• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1-32
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• 2011

I. Introduction: In Chinese electronics industry, the local wholesalers are still dominant but power is rapidly swifting from wholesalers to retailers because in recent foreign big retailers and local mass merchandisers are growing fast. During such transient period, conflicts among channel members emerge important issues. For example, when wholesalers who have more power exercise influence strategies to maintain status, conflicts among manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer will be intensified. Korean electronics companies in China need differentiated channel strategies by dealing with wholesalers and retailers simultaneously to sell more Korean products in competition with foreign firms. For example, Korean electronics firms should utilize 'guanxi' or relational quality to form long-term relationships with whloesalers instead of power and conflict issues. The major purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of conflict, dependency, and influence strategies between local Korean-products-selling retailers and wholesalers on performance in Chinese electronics distribution channels. In particular, this paper proposes effective distribution strategies for Korean electronics companies in China by analyzing moderating effects of 'Guanxi'. II. Literature Review and Hypotheses: The specific purposes of this study are as follows. First, causes of conflicts between local Korean-products-selling retailers and wholesalers are examined from the perspectives of goal incongruence and role ambiguity and then effects of these causes are found out on perceived conflicts of local retailers. Second, the effects of dependency of local retailers upon wholesalers are investigated on local retailers' perceived conflicts. Third, the effects of non-coercive influence strategies such as information exchange and recommendation and coercive strategies such as threats and legalistic pleas exercised by wholesalers are explored on perceived conflicts by local retailers. Fourth, the effects of level of conflicts perceived by local retailers are verified on local retailers' financial performance and satisfaction. Fifth, moderating effects of relational qualities, say, 'quanxi' between wholesalers and retailers are analyzed on the impact of wholesalers' influence strategies on retailers' performances. Finally, moderating effects of relational qualities are examined on the relationship between conflicts and performance. To accomplish above-mentioned research objectives, Figure 1 and the following research hypotheses are proposed and verified. III. Measurement and Data Analysis: To verify the proposed research model and hypotheses, data were collected from 97 retailers who are selling Korean electronic products located around Central and Southern regions in China. Covariance analysis and moderated regression analysis were employed to validate hypotheses. IV. Conclusion: The following results were drawn using structural equation modeling and hierarchical moderated regression. First, goal incongruence perceived by local retailers significantly affected conflict but role ambiguity did not. Second, consistent with conflict spiral theory, the level of conflict decreased when retailers' dependency increased toward wholesalers. Third, noncoercive influence strategies such as information exchange and recommendation implemented by wholesalers had significant effects on retailers' performance such as sales and satisfaction without conflict. On the other hand, coercive influence strategies such as threat and legalistic plea had insignificant effects on performance in spite of increasing the level of conflict. Fourth, 'guanxi', namely, relational quality between local retailers and wholesalers showed unique effects on performance. In case of noncoercive influence strategies, 'guanxi' did not play a role of moderator. Rather, relational quality and noncoercive influence strategies can serve as independent variables to enhance performance. On the other hand, when 'guanxi' was well built due to mutual trust and commitment, relational quality as a moderator can positively function to improve performance even though hostile, coercive influence strategies were implemented. Fifth, 'guanxi' significantly moderated the effects of conflict on performance. Even if conflict arises, local retailers who form solid relational quality can increase performance by dealing with dysfunctional conflict synergistically compared with low 'quanxi' retailers. In conclusion, this study verified the importance of relational quality via 'quanxi' between local retailers and wholesalers in Chinese electronic industry because relational quality could cross out the adverse effects of coercive influence strategies and conflict on performance.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.111-122
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to survey the successful cases of small and medium Business Systematization Cognition by examining their entrepreneurial characteristics and analysing the factors affecting their success. To that end, previous studies on the association types of small businesses were studied. A research model was developed, and research hypotheses for an empirical analysis were established upon it. Suh et al. (2010) insist on the importance of Small Business Systematization in Korea but also show that small business performance is suffering: they are too small to stand alone. That is why association is so crucial for them: they must stand together. Unfortunately, association is difficult, as they have few specific links and little motivation. Even in franchising networks, association tends to be initiated by big franchisers, not small ones. In that