Bacterial phytopathogen Pectobacterium causes soft rot disease in several vegetable crops globally, resulting in heavy agricultural losses at both the pre and postharvest stages. The present work was carried out to screen Kimchi cabbage genetic resources conserved at the National Agrobiodiversity Center, Rural Development Administration, Korea, for resistance against the soft rot pathogen Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum KACC 21701 over a period of three years (from 2020 to 2022). Infection of the phytopathogen was carried out at four-leaf stage and for each accession, twenty-five plants per germplasm were infected with KACC 21701. Kimchi cabbage cultivars Wangmatbaechu, Seoulbaechu, and CR Kiyoshi were used as control. Seven-days post-infection, the Disease Index (DI) values were manually recorded from zero to four, zero matched perfectly heathy plants and four completely dead plants. The 682 accessions of Kimchi cabbage exhibited varying degrees of disease resistance to KACC 21701 and thirty accessions, exhibiting a DI≤2, were considered for replication studies. During the replication studies, four landrace germplasms (IT102883, IT120036, IT120044, and IT120048) and one cultivar (IT187919) were confirmed to be moderately susceptible to KACC 21701. Results of the preliminary screening as well as replication studies were documented for the all the 682 germplasms. Addition of such information to the passport data of stored germplasms might serve as potential bio-resource for future breeders and researchers to develop resistant varieties or study the mechanisms involved in resistance of plants to such phytopathogen.

The number of North Korean defectors in South Korea has reached 30,000, however, it has been reported that many of them still have adaptation problems. Research on adaptation of North Koreans to South Korean society has been approached mainly from social, economic, and psychological perspectives, and little research has been conducted on their adaptation in terms of lifestyle of North Koreans in South Korean society. Adaptation to daily life pattern in a new social-cultural environment may be examined in the context of acculturation. As a part of the daily life, we are focusing on North Korean defectors’ clothing behavior and how they use clothing as a strategic tool for their adaptation to South Korea. The results of this study may provide marketers the information needed to develop mobile applications to help the North Korean defectors adapt to South Korean fashion style. This research also examined the impact of fashion SNS and word-of-mouth communication as a means of identity formation. In depth interviews using snowball sampling were conducted with 10 North Korean defectors in their 20s and 40s who agreed to voluntarily participate in the research from December 2016 to February 2017. The findings from the interviews are as follows. First, according to Berry’s(1997) types of acculturation, North Korean defectors were classified based on the subjective aspects(e.g. clothing norms) and objective aspects(e.g. clothing purchase behavior) of their daily clothing behavior. The Integrators still tried to abide by the clothing norm acquired in North Korea, but at the same time accepted the clothing norms of South Korea and tried to change their personal ideal. In the objective aspects, their clothing styles still reflect North Korean fashion norms, yet they newly acquire norms regarding thin body ideals or skin care management in the South. They also showed the change of store preference and choices as they become adapted to South Korean culture. The second group, Assimilators show high degree of acceptance of South Korean culture. They regarded the sense of belonging to South Korean society and appearance management as important. Many of them played a role as a fashion adviser among their North Korean peers while they have formed and kept the social network with South Korean. Thirdly, Segregators are the people who try to maintain North Korean culture and try to segregate from the South Korean (host) culture. Defectors in this type still abided by the clothing norms they acquired while in North Korea, and had a negative viewpoint on the South Koreans' styles. They still preferred North Korean fashion style, and were familiar with using North Korean words for expressing terminology related to fashion. Finally, Marginalized group is the people who consider themselves being individual and independent self-standing entity with low degree of acceptance of South and North Korean culture. They sought to express their own individuality before and after defecting by creating their own style. This study may contribute to the understanding of adaptation process, not only of North Korean defectors, but also other immigrants to other countries.

The information technology has affected many aspects of retail world as in other areas of human life. This makes understanding consumers’ acceptance and usage of such technological innovations a critical task for both retail businesses and scholars alike. The technology acceptance model (TAM; Davis 1989) is one of the most widely adopted theoretical frameworks for explaining and predicting consumers’ acceptance of technology. Implementing the meta-analysis method, this study aimed at testing the validity of TAM for understanding consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward the various technologies adopted in fashion retail stores and online commerce sites. Specifically, the effect sizes of two TAM antecedents of perceived usefulness (PU) and ease of use (PEOU) were estimated and compared. Moderating factors that affect the effect sizes of PU and PEOU on attitudes and behaviors were also explored. A meta-analytical SEM methodology was expected to deliver more thorough and valid test of the model than single sample studies, because accumulation of multiple samples through meta-analysis would bolster the test's statistical power (Hom et al., 1992). A sample of studies on consumers’ acceptance of retail technology in fashion retail context that adopted the TAM model were collected through a systematic search through the databases such as EBSCO, Google Scholars, and Dissertation Abstracts. Efforts were made to include unpublished studies to avoid publication bias. A total of 31 published and unpublished research reports that allowed the calculation of effect sizes of the key paths in the model were included in the final analysis. The effect sizes were calculated out of the identified samples, and the homogeneities of the effect sizes were tested using comprehensive meta-analysis software. The types of technology, product type (apparel vs. general merchandise), subject characteristics (gender; country; student vs. general), and study setting (actual experience vs. simulated situation) were considered as moderators to explain for the variances in correlations among variables. Finally, a meta-SEM model was tested on the aggregated data using AMOS.