A Study on Relationship between Degree of Stress and Dyspepsia, Sleeping, Satisfaction of Adult Women in Rural Area (성인 여성들의 스트레스와 소화불량 및 수면장애와의 관련성)
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- Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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- v.25 no.1
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- pp.51-63
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- 2000
Ten Dongs were selected according to the systematic cluster sampling in Koryong Gun, and the survey was conducted on 571 women in the age between 30-69 years. The first survey was performed for 6 days between August 27 to September 1, 1999 with the investigation rate of 60.3%, and the second survey was performed in November with the investigation rate of 91.8%. The contents of survey included demographic characteristics, health behaviors, dyspepsia symptom score, sleeping induction time and the degree of sleep satisfaction, and degree of stress in the subjects. The dyspepsia symptom score was in the average 13.4 points out of a total 44 points and was the highest in the 50-59 year-old age group with 13.9 points. The sleep induction time was in the average of 35 minutes and was the highest in the 50-59 year-old age group with 40.9 minutes; the degree of sleep satisfaction was in the average of 7.9 points and was the lowest in the 50-59 year-old age group with 7.5 points. The stress score was in the average of 18.3 points and was highest in those subjects in their 40's and 50's with 18.7 points. When the correlation among the stress score, the degree of sleep satisfaction and dyspepsia symptom score was analyzed, the results showed that he stress score and the degree of sleep satisfaction showed a significant negative correlation and that the stress score and dyspepsia symptom score showed a significant positive correlation. Also, a significant negative correlation was found between the degree of sleep satisfaction and dyspepsia symptom score. According to each age group, a significant correlation was revealed among the stress score, dyspepsia symptom score and the degree of sleep satisfaction in those subjects over 40 years of age compared to those subjects who were younger than 40 years of age. As for educational level, the correlation among the stress score, the degree of sleep satisfaction and dyspepsia symptom score was higher in those subjects with less than middle school education compared to those subjects with more than high school education. When those factors that effects on the dyspepsia symptom score were analyzed with multiple regression, the results showed that the level of stress and chronic diseases were selected as significant variables. When those factors that affected on the degree of sleep satisfaction were analyzed, the sleep induction time and presence of chronic diseases and stress were selected as significant variables. Those women in their 50's who live in rural areas showed the highest level of stress, lowest the degree of sleep satisfaction, and highest level of dyspepsia, indicating that they need stress management. Also, since stress was showed to be a significant variable effecting on dyspepsia or the degree of sleep satisfaction, it is concluded that health promotion is possible through stress management. More studies are needed in the future on coping resources that would strengthen coping against stress, and by conducting studies on stress and related factors on community people, the measures of mental health promotion need to be developed.
As recent developments of Immunology and Nuclear medicine, serum IgE and IgG values are helpful in the diagnosis and evaluation of the therapeutic effects of nasal allergies. But in Korea, air pollution and the increased use of food additives have become leading factors in nasal allergies, It seems to be induced by environmental change, especially industrialization and urbanization, so allergic rhinitis in our environment has changed in accordance with the changes made in the living environment. Therefore this study is attempted in order to observe a clinical analysis which places more importance on allergic rhinitis. We studied 200 patients who had visited Kyunghee Oriental Medical Center with allergic rhinitis from January 1, 1999 to December 31, 1999 The results were as follows: 1. The sex distribution was 114 males(57%) and 86 females(43%). In age distribution, the average age was 25. In males, ages ranged from 3 to 66 years old and the average was 23.81. In females, ages ranged from 4 to 67 years old and the average was 28.57. The peak age was 30～39 years old(24%); under 9 years old and 10～19 years old were each 18%; 20～29 years old was 22%; 40～49 years old was 11 %; over 50 years old 6.5%. The gulf between males and females showed a statistically significant difference(P<0.025). 