sense, association among small businesses is crucial for their long-term survival. With this in mind, this study examines how they think and feel about the issue of 'Industrial Classification', how important Industrial Classification is to their business success, and what kinds of problems it raises in the markets. This study seeks the different cognitions among the association types of small businesses from the perspectives of participation motivation, systematization expectation, policy demand level, and management performance. We assume that different industrial classification types of small businesses will have different cognitions concerning these factors. There are four basic industrial classification types of small businesses: retail sales, restaurant, service, and manufacturing. To date, most of the studies in this area have focused on collecting data on the external environments of small businesses or performing statistical analyses on their status. In this study, we surveyed 4 market areas in Busan, Masan, and Changwon in Korea, where business associations consist of merchants, shop owners, and traders. We surveyed 330 shops and merchants by sending a questionnaire or visiting. Finally, 268 questionnaires were collected and used for the analysis. An ANOVA, T-test, and regression analyses were conducted to test the research hypotheses. The results demonstrate that there are differences in cognition depending upon the industrial classification type. Restaurants generally have a higher cognition concerning job offer problems and a lower cognition concerning their competitiveness. Restaurants also depend more on systematization expectation than do the other industrial classification types. On the policy demand level, restaurants have a higher cognition. This study identifies several factors that are contributing to management performance through differences in cognition that depend upon association type: systematization expectation and policy demand level have positive effects on management performance; participation motivation has a negative effect on management performance. We confirm also that the image factors of different cognitions are linked to an awareness of the value of systematization and that these factors show sequential and continual patterns in the course of generating performances. In conclusion, this study carries significant implications in its classifying of small businesses into the four different associational types (retail sales, restaurant, services, and manufacturing). We believe our study to be the first one to conduct an empirical survey in this subject area. More studies in this area will likely use our research frameworks. The data show that regionally based industrial classification associations such as those in rural cities or less developed areas tend to suffer more problems than those in urban areas. Moreover, restaurants suffer more problems than the norm. Most of the problems raised in this study concern the act of 'associating itself'. Most associations have serious difficulties in associating. On the other hand, the area where they have the least policy demand is that of service types. This study contributes to the argument that associating, rather than financial assistance or management consulting, promotes the start-up and managerial performance of small businesses. This study also has some limitations. The main limitation is the number of questionnaires. We could not survey all the industrial classification types across the country because of budget and time limitations. If we had, we could have produced many more useful results and enhanced the precision of our analysis. The history of systemization is very short and the number of industrial classification associations is relatively low in Korea. We should keep in mind, though, that this is very crucial to systemization entrepreneurs starting their businesses, as it can heavily affect their chances of success. Being strongly associated with each other might be critical to the business success of industrial classification members. Thus, the government needs to put more effort and resources into supporting the drive of industrial classification members to become more strongly associated.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.107-119
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to examine the current status of vascular plants and naturalized plants growing in the Seongeup Folk Village in Jeju and to consider and compare their distribution patterns and the characteristics of emergence of naturalized plants in other folk villages and all parts of Jeju, thereby exploring measures to well manage naturalized plants. The result of this study is as follows.11) The total number of vascular plants growing in Seongeup Folk Village is identified to be 354 taxa which include 93 families, 260 genus, 298 species, 44 varieties and 12 breeds. Among them, the number of naturalized plants is 55 taxa in total including 22 families, 46 genus, 53 species, and 2 varieties, which accounts for 21.7% of the total of 254 taxa identified all over the region of Jeju. The rate of naturalization in Seongeup Folk Village is 15.5%, which is far higher than the rates of plant naturalization in Hahoi Village in Andong, Yangdong Village in Gyeongju, Hangae Village in Seongju, Wanggok Village in Goseong, and Oeam Village in Asan. Among the naturalized plants identified within the targeted villages, the number of those growing in Jeju is 9 taxa including Silene gallica, Modiola caroliniana, Oenothera laciniata, Oenothera stricta, Apium leptophyllum, Gnaphalium purpureum, Gnaphalium calviceps, Paspalum dilatatum and Sisyrinchium angustifolium. It is suggested that appropriate management measures that consider the characteristics of the gateway to import and the birthplace of the naturalized