• Title/Summary/Keyword: Competition Rate

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Factors Affecting International Transfer Pricing of Multinational Enterprises in Korea (외국인투자기업의 국제이전가격 결정에 영향을 미치는 환경 및 기업요인)

  • Jun, Tae-Young;Byun, Yong-Hwan
    • Korean small business review
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.85-102
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    • 2009
  • With the continued globalization of world markets, transfer pricing has become one of the dominant sources of controversy in international taxation. Transfer pricing is the process by which a multinational corporation calculates a price for goods and services that are transferred to affiliated entities. Consider a Korean electronic enterprise that buys supplies from its own subsidiary located in China. How much the Korean parent company pays its subsidiary will determine how much profit the Chinese unit reports in local taxes. If the parent company pays above normal market prices, it may appear to have a poor profit, even if the group as a whole shows a respectable profit margin. In this way, transfer prices impact the taxable income reported in each country in which the multinational enterprise operates. It's importance lies in that around 60% of international trade involves transactions between two related parts of multinationals, according to the OECD. Multinational enterprises (hereafter MEs) exert much effort into utilizing organizational advantages to make global investments. MEs wish to minimize their tax burden. So MEs spend a fortune on economists and accountants to justify transfer prices that suit their tax needs. On the contrary, local governments are not prepared to cope with MEs' powerful financial instruments. Tax authorities in each country wish to ensure that the tax base of any ME is divided fairly. Thus, both tax authorities and MEs have a vested interest in the way in which a transfer price is determined, and this is why MEs' international transfer prices are at the center of disputes concerned with taxation. Transfer pricing issues and practices are sometimes difficult to control for regulators because the tax administration does not have enough staffs with the knowledge and resources necessary to understand them. The authors examine transfer pricing practices to provide relevant resources useful in designing tax incentives and regulation schemes for policy makers. This study focuses on identifying the relevant business and environmental factors that could influence the international transfer pricing of MEs. In this perspective, we empirically investigate how the management perception of related variables influences their choice of international transfer pricing methods. We believe that this research is particularly useful in the design of tax policy. Because it can concentrate on a few selected factors in consideration of the limited budget of the tax administration with assistance of this research. Data is composed of questionnaire responses from foreign firms in Korea with investment balances exceeding one million dollars in the end of 2004. We mailed questionnaires to 861 managers in charge of the accounting departments of each company, resulting in 121 valid responses. Seventy six percent of the sample firms are classified as small and medium sized enterprises with assets below 100 billion Korean won. Reviewing transfer pricing methods, cost-based transfer pricing is most popular showing that 60 firms have adopted it. The market-based method is used by 31 firms, and 13 firms have reported the resale-pricing method. Regarding the nationalities of foreign investors, the Japanese and the Americans constitute most of the sample. Logistic regressions have been performed for statistical analysis. The dependent variable is binary in that whether the method of international transfer pricing is a market-based method or a cost-based method. This type of binary classification is founded on the belief that the market-based method is evaluated as the relatively objective way of pricing compared with the cost-based methods. Cost-based pricing is assumed to give mangers flexibility in transfer pricing decisions. Therefore, local regulatory agencies are thought to prefer market-based pricing over cost-based pricing. Independent variables are composed of eight factors such as corporate tax rate, tariffs, relations with local tax authorities, tax audit, equity ratios of local investors, volume of internal trade, sales volume, and product life cycle. The first four variables are included in the model because taxation lies in the center of transfer pricing disputes. So identifying the impact of these variables in Korean business environments is much needed. Equity ratio is included to represent the interest of local partners. Volume of internal trade was sometimes employed in previous research to check the pricing behavior of managers, so we have followed these footsteps in this paper. Product life cycle is used as a surrogate of competition in local markets. Control variables are firm size and nationality of foreign investors. Firm size is controlled using dummy variables in that whether or not the specific firm is small and medium sized. This is because some researchers report that big firms show different behaviors compared with small and medium sized firms in transfer pricing. The other control variable is also expressed in dummy variable showing if the entrepreneur is the American or not. That's because some prior studies conclude that the American management style is different in that they limit branch manger's freedom of decision. Reviewing the statistical results, we have found that managers prefer the cost-based method over the market-based method as the importance of corporate taxes and tariffs increase. This result means that managers need flexibility to lessen the tax burden when they feel taxes are important. They also prefer the cost-based method as the product life cycle matures, which means that they support subsidiaries in local market competition using cost-based transfer pricing. On the contrary, as the relationship with local tax authorities becomes more important, managers prefer the market-based method. That is because market-based pricing is a better way to maintain good relations with the tax officials. Other variables like tax audit, volume of internal transactions, sales volume, and local equity ratio have shown only insignificant influence. Additionally, we have replaced two tax variables(corporate taxes and tariffs) with the data showing top marginal tax rate and mean tariff rates of each country, and have performed another regression to find if we could get different results compared with the former one. As a consequence, we have found something different on the part of mean tariffs, that shows only an insignificant influence on the dependent variable. We guess that each company in the sample pays tariffs with a specific rate applied only for one's own company, which could be located far from mean tariff rates. Therefore we have concluded we need a more detailed data that shows the tariffs of each company if we want to check the role of this variable. Considering that the present paper has heavily relied on questionnaires, an effort to build a reliable data base is needed for enhancing the research reliability.