2. In the age of onset, male' s maximum was 62.5, minimum was 0.25; female s maximum was 59.5, minimum was 0.2. Under 9 years old was the most with 34%(male 24%, female 10%), 10～19 years old was 18%, 20～29 years old was 22.5%, 30～39 years old was 13.50%, over 40 years old was 12%, The gulf between males and females were showed statistically significant difference.(p<0.014) 3. The average duration of the disease was 5.67 years. In male and female, the maximum was 30, the minimum was 0.05; under 5 years old was the most with 62%(male 34.50%, female 27.50%); 6～10 years old was 23%. So, under 10 years old was 85%. There was no statistically significant difference in the duration of disease. 4. Regarding type of residence, 47.50% of patients with allergic rhinitis lived in apartments, 52.50% lived in houses. In males, 29.50% lived in apartments, 27.50% lived in houses. In females, 18% lived in apartments, 25% lived in houses. There was no statistically significant difference in the residence by T-test and chi-test. 5. In the distribution of season, spring is the most with 29.5% of patients, winter 28%, fall 25.5%, and summer 17%. But there was no statistically significant difference. 6. After observing 200 patients with allergic rhinitis, classifying main symptoms into 5 types, sneezing was the main symptom in 177cases(88.50%), nasal obstruction in 176cases(88%), rhinorrhea in 169cases(84.5%), post nasal discharge in 87cases(43.50%), and itching in I04cases(52%). The Cumulus ration is 98.50% and symptoms overlapped with an average 3.57±0.1 times but in an analysis of variance of these symptoms, the gulf between males and females was not recognized as statistically significant by T-test and ANOVA. 7. Patients whose families have allergic diseases account for 90 cases(45%) : 49cases(24.50%) male and 41cases(20.50%) female. There were 4 cases (71.11 %) whose families have allergic rhinitis, 9cases(10%) of asthma, and 7.78% with allergic dermatitis. There were 61 (67.80%) cases of patients whose parents have allergic diseases; cases wherein the patient s child had allergic diseases numbered 13 (14.45%); and cases with a sibling with allergic diseases totalled 16cases (17.80%). There was no statistically significant difference in allergic disease regarding sex, parents, or siblings by chi-test. 8. Blood type: For males, type A is the most common, with 37cases(18.5%), followed by type B with 32cases(16%), type O 28cases(l4%) and type AB 13cases(6.5%). For females, type B is the most common, with 30cases(15%), followed by type O with 23cases(l1.5%), type A with 18cases(9%) and type AB with 13cases(6.5%). There was no statistically significant difference in blood type by chi-test. 9. In the selection of prefered food, most patients prefer cool food, with 98 such cases(49%), tepid food in 54cases(27%) and warm food in 48cases(24%). These showed a statistically significant difference in the selection of prefered food between males and females by chi-test(p<0.009). 10. The state of Past History was classified into II types. chronic hypertrophic rhinitis is the most common with 11cases (18.64%), tonsil and adenoid hypertrophy is 8cases(l3.56%), sinusitis is 6cases(10.17%), nasal septum deviation is 4cases, nasal polyp is 2cases, others are 10cases(l6.95%). No statistically significant difference in past history between males and females was shown, but a statistically significant difference was shown when males and females were compared with total cases by T-test(p<0.002, P<0.0008). 11. Regarding complications, 37 patients (28.91%) had sinusitis: 22cases(17.19%) in male, 15cases(11.72%) in female. Chronic hypertrophic rhinitis was found in 15cases(11.72%). Others are under 10%. There was no statistically significant difference in the type of complications between males and females, but a statistically significant difference was shown when males and females were compared with total cases by T-test(P<0.00l, P<0.007). 12. In the treatment, medication was used 1691 times, an average of 2.58 times. No.34 was used 370 times for 124 cases, an average of 2.98 times. No. 152 was used 318 times for 106 cases, an average of 3.00 times. No.151 was used 307 times for 97cases, an average of 3.16 times. No. 31 was used 117 times for 33 cases, an average of 3.55 times. No 25 was used 116 times for 33 cases, an average of 3.52 times. 13. In the duration of treatment, the most frequent is 1 week(69cases, 34.50%), the maximum is 20weeks, and the minimum is 1week. A treatment period of 2～3 weeks accounted for 32% of cases, a period of 4～5weeks accounted for 13.5%. The gulf between males and females showed a statistically significant difference in the duration of treatment.(p<0.01). There was a statistical significance when the males were compared with total cases by ANOVA(P<0.03). 14. A comparison between before-treatment and after-treatment showed a statistically significant difference in treatment by T-test (p<0.01) and F-test (p<0.0058).