plants are necessary. In the meantime, 3 more taxa that have not been included in the reference list of Jeju have been identified for the first time in Seongeup Folk Village, which include Bromus sterilis, Cannabis sativa and Veronica hederaefolia. The number of naturalized plants identified within the gardens of unit-based cultural properties is 20 taxa, among which the rate of prevalence of Cerastium glomeratum is the highest at 62.5%. On the other hand, the communities of plants that require landscape management are Brassica napus and other naturalized plants, including Cosmos bipinnatus, Trifolium repens, Medicago lupulina, Oenothera stricta, O. laciniata, Lotus corniculatus, Lolium perenne, Silene gallica, Hypochaeris radicata, Plantago virginica, Bromus catharticus and Cerastium glomeratum. As a short-term measure to manage naturalized plants growing in Seongeup Folk Village, it is important to identify the current status of Cosmos bipinnatus and Brassica napus that have been planted for landscape agriculture, and explore how to use flowers during the blooming season. It is suggested that Ambrosia artemisiifolia and Hypochaeris radicata, designated as invasive alien plants by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, should be eradicated initially, followed by regular monitoring in case of further invasion, spread or expansion. As for Hypochaeris radicata, in particular, some physical prevention measures need to be explored, such as for example, identifying the habitat density and eradication of the plant. In addition, it is urgent to remove plants, such as Sonchus oleraceus, Houttuynia cordata, Crassocephalum crepidioides, Erigeron annuus and Lamium purpureum with high index of greenness visually, growing wild at around high Jeongyi town walls. At the same time, as the distribution and dominance value of the naturalized plants growing in deserted or empty houses are high, it is necessary to find measures to preserve and manage them and to use the houses as lodging places.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.68-81
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• 2014

This study was conducted to identify the spacialty, to illuminate the existence and values of Myeongwoldae(明月臺) and Forest Myeongwol, and to suggest the sustainable usage, preservation and management plans with the purpose of ecological and cultural landscaping characteristic and value identification. The result of the study is as follows. Castle Myeongwol and Port Myeongwol shows the status of Hallim-eup Myeongwol District which is the administrative center of western Jeju as well as is the fortress. Building Wolgyejeongsa and School Woohakdang, the head temple of education and culture, located in Myeongwol District represents the spaciality of Myeonwol-ri which was the center of education. Stand Myeongwol is one of the most representative Confucian cultural landscapes in Jeju Island and the field of communion with nature where scholars enjoy poetries, nature, changgi(Korean chess), and go in the Joseon Dynasty period. It was found that the current relics of Myeongwoldae was recovered through the maintenance project conducted by Youth Group Myeongwol composed with Hongjong-si(洪鍾時) as the center during the Japanese colonial era in 1931. It seems that the stonework of Myeongwoldae composed of three levels in the order of square, octagon, and circle based on the heaven-man unity theory of Confucianism and the octagon in the middle is the messenger of Cheonwonjibang(天圓地方), in other words, between the square-shaped earth and the circle-shaped sky. It is assumed that both Grand Bridge Myeongwol and Bridge Myeongwol were constructed as arched bridges in early days. Bridge Myeongwol is the only arched bridge remaining in Jeju Island now, which has the modern cultural heritage value. In Forest Myeongwol, 97 taxa of plants were confirmed and in accordance with 'Taxonomic Group and Class Criteria of Floristic Specific Plants', eight taxa were found; Arachniodes aristata of FD IV and Ilex cornuta, Piper kadsura, Litsea japonica, Melia azedarach, Xylosma congestum, Richosanthes kirilowii var. japonica, Dichondra repens, Viburnum odoratissimum var. awabuki of FD III. Otherwise, 14 taxa of naturalized plants including Apium leptophylihum which is imported to Jeju Island only were confirmed. In Forest Myeongwol, 77 trees including 41 Celtis sinensis, 30 Aphananthe aspera, two Wylosma congestum, a Pinus densiflora, a Camellia japonica, a Melia azedarach, and an Ilex cornuta form a colony. Based on the researched data, the preservation and plans of Myeongwoldae and Forest Myeongwol is suggested as follows. Myeongwoldae, Bridge Myeongwol, and Forest Myeongwol should be managed as one integrated division. Bridge Myeongwol, an arched bridge which is hard to be found in Jeju Island is a high-standard stonework requiring long-term preservation plans. Otherwise, Grand Bridge Myeongwol that is exposed to accident risks because of deterioration and needs safety diagnosis requires measures according to the result of precise safety diagnosis. It is desirable to restore it to a two-sluice arched bridge as its initial shape and to preserve and use it as a representative local landmark with Stand Myeongwol. In addition, considering the topophsis based on the analysis result, the current name of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province Monument No. 19 'Myoengwol Hackberry Colony' should change to 'Myeongwol Hackberry-Muku Tree Colony'. In addition, the serial number system which is composed without distinction of hackberry and muku tree should be improved and the regular monitoring of big and old trees, specific plants, and naturalized species is required.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.41-66
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• 2017

