• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.489-498
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• 2013

A new Bacillus strain degrading starch, named Bacillus sp. UEB-S, was isolated from a southern Tunisian area. Amylase production using solid-state fermentation on millet, an inexpensive and available agro-resource, was investigated. Response surface methodology was applied to establish the relationship between enzyme production and four variables: inoculum size, moisture-to-millet ratio, temperature, and fermentation duration. The maximum enzyme activity recovered was 680 U/g of dry substrate when using $1.38{\times}10^9$ CFU/g as inoculation level, 5.6:1 (ml/g) as moisture ratio (86%), for 4 days of cultivation at $37^{\circ}C$, which was in perfect agreement with the predicted model value. Amylase was purified by Q-Sepharose anion-exchange and Sephacryl S-200 gel filtration chromatography with a 14-fold increase in specific activity. Its molecular mass was estimated at 130 kDa. The enzyme showed maximal activity at pH 5 and $70^{\circ}C$, and efficiently hydrolyzed starch to yield glucose and maltose as end products. The enzyme proved its efficiency for digesting raw cereal below gelatinization temperature and, hence, its potentiality to be used in industrial processes.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.7
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• pp.23-30
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• 2013

Purpose - The study attempts to investigate the relationship between inventory management and firm performance using a multi-dimensional aspect of inventory management with respect to lean management practices across countries. Research design, data, and methodology - 1643 manufacturing firms from Japan and the US that SIC ranges from 2000 to 3999 were chosen to conduct the empirical test. This study employs hierarchical OLS regression analysis to examine the impact of control variables, ABI, EBI, and the interaction between ABI and EBI on firm performance. Results - The result indicates that in Japan high level of inventory negatively influences the accounting flows of business, while US manufactures exhibit strong positive impact of ELI on firm performance across accounting and market measures. The results show that the complementarity between the amount and the speed of inventory does exist. Except for Tobin's q, the sign of interaction term coefficient is negative, suggesting that when the amount of inventory increases and it stays longer in a firm, market values, ROS, and ROA suffers. Conclusions - The major finding of this study is that there exist some complementarities between the scope and implication of inventory management for lean strategy across countries, particularly in U.S. and Japanese firms.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.343-353
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• 2017

Nursing students who are in clinical practices under the complicated medical environment to become competent practitioners can be exposed to a variety of dangerous situations. In particular, nursing students can experience stress and compromised safety because they have difficulty in prioritizing their tasks and lack confidence in clinical and interpersonal skills. The purpose of this study is to investigate the types and characteristics of nursing students' attitudes toward the safety of clinical practices, and improve their safety related to clinical practices. A total of 40 statements about the safety of clinical practices were applied to 37 nursing students. Collected data were analyzed with the PC QUANL program. The Perception of nursing students to the safety of clinical practices was categorized into three types: 'Pursuit of perfection in overwhelming state type', 'Perseverance Patience type' and 'Cover up-meeting expectation type'. The subjects related to the safety of clinical practices need to be developed within the curriculum of nursing departments by examining the Perception of nursing students to the safety of clinical practices. In addition, a sense of responsibility shared by nursing students, educators and practitioners needs to be enhanced to improve the safety of clinical practices.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.120-128
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• 2015

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a useful method in product design and development to maximize customer satisfaction. In the QFD, the technical attributes (TAs) affecting the product performance are identified, and product performance is improved to optimize customer requirements (CRs). For product development, determining the optimal levels of TAs is crucial during QFD optimization. Many optimization methods have been proposed to obtain the optimal levels of TAs in QFD. In these studies, the levels of TAs are assumed to be continuous while they are often taken as discrete in real world application. Another assumption in QFD optimization is that the requirements of the heterogeneous customers can be generalized and hence only one house of quality (HoQ) is used to connect with CRs. However, customers often have various requirements and preferences on a product. Therefore, a product market can be partitioned into several market segments, each of which contains a number of customers with homogeneous preferences. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes an optimization approach to find the optimal set of TAs under multi-segment market. Dynamic Programming (DP) methodology is developed to maximize the overall customer satisfaction for the market considering the weights of importance of different segments. Finally, a case study is provided for illustrating the proposed optimization approach.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.113-118
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• 2012

In this paper, we discuss the design of the Digital Down Converters for the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN receiver, which can be used for the customized receiver. The customized receiver can be used for special puropsed services which cannot be realized using the general custom chip. In the OFDM receiver, DDC receives the up sampled Inphase/Quadrature signal from the AD converter and process down sampling and filtering procedures using the Cascaded Intergrator Filter and FIR filters. We discuss the structure and design methodology of DDC's and analyze the simulation results.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.251-265
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• 2017