Researchers in welfare services of local government in Korea have rather been on isolated issues as disables, childcare, aging phenomenon, etc. (Kang, 2004; Jung et al., 2009). Lately, local officials, yet, realize that they need more comprehensive welfare services for all residents, not just for above-mentioned focused groups. Still cases dealt with focused group approach have been a main research stream due to various reason(Jung et al., 2009; Lee, 2009; Jang, 2011). Social Security Information System is an information system that comprehensively manages 292 welfare benefits provided by 17 ministries and 40 thousand welfare services provided by 230 local authorities in Korea. The purpose of the system is to improve efficiency of social welfare delivery process. The study of local government expenditure has been on the rise over the last few decades after the restarting the local autonomy, but these studies have limitations on data collection. Measurement of a local government's welfare efforts(spending) has been primarily on expenditures or budget for an individual, set aside for welfare. This practice of using monetary value for an individual as a "proxy value" for welfare effort(spending) is based on the assumption that expenditure is directly linked to welfare efforts(Lee et al., 2007). This expenditure/budget approach commonly uses total welfare amount or percentage figure as dependent variables (Wildavsky, 1985; Lee et al., 2007; Kang, 2000). However, current practice of using actual amount being used or percentage figure as a dependent variable may have some limitation; since budget or expenditure is greatly influenced by the total budget of a local government, relying on such monetary value may create inflate or deflate the true "welfare effort" (Jang, 2012). In addition, government budget usually contain a large amount of administrative cost, i.e., salary, for local officials, which is highly unrelated to the actual welfare expenditure (Jang, 2011). This paper used local government welfare service data from the detailed data sets linked to the Social Security Information System. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that affect social welfare spending of 230 local authorities in 2012. The paper applied multiple regression based model to analyze the pooled financial data from the system. Based on the regression analysis, the following factors affecting self-funded welfare spending were identified. In our research model, we use the welfare budget/total budget(%) of a local government as a true measurement for a local government's welfare effort(spending). Doing so, we exclude central government subsidies or support being used for local welfare service. It is because central government welfare support does not truly reflect the welfare efforts(spending) of a local. The dependent variable of this paper is the volume of the welfare spending and the independent variables of the model are comprised of three categories, in terms of socio-demographic perspectives, the local economy and the financial capacity of local government. This paper categorized local authorities into 3 groups, districts, and cities and suburb areas. The model used a dummy variable as the control variable (local political factor). This paper demonstrated that the volume of the welfare spending for the welfare services is commonly influenced by the ratio of welfare budget to total local budget, the population of infants, self-reliance ratio and the level of unemployment factor. Interestingly, the influential factors are different by the size of local government. Analysis of determinants of local government self-welfare spending, we found a significant effect of local Gov. Finance characteristic in degree of the local government's financial independence, financial independence rate, rate of social welfare budget, and regional economic in opening-to-application ratio, and sociology of population in rate of infants. The result means that local authorities should have differentiated welfare strategies according to their conditions and circumstances. There is a meaning that this paper has successfully proven the significant factors influencing welfare spending of local government in Korea.
