• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.19-29
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• 1997

Recently, [I-123]IPT SPECT has been used for early diagnosis of Parkinson's patients(PP) by imaging dopamine transporters. The dynamic time activity curves in basal ganglia(BG) and occipital cortex(OCC) without blood samples were obtained for 2 hours. These data were then used to measure dopamine transporters by operationally defined ratio methods of (BG-OCC)/OCC at 2 hrs, binding potential $R_v=k_3/k_4$ using graphic method or $R_A$= (ABBG-ABOCC)/ABOCC for 2 hrs, where ABBG represents accumulated binding activity in basal ganglia(${\int}^{120min}_0$ BG(t)dt) and ABOCC represents accumulated binding activity in occipital cortex(${\int}^{120min}_0$ OCC(t)dt). The purpose of this study was to examine the IPT pharmacokinetics and investigate the usefulness of simplified methods of (BG-OCC)/OCC, $R_A$, and $R_v$ which are often assumed that these values reflect the true values of $k_3/k_4$. The rate constants $K_1,\;k_2\;k_3$ and $k_4$ to be used for simulations were derived using [I-123]IPT SPECT and aterialized blood data with a standard three compartmental model. The sensitivities and time activity curves in BG and OCC were computed by changing $K_l$ and $k_3$(only BG) for every 5min over 2 hours. The values (BG-OCC)/OCC, $R_A$, and $R_v$ were then computed from the time activity curves and the linear regression analysis was used to measure the accuracies of these methods. The late constants $K_l,\;k_2\;k_3\;k_4$ at BG and OCC were $1.26{\pm}5.41%,\;0.044{\pm}19.58%,\;0.031{\pm}24.36%,\;0.008{\pm}22.78%$ and $1.36{\pm}4.76%,\;0.170{\pm}6.89%,\;0.007{\pm}23.89%,\;0.007{\pm}45.09%$, respectively. The Sensitivities for ((${\Delta}S/S$)/(${\Delta}k_3/k_3$)) and ((${\Delta}S/S$)/(${\Delta}K_l/K_l$)) at 30min and 120min were measured as (0.19, 0.50) and (0.61, 0,23), respectively. The correlation coefficients and slopes of ((BG-OCC)/OCC, $R_A$, and $R_v$) with $k_3/k_4$ were (0.98, 1.00, 0.99) and (1.76, 0.47, 1.25), respectively. These simulation results indicate that a late [I-123]IPT SPECT image may represent the distribution of the dopamine transporters. Good correlations were shown between (3G-OCC)/OCC, $R_A$ or $R_v$ and true $k_3/k_4$, although the slopes between them were not unity. Pharmacokinetic computer simulations may be a very useful technique in studying dopamine transporter systems.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.265-274
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• 1998

Purpose : This prospective study has been conducted to assess the value of three dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3DCRT) for lung cancer and to determine its potential advantage over current treatment approaches. Specific aims of this study were to 1) find the most ideal 3DCRT technique 2) establish the maximum tolerance dose that can be delivered with 3DCRT and 3) identify patients at risk for development of radiation pneumonitis. Materials and Methods : Beginning in Nov. 1994, 95 patients with inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (stage I; 4, stage II; 1, stage IIIa; 14, stage IIIb; 76) were entered onto this 3D conformal trial Areas of known disease and elective nodal areas were initially treated to 45 Gy and then using 3DCRT technique 65 to 70 Gy of total dose were delivered to the gross disease. Sixty nine patients received 65 Gy of total dose and 26 received 70 Gy Seventy eight patients (82.1$\%$) also received concurrent MVP chemotherapy. 3DCRT plans were compared with 2D plans to assess the adequacy of dose delivery to target volume, dose volume histograms for normal tissue, and normal tissue complication Probabilities (NTCP). Results : Most of plans (78/95) were composed of non-coplanar multiple (4-8) fields. Coplanar segmented conformal therapy was used in 17 pateints, choosing the proper gantry angle which minimize normal lung exposure in each segment. 3DCRT gave the full dose to nearly 100$\%$ of the gross disease target volume in all patients. The mean NTCP for ipsilateral lung with 3DCRT (range; 0.17-0.43) was 68$\%$ of the mean NTCP with 2D treatment planning (range; 0.27-0.66). DVH analysis for heart showed that irradiated volume of heart could be significantly reduced by non-coplanar 3D approach especially in the case of left lower lobe lesion. Of 95 patients evaluable for response, 75 (79$\%$), showed major response including 25 (26$\%$) with complete responses and 50 (53$\%$) with partial responses. One and two rear overall survivals of stage III patients were 62.6$\%$ and 35.2$\%$ respectively. Twenty percent (19/95) of patients had pneumonitis; Eight patients had grade 1 pneumonitis and 11 other patients had grade 2. Comparison of the average of NTCP for lung showed a significant difference between patients with and without radiation pneumonitis. Average NTCP for Patients without complication was 62$\%$ of those with complications. Conclusions : This study showed that non-coplanar multiple fields (4-8) may be one of the ideal plans for 3DCRT for lung cancer. It also suggested that 3DCRT may provide superior delivery of high dose radiation with reduced risk to normal tissue and that NTCP can be used as a guideline for the dose escalation.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.207-221
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• 2012