The purpose of this research is to empirically trace the junctures of Yigye-gugok managed by Gwan-am Hong Gyeong-mo, a grandson of Yigye Hong Yang-ho who originally designed Yigye-gugok, while reviewing the features of the forms and patterns of gugok. The results of the research are as follows. 1. Ui-dong was part of the domain of the capital during the Chosun dynasty, which also is located in the city of Seoul as a matter of administrative zone. Likewisely, Yigye-gugok is taken as a special meaning for it was one and only gugok. Starting with Mangyeong Waterfall as the $1^{st}$ gok, Yigye follows through the $2^{nd}$ gok of Jeokchwibyeong Rock, the $3^{rd}$ gok of Chanunbong Peak, the $4^{th}$ gok of Jinuigang Rock, the $5^{th}$ gok of Okkyeongdae Rock, the $6^{th}$ gok of Wolyeongdam Pond, the $7^{th}$ gok of Tagyeongam Rock, the $8^{th}$ gok of Myeongoktan Stream, and the $9^{th}$ gok of Jaeganjeong Pavilion. Of these, Mangyeong Waterfall, Chanunbong Peak, and Okkyeongdae Rock are distinct for their locations in as much as their features, while estimated locations for Jinuigang Rock, Wolyeongdam Pond, Myeongoktan Stream, and Jaeganjeong Pavilion were discovered. However, Jeokchwibyeong Rock and Tagyeongam Rock demonstrated multiple locations in close resemblance to documentary literatures within secretive proximity, whereas geography, scenery, and sighted objects were considered to evaluate the 1st estimated location. Through these endeavored, it was possible to identify the shipping routes and structures for the total distance of 2.1km running from the $1^{st}$ gok to the $9^{th}$ gok, which nears Gwanam's description of 5ri(里), or approximately 1.96km for gugok. 2. Set towards the end of the $18^{th}$ century, Yigye-gugok originated from a series of work shaping the space of Hong Yang-ho's tomb into a space for the family. Comparing Yigye-gugok to other gugoks, numerous differences are apparent from beyond the rather more general format such as adjoining the $8^{th}$ gok while paving through the lower directions from the upper directions of the water. This gives rises to the interpretation such that Yigye-gugok was positioned to separate the doman of the family from those of the other families in power, thereby taking over Ui-dong. Yet, the aspect of the possession of the space lends itself to the determination that the location positioned at the $8^{th}$ gok above Mangyeongpok Waterfall representing Wooyi-dong was a consequence of the centrifugal space creation efforts. 3. While writings and poetic works were manufactured in such large quantities in Yigye-gugok whose products of setters and managers seemed intended towards gugok-do and letters carved on the rocks among others, there is yet a tremendous lack of visual media in the same respect. 'Yigye-gugok Daejacheop' Specimens of Handwriting offers the traces of Gwanam's attempts to engrave gakja at the food of Yigye-gugok. This research was able to ascertain that 'Yigye-gugok Daejacheop' Specimens of Handwriting was a product of Hong Yang-ho's collections maintained under the auspices of the National Central Museum, which are renowned for Song Shi-yeol's penmanship.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.171-179
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• 2017

Purpose: We conducted comparative analysis of dietary behavior and food and nutrient intakes of Korean elderly in urban and rural areas using the 2014 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). Methods: This study was conducted on 1,239 participants (urban elderly: 867, rural elderly: 372) aged 65 years and over who participated in the health examination and nutrition survey in the 6th 2014 KNHANES. Dietary behaviors, including skipping meals, eating out frequencies, and food and nutrient intakes were analyzed using 24-hour recall data. Analysis of complex sample design data through SPSS 19.0 was used for the analysis. Results: The rate of skipping dinner was higher in urban (6.5%) than in rural elderly (3.6%) (p < 0.05), and the frequency of eating out per week of urban elderly (1.73) was higher than that of rural elderly (1.35) (p < 0.001). The rural elderly consumed a greater amount of grain compared to urban elderly, whereas consumption of water, seaweed food, and dairy products was lower in rural than in urban areas (p < 0.05). The rural elderly consumed significantly less highly unsaturated fatty acids, n-6 fatty acids, phosphorus, iron, vitamin A, carotene, niacin, and vitamin C in comparison with elderly in urban areas. Comparison of the percentages of Dietary Reference Intakes for Koreans (KDRIs) between the two groups showed that intakes of vitamin A and vitamin C were significantly lower in the rural elderly than in urban elderly. Conclusion: The elderly in rural areas showed unbalanced food and nutrient intakes compared to the elderly in urban areas. Therefore, customized nutrition education according to residential areas should be developed and provided to rural elderly to improve their health and nutritional status.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.29-62
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• 2012

