• Title/Summary/Keyword: Agent Based Model

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Effect of Etching Treatment of SAPO-34 Catalyst on Dimethyl Ether to Olefins Reaction (DTO 반응에 미치는 SAPO-34 촉매의 식각 처리 효과)

  • Song, Kang;Yoon, Young-Chan;Park, Chu-Sik;Kim, Young-Ho
    • Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.20-27
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    • 2021
  • Effects of the etching treatment of SAPO-34 catalyst were investigated to improve the catalytic lifetime in DTO reaction. The aqueous NH3 solution was a more appropriate treatment agent which could control the degree of etching progress, compared to that of using a strong acid (HCl) or alkali (NaOH) solution. Therefore, the effect on characteristics and lifetime of SAPO-34 catalyst was observed using the treatment concentration and time of aqueous NH3 solution as variables. As the treatment concentration or time of aqueous NH3 solution increased, the growth of erosion was proceeded from the center of SAPO-34 crystal plane, and the acid site concentration and strength gradually decreased. Meanwhile, it was found that external surface area and mesopore volume of SAPO-34 catalyst increased at appropriate treatment conditions. When the treatment concentration and time were 0.05 M and 3 h, respectively, the lifetime of the treated SAPO-34 catalyst was the longest, and was significantly enhanced by ca. 36% (based on DME conversion of > 90%) compared to that of using the untreated catalyst. The model for the etching progress of SAPO-34 catalyst in a mild treatment process using aqueous NH3 solution was also proposed.

Dynamic Limit and Predatory Pricing Under Uncertainty (불확실성하(不確實性下)의 동태적(動態的) 진입제한(進入制限) 및 약탈가격(掠奪價格) 책정(策定))

  • Yoo, Yoon-ha
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.151-166
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    • 1991
  • In this paper, a simple game-theoretic entry deterrence model is developed that integrates both limit pricing and predatory pricing. While there have been extensive studies which have dealt with predation and limit pricing separately, no study so far has analyzed these closely related practices in a unified framework. Treating each practice as if it were an independent phenomenon is, of course, an analytical necessity to abstract from complex realities. However, welfare analysis based on such a model may give misleading policy implications. By analyzing limit and predatory pricing within a single framework, this paper attempts to shed some light on the effects of interactions between these two frequently cited tactics of entry deterrence. Another distinctive feature of the paper is that limit and predatory pricing emerge, in equilibrium, as rational, profit maximizing strategies in the model. Until recently, the only conclusion from formal analyses of predatory pricing was that predation is unlikely to take place if every economic agent is assumed to be rational. This conclusion rests upon the argument that predation is costly; that is, it inflicts more losses upon the predator than upon the rival producer, and, therefore, is unlikely to succeed in driving out the rival, who understands that the price cutting, if it ever takes place, must be temporary. Recently several attempts have been made to overcome this modelling difficulty by Kreps and Wilson, Milgram and Roberts, Benoit, Fudenberg and Tirole, and Roberts. With the exception of Roberts, however, these studies, though successful in preserving the rationality of players, still share one serious weakness in that they resort to ad hoc, external constraints in order to generate profit maximizing predation. The present paper uses a highly stylized model of Cournot duopoly and derives the equilibrium predatory strategy without invoking external constraints except the assumption of asymmetrically distributed information. The underlying intuition behind the model can be summarized as follows. Imagine a firm that is considering entry into a monopolist's market but is uncertain about the incumbent firm's cost structure. If the monopolist has low cost, the rival would rather not enter because it would be difficult to compete with an efficient, low-cost firm. If the monopolist has high costs, however, the rival will definitely enter the market because it can make positive profits. In this situation, if the incumbent firm unwittingly produces its monopoly output, the entrant can infer the nature of the monopolist's cost by observing the monopolist's price. Knowing this, the high cost monopolist increases its output level up to what would have been produced by a low cost firm in an effort to conceal its cost condition. This constitutes limit pricing. The same logic applies when there is a rival competitor in the market. Producing a high cost duopoly output is self-revealing and thus to be avoided. Therefore, the firm chooses to produce the low cost duopoly output, consequently inflicting losses to the entrant or rival producer, thus acting in a predatory manner. The policy implications of the analysis are rather mixed. Contrary to the widely accepted hypothesis that predation is, at best, a negative sum game, and thus, a strategy that is unlikely to be played from the outset, this paper concludes that predation can be real occurence by showing that it can arise as an effective profit maximizing strategy. This conclusion alone may imply that the government can play a role in increasing the consumer welfare, say, by banning predation or limit pricing. However, the problem is that it is rather difficult to ascribe any welfare losses to these kinds of entry deterring practices. This difficulty arises from the fact that if the same practices have been adopted by a low cost firm, they could not be called entry-deterring. Moreover, the high cost incumbent in the model is doing exactly what the low cost firm would have done to keep the market to itself. All in all, this paper suggests that a government injunction of limit and predatory pricing should be applied with great care, evaluating each case on its own basis. Hasty generalization may work to the detriment, rather than the enhancement of consumer welfare.