Air temperature in Korea has increased by $1.5^{\circ}C$ over the last 100 years, which is nearly twice the global average rate during the same period. Moreover, it is projected that such change in temperature will continue in the 21st century. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential impacts of future climate change on the rice production and adaptation methods in Korea. Climate data for the baseline (1971~2000) and the three future climate (2011~2040, 2041~2070, and 2071~2100) at fifty six sites in South Korea under IPCC SRES A1B scenario were used as the input to the rice crop model ORYZA2000. Six experimental schemes were carried out to evaluate the combined effects of climatic warming, $CO_2$ fertilization, and cropping season on rice production. We found that the average production in 2071~2100 would decrease by 23%, 27%, and 29% for early, middle, and middle-late rice maturing type, respectively, when cropping seasons were fixed. In contrast, predicted yield reduction was ~0%, 6%, and 7%, for early, middle, and middle-late rice maturing type, respectively, when cropping seasons were changed. Analysis of variation suggested that climatic warming, $CO_2$ fertilization, cropping season, and rice maturing type contributed 60, 10, 12, and 2% of rice yield, respectively. In addition, regression analysis suggested 14~46 and 53~86% of variations in rice yield were explained by grain number and filled grain ratio, respectively, when cropping season was fixed. On the other hand, 46~78 and 22~53% of variations were explained respectively with changing cropping season. It was projected that sterility caused by high temperature would have no effect on rice yield. As a result, rice yield reduction in the future climate in Korea would resulted from low filled grain ratio due to high growing temperature during grain-filling period because the $CO_2$ fertilization was insufficient to negate the negative effect of climatic warming. However, adjusting cropping seasons to future climate change may alleviate the rice production reduction by minimizing negative effect of climatic warming without altering positive effect of $CO_2$ fertilization, which improves weather condition during the grain-filling period.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.231-238
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• 1994

Backgroud: Since the demonstration of the fact that vascular relaxation by acetylcholine(Ach) results from the release of relaxing factor from the endothelium, the identity and physiology of this endothelium-derived relaxing factor(EDRF) has been the target for many researches. EDRF has been identified as nitric oxide(NO). With the recent evidences that EDRF is an important mediator of vascular tone, there have been increasing interests in defining the role of the EDRF as a potential mediator of hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction. But the role of EDRF in modulating the pulmonary circulation is not compeletely clarified. To investigate the endothelium-dependent pulmonary vasodilation and the role of EDRF during hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction, we studied the effects of $N^G$-monomethyl-L-arginine(L-NMMA) and L-arginine on the precontracted pulmonary arterial rings of the rat in normoxia and hypoxia. Mothods: The pulmonary arteries of male Sprague Dawley(300~350g) were dissected free of surrounding tissue, and cut into rings. Rings were mounted over fine rigid wires, in organ chambers filled with 20ml of Krebs solution bubbled with 95 percent oxygen and 5 percent carbon dioxide and maintained at $37^{\circ}C$. Changes in isometric tension were recorded with a force transducer(FT.03 Grass, Quincy, USA) Results: 1) Precontraction of rat pulmonry artery with intact endothelium by phenylephrine(PE, $10^{-6}M$) was relaxed completely by acetylcholine(Ach, $10^{-9}-10^{-5}M$) and sodium nitroprusside(SN, $10^{-9}-10^{-5}M$), but relaxing response by Ach in rat pulmonary artery with denuded endothelium was significantly decreased. 2) L-NMMA($10^{-4}M$) pretreatment inhibited Ach($10^{-9}-10^{-5}M$)-induced relaxation, but L-NMMA ($10^{-4}M$) had no effect on relaxation induced by SN($10^{-9}-10^{-5}M$). 3) Pretreatment of the L-arginine($10^{-4}M$) significantly reversed the inhibition of the Ach ($10^{-9}-10^{-5}M$)-induced relaxation caused by L-NMMA($10^{-4}M$) 4) Pulmonary arterial contraction by PE($10^{-6}M$) was stronger in hypoxia than normoxia but relaxing response by Ach($10^{-9}-10^{-5}M$) was decreased, 5) With pretreatment of L-arginine($10^{-4}M$), pulmonary arterial relaxation by Ach($10^{-9}-10^{-5}M$) in hypoxia was reversed to the level of relaxation in normoxia. Conclusion: It is concluded that rat pulmonary arterial relaxation by Ach is dependent on the intact endothelium and is largely mediated by NO. Acute hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction is related to the suppression on NO formation in the vascular endothelium.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.67-95
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• 2014

Some Contracting States of the Chicago Convention issue FAOC(Foreign Air Operator Certificate) and conduct various safety assessments for the safety of the foreign operators which operate to their state. These FAOC and safety audits on the foreign operators are being expanded to other parts of the world. While this trend is the strengthening measure of aviation safety resulting in the reduction of aircraft accident. FAOC also burdens the other contracting States to the Chicago Convention due to additional requirements and late permission. EASA(European Aviation Safety Agency) is a body governed by European Basic Regulation. EASA was set up in 2003 and conduct specific regulatory and executive tasks in the field of civil aviation safety and environmental protection. EASA's mission is to promote the highest common standards of safety and environmental protection in civil aviation. The task of the EASA has been expanded from airworthiness to air operations and currently includes the rulemaking and standardization of airworthiness, air crew, air operations, TCO, ATM/ANS safety oversight, aerodromes, etc. According to Implementing Rule, Commission Regulation(EU) No 452/2014, EASA has the