As distribution environment is changing rapidly and competition is more intensive in the channel of distribution, the importance of retailer image and retailer equity is increasing as a different competitive advantages. Also, consumers are not functionally oriented and that their behavior is significantly affected by the symbols such as retailer image which identify retailer in the market place. That is, consumers do not choose products or retailers for their material utilities but consume the symbolic meaning of those products or retailers as expressed in their self images. The concept of self-image congruence has been utilized by marketers and researchers as an aid in better understanding how consumers identify themselves with the brands they buy and the retailer they patronize. Although self-image congruity theory has been tested across many product categories, the theory has not been tested extensively in the retailing. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of self image congruence between retailer image and self image of consumer on retailer equity such as retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty. The purpose of this study is to find out whether retailer-self image congruence can be a new antecedent of retailer equity. In addition, this study tries to examine how four-dimensional retailer equity constructs (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) affect customers' repatronage intention. For this study, data were gathered by survey and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study was 254. The reliability of the all seven dimensions was estimated with Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability values and average variance extracted values. We determined whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity and discriminant validity by Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted values exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the AMOS 18.0. As expected, the image congruence hypotheses were supported. The greater the degree of congruence between retailer image and self-image, the more favorable were consumers' retailer evaluations. The all two retailer-self image congruence (actual self-image congruence and ideal self-image congruence) affected customer based retailer equity. This result means that retailer-self image congruence is important cue for customers to estimate retailer equity. In other words, consumers are often more likely to prefer products and retail stores that have images similar to their own self-image. Especially, it appeared that effect for the ideal self-image congruence was consistently larger than the actual self-image congruence on the retailer equity. The results mean that consumers prefer or search for stores that have images compatible with consumer's perception of ideal-self. In addition, this study revealed that customers' estimations toward customer based retailer equity affected the repatronage intention. The results showed that all four dimensions (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) had positive effect on the repatronage intention. That is, management and investment to improve image congruence between retailer and consumers' self make customers' positive evaluation of retailer equity, and then the positive customer based retailer equity can enhance the repatonage intention. And to conclude, retailer's image management is an important part of successful retailer performance management, and the retailer-self image congruence is an important antecedent of retailer equity. Therefore, it is more important to develop and improve retailer's image similar to consumers' image. Given the pressure to provide increased image congruence, it is not surprising that retailers have made significant investments in enhancing the fit between retailer image and self image of consumer. The enhancing such self-image congruence may allow marketers to target customers who may be influenced by image appeals in advertising.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.75-95
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• 2020

With the growth of social networks, various forms of SNS have emerged. Based on various motivations for use such as interactivity, information exchange, and entertainment, SNS users are also on the fast-growing trend. Facebook is the main SNS channel, and companies have started using Facebook pages as a public relations channel. To this end, in the early stages of operation, companies began to secure a number of fans, and as a result, the number of corporate Facebook fans has recently increased to as many as millions. from a corporate perspective, Facebook is attracting attention because it makes it easier for you to meet the customers you want. Facebook provides an efficient advertising platform based on the numerous data it has. Advertising targeting can be conducted using their demographic characteristics, behavior, or contact information. It is optimized for advertisements that can expose information to a desired target, so that results can be obtained more effectively. it rethink and communicate corporate brand image to customers through contents. The study was conducted through Facebook advertising data, and could be of great help to business people working in the online advertising industry. For this reason, the independent variables used in the research were selected based on the characteristics of the content that the actual business is concerned with. Recently, the company's Facebook page operation goal is to go beyond securing the number of fan pages, branding to promote its brand, and further aiming to communicate with major customers. the main figures for this assessment are Facebook's 'OK', 'Attachment', 'Share', and 'Number of Click' which are the dependent variables of this study. in order to measure the outcome of the target, the consumer's response is set as a key measurable key performance indicator (KPI), and a strategy is set and executed to achieve this. Here, KPI uses Facebook's ad numbers 'reach', 'exposure', 'like', 'share', 'comment', 'clicks', and 'CPC' depending on the situation. in order to achieve the corresponding figures, the consideration of content production must be prior, and in this study, the independent variables were organized by dividing into three considerations for content production into three. The effects of content material, content structure, and message styles on Facebook's user behavior