Background: Factors related to waiting and staying time for patient care in emergency care center (ECC) were examined during 1 month from Apr. 1 to Apr. 30, 1997 at an ECC of Yeungnam university hospital in Taegu metropolitan city, to obtain the baseline data on the strategy of effective management of emergency patients. Method: The study subjects consisted of the 1,742 patients who visited at ECC and the data were obtained from the medical records of ECC and direct surveys. Results: The mean interval between ECC admission time and initial care time by each ECC duty residents was 83.1 minutes for male patients and 84.9 minutes for female patients, and mean ECC staying time (time interval between admission and final disposition from ECC) was 718.0 minutes in men and 670.5 minutes in women. As the results, the mean staying time in ECC was higher in older age, and especially the both of initial care time and staying time were highest in patients of medical aid, and shortest in patients of worker's accident compensation insurance. The on admission or not, previously endotracheal-intubation state of patient. The ECC staying ti initial care time was much more delayed in patients of not having previous medical records and the ECC staying time was higher in referred patients from out-patient department, in transferred patients from the other hospitals and patients having previous records, and in patients partly used the order-communicating system. The factors associated with the initial care time were the numbers of ECC patients and the existence of any true emergent patients, being cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) statusme was much more longer in patients of drug intoxication, in CPR patients, in medical department patients, in transfused patients and in patients related to 3 or more departments. And according to the numbers of duty internships, the ECC staying time for four internships was more longer than for five internships and after admission ordering was done, also-more longer in status being of no available beds. As above mentioned results, the factors for the ECC staying time were thought to be statistically significant (P<0.01) according to the patient's age and the laboratory orders and the X-ray films checked. And also the factor for the ECC staying time were thought to be statistically significant (P<0.01) according to the status being of no available beds, the laboratory orders and/or the special laboratory orders, the X-ray films checked, final disposing department, transferred to other hospital or not, home medication or not, admission or not, the grades of beds, the year grades of residents, the causes of ECC visit, the being CPR status on admission or not, the surgical operation or not, being known personells in our hospital. Conclution: Authors concluded that the relieving method of long-staying time in ECC was being establishing the legally proved apparatus which could differentiate the true emergency or non-emergency patients, and that the methods of shortening ECC staying time were doing definitely necessary laboratory orders and managing beds more flexibly to admit for ECC patients and finally this methods were thought to be a method of unloading for ECC personnels and improving the quality of care in emergency patients.
We investigated the temporal and spatial variations in heterotrophic dinoflagellates (hereafter HTD) and ciliates from June to September 1997 in the waters off Kohung, Korea where red tides dominated by harmful dinoflagellates had occurred from August to October since 1995. We took water samples five times from 5-7 depths at 3 stations in this study period. A total of 17 HTD species were present and of these species in the genus Protoperidinium were 11. The species number of tintinnids (hereafter TIN) present totalled 15 and several naked ciliate (hereafter NC) species were observed. The species numbers of HTD and TIN rapidly increased between August 1st and 21st and then reached to the maximum numbers of 13 and 10, respectively, on August 27 when red tides dominated by Gyrodinium impudicum were first observed in the study area. However the species numbers drastically decreased on September 22. The maximum densities of HTD, TIN, and NC were 45, 39, 57 cells
Brand equity is one of the most important concepts in business practice as well as in academic research. Successful brands can allow marketers to gain competitive advantage (Lassar et al.,1995), including the opportunity for successful extensions, resilience against competitors' promotional pressures, and the ability to create barriers to competitive entry (Farquhar, 1989). Branding plays a special role in service firms because strong brands increase trust in intangible products (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize and understand them. They reduce customers' perceived monetary, social, and safety risks in buying services, which are obstacles to evaluating a service correctly before purchase. Also, a high level of brand equity increases consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty. Brand equity can be considered as a mixture that includes both financial assets and relationships. Actually, brand equity can be viewed as the value added to the product (Keller, 1993), or the perceived value of the product in consumers' minds. Mahajan et al. (1990) claim that customer-based brand equity can be measured by the level of consumers' perceptions. Several researchers discuss brand equity based on two dimensions: consumer perception and consumer behavior. Aaker (1991) suggests measuring brand equity through price premium, loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations. Viewing brand equity