Purpose: This study is an integrative review to analyze articles about sex education for school age children in Korean journals. This study explored the year, methods, major variables and key findings of previous studies. Methods: Five electronic databases and eleven journals of nursing in Korean language were searched to find studies done until 2017. 75 papers published from 1995 to 2017 were selected (43 were survey studies and 32 were intervention studies). Results: Among the intervention studies, there was no Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) study. Most intervention studies were conducted to change sexual knowledge and sexual attitudes. Among the survey studies, Q methodology and content analysis were used. The subjects' sexual knowledge and sexual consciousness were measured low in some studies. The sex education for school age children was composed of elementary school students' perception, understanding and needs related to sex. In addition, sex education was carried out to improve students' informational aspects such as sexual knowledge, prevention of sexual violence and secondary sexual character as well as emotional aspects such as sexual attitude. However, research on sexual consciousness, sexual values and sexual identity was insufficient. Conclusion: In order to develop an effective sex education program for school age children, it is necessary to consider the degree of their perception, understanding and needs and reflect both the social and cultural aspects as well as the informational and emotional aspects.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.545-553
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• 2021

Fixed-dose combinations development requires pharmacokinetic drugdrug interaction (DDI) studies between active ingredients. For some drugs, pharmacokinetic properties such as long half-life or delayed distribution, make it difficult to conduct such clinical trials and to estimate the exact magnitude of DDI. In this study, the conventional (non-compartmental analysis and bioequivalence [BE]) and model-based analyses were compared for their performance to evaluate DDI using amlodipine as an example. Raw data without DDI or simulated data using pharmacokinetic models were compared to the data obtained after concomitant administration. Regardless of the methodology, all the results fell within the classical BE limit. It was shown that the model-based approach may be valid as the conventional approach and reduce the possibility of DDI overestimation. Several advantages (i.e., quantitative changes in parameters and precision of confidence interval) of the model-based approach were demonstrated, and possible application methods were proposed. Therefore, it is expected that the model-based analysis is appropriately utilized according to the situation and purpose.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.13-22
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• 2022

Purpose: The paper contributes to the existing literature on Vietnamese corporate governance and firm performance with a focus on listed family firms and the use of a more suitable econometric framework to analyze firm performance. The study investigates how family firm performance is affected by corporate governance under the standpoint of stewardship theory in Vietnam. Research design, data and methodology: With the use of different measures for firm performance (Tobin's Q, ROA, and ROE), regression models were estimated using Generalized Least Square (GLS) method on a panel data of a total of 113 listed companies during the five-year period from 2015 to 2019. Results: We found that family ownership as the main characteristic of the stewardship theory affects family firms positively. In addition, several other characteristics in corporate governance as board composition (board independence, board audits, and board committees), CEO (age and tenure) and firm characteristics (size, age, expansion, and annual sales) showed significant impacts on firm performance. Our findings also suggest that family firm performance can be either positively or negatively affected based on the characteristics of corporate governance. The findings can help companies evaluate the significance of corporate governance through deciding board structure and the selection of CEOs to match family firm characteristics. It also gives insights for investors, rating agencies, and policymakers for relevant purposes.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.45-56
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• 2020

Purpose The purpose of this study is to present the direction of efficient e-learning education through the importance and satisfaction survey of learners of non-face-to-face video lectures. Therefore, by grasping the degree of satisfaction of the importance ratio through the IPA analysis method, we try to present improvement measures for insufficient education methods. Design/methodology/approach For IPA analysis, we conducted an online survey of four universities and analyzed 154 samples. The analysis method used SPSS, and through the wordcloud analysis method of R, the suggestions for the non-face-to-face lecture method felt by learners were analyzed to derive implications for improving the quality of education. Findings As a result of the overall satisfaction survey for the entire non-face-to-face class, the factors with the greatest dissatisfaction are listed as follows. Complaints about the adequacy of learning materials and activities (quiz, discussion, assignments, etc.), Complaints about how to use the produced content, and complaints about announcements about class management (lecture schedule, lecture method) were identified in order. The factors of dissatisfaction were clear in the non-face-to-face class where interactive communication was impossible or insufficient. In addition to the lack of quick Q&A, there seems to have been a phenomenon of some neglect.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.35-44
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• 2022

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to find out the impact of ownership structure on firm performance in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry of Bangladesh. Research design, data and methodology: The study has been conducted on 28 listed pharmaceutical and chemical companies from 2012 to 2020. Return on Assets (ROA) and Tobin's Q are selected as indicators of internal and market performance of the firms respectively whereas institutional ownership, directors' ownership and foreign ownership are selected as proxies of ownership structure. Panel analysis using random effects, lag method and time dummy method is used to analyse the relationship. Results: The study has found the existence of highly concentrated directors' ownership, a low percentage of institutional ownership and a very insignificant proportion of foreign ownership in the industry. The regression results show that directors' ownership has a positive and significant impact on firm performance, supporting the concept of agency theory. The study has also found a positive and significant impact of foreign ownership on firm performance. Unfortunately, the impact of institutional ownership is found to be insignificant. Conclusions: Directors' ownership and foreign ownership decreases agency cost that ultimately increases firm performance. However, the role of institutional investors is not significant enough to improve firm performance. It is suggested that institutional investors should be more active and involved in monitoring the activities of the organisations to improve performance.