• Title/Summary/Keyword: software high quality

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Development of Overhead Projector Films, CD-ROM, and Bio-Cosmos Home Page as Teaching Resources for High School Biology (고교 생물의 오버헤드 프로젝터용 필름 제작 및 전달 매체로서의 CD-ROM과 홈페이지의 설계)

  • Song, Bang-Ho;Sin, Youn-Uk;Choi, Mie-Sook;Park, Chang-Bo;Ahn, Na-Young;Kang, Jae-Seuk;Kim, Jeung-Hyun;Seo, Hae-Ae;Kwon, Duck-Kee;Sohn, Jong-Kyung;Chung, Hwa-Sook;Yang, Hong-Jun;Park, Sung-Ho
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.19 no.3
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    • pp.428-440
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    • 1999
  • The colorful overhead projector films, named as Bio-cosmos II, including photographs, pictures, concept maps, and diagrams, were developed and manufactured as audio-visual teaching aids and teaching resources for students' biology learning in high school, and the CD-ROM and web sites for their application to the school were also constructed. The content of the films was organized based upon the analysis of seven different biology textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education. The films were designated based on various instructional strategies and manufactured using multimedia with various educational softwares. The CD-ROM was composed of the scenes as logo, initial main, chapters list, contents, and quit. Initial main scene indicated various chapters according to the texts of biology areas in General Science, Biology I, and II. Each chapters linked with the scenes for detailed concept maps, the downstream real subjects, and contents. The subject screens were composed of various types of summarized diagrams including lesson contents, figures, pictures, photographs, and their explanation, experimental procedures and results, tables for summarized contents, and additional animation with video captures, explanations, glossary, etc. Most files were manufactured in software Adobe Photoshop by scanning the pictures, figures and photographs, and then the explanation, modification, storing with PICT or PSD files, and transformation with JPG files, were processed in the aspect of high quality in terms of instructional strategies and graphic skills on gracefulness, clearness, colorfulness, brightness, and distinctness. A 14 films for biology areas in General Science, 80 for Biology I, and 142 for Biology II were manufactured and loaded to the CD-ROM and web site, and the files had been attempted to opened with an internet home-page of http://gic.kyungpook.ac.kr/biocosmos.

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Image Watermarking for Copyright Protection of Images on Shopping Mall (쇼핑몰 이미지 저작권보호를 위한 영상 워터마킹)

  • Bae, Kyoung-Yul
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.147-157
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    • 2013
  • With the advent of the digital environment that can be accessed anytime, anywhere with the introduction of high-speed network, the free distribution and use of digital content were made possible. Ironically this environment is raising a variety of copyright infringement, and product images used in the online shopping mall are pirated frequently. There are many controversial issues whether shopping mall images are creative works or not. According to Supreme Court's decision in 2001, to ad pictures taken with ham products is simply a clone of the appearance of objects to deliver nothing but the decision was not only creative expression. But for the photographer's losses recognized in the advertising photo shoot takes the typical cost was estimated damages. According to Seoul District Court precedents in 2003, if there are the photographer's personality and creativity in the selection of the subject, the composition of the set, the direction and amount of light control, set the angle of the camera, shutter speed, shutter chance, other shooting methods for capturing, developing and printing process, the works should be protected by copyright law by the Court's sentence. In order to receive copyright protection of the shopping mall images by the law, it is simply not to convey the status of the product, the photographer's personality and creativity can be recognized that it requires effort. Accordingly, the cost of making the mall image increases, and the necessity for copyright protection becomes higher. The product images of the online shopping mall have a very unique configuration unlike the general pictures such as portraits and landscape photos and, therefore, the general image watermarking technique can not satisfy the requirements of the image watermarking. Because background of product images commonly used in shopping malls is white or black, or gray scale (gradient) color, it is difficult to utilize the space to embed a watermark and the area is very sensitive even a slight change. In this paper, the characteristics of images used in shopping malls are analyzed and a watermarking technology which is suitable to the shopping mall images is proposed. The proposed image watermarking technology divide a product image into smaller blocks, and the corresponding blocks are transformed by DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform), and then the watermark information was inserted into images using quantization of DCT coefficients. Because uniform treatment of the DCT coefficients for quantization cause visual blocking artifacts, the proposed algorithm used weighted mask which quantizes finely the coefficients located block boundaries and coarsely the coefficients located center area of the block. This mask improves subjective visual quality as well as the objective quality of the images. In addition, in order to improve the safety of the algorithm, the blocks which is embedded the watermark are randomly selected and the turbo code is used to reduce the BER when extracting the watermark. The PSNR(Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) of the shopping mall image watermarked by the proposed algorithm is 40.7~48.5[dB] and BER(Bit Error Rate) after JPEG with QF = 70 is 0. This means the watermarked image is high quality and the algorithm is robust to JPEG compression that is used generally at the online shopping malls. Also, for 40% change in size and 40 degrees of rotation, the BER is 0. In general, the shopping malls are used compressed images with QF which is higher than 90. Because the pirated image is used to replicate from original image, the proposed algorithm can identify the copyright infringement in the most cases. As shown the experimental results, the proposed algorithm is suitable to the shopping mall images with simple background. However, the future study should be carried out to enhance the robustness of the proposed algorithm because the robustness loss is occurred after mask process.