as the consumer's behavior toward a brand, Keller (1993) proposes similar dimensions: brand awareness and brand knowledge. Thus, past studies tend to identify brand equity as a multidimensional construct consisted of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, perceived equity, brand associations, and other proprietary assets (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Blackston, 1995; Cobb-Walgren et al., 1995; Na, 1995). Other studies tend to regard brand equity and other brand assets, such as brand knowledge, brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and so on, as independent but related constructs (Keller, 1993; Kirmani and Zeithaml, 1993). Walters(1978) defined information search as, "A psychological or physical action a consumer takes in order to acquire information about a product or store." But, each consumer has different methods for informationsearch. There are two methods of information search, internal and external search. Internal search is, "Search of information already saved in the memory of the individual consumer"(Engel, Blackwell, 1982) which is, "memory of a previous purchase experience or information from a previous search."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). External search is "A completely voluntary decision made in order to obtain new information"(Engel & Blackwell, 1982) which is, "Actions of a consumer to acquire necessary information by such methods as intentionally exposing oneself to advertisements, taking to friends or family or visiting a store."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). There are many sources for consumers' information search including advertisement sources such as the internet, radio, television, newspapers and magazines, information supplied by businesses such as sales people, packaging and in-store information, consumer sources such as family, friends and colleagues, and mass media sources such as consumer protection agencies, government agencies and mass media sources. Understanding consumers' purchasing behavior is a key factor of a firm to attract and retain customers and improving the firm's prospects for survival and growth, and enhancing shareholder's value. Therefore, marketers should understand consumer as individual and market segment. One theory of consumer behavior supports the belief that individuals are rational. Individuals think and move through stages when making a purchase decision. This means that rational thinkers have led to the identification of a consumer buying decision process. This decision process with its different levels of involvement and influencing factors has been widely accepted and is fundamental to the understanding purchase intention represent to what consumers think they will buy. Brand equity is not only companies but also very important asset more than product itself. This paper studies brand equity model and influencing factors including information process such as information searching and information resources in the fashion market in Asia and Europe. Information searching and information resources are influencing brand knowledge that influences consumers purchase decision. Nine research hypotheses are drawn to test the relationships among antecedents of brand equity and purchase intention and relationships among brand knowledge, brand value, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. H1. Information searching influences brand knowledge positively. H2. Information sources influence brand knowledge positively. H3. Brand knowledge influences brand attitude. H4. Brand knowledge influences brand value. H5. Brand attitude influences brand loyalty. H6. Brand attitude influences brand value. H7. Brand loyalty influences purchase intention. H8. Brand value influence purchase intention. H9. There will be the same research model in Asia and Europe. We performed structural equation model analysis in order to test hypotheses suggested in this study. The model fitting index of the research model in Asia was
The present study was carried out in order to investigate the effects of antler extract on hormone concentration, Ca, P and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels in ovariectomized rats. Rats were ovariectomized bilaterally and were fed up with Ca- and P-free diet in order to induce osteoporosis. Osteoporosis was determined by the extent of density of bone mineral and lowering the concentrations of serum Ca and P. Male or female antler extract were administrated for 5 weeks to elucidate the protective and therapeutic effects for osteoporosis. The serum concentrations of estradiol, progesterone, calcitonin, osteocalcin, Ca and P, and the activities of ALP of ovariectomized rats were examined for 5 weeks. 1. After administration of female or male antler extract to osteoporosis-induced rats at the doses of 625 mg/kg and 1,250 mg/kg, respectively, the levels of the serum estradiol of the ovariectomized rat significantly decreased from 40.50
