a lover) and mother most actively. The result of hypothesis 3 found that male college students use position media most actively, especially in-store displays, followed by print media and broadcast media.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.75-97
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• 2007

Less than 3% of India's food basket, consists of processed food, therefore processed food can be viewed as an innovation or new product to Indian consumers. This research investigates the effects of product familiarity and reference groups on Indian consumers' attitudes and purchase behavior of new processed food products. For the study, the model is developed by modifying Cambel and Goodstein's (2001) "Moderate Incongruity Effect" to include important cross-cultural influences on attitudes and purchase decisions among Indian consumers. Empirical analysis was conducted through structural equation modeling (SEM). SEM results indicated that reference group influence has a stronger positive effect on consumers' attitudes and actual purchase behavior of more familiar processed foods than of less familiar processed food. In addition, attitudes have a stronger positive effect on consumers' actual purchase of more familiar than of less familiar processed foods.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.347-363
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• 2007

Assessment of structural behaviour of corrosion affected structures is an important issue, which would help in making certain decisions pertaining to the inspection, repair, strengthening, replacement and demolition of such structures. The paper presents formulations to predict the loss of weight and the loss of cross-sectional area of the reinforcing bar undergoing corrosion based on the earlier study carried out by the present authors (Bhargava et al. 2006). These formulations have further been used to analytically evaluate the ultimate bending moment and ultimate shear force capacity of the corroded concrete beams. Results of the present study indicate that, a considerably good agreement has been observed between the experimental and the analytically predicted values for the weight loss and reduction in radius of the corroded reinforcing bars. A considerably good agreement has also been observed between the experimental and the analytically predicted values of ultimate bending moment and ultimate shear force capacity for the corroded concrete beams.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.323-336
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• 2024

The accurate forecasting of insurance claims is a critical component for insurers' risk management decisions. Hierarchical Bayesian parametric (BP) models can be used for health insurance claims forecasting, but they are unsatisfactory to describe the claims distribution. Therefore, Bayesian nonparametric (BNP) models can be a more suitable alternative to deal with the complex characteristics of the health insurance claims distribution, including heavy tails, skewness, and multimodality. In this study, we apply both a BP model and a BNP model to predict group health claims using simulated and real-world data for a private life insurer in Indonesia. The findings show that the BNP model outperforms the BP model in terms of claims prediction accuracy. Furthermore, our analysis highlights the flexibility and robustness of BNP models in handling diverse data structures in health insurance claims.