Optimum Condition of Soil Dispersion for Remediating Heavy Metal-Contaminated Soils using Wet Magnetic Separation (중금속 오염 토양 정화를 위한 습식자력선별법 사용 시 최적 토양분산 조건)

  • Chon, Chul-Min;Park, Jeong-Sik;Park, Sook-Hyun;Kim, Jae-Gon;Nam, In-Hyun
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.45 no.2
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    • pp.121-135
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    • 2012
  • Soil dispersion and heavy metal leaching with two heavy metal-contaminated soils were studied to derive the optimal dispersion condition in the course of developing the remedial technology using magnetic separation. The dispersion solutions of pyrophosphate, hexametaphosphate, orthophosphate and sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) at 1 - 200 mM and the pH of solutions was adjusted to be 9 - 12 with NaOH. The clay content of suspension as an indicator of dispersion rate and the heavy metal concentration of the solution were tested at the different pHs and concentrations of the dispersion solution during the experiment. The dispersion rate increased with increasing the pH and dispersion agent concentration of the solution. The dispersion efficiency of the agents showed as follows: pyrophosphate > hexametaphosphate > SDS > orthophosphate. Arsenic leaching was sharply increased at 50 mM of phosphates and 100 mM of SDS. The adsorption of $OH^-$, phosphates and dodecysulfate on the surface of Fe- and Mn-oxides and soil organic matter and the broken edge of clay mineral might decrease the surface charge and might increase the repulsion force among soil particles. The competition between arsenic and $OH^-$, phosphates and dodecylsulfate for the adsorption site of soil particles might induce the arsenic leaching. The dispersion and heavy metal leaching data indicate that pH 11 and 10 mM pyrophosphate is the optimum dispersion solution for maximizing dispersion and minimizing heavy metal leaching.

An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Startup' Activities of Preparatory Stage and Early Stage on Performance (창업기업의 준비 및 초기단계 활동들이 기업 성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구)

  • Yoon, Byeong seon;Seo, Young wook
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.11 no.4
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    • pp.1-15
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    • 2016
  • Startups in Korea are experiencing for themselves the laws of survival through competition in the local and international market, and are performing active business movements based on these. Korea's economic growth rate is 2.6% due to the slump in the domestic demand and reduced exports brought by the MERSC incident in 2015. The Korea Development Institute has estimated the economic growth rate in 2016 to be around 3.0%. South Korea's economy is facing the crisis of low-growth solidification due to the decrease in economic growth, and it is forecasted that growth without employment and polarization will worsen. Startups in the high-tech industrial generation of a particular field wherein the market environment is rapidly changing must maintain a competitive advantage with the capabilities and functions exclusive to them. It is very important that they maintain a competitive edge by utilizing the capabilities exclusive to startup companies. Likewise, the accumulation of resources is also crucial in determining the success of a startup business. In a poor local startup ecosystem, majority of the startup companies are performing their business activities while striving for survival, rather than success. About 80% are struggling to survive and are failing to overcome the "Death Valley" faced 3-5 years after establishing the company. Since majority of the startups fail to achieve results during the initial stages of foundation, the importance of research on business activities and achievement during the early stages of establishment is being raised. In accordance to this, this research has performed an actual analysis on how the activities of startups during their preparation phase and early stages affect their achievements. A survey was done on the CEOs or executives (people in a position to make decisions) of local small and medium-sized enterprises that are considered start-ups, and 203 valid data were collected and analyzed. Results showed that the discoveries and utilized activities necessary for the businesses of startups have a significant impact on their achievement through the entrepreneur resources and external partners' cooperation; additionally, the related implications were discussed.