Researches about the relationship between SST(Self Service Technology) and TRI(Technology Readiness Index) have been carried out after TRI was developed by Parasuraman and his colleagues(2000). We hypothesize Consumer Readiness can also influence consumer's motivation, attitude, and intent to use SST. Currently, there has been no research on this subject. In this study, we investigated the relationship between TR, Consumer Readiness and SST Core Attitudinal Model which Dabholkar & Bagozzi(1994) proposed. The researchers also investigated moderating effects of consumer traits and situational factors to verify the acceptance of such forms of service delivery by all kinds of consumers and under different situational contexts. Self consciousness, the need for interaction with an employee, and the technology anxiety were used as consumer trait variables. Perceived waiting time and perceived crowding were used as situational variables. 380 questionnaires were distributed to a sample group of people in their 20's and 30's, and the data were analyzed with structural equation model using AMOS 18.0 program. All of Cronbach's alpha values representing reliabilities were satisfactory. The values of Composite Reliability(CR) and Average Variance Extracted(AVE) also showed the above criteria, thus providing evidence of convergent validity. To confirm discriminant validity among the constructs, confirmatory factor analysis and correlations among all the variables were examined. The results were satisfactory. The results of this study are summarized as follows. 1. Optimism and innovativeness of TR partially influenced the motivation to use SST. People who tend to be optimistic use SST because of ease of use and fun. The innovative however, usually use SST due to its performance. However, consumer readiness of role clarity, ability and self-efficacy influence all the components of motivation to use SST, ease of use, performance and fun. The relative effect of consumer readiness on the motivation to use SST was much stronger and more significant than that of TR. No other previous studies have examined the effects of Consumer Readiness on SST usage motivation, attitude and intention. It is academically meaningful that the researchers verified that Consumer Readiness is the important precedent construct influencing the self service technology core Attitudinal Model. Our findings suggest that marketers should consider fun and ease of use attributes to promote the use of self service technology. In addition, the SST usage frequency will rise rapidly when role clarity, ability, and self-efficacy which anybody can easily handle SST is assured. If the SST usage rate is increased, waiting times for customers could be decreased. Shorter waiting time could lead to higher customer satisfaction. It may also result in making a long-term profit owing to the reduced number of employees. Thus, presentation of using SST by employees or videos showing how to use it will promote the usage attitude and intent. 2. In SST core attitudinal model, performance and fun factors among SST usage motivation affected attitudes of using SST. The attitude of using SST highly influenced intent to use SST. This result is consistent with previous researches that dealt with the relationship between motivation, attitude and intention. Expectation of using SST could result in good performance just like the effect of ordering menu to service employees and to have fun since fun during its use could promote more SST usage rate. 3. In the relationship among motivation, attitude and intent in SST core attitudinal model, the moderating effect of consumer traits(self-consciousness, need for interaction with service employees and technology anxiety) and situational factors(perceived crowding and perceived waiting time) were tested. The results also supported the hypothesized moderating effects except perceived crowding. The highly self-conscious tended to form attitudes to use SST because of its fun compared to those who were less self-conscious because of its performance. People who had a high need for interaction with service employees tended to use SST for its performance. This result indicates that if ordering results are assured, SST is easily accessible to even consumers who have a high need for interaction with a service employee. When SST is easy to use, attitudes strengthen intent among people who had a high level of anxiety of technology. People who had low technology anxiety formed attitudes to use SST because of its performance. Service firms must ensure their self service technology is designed to be easy to use for those who have a high level of technology anxiety. Shorter perceived waiting times strengthened the attitude to use self service technology because of its fun. If the fun aspect is assured, people willing to use self service technology even perceive waiting time to be shorter than it actually is. Greater perceived waiting times form higher level of intent to use self service technology than those of shorter perceived waiting times. This implies that people view self service technology as a faster alternative to ordering service employees. The fun aspect of self service technology will attract a higher rate of usage for self service technology. 4. It has been proven that ease of use, performance and fun aspects are very important factors in motivation to form attitudes and intent to use self service technology regardless of the amount of perceived waiting time, self-consciousness, need for interaction with service employees, and technology anxiety. Service firms must consider these motivation aspects(ease of use, performance and fun)strongly in their promotion to use self service technology. Ease of use, assuring absolute performance compared to interaction with service employees', and adding a fun aspect will positively strengthen consumers' attitudes and intent to use self service technology. Summarizing the moderating effects, fun is the most valuable factor triggering SST usage attitude and intention. Therefore, designing self service technology to be fun will be the key to its success. This study focused on the touch screen self service technology in fast food restaurant. Although it has its limits due to the fact that it is hard to generalize the results to any other self service technology, the conceptual framework of this study can be applied to future research of any other service site.