mandate to issue safety authorizations to commercial air carriers from outside the EU as from 26 May 2014. Third country operators (TCO) flying to any of the 28 EU Member States and/or to 4 EFTA States (Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland) must apply to EASA for a so called TCO authorization. EASA will only take over the safety-related part of foreign operator assessment. Operating permits will continue to be issued by the national authorities. A 30-month transition period ensures smooth implementation without interrupting international air operations of foreign air carriers to the EU/EASA. Operators who are currently flying to Europe can continue to do so, but must submit an application for a TCO authorization before 26 November 2014. After the transition period, which lasts until 26 November 2016, a valid TCO authorization will be a mandatory prerequisite, in the absence of which an operating permit cannot be issued by a Member State. The European TCO authorization regime does not differentiate between scheduled and non-scheduled commercial air transport operations in principle. All TCO with commercial air transport need to apply for a TCO authorization. Operators with a potential need of operating to the EU at some time in the near future are advised to apply for a TCO authorization in due course, even when the date of operations is unknown. For all the issue mentioned above, I have studied the function of EASA and EU Regulation including TCO Implementing Rule newly introduced, and suggested some proposals. I hope that this paper is 1) to help preparation of TCO authorization, 2) to help understanding about the international issue, 3) to help the improvement of korean aviation regulations and government organizations, 4) to help compliance with international standards and to contribute to the promotion of aviation safety, in addition.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.177-193
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• 2014

Over the past decade, there has been a rapid diffusion of electronic commerce and a rising number of interconnected networks, resulting in an escalation of security threats and privacy concerns. Electronic commerce has a built-in trade-off between the necessity of providing at least some personal information to consummate an online transaction, and the risk of negative consequences from providing such information. More recently, the frequent disclosure of private information has raised concerns about privacy and its impacts. This has motivated researchers in various fields to explore information privacy issues to address these concerns. Accordingly, the necessity for information privacy policies and technologies for collecting and storing data, and information privacy research in various fields such as medicine, computer science, business, and statistics has increased. The occurrence of various information security accidents have made finding experts in the information security field an important issue. Objective measures for finding such experts are required, as it is currently rather subjective. Based on social network analysis, this paper focused on a framework to evaluate the process of finding experts in the information security field. We collected data from the National Discovery for Science Leaders (NDSL) database, initially collecting about 2000 papers covering the period between 2005 and 2013. Outliers and the data of irrelevant papers were dropped, leaving 784 papers to test the suggested hypotheses. The co-authorship network data for co-author relationship, publisher, affiliation, and so on were analyzed using social network measures including centrality and structural hole. The results of our model estimation are as follows. With the exception of Hypothesis 3, which deals with the relationship between eigenvector centrality and performance, all of our hypotheses were supported. In line with our hypothesis, degree centrality (H1) was supported with its positive influence on the researchers' publishing performance (p<0.001). This finding indicates that as the degree of cooperation increased, the more the publishing performance of researchers increased. In addition, closeness centrality (H2) was also positively associated with researchers' publishing performance (p<0.001), suggesting that, as the efficiency of information acquisition increased, the more the researchers' publishing performance increased. This paper identified the difference in publishing performance among researchers. The analysis can be used to identify core experts and evaluate their performance in the information privacy research field. The co-authorship network for information privacy can aid in understanding the deep relationships among researchers. In addition, extracting characteristics of publishers and affiliations, this paper suggested an understanding of the social network measures and their potential for finding experts in the information privacy field. Social concerns about securing the objectivity of experts have increased, because experts in the information privacy field frequently participate in political consultation, and business education support and evaluation. In terms of practical implications, this research suggests an objective framework for experts in the information privacy field, and is useful for people who are in charge of managing research human resources. This study has some limitations, providing opportunities and suggestions for future research. Presenting the difference in information diffusion according to media and proximity presents difficulties for the generalization of the theory due to the small sample size. Therefore, further studies could consider an increased sample size and media diversity, the difference in information diffusion according to the media type, and information proximity could be explored in more detail. Moreover, previous network research has commonly observed a causal relationship between the independent and dependent variable (Kadushin, 2012). In this study, degree centrality as an independent variable might have causal relationship with performance as a dependent variable. However, in the case of network analysis research, network indices could be computed after the network relationship is created. An annual analysis could help mitigate this limitation.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.53-84