The Causes of Conflict and the Effect of Control Mechanisms on Conflict Resolution between Manufacturer and Supplier (제조-공급자간 갈등 원인과 거래조정 방식의 갈등관리 효과)

  • Rhee, Jin Hwa
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.55-80
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    • 2012
  • I. Introduction Developing the relationships between companies is very important issue to ensure a competitive advantage in today's business environment (Bleeke & Ernst 1991; Mohr & Spekman 1994; Powell 1990). Partnerships between companies are based on having same goals, pursuing mutual understanding, and having a professional level of interdependence. By having such a partnerships and cooperative efforts between companies, they will achieve efficiency and effectiveness of their business (Mohr and Spekman, 1994). However, it is difficult to expect these ideal results only in the B2B corporate transaction. According to agency theory which is the well-accepted theory in various fields of business strategy, organization, and marketing, the two independent companies have fundamentally different corporate purposes. Also there is a higher chance of developing opportunism and conflict due to natures of human(organization), such as self-interest, bounded rationality, risk aversion, and environment factor as imbalance of information (Eisenhardt 1989). That is, especially partnerships between principal(or buyer) and agent(or supplier) of companies within supply chain, the business contract itself will not provide competitive advantage. But managing partnership between companies is the key to success. Therefore, managing partnership between manufacturer and supplier, and finding causes of conflict are essential to improve B2B performance. In conclusion, based on prior researches and Agency theory, this study will clarify how business hazards cause conflicts on supply chain and then identify how developed conflicts have been managed by two control mechanisms. II. Research model III. Method In order to validate our research model, this study gathered questionnaires from small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs). In Korea, SMEs mean the firms whose employee is under 300 and capital is under 8 billion won(about 7.2 million dollar). We asked the manufacturer's perception about the relationship with the biggest supplier, and our key informants are denied to a person responsible for buying(ex)CEO, executives, managers of purchasing department, and so on). In detail, we contact by telephone to our initial sample(about 1,200 firms) and introduce our research motivation and send our questionnaires by e-mail, mail, and direct survey. Finally we received 361 data and eliminate 32 inappropriate questionnaires. We use 329 manufactures' data on analysis. The purpose of this study is to identify the anticipant role of business hazard (environmental dynamism, asset specificity) and investigate the moderating effect of control mechanism(formal control, social control) on conflict-performance relationship. To find out moderating effect of control methods, we need to compare the regression weight between low versus. high group(about level of exercised control methods). Therefore we choose the structural equation modeling method that is proper to do multi-group analysis. The data analysis is performed by AMOS 17.0 software, and model fits are good statically (CMIN/DF=1.982, p<.000, CFI=.936, IFI=.937, RMSEA=.056). IV. Result V. Discussion Results show that the higher environmental dynamism and asset specificity(on particular supplier) buyer(manufacturer) has, the more B2B conflict exists. And this conflict affect relationship quality and financial outcomes negatively. In addition, social control and formal control could weaken the negative effect of conflict on relationship quality significantly. However, unlikely to assure conflict resolution effect of control mechanisms on relationship quality, financial outcomes are changed by neither social control nor formal control. We could explain this results with the characteristics of our sample, SMEs(Small and Medium sized Enterprises). Financial outcomes of these SMEs(manufacturer or principal) are affected by their customer(usually major company) more easily than their supplier(or agent). And, in recent few years, most of companies have suffered from financial problems because of global economic recession. It means that it is hard to evaluate the contribution of supplier(agent). Therefore we also support the suggestion of Gladstein(1984), Poppo & Zenger(2002) that relational performance variable can capture the focal outcomes of relationship(exchange) better than financial performance variable. This study has some implications that it tests the sources of conflict and investigates the effect of resolution methods of B2B conflict empirically. And, especially, it finds out the significant moderating effect of formal control which past B2B management studies have ignored in Korea.