Recently, as the information communication technology develops, the discussion regarding the ubiquitous environment is occurring in diverse perspectives. Ubiquitous environment is an environment that could transfer data through networks regardless of the physical space, virtual space, time or location. In order to realize the ubiquitous environment, the Pervasive Sensing technology that enables the recognition of users' data without the border between physical and virtual space is required. In addition, the latest and diversified technologies such as Context-Awareness technology are necessary to construct the context around the user by sharing the data accessed through the Pervasive Sensing technology and linkage technology that is to prevent information loss through the wired, wireless networking and database. Especially, Pervasive Sensing technology is taken as an essential technology that enables user oriented services by recognizing the needs of the users even before the users inquire. There are lots of characteristics of ubiquitous environment through the technologies mentioned above such as ubiquity, abundance of data, mutuality, high information density, individualization and customization. Among them, information density directs the accessible amount and quality of the information and it is stored in bulk with ensured quality through Pervasive Sensing technology. Using this, in the companies, the personalized contents(or information) providing became possible for a target customer. Most of all, there are an increasing number of researches with respect to recommender systems that provide what customers need even when the customers do not explicitly ask something for their needs. Recommender systems are well renowned for its affirmative effect that enlarges the selling opportunities and reduces the searching cost of customers since it finds and provides information according to the customers' traits and preference in advance, in a commerce environment. Recommender systems have proved its usability through several methodologies and experiments conducted upon many different fields from the mid-1990s. Most of the researches related with the recommender systems until now take the products or information of internet or mobile context as its object, but there is not enough research concerned with recommending adequate store to customers in a ubiquitous environment. It is possible to track customers' behaviors in a ubiquitous environment, the same way it is implemented in an online market space even when customers are purchasing in an offline marketplace. Unlike existing internet space, in ubiquitous environment, the interest toward the stores is increasing that provides information according to the traffic line of the customers. In other words, the same product can be purchased in several different stores and the preferred store can be different from the customers by personal preference such as traffic line between stores, location, atmosphere, quality, and price. Krulwich(1997) has developed Lifestyle Finder which recommends a product and a store by using the demographical information and purchasing information generated in the internet commerce. Also, Fano(1998) has created a Shopper's Eye which is an information proving system. The information regarding the closest store from the customers' present location is shown when the customer has sent a to-buy list, Sadeh(2003) developed MyCampus that recommends appropriate information and a store in accordance with the schedule saved in a customers' mobile. Moreover, Keegan and O'Hare(2004) came up with EasiShop that provides the suitable tore information including price, after service, and accessibility after analyzing the to-buy list and the current location of customers. However, Krulwich(1997) does not indicate the characteristics of physical space based on the online commerce context and Keegan and O'Hare(2004) only provides information about store related to a product, while Fano(1998) does not fully consider the relationship between the preference toward the stores and the store itself. The most recent research by Sedah(2003), experimented on campus by suggesting recommender systems that reflect situation and preference information besides the characteristics of the physical space. Yet, there is a potential problem since the researches are based on location and preference information of customers which is connected to the invasion of privacy. The primary beginning point of controversy is an invasion of privacy and individual information in a ubiquitous environment according to researches conducted by Al-Muhtadi(2002), Beresford and Stajano(2003), and Ren(2006). Additionally, individuals want to be left anonymous to protect their own personal information, mentioned in Srivastava(2000). Therefore, in this paper, we suggest a methodology to recommend stores in U-market on the basis of ubiquitous environment not using personal information in order to protect individual information and privacy. The main idea behind our suggested methodology is based on Feature Matrices model (FM model, Shahabi and Banaei-Kashani, 2003) that uses clusters of customers' similar transaction data, which is similar to the Collaborative Filtering. However unlike Collaborative Filtering, this methodology overcomes the problems of personal information and privacy since it is not aware of the customer, exactly who they are, The methodology is compared with single trait model(vector model) such as visitor logs, while looking at the actual improvements of the recommendation when the context information is used. It is not easy to find real U-market data, so we experimented with factual data from a real department store with context information. The recommendation procedure of U-market proposed in this paper is divided into four major phases. First phase is collecting and preprocessing data for analysis of shopping patterns of customers. The traits of shopping patterns are expressed as feature matrices of N dimension. On second phase, the similar shopping patterns are grouped into clusters and the representative pattern of each cluster is derived. The distance between shopping patterns is calculated by Projected Pure Euclidean Distance (Shahabi and Banaei-Kashani, 2003). Third phase finds a representative pattern that is similar to a target customer, and at the same time, the shopping information of the customer is traced and saved dynamically. Fourth, the next store is recommended based on the physical distance between stores of representative patterns and the present location of target customer. In this research, we have evaluated the accuracy of recommendation method based on a factual data derived from a department store. There are technological difficulties of tracking on a real-time basis so we extracted purchasing related information and we added on context information on each transaction. As a result, recommendation based on FM model that applies purchasing and context information is more stable and accurate compared to that of vector model. Additionally, we could find more precise recommendation result as more shopping information is accumulated. Realistically, because of the limitation of ubiquitous environment realization, we were not able to reflect on all different kinds of context but more explicit analysis is expected to be attainable in the future after practical system is embodied.
Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's