• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2023

Background: Mobile applications (apps) on dietary supplements can increase consumers' access to information. However, it can lead to indiscriminate use of dietary supplements. This study aims to systematically review dietary supplement apps released in English and Korean and evaluate the quality of those apps. Methods: Through the app stores, apps on dietary supplements were systemically searched and examined. Two independent evaluators evaluated the apps and presented a mean score using the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS). The correlation between MARS scores, user and evaluator ratings, and the number of secondary features of the apps were analyzed. Results: Of the 2,772 dietary supplement apps identified, 17 apps were included according to the selection criteria. The mean MARS score was 3.28 (standard deviation: 0.29) out of 5. Apps had higher scores in aesthetics and functionality dimensions, while engagement and information dimensions had lower scores. There was a positive correlation between the number of app downloads and information among MARS dimensions. The subjective evaluation also correlated with the information dimension. There was a positive correlation between the secondary features of the apps and MARS total score as well as the engagement dimension. Conclusion: The dietary supplement apps need to be managed at a higher level of quality to provide safe and reliable information to consumers. Especially, quality on information and engagement dimensions can be improved. Involvement of healthcare professionals in the app development, management with adequate referencing of information, and use of secondary features for enhanced user engagement can be helpful.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.29-43
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• 2023

Consumers should look at the ingredients of cosmetics or food for their health and purchase them after checking whether they contain allergy-causing ingredients. Therefore, this paper aimed to develop an artificial intelligence-based smartphone application for automatically recognizing the ingredients displayed on a curved container and delivering it to consumers in an easy-to-understand manner. The app needs to allow consumers to immediately comprehend the restricted ingredients by recognizing the ingredients' words in the cropped image. Two major issues should be solved during the development process: First, although there were flat containers for cosmetics or food, most were curved containers. Thus, it was necessary to recognize the ingredient table displayed on the curved containers. Second, since the ingredients' words were displayed on the curved surface, the transformed or line-changed words also needed to be recognized. The proposed new methods were enough to solve the above two problems. The application developed through various tests verified that there was no problem recognizing the ingredients' words contained in a cylindrical curved container.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.1096-1106
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• 2014

This study was conducted to figure the usage status and satisfaction of food-related smartphone applications by generic characteristics and food purchase attributes of Seoul area workers. The results show that health vitality-oriented group, married compared to single, those with higher eating-out expenses possess more food-related applications (p<0.05). The primary reason for the usage of food-related applications was the need for food-related information (53.7%). The highest application subjects in use were restaurant-related information and recipe information. The real-life aid food-related applications utilized most were also restaurant information (60.7%) and recipe information (28.3%). Health vitality-oriented respondents especially turned out to use nutrition information and food functionality information often (p<0.01), and recipes or calories & diet information usage frequency was higher in women than in men (p<0.001). Restaurant-related information were more frequently used by singles, highly educated, and those with high income and eating-out expenses (p<0.05). Satisfaction of food-related applications was normal (3.06), showing that the satisfactory level is not yet high. Satisfaction regarding purchase attributes showed that the health vitality-oriented group (3.19) was more satisfied compared to other groups (p<0.05), and women (3.16) were more satisfied that men (2.89) were (p<0.05). Inconveniences of food-related applications were highest in usage fee (3.29), simplicity of information (3.28), lack of reliability of information and need for update (3.10). The results of this study implies that various subdivisions of food-related applications users should be implemented; at the same time, food-related applications covering diverse subjects that regard each group's characteristics should be developed in order to utilize food-related knowledge and information as a marketing tool in the food industry; this can efficiently be done by paying attention to the quality of information and updates within applications.