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Analysis of the ESD and DAP According to the Change of the Cine Imaging Condition of Coronary Angiography and Usefulness of SNR and CNR of the Images: Focusing on the Change of Tube Current (관상동맥 조영술(Coronary Angiography)의 씨네(cine) 촬영조건 변화에 따른 입사표면선량(ESD)과 흡수선량(DAP) 및 영상의 SNR·CNR 유용성 분석: 관전류 변화를 중점으로)

  • Seo, Young Hyun;Song, Jong Nam
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.371-379
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    • 2019
  • The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the change in the X-ray condition on the entrance surface dose (ESD) and dose area product (DAP) in the cine imaging of coronary angiography (CAG), and to analyze the usefulness of the condition change on the dose relation and image quality by measuring and analyzing the Signal to Noise Radio (SNR) and Contrast to Nois Ratio (CNR) of the angiographic images taken by the Image J program. Data were collected from 33 patients (24 males and 9 females) who underwent CAG at this hospital from November 2017 to March 2018. In terms of imaging condition and data acquisition, the ESD and DAP of group A with a high tube current of 397.2 mA and group B with a low tube current of 370.7 mA were retrospectively obtained for comparison and analysis. For the SNR and CNR measurement and analysis via Image J, the result values were derived by substituting the obtained data into the formula. The correlations among ESD and DAP according to the change in the imaging condition, SNR, and CNR were analyzed by using the SPSS statistical analysis software. The relationships of groups A and B, having a difference in the imaging condition, mA, with ESD ($A:483.5{\pm}60.1$; $B: 464.4{\pm}39.9$) and DAP ($A:84.3{\pm}10.7$; $B:81.5{\pm}7$) were not statistically significant (p>0.05). In the relationships with SNR and CNR based on Image J, the SNR ($5.451{\pm}0.529$) and CNR ($0.411{\pm}0.0432$) of the images obtained via the left coronary artery (LCA) imaging of group B showed differences of $0.475{\pm}0.096$ and $-0.048{\pm}0.0$, respectively, from the SNR ($4.976{\pm}0.433$) and CNR ($0.459{\pm}0.0431$) of the LCA of group A. However, the differences were not statistically significant (p<0.05). In the SNR and CNR obtained via the right coronary artery (RCA) imaging, the SNR ($4.731{\pm}0.773$) and CNR ($0.354{\pm}0.083$) of group A showed increased values of $1.491{\pm}0.405$ and $0.188{\pm}0.005$, respectively, from the SNR ($3.24{\pm}0.368$) and CNR ($0.166{\pm}0.033$) of group B. Among these, CNR was statistically significant (p<0.05). In the correlation analysis, statistically significant results were shown in SNR (LCA) and CNR (LCA); SNR (RCA) and CNR (RCA); ESD and DAP; ESD and sec; DAP and CNR (RCA); and DAP and sec (p<0.05). As a result of the analyses on the image quality evaluation and usefulness of the dose change, the SNR and CNR were increased in the RCA images of the CAG obtained by increasing the mA. Based on the result that CNR showed a statistically significant difference, it is believed that the contrast in the image quality can be further improved by increasing the mA in RCA imaging.