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• 2013

With rapid development of ICT (Information and Communications Technology), new services by the convergence of mobile network and application technology began to appear. Today, smart phone with new ICT convergence network capabilities is exceedingly popular and very useful as a new tool for the development of business opportunities. Previous studies based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) suggested critical factors, which should be considered for acquiring new customers and maintaining existing users in smart phone market. However, they had a limitation to focus on technology acceptance, not value based approach. Prior studies on customer's adoption of electronic utilities like smart phone product showed that the antecedents such as the perceived benefit and the perceived sacrifice could explain the causality between what is perceived and what is acquired over diverse contexts. So, this research conceptualizes perceived value as a trade-off between perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice, and we need to research the perceived value to grasp user's continuous intention to use of smart phone. The purpose of this study is to investigate the structured relationship between benefit (quality, usefulness, playfulness) and sacrifice (technicality, cost, security risk) of smart phone users, perceived value, and continuous intention to use. In addition, this study intends to analyze the differences between two subgroups of smart phone users by the degree of personal innovativeness. Personal innovativeness could help us to understand the moderating effect between how perceptions are formed and continuous intention to use smart phone. This study conducted survey through e-mail, direct mail, and interview with smart phone users. Empirical analysis based on 330 respondents was conducted in order to test the hypotheses. First, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived usefulness among three factors of perceived benefit has the highest positive impact on perceived value, and then followed by perceived playfulness and perceived quality. Second, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived cost among three factors of perceived sacrifice has significantly negative impact on perceived value, however, technicality and security risk have no significant impact on perceived value. Also, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived value has significant direct impact on continuous intention to use of smart phone. In this regard, marketing managers of smart phone company should pay more attention to improve task efficiency and performance of smart phone, including rate systems of smart phone. Additionally, to test the moderating effect of personal innovativeness, this research conducted multi-group analysis by the degree of personal innovativeness of smart phone users. In a group with high level of innovativeness, perceived usefulness has the highest positive influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, the analysis for a group with low level of innovativeness showed that perceived playfulness was the highest positive factor to influence perceived value than others. This result of the group with high level of innovativeness explains that innovators and early adopters are able to cope with higher level of cost and risk, and they expect to develop more positive intentions toward higher performance through the use of an innovation. Also, hedonic behavior in the case of the group with low level of innovativeness aims to provide self-fulfilling value to the users, in contrast to utilitarian perspective, which aims to provide instrumental value to the users. However, with regard to perceived sacrifice, both groups in general showed negative impact on perceived value. Also, the group with high level of innovativeness had less overall negative impact on perceived value compared to the group with low level of innovativeness across all factors. In both group with high level of innovativeness and with low level of innovativeness, perceived cost has the highest negative influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, the analysis for a group with high level of innovativeness showed that perceived technicality was the positive factor to influence perceived value than others. However, the analysis for a group with low level of innovativeness showed that perceived security risk was the second high negative factor to influence perceived value than others. Unlike previous studies, this study focuses on influencing factors on continuous intention to use of smart phone, rather than considering initial purchase and adoption of smart phone. First, perceived value, which was used to identify user's adoption behavior, has a mediating effect among perceived benefit, perceived sacrifice, and continuous intention to use smart phone. Second, perceived usefulness has the highest positive influence on perceived value, while perceived cost has significant negative influence on perceived value. Third, perceived value, like prior studies, has high level of positive influence on continuous intention to use smart phone. Fourth, in multi-group analysis by the degree of personal innovativeness of smart phone users, perceived usefulness, in a