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Spatial Structure of Hinterlands and Forelands of Pusan Container Export Port: the Cases of 3 National Flag Carriers (부산 컨테이너 수출항의 배후지와 지향지의 공간구조)

  • Cho, Su-Kyung
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.28 no.3
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    • pp.247-267
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    • 1993
  • According to developing international economy since the World War II, the increase and competition of the national business is so empha-sized tht both the interest and the necessity about marine transportation playing the impor-thant role of international transportation are increased. Today, the container transportation, as called the innovation of marine transport has been prevailed since the 1970's. The purpose of this paper is to grasp the spatial structure of the hinterlands and forelands, its object is export container cargo at Pusan Export Port, as known for the transportation node of modern containerlization. In this study, for the purpose of grasping the relation between hinterlands and forelands of Korean export container cargo, first, I researched the transition of carloading about container cargo, the bistribution channel of cargo, the change of the items of container and the carlo-adings about transport route, secondly, I used the cluster analysis so as to group hinterlands according to the items of goods and forelands. The object of the analysis is container cargo of Choyang Line, Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine of National Frag Carriers. The source materials used in this study are Trucking Data of Hanjin Co., Container Ren-tal Data of Samik Transport Co. and Transpor-ting Present Condition Tables of Hyundai Mer-chant Marine. 1. There are two kinds of the transport classi-fied by its form: FCL and LCL. In Pusan Con-tainer Export, a lot of textile goods, clothings and furniture, compound, electric goods, and so on are dealed with but the rate of occupation of the transport is getting lower while that of occupation of equipment, papers and agricultu-ral, mineral and livestock industry higher. 2. In 1990, the transports of container cargo in Korea consist of 7 services and round-the world lines. We can list North America lines, East-South Asian lines, Japan lines and Inter European lines, in order of the quantity of tran-sport form the largest to the smaller. We can have another list that Japan lines, North Ame-rica lines and East-South lines in order of the rate participation of national flag carriers, be-cacuse Korean foreign trade lay disproportionate emphasis on East-South Asian lines. Japan lines among them is the biggest import-export market. Since the rationlization policy of marine tran-sport in 1984, each of national flag carriers have its own lines. Hanjin Shipping predominates over North America lines, Choyang Line over New Zealand, Inter European and Austria lines and Hyundai Merchant Marine over Center-South America lines, in terms of the volume of transport. And small-to-medium sized shippers are prevailing in lines which are adjacent to Korea, Such as Japan lines and East-South Asian lines. 3. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Choyang Line, the light industry goods, electric goods and machinary produced in Seoul and Pusan are exported to the major ports in Europe and Japan, the same produces in Suwon, Ulsan, Kumi are exported to European Ports, and those in Incheon and Kwangju Austrian and Japanese ports, and those in the rest regions to the major port in Japan. 4. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Hanjin Shipping, the light industry goods pro-ducing in Seoul and Pusan, the electric goods and machinary in Incheon and Pyeongteck, are exported to New York and Los Angeles. Electric goods and machinary Masan, Anyang, Cheona, Cheongju and Incheon, Electric goods machinary and light industry goods in Kwangju and non mental goods in Pohang, are exported New York, Los Angeles and Oakland. 5. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Hyundai Merchant Marine, the region of Seoul, Pusan and Incheon closely related with the main ports in U.S.A. The rest regions with Montreal. The hinterlands of export container cargo can be classified by its export items into three kinds: the large city, industrial city and the rest city. Choyang Line's forelands are European lines, Japan lines and Austria lines, and Hanjin Shipping's forelands are North America lines, and Hyundai Merchant Marine's forelands are North America lines and Japan line. 3 National flag carriers' major forelands are determined by the size of port and the shipper's convenient use of the port terminal.