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Comparative Evaluation of Colon Cancer Stemness and Chemoresistance in Optimally Constituted HCT-8 cell-based Spheroids (적정 구성 배양 HCT-8 기반 대장암 스페로이드의 암 줄기세포능 및 항암제 내성 평가의 비교 평가 연구)

  • Lee, Seung Joon;Kim, Hyoung-Kab;Lee, Hyang Burm;Moon, Yuseok
    • Journal of Life Science
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    • v.26 no.11
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    • pp.1313-1319
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    • 2016
  • Cancer is a complex disease heterogeneously composed of various types of cells including cancer stem-like cells responsible for relapse and chemoresistance in the tumor microenvironment. The conventional two-dimensional cell culture-based platform has critical limitations for representing the heterogeneity of cancer cells in the three-dimensional tumor niche in vivo. To overcome this insufficiency, three-dimensional cell culture methods in a scaffold-dependent or -free physical environment have been developed. In this study, we improved and simplified the HCT-8 colon cancer cell-based spheroid culture protocol and evaluated the relationship between cancer stemness and responses of chemosensitivity to 5- Fluorouracil (5-FU), a representative anticancer agent against colon cancer. Supplementation with defined growth factors in the medium and the culture dish of the regular surface with low attachment were required for the formation of constant-sized spheroids containing $CD44^+$ and $CD133^+$ colon cancer stem cells. The chemo-sensitivities of $CD44^+$ cancer stem cells in the spheroids were much lower than those of $CD44^-$ non-stem-like cancer cells, indicating that the chemoresistance to 5-FU is due to the stemness of colon cancer cells. Taken together, the inflammation and oncogenic gut environment-sensitive HCT-8 cell-based colon cancer spheroid culture and comparative evaluation using the simplified model would be an efficient and applicable way to estimate colon cancer stemness and pharmaceutical response to anticancer drugs in the realistic tumor niche.

Safety and Efficacy of Fowl Adenovirus Serotype-4 Inactivated Oil Emulsion Vaccine (닭 유래 아데노 바이러스 혈청형 4형(FAdV-4) 사독 오일 백신의 안전성 및 효능 평가)

  • Kim, Ji-Ye;Kim, Jong-Nyeo;Mo, In-Pil
    • Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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    • v.37 no.3
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    • pp.255-263
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    • 2010
  • Inclusion body hepatitis-hydropericardium syndrome (IBH-HPS) is an acute viral disease usually found in broilers aged from 3 to 5 weeks and causes up to 75% mortality. Among the 12 serotypes of fowl adenovirus group 1, serotype-4 (FAdV-4) was identified as a primary agent of IBH-HPS and was usually isolated in IBH-HPS cases in Korea since 2007. To prevent these IBH-HPS outbreaks in Korea, we developed the FAdV-4 inactivated vaccine using Korean isolate (ADL070244) and evaluated the efficacy of this vaccine. For the efficacy test, 2-week-old specific-pathogen-free (SPF) chickens intramuscularly inoculated with 1 or 2 dose of inactivated vaccine were used and challenged with FAdV-4 through either intramuscular or oral route at 2 weeks after vaccination. The vaccine induced good seroconversion which was confirmed by agar gel precipitation (AGP) test. In addition, the vaccine could decrease the FAdV-4 detection rate and histological lesion severity such as lymphocyte infiltration and necrosis in the liver comparing with those of non-vaccination group. Based on the current results, the developed FAdV-4 inactivated vaccine in this study was effective in the terms of reduction of virus detection rate and histological lesions severity. However, it was difficult to confirm the efficacy of the vaccine clearly because of no mortality and clinical signs in the non-vaccinated group after challenge. Therefore, we need further study to develop a standard challenged model system which could clearly evaluate the efficacy of the vaccines for FAdV-4.