The Actual State and the Utilization for Dental Radiography in Korea (국내 치과방사선의 현황 및 이용 실태)

  • Shin, Gwi-Soon;Kim, You-Hyun;Lee, Bo-Ram;Kim, Se-Young;Lee, Gui-Won;Park, Chang-Seo;Park, Hyok;Chang, Kye-Yong
    • Journal of radiological science and technology
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    • v.33 no.2
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    • pp.109-120
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    • 2010
  • The purpose of this study was first to analyze the utilization of dental examination through questionnaire to develop a diagnostic reference level of patient doses for dental radiography in korea. 77 dental institutions were classified into three groups: A group for the dental hospitals of the college of dentistry (11 institutions), B group for dental hospitals (30 institutions) and C group for dental clinics (36 institutions). The results were as follows : The mean numbers of unit chairs and medical staffs were 140.2, 15.3 and 5.8 sets, 112.6, 7.3 and 1.7 dentists, 3.1, 0.5 and no one radiologic technologists, and 19.7, 12.5 and 3.3 dental hygienists in A, B and C groups, respectively. The mean numbers of dental X-ray equipments were 14.64, 3.21 and 2.19 in A, B and C groups, respectively. Intraoral dental X-ray unit was used the most, the following equipments were panoramic, cephalometric, and cone-beam CT units. The most used X-ray imaging system was also digital system (above 50%) in all three groups. Insight dental film (Kodak, USA) having high sensitivity was routinely used for periapical radiography. The automatic processor was not used in many dental institutions, but the film-holding device was used in many dental institutions. The utilization rates of PACS in A, B and C groups were 90.9%, 83.3% and 16.7% respectively, and the PACS software program was used the most PiView STAR (Infinitt, Korea). The annual mean number of radiographic cases in one dental institution in 2008 for A group was 6.8 times and 21.2 times more than those for B and C groups, and periapical and panoramic radiographs were taken mostly. Tube voltage (kVp) and tube current (mA) for periapical radiography were similar in all three groups, but exposure time in C group was 12.0 times and 3.5 times longer than those in B and C groups. The amount of radiation exposure in C group, in which dental hygienists take dental radiographs, was more than those in other groups. The exposure parameters for panoramic radiography were similar in all three groups. In conclusion, the exposure parameters in dental radiography should be determined with reference level, not past experiences. Use of automatic processor and film-holding devices reduces the radiation exposure in film system. The quality assurance of dental equipments are necessary for the reduction of the patient dose and the improvement of X-ray image quality.

Assessment of the usefulness of the Machine Performance Check system that is an evaluation tools for the determination of daily beam output (일간 빔 출력 확인을 위한 평가도구인 Machine Performance Check의 유용성 평가)

  • Lee, Sang Hyeon;Ahn, Woo Sang;Lee, Woo Seok;Choi, Jin Hyeok;Kim, Seon Yeon
    • The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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    • v.29 no.2
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    • pp.65-73
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    • 2017
  • Purpose: Machine Performance Check (MPC) is a self-checking software based on the Electronic Portal Imaging Device (EPID) to measure daily beam outputs without external installation. The purpose of this study is to verify the usefulness of MPC by comparing and correlating daily beam output of QA Beamchecker PLUS. Materials and Methods: Linear accelerator (Truebeam 2.5) was used to measure 10 energies which are composed of photon beams(6, 10, 15 MV and 6, 10 MV-FFF) and electron beams(6, 9, 12, 16 and 20 MeV). A total of 80 cycles of data was obtained by measuring beam output measurement before treatment over five months period. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the consistency of the beam output between the MPC and the QA Beamchecker PLUS. In this study, if the Pearson correlation coefficient is; (1) 0.8 or higher, the correlation is very strong (2) between 0.6 and 0.79, the correlation is strong (3) between 0.4 and 0.59, the correlation is moderate (4) between 0.2 and 0.39, the correlation is weak (5) lower than 0.2, the correlation is very weak. Results: Output variations observed between MPC and QA Beamchecker PLUS were within 2 % for photons and electrons. The beam outputs variations of MPC were $0.29{\pm}0.26%$ and $0.30{\pm}0.26%$ for photon and electron beams, respectively. QA Beamchecker PLUS beam outputs were $0.31{\pm}0.24%$ and $0.33{\pm}0.24%$ for photon and electron beams, respectively. The Pearson correlation coefficient between MPC and QA Beamchecker PLUS indicated that photon beams were very strong at 15 MV, and strong at 6 MV, 10 MV, 6 MV-FFF and 10 MV-FFF. For electron beams, the Pearson correlation coefficient were strong at 16 MeV and 20 MeV, moderate at 9 MeV and 12 MeV, and very weak at 6 MeV. Conclusion: MPC showed significantly strong correlation with QA Beamchecker PLUS when testing with photon beams and high-energy electron beams in the evaluation of daily beam output, but the correlation when testing with low-energy electron beams (6 MeV) appeared to be low. However, MPC and QA Beamchecker PLUS are considered to be suitable for checking daily beam output, as they performed within 2 % of beam output consistency during the observation. MPC which can perform faster than the conventional daily beam output measurement tool, is considered to be an effective method for users.