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An Empirical Study on Successful Factor of Local Mobile App One-Person Creating Company : The Moderating Effects of Social Capital (지역 모바일 앱 1인 창조기업의 성공요인에 관한 실증분석 : 사회적 자본의 조절효과를 중심으로)

  • Cheon, Phyeong Uk;Chung, Dong Seop;Ock, Young Seok
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.9 no.2
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    • pp.201-219
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    • 2014
  • The Republic of Korea in the real economy to a knowledge economy, and a center of creativity and imagination in the creative economy is changing the paradigm. As the core of creating economic, creative industries with the technology and information play an important role in the industry individuals. In order to solve the problem of the polarization of the economy and high youth unemployment rate of Korea, to recognize the role of the creative industries, as objection part, dimensions pan-national and one creative companies in industries of Mobile Apps various policies that support has been promoted. Support these policies to be able to contribute to the establishment of the success of mobile apps one-person creating company, we performed this study targeting one-person company that creates mobile apps area, we conducted a demonstration study of success factors, and thus more effective and efficient in an attempt to seek out support measures. In this study, we derive a research 4 hypothesis about the success factors of one creative enterprise through literature discussion, a study was made on the basis of empirical data of one-person company that creates mobile apps. The results of the analysis, first, if the development rate of the mobile application technology is fast and a new competition associated product is appeared, it was possible to find a tendency to be higher at the performance quantitative companies. Second, if the founder is a founding for the benefit and rewarding work and come to terms with the risk, it was possible to discover tends to be higher achievement quantitative. Third, if one-person company select a target market with capture intensively, it was possible to find a tendency for higher qualitative results. Fourth, it could be found that the reliability of the contact frequency of the network related performance business environment these characteristics enterprise management strategy and act as a significant modulatory effect. Provision of information relating to management and entrepreneurship education to be one creative enterprise is required, these results suggest that there is a provision continuing need for the opportunity to be able to meet and network and reliable variety have. In this study, to take advantage to promote the elimination measures that can increase the likelihood of success of the company of institutions to support one company that creates knowledge-based, such as in the field of mobile application.

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Critical Pathway Development for the Hysterectomy Patients and its applied Effect (자궁적출술 환자를 위한 critical pathway 개발과 적용효과)