were analyzed using regression analysis. Content materials are related to the content's difficulty, company relevance, and daily involvement. According to existing research, it was very important how the content would attract users' interest. Content could be divided into informative content and interesting content. Informational content is content related to the brand, and information exchange with users is important. Interesting content is defined as posts that are not related to brands related to interesting movies or anecdotes. Based on this, this study started with the assumption that the difficulty, company relevance, and daily involvement have an effect on the dependent variable. In addition, previous studies have found that content types affect Facebook user activity. I think it depends on the combination of photos and text used in the content. Based on this study, the actual photos were used and the hashtag and independent variables were also examined. Finally, we focused on the advertising message. In the previous studies, the effect of advertising messages on users was different depending on whether they were narrative or non-narrative, and furthermore, the influence on message intimacy was different. In this study, we conducted research on the behavior that Facebook users' behavior would be different depending on the language and formality. For dependent variables, 'OK' and 'Full Click Count' are set by every user's action on the content. In this study, we defined each independent variable in the existing study literature and analyzed the effect on the dependent variable, and found that 'good' factors such as 'self association', 'actual use', and 'hidden' are important. Could. Material difficulties', 'actual participation' and 'large scale * difficulties'. In addition, variables such as 'Self Connect', 'Actual Engagement' and 'Sexual Sexual Attention' have been shown to have a significant impact on 'Full Click'. It is expected that through research results, it is possible to contribute to the operation and production strategy of company Facebook operators and content creators by presenting a content strategy optimized for the purpose of the content. In this study, we defined each independent variable in the existing research literature and analyzed its effect on the dependent variable, and we could see that factors on 'good' were significant such as 'self-association', 'reality use', 'concernal material difficulty', 'real-life involvement' and 'massive*difficulty'. In addition, variables such as 'self-connection', 'real-life involvement' and 'formative*attention' were shown to have significant effects for 'full-click'. Through the research results, it is expected that by presenting an optimized content strategy for content purposes, it can contribute to the operation and production strategy of corporate Facebook operators and content producers.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.47-73
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• 2020

KTX rolling stocks are a system consisting of several machines, electrical devices, and components. The maintenance of the rolling stocks requires considerable expertise and experience of maintenance workers. In the event of a rolling stock failure, the knowledge and experience of the maintainer will result in a difference in the quality of the time and work to solve the problem. So, the resulting availability of the vehicle will vary. Although problem solving is generally based on fault manuals, experienced and skilled professionals can quickly diagnose and take actions by applying personal know-how. Since this knowledge exists in a tacit form, it is difficult to pass it on completely to a successor, and there have been studies that have developed a case-based rolling stock expert system to turn it into a data-driven one. Nonetheless, research on the most commonly used KTX rolling stock on the main-line or the development of a system that extracts text meanings and searches for similar cases is still lacking. Therefore, this study proposes an intelligence supporting system that provides an action guide for emerging failures by using the know-how of these rolling stocks maintenance experts as an example of problem solving. For this purpose, the case base was constructed by collecting the rolling stocks failure data generated from 2015 to 2017, and the integrated dictionary was constructed separately through the case base to include the essential terminology and failure codes in consideration of the specialty of the railway rolling stock sector. Based on a deployed case base, a new failure was retrieved from past cases and the top three most similar failure cases were extracted to propose the actual actions of these cases as a diagnostic guide. In this study, various dimensionality reduction measures were applied to calculate similarity by taking into account the meaningful relationship of failure details in order to compensate for the limitations of the method of searching cases by keyword matching in rolling stock failure expert system studies using case-based reasoning in the precedent case-based expert system studies, and their usefulness was verified through experiments. Among the various dimensionality reduction techniques, similar cases were retrieved by applying three algorithms: Non-negative Matrix Factorization(NMF), Latent Semantic Analysis(LSA), and Doc2Vec to extract the characteristics of the failure and measure the cosine distance between the vectors. The precision, recall, and F-measure methods were used to assess the performance of the proposed actions. To compare the performance of dimensionality reduction techniques, the analysis of variance confirmed that the performance differences of the five algorithms were statistically significant, with a comparison between the