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Effect of mixed Cropping with Legume and using fermented Cattle Manure on Productivity of Whole Crop Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and Organic Hanwoo feeding Capacity in Gyeongbuk Region of Korea (경북지역에서 콩과 사료작물의 혼파 재배와 발효 우분의 시용이 청보리의 생산성과 유기 한우 사육능력에 미치는 영향)

  • Jo, Ik-Hwan
    • Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.525-537
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    • 2016
  • This study was aimed to grow organic forage as a prime requirement for organic Hanwoo cattle production over a period of 3 years (2012~2015) in Gyeongbuk region, Korea through mixed cropping of winter fodder barley with legume and application of fermented cattle manure. The effect of barley-legume mixed cropping and application of different levels of fermented cattle manure was studied on forage productivity of whole-crop barley (WCB) and evaluation of feeding capacity of Korean native cattle (Hanwoo) per unit area. The collected data was analyzed using SAS 9.3 software. Barley-legume mixed cropping increased (P<0.05) yields of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and total digestible nutrients (TDN) as compared to those of sole WCB as monoculture. Similarly, acid detergent fiber (ADF) contents and relative feed value (RFV) were also higher (P<0.05) in barley-legume mixed sowing forage compared with those of sole WCB as monoculture. In case of manure application, yields of DM, CP and TDN were also found (P<0.05) highest in 100~150 kg N/ha. However, varying cattle manure levels did not influence (P>0.05) CP and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) contents. In response to increasing nitrogen application level, ADF content increased (P<0.05) but TDN content and RFV decreased (P<0.05). The Barley-legume mixed sowing and increasing application levels of fermented cattle manure also significantly enhanced (P<0.05) feeding capacity of organic Hanwoo (head/ha) having 450 kg body weight with 400 g of daily gain. Findings of present study indicated that barley-legume biculture not only cut nitrogen application level of fermented cattle manure by over 50 kg per ha but also increased their feed value and productivity of forage as compared to WCB monoculture. This would be contribution to the diversity of forage resources as well as production of organic animal product by creating low cost and high quality organic forage.

The Study about Application of LEAP Collimator at Brain Diamox Perfusion Tomography Applied Flash 3D Reconstruction: One Day Subtraction Method (Flash 3D 재구성을 적용한 뇌 혈류 부하 단층 촬영 시 LEAP 검출기의 적용에 관한 연구: One Day Subtraction Method)