  • Noh, Gi-Ok;Park, Kyung-Sook
    • Women's Health Nursing
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    • v.6 no.2
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    • pp.234-257
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    • 2000
  • At present in the medical care, the study and effort for producing health service to consider efficiency, effectiveness, and quality are urgently called for because of the difficulty in the keen competition according to the inter- nationalization and opening, the operation in the medical institution service testing system, the change in the medical policy of KDRGs, and the lack of the health care cost increasing rate. As an alternative, the case management for the new management system is introduced in the U.S., and the Critical Pathway that is the method designing the contents of activity and its result has been developed and applied in order to anticipate and manage the patient-outcome for the realization of the cost-effective case-management. Thus, this study intended to analyze the effectiveness to obtain by developing the Critical Pathway presented as the method to improve the quality-betterment and cost effectiveness through the continuous and consistent patient management for the hysterectomy patient and applying it to the real practice. As a study method, this author formed a conceptual framework through considering five Critical Pathway used in the current U.S. and three Critical Pathway presented in the literature to develop the Critical Pathway for the hysterectomy patient, and made out the preliminary Critical Pathway through reviewing the old chart. This author made the verified the validity of the expert group about the developed Critical Pathway, and to confirm the possibility of practice application, completed and settled the final Critical Pathway after using the Critical Pathway to the hysterectomy patient from March 1st to 15th, 1997. Finally, to analyze the application-effect of the developed Critical Pathway, this author offered health care service applying the Critical Pathway to the hysterectomy patient from April 15th to August 31th, 1997. The guide for the Critical Pathway was carried out in advance by outpatient setting nurse for outpatient setting visit before the operation, and after hospitalization the primary nurse monitored the execution degree on the every duty. After discharge this author surveyed the complication through phone visiting, and one month after discharge surveyed the patient's reaction about the offered service when outpatient setting visit and analyzed the result. The source for health care cost was obtained by the statistics about the hospital charge which was offered by the General Business Department. The results were as follows. 1. It was decided that the vertical line of the Critical Pathway was made up of eight items such as monitoring/assessment, treatment, line/drains, activity, medication, lab test, diet, patient teaching, and the horizontal line of the Critical Pathway was made up of from hospitalization to discharge. 2. After the analysis of service contents through reviewing the old chart, it was decided that the horizontal line of the preliminary Critical Pathway was made up of from hopitalization to fourth postoperative day, and the vertical line of it was divided into eight items which were the contents to occur with the time frame of the horizontal line. 3. After the verifying the validity of the expert group about the preliminary Critical Pathway, the horizontal line was amended from hopitalization to third postoperative day, and taking their consensus, some contents of the horizontal line was amended and deleted. 4. From March 1st to 15th, 1997, to confirm the clinical suitability, this author offered eight hysterectomy patients the medical service through the Critical Pathway. The result was that three of them could be discharged at the expected discharge day, and the others later than that day. Supplementing the preliminary Critical Pathway through analyzing the cause of that delay- case, this author developed the final Critical Pathway. 5. There were no significant differences between the experimental and the control group in the incidence of complication(P > 0.05). 6. The 92.4% of experimental group was satisfied with the Critical Pathway service. 7. The length of hospital stay of the experimental group offered with the Critical Pathway service was 4.6 days and there was a significant difference that it was 1.3 days shorter than that of the control group(t=-29.514, P=0.000). 8. There wsa a significant difference that the mean medical charge per one patient of the experimental group offered the Critical Pathway service was cheaper \124,150 than that of the control group(t=-9.826, P=0.000). 9. The result that the author assumed and analyzed hospital income with the rate of turning bed was assumed that the increase of hospital income was \63,245,072 for that study, and the income increase was expected with \68,704,864 for a year. The result that this author applied the Critical Pathway to the hysterectomy patient have no differences in the incidence of complication, high satisfaction with that service, and the length of hospital stay decreased in the experimental group, and the mean hospital charge per one patient decreased, but hospital income increased. Suggestions for further study and nursing practice are as follows. 1. The study to apply the Critical Pathway for a year, verify the validity, and measure the effect repeatedly is needed. 2. To apply and manage the Critical Pathway effectively, the study to computerize it is needed. 3. The study to develop hospital-based Critical Pathway about other diseases or procedure, and measure the effect is needed.

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Alternate Prey: A Mechanism for Elimination of Bacterial Species by Protozoa (원생동물(原生動物)에 의한 세균류(細菌類)의 소거(消去)에 관(關)한 기작(機作))

  • Mallory, Larry M.;Yuk, Chang-Soo;Liang, Li-Nuo;Alexander, Martin
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.358-367
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    • 1983
  • Antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella typhimurium and Klebsiella pneumoniae died readily after their addition to raw sewage, but they grew in sterilized sewage. The decline was not a result of antibiotic stresses, and because the bacteria were able to survive in large numbers for at least 15 days in solutions containing no organic nutrients, it was not a result of competition. Toxin production, bacteriophages, and Bdellovibrio did not cause the disappearance of the two bacterial species. A decline was also evident if the sewage was first passed through a $3-{\mu}m$ filter or treated with cycloheximide or cycloheximide plus nystatin, but protozoa developed under these conditions. Little or no decline occurred if the sewage was filtered and treated with the eucaryotic inhibitors before adding S. typhimurium or K. pneumoniae, and protozoa were not detected. S. typhimurium increased in abundance if cycloheximide, streptomycin, and erythromycin or large amounts of glucose were added to sewage. Tetrahymena thermophilus did not significantly reduce the population of S. typhimurium in buffer when the density of the bacterium was about $10^4/ml$. However, when more than $10^8$ Enterobacter agglomerans cells per ml were added to the buffer, T. thermophilus reduced the abundance of E. agglomerans and S. typhimurium to $10^6$ and 10/ml, respectively. The density of S. typhimurium was further decreased by a second increment of E. agglomerans cells. The disappearance of S. typhimurium and K. pneumoniae from sewage thus is the result of predation by protozoa. It is proposed that predators will eliminate a prey species from a natural environment when an alternate prey is present at concentrations above the threshold number for active feeing by the predator and when the rate of growth of the prey is less than the rate of predation.