group with high level of innovativeness, has the highest positive influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, perceived playfulness, in a group with low level of innovativeness, has the highest positive factor to influence perceived value than others. This result shows that early adopters intend to adopt smart phone as a tool to make their job useful, instead market followers intend to adopt smart phone as a tool to make their time enjoyable. In terms of marketing strategy for smart phone company, marketing managers should pay more attention to identify their customers' lifetime value by the phase of smart phone adoption, as well as to understand their behavior intention to accept the risk and uncertainty positively. The academic contribution of this study primarily is to employ the VAM (Value-based Adoption Model) as a conceptual foundation, compared to TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) used widely by previous studies. VAM is useful for understanding continuous intention to use smart phone in comparison with TAM as a new IT utility by individual adoption. Perceived value dominantly influences continuous intention to use smart phone. The results of this study justify our research model adoption on each antecedent of perceived value as a benefit and a sacrifice component. While TAM could be widely used in user acceptance of new technology, it has a limitation to explain the new IT adoption like smart phone, because of customer behavior intention to choose the value of the object. In terms of theoretical approach, this study provides theoretical contribution to the development, design, and marketing of smart phone. The practical contribution of this study is to suggest useful decision alternatives concerned to marketing strategy formulation for acquiring and retaining long-term customers related to smart phone business. Since potential customers are interested in both benefit and sacrifice when evaluating the value of smart phone, marketing managers in smart phone company has to put more effort into creating customer's value of low sacrifice and high benefit so that customers will continuously have higher adoption on smart phone. Especially, this study shows that innovators and early adopters with high level of innovativeness have higher adoption than market followers with low level of innovativeness, in terms of perceived usefulness and perceived cost. To formulate marketing strategy for smart phone diffusion, marketing managers have to pay more attention to identify not only their customers' benefit and sacrifice components but also their customers' lifetime value to adopt smart phone.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.4-31
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• 2018

It is difficult to ascertain exactly when the Hongjuupseong (Town Wall) was first constructed, due to it had undergone several times of repair and maintenance works since it was piled up newly in 1415, when the first year of the reign of King Munjong (the 5th King of the Joseon Dynasty). Parts of its walls were demolished during the Japanese occupation, leaving the wall as it is today. Hongseong region is also susceptible to historical earthquakes for geological reasons. There have been records of earthquakes, such as the ones in 1978 and 1979 having magnitudes of 5.0 and 4.0, respectively, which left part of the walls collapsed. Again, in 2010, heavy rainfall destroyed another part of the wall. The fortress walls of the Hongjuupseong comprise various rocks, types of facing, building methods, and filling materials, according to sections. Moreover, the remaining wall parts were reused in repair works, and characteristics of each period are reflected vertically in the wall. Therefore, based on the vertical distribution of the walls, the Hongjuupseong was divided into type I, type II, and type III, according to building types. The walls consist mainly of coarse-grained granites, but, clearly different types of rocks were used for varying types of walls. The bottom of the wall shows a mixed variety of rocks and natural and split stones, whereas the center is made up mostly of coarse-grained granites. For repairs, pink feldspar granites was used, but it was different from the rock variety utilized for Suguji and Joyangmun Gate. Deterioration types to the wall can be categorized into bulging, protrusion of stones, missing stones at the basement, separation of framework, fissure and fragmentation, basement instability, and structural deformation. Manually and light-wave measurements were used to check the amount and direction of behavior of the fortress walls. A manual measurement revealed the sections that were undergoing structural deformation. Compared with the result of the light-wave measurement, the two monitoring methods proved correlational. As a result, the two measuring methods can be used complementarily for the long-term conservation and management of the wall. Additionally, the measurement system must be maintained, managed, and improved for the stability of the Hongjuupseong. The measurement of Nammunji indicated continuing changes in behavior due to collapse and rainfall. It can be greatly presumed that accumulated changes over the long period reached the threshold due to concentrated rainfall and subsequent behavioral irregularities, leading to the walls' collapse. Based on the findings, suggestions of the six grades of management from 0 to 5 have been made, to manage the Hongjuupseong more effectively. The applied suggested grade system of 501.9 m (61.10%) was assessed to grade 1, 29.5 m (3.77%) to grade 2, 10.4 m (1.33%) to grade 3, 241.2 m (30.80%) and grade 4. The sections with grade 4 concentrated around the west of Honghwamun Gate and the east of the battlement, which must be monitored regularly in preparation for a potential emergency. The six-staged management grade system is cyclical, where after performing repair and maintenance works through a comprehensive stability review, the section returned to grade 0. It is necessary to monitor thoroughly and evaluate grades on a regular basis.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.157-176