  • Choi, Jong-Sook;Jung, Woo-Young;Ryu, Jae-Kwang
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.102-109
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    • 2009
  • Purpose: Flash 3D (pixon(R) method; 3D OSEM) was developed as a software program to shorten exam time and improve image quality through reconstruction, it is an image processing method that usefully be applied to nuclear medicine tomography. If perfoming brain diamox perfusion scan by reconstructing subtracted images by Flash 3D with shortened image acquisition time, there was a problem that SNR of subtracted image is lower than basal image. To increase SNR of subtracted image, we use LEAP collimators, and we emphasized on sensitivity of vessel dilatation than resolution of brain vessel. In this study, our purpose is to confirm possibility of application of LEAP collimators at brain diamox perfusion tomography, identify proper reconstruction factors by using Flash 3D. Materials and methods: (1) The evaluation of phantom: We used Hoffman 3D Brain Phantom with $^{99m}Tc$. We obtained images by LEAP and LEHR collimators (diamox image) and after 6 hours (the half life of $^{99m}Tc$: 6 hours), we use obtained second image (basal image) by same method. Also, we acquired SNR and ratio of white matters/gray matters of each basal image and subtracted image. (2) The evaluation of patient's image: We quantitatively analyzed patients who were examined by LEAP collimators then was classified as a normal group and who were examined by LEHR collimators then was classified as a normal group from 2008. 05 to 2009. 01. We evaluate the results from phantom by substituting factors. We used one-day protocol and injected $^{99m}Tc$-ECD 925 MBq at both basal image acquisition and diamox image acquisition. Results: (1) The evaluation of phantom: After measuring counts from each detector, at basal image 41~46 kcount, stress image 79~90 kcount, subtraction image 40~47 kcount were detected. LEAP was about 102~113 kcount at basal image, 188~210 kcount at stress image and 94~103 at subtraction image kcount were detected. The SNR of LEHR subtraction image was decreased than LEHR basal image about 37%, the SNR of LEAP subtraction image was decreased than LEAP basal image about 17%. The ratio of gray matter versus white matter is 2.2:1 at LEHR basal image and 1.9:1 at subtraction, and at LEAP basal image was 2.4:1 and subtraction image was 2:1. (2) The evaluation of patient's image: the counts acquired by LEHR collimators are about 40~60 kcounts at basal image, and 80~100 kcount at stress image. It was proper to set FWHM as 7 mm at basal and stress image and 11mm at subtraction image. LEAP was about 80~100 kcount at basal image and 180~200 kcount at stress image. LEAP images could reduce blurring by setting FWHM as 5 mm at basal and stress images and 7 mm at subtraction image. At basal and stress image, LEHR image was superior than LEAP image. But in case of subtraction image like a phantom experiment, it showed rough image because SNR of LEHR image was decreased. On the other hand, in case of subtraction LEAP image was better than LEHR image in SNR and sensitivity. In all LEHR and LEAP collimator images, proper subset and iteration frequency was 8 times. Conclusions: We could archive more clear and high SNR subtraction image by using proper filter with LEAP collimator. In case of applying one day protocol and reconstructing by Flash 3D, we could consider application of LEAP collimator to acquire better subtraction image.

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The Mediating Effect of Experiential Value on Customers' Perceived Value of Digital Content: China's Anti-virus Program Market (경험개치대소비자대전자내용적인지개치적중개영향(经验价值对消费者对电子内容的认知价值的中介影响): 중국살독연건시장(中国杀毒软件市场))