algorithm that randomly extracts failure cases with identical failure codes and the algorithm that applies cosine similarity directly based on words. In addition, optimal techniques were derived for practical application by verifying differences in performance depending on the number of dimensions for dimensionality reduction. The analysis showed that the performance of the cosine similarity was higher than that of the dimension using Non-negative Matrix Factorization(NMF) and Latent Semantic Analysis(LSA) and the performance of algorithm using Doc2Vec was the highest. Furthermore, in terms of dimensionality reduction techniques, the larger the number of dimensions at the appropriate level, the better the performance was found. Through this study, we confirmed the usefulness of effective methods of extracting characteristics of data and converting unstructured data when applying case-based reasoning based on which most of the attributes are texted in the special field of KTX rolling stock. Text mining is a trend where studies are being conducted for use in many areas, but studies using such text data are still lacking in an environment where there are a number of specialized terms and limited access to data, such as the one we want to use in this study. In this regard, it is significant that the study first presented an intelligent diagnostic system that suggested action by searching for a case by applying text mining techniques to extract the characteristics of the failure to complement keyword-based case searches. It is expected that this will provide implications as basic study for developing diagnostic systems that can be used immediately on the site.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2020

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, various techniques have been developed to extract meaningful information from unstructured text data which constitutes a large portion of big data. Over the past decades, text mining technologies have been utilized in various industries for practical applications. In the field of business intelligence, it has been employed to discover new market and/or technology opportunities and support rational decision making of business participants. The market information such as market size, market growth rate, and market share is essential for setting companies' business strategies. There has been a continuous demand in various fields for specific product level-market information. However, the information has been generally provided at industry level or broad categories based on classification standards, making it difficult to obtain specific and proper information. In this regard, we propose a new methodology that can estimate the market sizes of product groups at more detailed levels than that of previously offered. We applied Word2Vec algorithm, a neural network based semantic word embedding model, to enable automatic market size estimation from individual companies' product information in a bottom-up manner. The overall process is as follows: First, the data related to product information is collected, refined, and restructured into suitable form for applying Word2Vec model. Next, the preprocessed data is embedded into vector space by Word2Vec and then the product groups are derived by extracting similar products names based on cosine similarity calculation. Finally, the sales data on the extracted products is summated to estimate the market size of the product groups. As an experimental data, text data of product names from Statistics Korea's microdata (345,103 cases) were mapped in multidimensional vector space by Word2Vec training. We performed parameters optimization for training and then applied vector dimension of 300 and window size of 15 as optimized parameters for further experiments. We employed index words of Korean Standard Industry Classification (KSIC) as a product name dataset to more efficiently cluster product groups. The product names which are similar to KSIC indexes were extracted based on cosine similarity. The market size of extracted products as one product category was calculated from individual companies' sales data. The market sizes of 11,654 specific product lines were automatically estimated by the proposed model. For the performance verification, the results were compared with actual market size of some items. The Pearson's correlation coefficient was 0.513. Our approach has several advantages differing from the previous studies. First, text mining and machine learning techniques were applied for the first time on market size estimation, overcoming the limitations of traditional sampling based- or multiple assumption required-methods. In addition, the level of market category can be easily and efficiently adjusted according to the purpose of information use by changing cosine similarity threshold. Furthermore, it has a high potential of practical applications since it can resolve unmet needs for detailed market size information in public and private sectors. Specifically, it can be utilized in technology evaluation and technology commercialization support program conducted by governmental institutions, as well as business strategies consulting and market analysis report publishing by private firms. The limitation of our study is that the presented model needs to be improved in terms of accuracy and reliability. The semantic-based word embedding module can be advanced by giving a proper order in the preprocessed dataset or by combining another algorithm such as Jaccard similarity with Word2Vec. Also, the methods of product group clustering can be changed to other types of unsupervised machine learning algorithm. Our group is currently working on subsequent studies and we expect that it can further improve the performance of the conceptually proposed basic model in this study.