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Suppressive Mechanism of Soil-borne Disease Development and its Practical Application -Isolation and Identification of Species of Trichoderma Antagonistic to Soil diseases and its activities in the Rhizosphere- (토양병의 발병억제 기작과 그 실용성 -길항성 Trichoderma spp.의 분리, 동정 및 근권내 활동-)

  • Kim, S.I.;Shim, J.O.;Shin, H.S.;Choi, H.J.;Lee, M.W.
    • The Korean Journal of Mycology
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    • v.20 no.4
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    • pp.337-346
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    • 1992
  • Trichoderma spp. are an effective control agent for damping-off or other plant diseases. The interaction between. T. hamatum and Rhizoctonia solani on the rhizosphere or surface soil were examined to assess the possible roles of antibiosis or competition in the mechanisms of biological control agents as a basic research. In a proportional comparison, total bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes and Trichoderma spp were 65%, 8.8%, 25.9% and 0.28% respectively in their distribution in the soil. Among Trichoderma spp isolated, the 5 species of Trichoderma spp were indentified as T. koninggii, T. pseudokoninggii, T. aureoviridi, T. hamatum and T. viride respectively. In a mycoparasitic test, one isolate of T. hamatum strain Tr-5 showed an enzymatic ability to break fungal hyphae into piecies and infected on the R. solani hyphae showing a parasitism. Spore germination of the all isolates of Trichoderma spp showed a 1.7-7.3% of germination in natural soil conditions, but the percentage was high in sterile soil indicating all the natural soil were fungistatic on conidia of Trichoderma spp. In rhizosphere competent assay in pea plant, the antagonistic T. hamatum, T. viride, T. koninggii, T. pseudokoninggii showed a colonizing upper soil depth in rhizosphere around 1-3 cm in root zone, but the colonizing ability was much reduced along the deeper the soil depth. Propagule density was decreased in deeper the soil layer. Disease development rate treated alone with plant pathogens, Fusarium solani, Rhizoctonia solani, Cylindrocarpon destructans increased, but disease incidence rate reduced in treatment with combinations with antagonistic T. hamatum strain Tr-5.

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A Study on the Determination of Tramp Freight Rates (부정기선 운임율의 결정에 관한 이론적 고찰)

  • 이종인
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Navigation
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.45-79
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    • 1980
  • The aim of this paper is to analyze the mechanics of price formation in the tramp shipping. For the purpose of this study, the main characteristics of tramp freight rates and the market is examined, and a brief examination of the nature ofthe costs of operation is given which are essential for the understanding of the functioning of shipping firms as well as for the understanding of developments in the tramp freight market. The demand and supply relationships in the market is also analysed in detail. Tramp shipping is an industry that has a market which functions under conditions that are not dissimilar to the theoretical model of perfect competition. However, it does notmean that tramp shipping market is a perfectly competitive market. It is apparent that this realworld competitive system has its imperfections, which means that the market for tramp shipping is near to being a perfectly competitive market on an internaitonal scale and it is freight are therefore subjext to the laws of supply and demand. In theory, the minimum freight rate in the short term is that at which the lowest cost vessels will lay-up in preference to operating, and is equal to the variable costs minus lay-up costs; and this would imply that in all times except those of full employment for ships there is a tendency for newer low-cost, and, probably, faster vessels to be driving the older high-cost vessels in the breaker's yards. In this case, shipowners may be reluctant to lay-up their ships becasue of obligations to crews, or because they would lose credibility with shippers or financiers, or simply because of lost prestige. Mainly, however, the decision is made on strictly economic grounds. When, for example, the total operating costs minus the likely freight earnings are greater than the cost of taking the ship out of service, maintaining it, and recommissioning it, then a ship may be considered for laying-up; shipowners will, in other words, run the ships at freight earnings below operating costs by as much as the cost of laying them up. As described above, the freight rates fixed on the tramp shipping market are subject to the laws of supply and demand. In other words, the basic properties of supply and demand are of significance so far as price or rate fluctuations in the tramp freight market are concerned. In connection with the same of the demand for tramp shipping services, the following points should be brone in mind: (a) That the magnitude of demand for sea transport of dry cargoes in general and for tramp shipping services in particular is increasing in the long run. (b) That owning to external factors, the demand for tramp shipping services is capable of varying sharphy at a given going of time. (c) The demad for the industry's services tends to be price inelastic in the short run. On the other hand the demand for the services offered by the individual shipping firm tends as a rule to be infinitely price elastic. In the meantime, the properties of the supply of the tramp shipping facilities are that it cannot expand or contract in the short run. Also, that in the long run there is a time-lag between entrepreneurs' decision to expand their fleets and the actual time of delivery of the new vessels. Thus, supply is inelastic and not capable of responding to demand and price changes at a given period of time. In conclusion, it can be safely stated that short-run changes in freight rates are a direct result of variations in the magnitude of demand for tramp shipping facilities, whilest the average level of freight rates is brought down to relatively low levels over prolonged periods of time.