  • Jia, Weiwei;Kim, Sae-Bum
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.219-230
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    • 2010
  • Digital content makes big changes to our daily lives while bringing opportunities and challenges for companies. Creative firms integrate pictures, texts, videos, audios, and data by digitalization to develop new products or services and create digital experiences to promote their brands. Most articles on digital content contribute to the basic concept or development of marketing it in literature. Actually, compared with traditional value chains for common products or services, the digital content industry seems to have more potential value. Because quite a bit of digital content is free to the consumer, price is not necessarily perceived as an indicator of the quality or value of information (Rowley 2008). It becomes evident that a current theme in digital content is the issue of "value," and research on customers' perceived value of digital content is a necessity. This article argues that experiential value has an advantage in customers' evaluations of digital content. Two different but related contributions to the understanding of "value" of digital content are made here. First, based on the comparison of digital content with products and services, the article proposes two key characteristics that make experiential strategy available for digital content: intangibility and near-zero reproduction cost. On top of that, based on the discussion of the gap between company's idealized value and customer's perceived value, this article emphasizes that digital content prices and pricing of digital content is different from products and services. As a result of intangibility, prices may not reflect customer value. Moreover, the cost of digital content in the development stage may be very high while reproduction costs shrink dramatically. Moreover, because of the value gap mentioned before, the pricing polices vary for different digital contents. For example, flat price policy is generally used for movies and music (Magiera 2001; Netherby 2002), while for continuous demand, digital content such as online games and anti-virus programs involves a more complicated matter of utility and competitive price levels. Digital content companies have to explore various kinds of strategies to overcome this gap. Rethinking marketing solutions such as advertisements, images, and word-of-mouth and their effect on customers' perceived value becomes essential. China's digital content industry is becoming more and more globalized and drawing special attention from different countries and regions that have respective competitive advantages. The 2008-2009 Annual Report on the Development of China's Digital Content Industry (CCIDConsulting 2009) indicates that, with the driven power of domestic demand and governmental policy support, the country's digital content industry maintained a fast growth of some 30 percent in 2008, obviously indicating the initial stage of industry expansion. In China, anti-virus programs and other software programs which need to be updated use a quarter-based pricing policy. Customers can download a trial version for free and use it for six months or a year. If they want to use it longer, continuous payment is needed. They examine the excellence of the digital content during this trial period and decide whether to pay for continued usage. For China’s music and movie industries, as a result of initial development, experiential strategy has not been much applied, even though firms in other countries find the trial experience and explore important strategies(such as customers listening to music for several seconds for free before downloading it). For the above reasons, anti-virus program may be a representative for digital content industry in China and an exploratory study of the advantage of experiential value in customer's perceived value of digital content is done in the anti-virus market of China. In order to enhance the reliability of the survey data, this study focused on people who were experienced users of anti-virus programs. The empirical results revealed that experiential value has a positive effect on customers' perceived value of digital content. In other words, because digital content is intangible and the reproduction costs are nearly zero, customers' evaluations are based heavily on their experience. Moreover, image and word-of-mouth do not have a positive effect on perceived value, only on experiential value. That is to say, a digital content value chain is different from that of a general product or service. Experiential value has a notable advantage and mediates the effect of image and word-of-mouth on perceived value. The results of this study help provide an understanding of why free digital content downloads exist in developing countries. Customers can perceive the value of digital content only by using and experiencing it. This is also why such governments support the development of digital content. Other developing countries whose digital content business is also in the beginning stage can make use of the suggestions here. Moreover, based on the advantage of experiential strategy, companies should make more of an effort to invest in customers' experience. As a result of the characteristics and value gap of digital content, customers perceive more value in the intangible digital content only by experiencing what they really want. Moreover, because of the near-zero reproduction costs, companies can perhaps use experiential strategy to enhance customer understanding of digital content.

Information Privacy Concern in Context-Aware Personalized Services: Results of a Delphi Study