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• 2012

Brand switching data frequently used in market structure analysis is adequate to analyze non- durable goods, because it can capture competition between specific two brands. But brand switching data sometimes can not be used to analyze goods like automobiles having long term duration because one of main assumptions that consumer preference toward brand attributes is not changed against time can be violated. Therefore a new type of data which can precisely capture competition among durable goods is needed. Another problem of using brand switching data collected from actual purchase behavior is short of explanation why consumers consider different set of brands. Considering above problems, main purpose of this study is to analyze market structure for durable goods with consideration set. The author uses exploratory approach and latent class clustering to identify market structure based on heterogeneous consideration set among consumers. Then the relationship between some factors and consideration set formation is analyzed. Some benefits and two demographic variables - age and income - are selected as factors based on consumer behavior theory. The author analyzed USA automotive market with top 11 brands using exploratory approach and latent class clustering. 2,500 respondents are randomly selected from the total sample and used for analysis. Six models concerning market structure are established to test. Model 1 means non-structured market and model 6 means market structure composed of six sub-markets. It is exploratory approach because any hypothetical market structure is not defined. The result showed that model 1 is insufficient to fit data. It implies that USA automotive market is a structured market. Model 3 with three market structures is significant and identified as the optimal market structure in USA automotive market. Three sub markets are named as USA brands, Asian Brands, and European Brands. And it implies that country of origin effect may exist in USA automotive market. Comparison between modal classification by derived market structures and probabilistic classification by research model was conducted to test how model 3 can correctly classify respondents. The model classify 97% of respondents exactly. The result of this study is different from those of previous research. Previous research used confirmatory approach. Car type and price were chosen as criteria for market structuring and car type-price structure was revealed as the optimal structure for USA automotive market. But this research used exploratory approach without hypothetical market structures. It is not concluded yet which approach is superior. For confirmatory approach, hypothetical market structures should be established exhaustively, because the optimal market structure is selected among hypothetical structures. On the other hand, exploratory approach has a potential problem that validity for derived optimal market structure is somewhat difficult to verify. There also exist market boundary difference between this research and previous research. While previous research analyzed seven car brands, this research analyzed eleven car brands. Both researches seemed to represent entire car market, because cumulative market shares for analyzed brands exceeds 50%. But market boundary difference might affect the different results. Though both researches showed different results, it is obvious that country of origin effect among brands should be considered as important criteria to analyze USA automotive market structure. This research tried to explain heterogeneity of consideration sets among consumers using benefits and two demographic factors, sex and income. Benefit works as a key variable for consumer decision process, and also works as an important criterion in market segmentation. Three factors - trust/safety, image/fun to drive, and economy - are identified among nine benefit related measure. Then the relationship between market structures and independent variables is analyzed using multinomial regression. Independent variables are three benefit factors and two demographic factors. The result showed that all independent variables can be used to explain why there exist different market structures in USA automotive market. For example, a male consumer who perceives all benefits important and has lower income tends to consider domestic brands more than European brands. And the result also showed benefits, sex, and income have an effect to consideration set formation. Though it is generally perceived that a consumer who has higher income is likely to purchase a high priced car, it is notable that American consumers perceived benefits of domestic brands much positive regardless of income. Male consumers especially showed higher loyalty for domestic brands. Managerial implications of this research are as follow. Though implication may be confined to the USA automotive market, the effect of sex on automotive buying behavior should be analyzed. The automotive market is traditionally conceived as male consumers oriented market. But the proportion of female consumers has grown over the years in the automotive market. It is natural outcome that Volvo and Hyundai motors recently developed new cars which are targeted for women market. Secondly, the model used in this research can be applied easier than that of previous researches. Exploratory approach has many advantages except difficulty to apply for practice, because it tends to accompany with complicated model and to require various types of data. The data needed for the model in this research are a few items such as purchased brands, consideration set, some benefits, and some demographic factors and easy to collect from consumers.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.79-111