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A Study on the Intelligent Quick Response System for Fast Fashion(IQRS-FF) (패스트 패션을 위한 지능형 신속대응시스템(IQRS-FF)에 관한 연구)

  • Park, Hyun-Sung;Park, Kwang-Ho
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.163-179
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    • 2010
  • Recentlythe concept of fast fashion is drawing attention as customer needs are diversified and supply lead time is getting shorter in fashion industry. It is emphasized as one of the critical success factors in the fashion industry how quickly and efficiently to satisfy the customer needs as the competition has intensified. Because the fast fashion is inherently susceptible to trend, it is very important for fashion retailers to make quick decisions regarding items to launch, quantity based on demand prediction, and the time to respond. Also the planning decisions must be executed through the business processes of procurement, production, and logistics in real time. In order to adapt to this trend, the fashion industry urgently needs supports from intelligent quick response(QR) system. However, the traditional functions of QR systems have not been able to completely satisfy such demands of the fast fashion industry. This paper proposes an intelligent quick response system for the fast fashion(IQRS-FF). Presented are models for QR process, QR principles and execution, and QR quantity and timing computation. IQRS-FF models support the decision makers by providing useful information with automated and rule-based algorithms. If the predefined conditions of a rule are satisfied, the actions defined in the rule are automatically taken or informed to the decision makers. In IQRS-FF, QRdecisions are made in two stages: pre-season and in-season. In pre-season, firstly master demand prediction is performed based on the macro level analysis such as local and global economy, fashion trends and competitors. The prediction proceeds to the master production and procurement planning. Checking availability and delivery of materials for production, decision makers must make reservations or request procurements. For the outsourcing materials, they must check the availability and capacity of partners. By the master plans, the performance of the QR during the in-season is greatly enhanced and the decision to select the QR items is made fully considering the availability of materials in warehouse as well as partners' capacity. During in-season, the decision makers must find the right time to QR as the actual sales occur in stores. Then they are to decide items to QRbased not only on the qualitative criteria such as opinions from sales persons but also on the quantitative criteria such as sales volume, the recent sales trend, inventory level, the remaining period, the forecast for the remaining period, and competitors' performance. To calculate QR quantity in IQRS-FF, two calculation methods are designed: QR Index based calculation and attribute similarity based calculation using demographic cluster. In the early period of a new season, the attribute similarity based QR amount calculation is better used because there are not enough historical sales data. By analyzing sales trends of the categories or items that have similar attributes, QR quantity can be computed. On the other hand, in case of having enough information to analyze the sales trends or forecasting, the QR Index based calculation method can be used. Having defined the models for decision making for QR, we design KPIs(Key Performance Indicators) to test the reliability of the models in critical decision makings: the difference of sales volumebetween QR items and non-QR items; the accuracy rate of QR the lead-time spent on QR decision-making. To verify the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed models, a case study has been performed for a representative fashion company which recently developed and launched the IQRS-FF. The case study shows that the average sales rateof QR items increased by 15%, the differences in sales rate between QR items and non-QR items increased by 10%, the QR accuracy was 70%, the lead time for QR dramatically decreased from 120 hours to 8 hours.