  • Lee, Yon-Nim;Kwon, Oh-Byung
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.63-86
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    • 2010
  • Personalized services directly and indirectly acquire personal data, in part, to provide customers with higher-value services that are specifically context-relevant (such as place and time). Information technologies continue to mature and develop, providing greatly improved performance. Sensory networks and intelligent software can now obtain context data, and that is the cornerstone for providing personalized, context-specific services. Yet, the danger of overflowing personal information is increasing because the data retrieved by the sensors usually contains privacy information. Various technical characteristics of context-aware applications have more troubling implications for information privacy. In parallel with increasing use of context for service personalization, information privacy concerns have also increased such as an unrestricted availability of context information. Those privacy concerns are consistently regarded as a critical issue facing context-aware personalized service success. The entire field of information privacy is growing as an important area of research, with many new definitions and terminologies, because of a need for a better understanding of information privacy concepts. Especially, it requires that the factors of information privacy should be revised according to the characteristics of new technologies. However, previous information privacy factors of context-aware applications have at least two shortcomings. First, there has been little overview of the technology characteristics of context-aware computing. Existing studies have only focused on a small subset of the technical characteristics of context-aware computing. Therefore, there has not been a mutually exclusive set of factors that uniquely and completely describe information privacy on context-aware applications. Second, user survey has been widely used to identify factors of information privacy in most studies despite the limitation of users' knowledge and experiences about context-aware computing technology. To date, since context-aware services have not been widely deployed on a commercial scale yet, only very few people have prior experiences with context-aware personalized services. It is difficult to build users' knowledge about context-aware technology even by increasing their understanding in various ways: scenarios, pictures, flash animation, etc. Nevertheless, conducting a survey, assuming that the participants have sufficient experience or understanding about the technologies shown in the survey, may not be absolutely valid. Moreover, some surveys are based solely on simplifying and hence unrealistic assumptions (e.g., they only consider location information as a context data). A better understanding of information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services is highly needed. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to identify a generic set of factors for elemental information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services and to develop a rank-order list of information privacy concern factors. We consider overall technology characteristics to establish a mutually exclusive set of factors. A Delphi survey, a rigorous data collection method, was deployed to obtain a reliable opinion from the experts and to produce a rank-order list. It, therefore, lends itself well to obtaining a set of universal factors of information privacy concern and its priority. An international panel of researchers and practitioners who have the expertise in privacy and context-aware system fields were involved in our research. Delphi rounds formatting will faithfully follow the procedure for the Delphi study proposed by Okoli and Pawlowski. This will involve three general rounds: (1) brainstorming for important factors; (2) narrowing down the original list to the most important ones; and (3) ranking the list of important factors. For this round only, experts were treated as individuals, not panels. Adapted from Okoli and Pawlowski, we outlined the process of administrating the study. We performed three rounds. In the first and second rounds of the Delphi questionnaire, we gathered a set of exclusive factors for information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services. The respondents were asked to provide at least five main factors for the most appropriate understanding of the information privacy concern in the first round. To do so, some of the main factors found in the literature were presented to the participants. The second round of the questionnaire discussed the main factor provided in the first round, fleshed out with relevant sub-factors. Respondents were then requested to evaluate each sub factor's suitability against the corresponding main factors to determine the final sub-factors from the candidate factors. The sub-factors were found from the literature survey. Final factors selected by over 50% of experts. In the third round, a list of factors with corresponding questions was provided, and the respondents were requested to assess the importance of each main factor and its corresponding sub factors. Finally, we calculated the mean rank of each item to make a final result. While analyzing the data, we focused on group consensus rather than individual insistence. To do so, a concordance analysis, which measures the consistency of the experts' responses over successive rounds of the Delphi, was adopted during the survey process. As a result, experts reported that context data collection and high identifiable level of identical data are the most important factor in the main factors and sub factors, respectively. Additional important sub-factors included diverse types of context data collected, tracking and recording functionalities, and embedded and disappeared sensor devices. The average score of each factor is very useful for future context-aware personalized service development in the view of the information privacy. The final factors have the following differences comparing to those proposed in other studies. First, the concern factors differ from existing studies, which are based on privacy issues that may occur during the lifecycle of acquired user information. However, our study helped to clarify these sometimes vague issues by determining which privacy concern issues are viable based on specific technical characteristics in context-aware personalized services. Since a context-aware service differs in its technical characteristics compared to other services, we selected specific characteristics that had a higher potential to increase user's privacy concerns. Secondly, this study considered privacy issues in terms of service delivery and display that were almost overlooked in existing studies by introducing IPOS as the factor division. Lastly, in each factor, it correlated the level of importance with professionals' opinions as to what extent users have privacy concerns. The reason that it did not select the traditional method questionnaire at that time is that context-aware personalized service considered the absolute lack in understanding and experience of users with new technology. For understanding users' privacy concerns, professionals in the Delphi questionnaire process selected context data collection, tracking and recording, and sensory network as the most important factors among technological characteristics of context-aware personalized services. In the creation of a context-aware personalized services, this study demonstrates the importance and relevance of determining an optimal methodology, and which technologies and in what sequence are needed, to acquire what types of users' context information. Most studies focus on which services and systems should be provided and developed by utilizing context information on the supposition, along with the development of context-aware technology. However, the results in this study show that, in terms of users' privacy, it is necessary to pay greater attention to the activities that acquire context information. To inspect the results in the evaluation of sub factor, additional studies would be necessary for approaches on reducing users' privacy concerns toward technological characteristics such as highly identifiable level of identical data, diverse types of context data collected, tracking and recording functionality, embedded and disappearing sensor devices. The factor ranked the next highest level of importance after input is a context-aware service delivery that is related to output. The results show that delivery and display showing services to users in a context-aware personalized services toward the anywhere-anytime-any device concept have been regarded as even more important than in previous computing environment. Considering the concern factors to develop context aware personalized services will help to increase service success rate and hopefully user acceptance for those services. Our future work will be to adopt these factors for qualifying context aware service development projects such as u-city development projects in terms of service quality and hence user acceptance.