A Study on the Estimation Method of the Repair Rates in Finishing Materials of Domestic Office Buildings (국내 업무시설 건축 마감재의 수선율 산정 방안에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Sun-Nam;Yoo, Hyun-Seok;Kim, Young-Suk
    • Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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    • v.16 no.1
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    • pp.52-63
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    • 2015
  • Business facilities among domestic architectures have rapidly been constructed along with domestic economic development. It is an important facility taking the second largest proportion next to apartment buildings among current 31 building types of fire department classification of 2012 year for urban architectures. The expected service life of business facilities is 15 years, but 70% of those in urban areas have surpassed the 15 year service life as of the present 2014. Thus, the demand for urgent rehabilitation of such facilities is constantly increasing due to the aging and performance deterioration of the facilities'main finishing materials. Especially, the business facilities are being used for the lease of company office or private office, and such problems as aging and performance deterioration of the facilities could cause less competitive edge for leasing and real estate value depreciation for the O&M (Operation & Management) agent and the owner, respectively. Therefore, an effective planned rehabilitation as a preventive measure according to the standardized repair rate by the number of years after the construction is in need in order to prevent the aging and performance deterioration of the facilities(La et al. 2001). Nonetheless, domestic repair/rehabilitation standards based on the repair rate are mainly limited to apartment buildings and pubic institutions, resulting in impractical application of such standards to business facilities. It has been investigated and analyzed that annual repair rate data for each finishing material are required for examination of the applicability of the repair rate standard for the purpose of establishment of a repair plan. Hence, this study aimed at developing a repair rate computation model for finishing materials of the facilities and verifying the appropriateness of the annual repair rate for each finishing material through a case study after collecting and analyzing the repair history data of six business facilities. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the planning and implementation of more efficient repair/rehabilitation budget by preventing the waste of unpredicted repair cost and opportunity cost for the sake of the business facilities' owners and O&M agents.

Study on Tourism Demand Forecast and Influencing Factors in Busan Metropolitan City (부산 연안도시 관광수요 예측과 영향요인에 관한 연구)

  • Kyu Won Hwang;Sung Mo Nam;Ah Reum Jang;Moon Suk Lee
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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    • v.29 no.7
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    • pp.915-929
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    • 2023
  • Improvements in people's quality of life, diversification of leisure activities, and changes in population structure have led to an increase in the demand for tourism and an expansion of the diversification of tourism activities. In particular, for coastal cities where land and marine tourism elements coexist, various factors influence their tourism demands. Tourism requires the construction of infrastructure and content development according to the demand at the tourist destination. This study aims to improve the prediction accuracy and explore influencing factors through time series analysis of tourism scale using agent-based data. Basic local governments in the Busan area were examined, and the data used were the number of tourists and the amount of tourism consumption on a monthly basis. The univariate time series analysis, which is a deterministic model, was used along with the SARIMAX analysis to identify the influencing factor. The tourism consumption propensity, focusing on the consumption amount according to business types and the amount of mentions on SNS, was set as the influencing factor. The difference in accuracy (RMSE standard) between the time series models that did and did not consider COVID-19 was found to be very wide, ranging from 1.8 times to 32.7 times by region. Additionally, considering the influencing factor, the tourism consumption business type and SNS trends were found to significantly impact the number of tourists and the amount of tourism consumption. Therefore, to predict future demand, external influences as well as the tourists' consumption tendencies and interests in terms of local tourism must be considered. This study aimed to predict future tourism demand in a coastal city such as Busan and identify factors affecting tourism scale, thereby contributing to policy decision-making to prepare tourism demand in consideration of government tourism policies and tourism trends.