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• 2011

Digital economy has grown rapidly so that the new business area called 'Internet business' has been dramatically extended as time goes on. However, in the case of Internet business, market shares of individual companies seem to fluctuate very extremely. Thus marketing managers who operate the Internet sites have seriously observed the competition structure of the Internet business market and carefully analyzed the competitors' behavior in order to achieve their own business goals in the market. The newly created Internet business might differ from the offline ones in management styles, because it has totally different business circumstances when compared with the existing offline businesses. Thus, there should be a lot of researches for finding the solutions about what the features of Internet business are and how the management style of those Internet business companies should be changed. Most marketing literatures related to the Internet business have focused on individual business markets. Specifically, many researchers have studied the Internet portal sites and the Internet shopping mall sites, which are the most general forms of Internet business. On the other hand, this study focuses on the entire Internet business industry to understand the competitive circumstance of online market. This approach makes it possible not only to have a broader view to comprehend overall e-business industry, but also to understand the differences in competition structures among Internet business markets. We used time-series data of Internet connection rates by consumers as the basic data to figure out the competition patterns in the Internet business markets. Specifically, the data for this research was obtained from one of Internet ranking sites, 'Fian'. The Internet business ranking data is obtained based on web surfing record of some pre-selected sample group where the possibility of double-count for page-views is controlled by method of same IP check. The ranking site offers several data which are very useful for comparison and analysis of competitive sites. The Fian site divides the Internet business areas into 34 area and offers market shares of big 5 sites which are on high rank in each category daily. We collected the daily market share data about Internet sites on each area from April 22, 2008 to August 5, 2008, where some errors of data was found and 30 business area data were finally used for our research after the data purification. This study performed several empirical analyses in focusing on market shares of each site to understand the competition among sites in Internet business of Korea. We tried to perform more statistically precise analysis for looking into business fields with similar competitive structures by applying the cluster analysis to the data. The research results are as follows. First, the leading sites in each area were classified into three groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The first group includes the sites with the lowest market shares, which give more increased convenience to consumers by offering the Internet sites as complimentary services for existing offline services. The second group includes sites with medium level of market shares, where the site users are limited to specific small group. The third group includes sites with the highest market shares, which usually require online registration in advance and have difficulty in switching to another site. Second, we analyzed the second place sites in each business area because it may help us understand the competitive power of the strongest competitor against the leading site. The second place sites in each business area were classified into four groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The four groups are the sites showing consistent inferiority compared to the leading sites, the sites with relatively high volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and high level of shares whose gaps are not big compared to the leading sites. Except 'web agency' area, these second place sites show relatively stable shares below 0.1 point of standard deviation. Third, we also classified the types of relative strength between leading sites and the second place sites by applying the cluster analysis to the gap values of market shares between two sites. They were also classified into four groups, the sites with the relatively lowest gaps even though the values of standard deviation are various, the sites with under the average level of gaps, the sites with over the average level of gaps, the sites with the relatively higher gaps and lower volatility. Then we also found that while the areas with relatively bigger gap values usually have smaller standard deviation values, the areas with very small differences between the first and the second sites have a wider range of standard deviation values. The practical and theoretical implications of this study are as follows. First, the result of this study might provide the current market participants with the useful information to understand the competitive circumstance of the market and build the effective new business strategy for the market success. Also it might be useful to help new potential companies find a new business area and set up successful competitive strategies. Second, it might help Internet marketing researchers take a macro view of the overall Internet market so that make possible to begin the new studies on overall Internet market beyond individual Internet market studies.