• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.105-130
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• 2008

Consumers of e-learning market differ from those of other markets in that they are replaced in a specific time scale. For example, e-learning contents aimed at highschool senior students cannot be consumed by a specific consumer over the designated period of time. Hence e-learning service providers need to attract new groups of students every year. Due to lack of information on products designed for continuously emerging consumers, the consumers face difficulties in making rational decisions in a short time period. Increased uncertainty of product purchase leads customers to herding behaviors to obtain information of the product from others and imitate them. Taking into consideration of these features of e-learning market, this study will focus on the online herding behavior in purchasing e-learning contents. There is no definite concept for e-learning. However, it is being discussed in a wide range of perspectives from educational engineering to management to e-business etc. Based upon the existing studies, we identify two main view-points regarding e-learning. The first defines e-learning as a concept that includes existing terminologies, such as CBT (Computer Based Training), WBT (Web Based Training), and IBT (Internet Based Training). In this view, e-learning utilizes IT in order to support professors and a part of or entire education systems. In the second perspective, e-learning is defined as the usage of Internet technology to deliver diverse intelligence and achievement enhancing solutions. In other words, only the educations that are done through the Internet and network can be classified as e-learning. We take the second definition of e-learning for our working definition. The main goal of this study is to investigate what factors affect consumer intention to purchase e-learning contents and to identify the differential impact of the factors between consumers with purchase experience and those without the experience. To accomplish the goal of this study, it focuses on herding behavior and perceived usefulness as antecedents to behavioral intention. The proposed research model in the study extends the Technology Acceptance Model by adding herding behavior and usability to take into account the unique characteristics of e-learning content market and e-learning systems use, respectively. The current study also includes consumer experience with e-learning content purchase because the previous experience is believed to affect purchasing intention when consumers buy experience goods or services. Previous studies on e-learning did not consider the characteristics of e-learning contents market and the differential impact of consumer experience on the relationship between the antecedents and behavioral intention, which is the target of this study. This study employs a survey method to empirically test the proposed research model. A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to 629 informants. 528 responses were collected, which consist of potential customer group (n = 133) and experienced customer group (n = 395). The data were analyzed using PLS method, a structural equation modeling method. Overall, both herding behavior and perceived usefulness influence consumer intention to purchase e-learning contents. In detail, in the case of potential customer group, herding behavior has stronger effect on purchase intention than does perceived usefulness. However, in the case of shopping-experienced customer group, perceived usefulness has stronger effect than does herding behavior. In sum, the results of the analysis show that with regard to purchasing experience, perceived usefulness and herding behavior had differential effects upon the purchase of e-learning contents. As a follow-up analysis, the interaction effects of the number of purchase transaction and herding behavior/perceived usefulness on purchase intention were investigated. The results show that there are no interaction effects. This study contributes to the literature in a couple of ways. From a theoretical perspective, this study examined and showed evidence that the characteristics of e-learning market such as continuous renewal of consumers and thus high uncertainty and individual experiences are important factors to be considered when the purchase intention of e-learning content is studied. This study can be used as a basis for future studies on e-learning success. From a practical perspective, this study provides several important implications on what types of marketing strategies e-learning companies need to build. The bottom lines of these strategies include target group attraction, word-of-mouth management, enhancement of web site usability quality, etc. The limitations of this study are also discussed for future studies.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2018

For the past few years, KISTI has been servicing an online simulation execution platform, called EDISON, allowing users to conduct simulations on various scientific applications supplied by diverse computational science and engineering disciplines. Typically, these simulations accompany large-scale computation and accordingly produce a huge volume of output data. One critical issue arising when conducting those simulations on an online platform stems from the fact that a number of users simultaneously submit to the platform their simulation requests (or jobs) with the same (or almost unchanging) input parameters or files, resulting in charging a significant burden on the platform. In other words, the same computing jobs lead to duplicate consumption computing and storage resources at an undesirably fast pace. To overcome excessive resource usage by such identical simulation requests, in this paper we introduce a novel framework, called IceSheet, to efficiently manage simulation data based on execution metadata, that is, provenance. The IceSheet framework captures and stores each provenance associated with a conducted simulation. The collected provenance records are utilized for not only inspecting duplicate simulation requests but also performing search on existing simulation results via an open-source search engine, ElasticSearch. In particular, this paper elaborates on the core components in the IceSheet framework to support the search and reuse on the stored simulation results. We implemented as prototype the proposed framework using the engine in conjunction with the online simulation execution platform. Our evaluation of the framework was performed on the real simulation execution-provenance records collected on the platform. Once the prototyped IceSheet framework fully functions with the platform, users can quickly search for past parameter values entered into desired simulation software and receive existing results on the same input parameter values on the software if any. Therefore, we expect that the proposed framework contributes to eliminating duplicate resource consumption and significantly reducing execution time on the same requests as previously-executed simulations.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.367-379
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• 1994

This paper describes scheduling algorithms of the UNIX operating system and shows an analytical approach to approximate the average conditional response time for a process in the UNIX operating system. The average conditional response time is the average time between the submittal of a process requiring a certain amount of the CPU time and the completion of the process. The process scheduling algorithms in thr UNIX system are based on the priority service disciplines. That is, the behavior of a process is governed by the UNIX process schuduling algorithms that (ⅰ) the time-shared computer usage is obtained by allotting each request a quantum until it completes its required CPU time, (ⅱ) the nonpreemptive switching in system mode and the preemptive switching in user mode are applied to determine the quantum, (ⅲ) the first-come-first-serve discipline is applied within the same priority level, and (ⅳ) after completing an allotted quantum the process is placed at the end of either the runnable queue corresponding to its priority or the disk queue where it sleeps. These process scheduling algorithms create the round-robin effect in user mode. Using the round-robin effect and the preemptive switching, we approximate a process delay in user mode. Using the nonpreemptive switching, we approximate a process delay in system mode. We also consider a process delay due to the disk input and output operations. The average conditional response time is then obtained by approximating the total process delay. The results show an excellent response time for the processes requiring system time at the expense of the processes requiring user time.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.73-94
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• 2010

The attending system is a medical system that allows doctors in clinics to use the extra equipment in hospitals-beds, laboratory, operating room, etc-for their patient's care under a contract between the doctors and hospitals. Therefore, the system is very beneficial in terms of the efficiency of the usage of medical resources. However, it is necessary to develop a strong support system to strengthen its weaknesses and supplement its merits. If doctors use hospital beds under the attending system of hospitals, they would be able to check a patient's condition often and provide them with nursing care services. However, the current attending system lacks delivery and assistance support. Thus, for the successful performance of the attending system, a networking system should be developed to facilitate communication between the doctors and nurses. In particular, the nursing records in the attending system could help doctors monitor the patient's condition and provision of nursing care services. A nursing record is the formal documentation associated with nursing care. It is merely a data repository that helps nurses to track their activities; nursing records thus represent a resource of primary information that can be reused. In order to maximize their usefulness, nursing records have been introduced as part of computerized patient records. However, nursing records are internal data that are not disclosed by hospitals. Moreover, the lack of standardization of the record list makes it difficult to share nursing records. Under the attending system, nurses would want to minimize the amount of effort they have to put in for the maintenance of additional records. Hence, they would try to maintain the current level of nursing records in the form of record lists and record attributes, while doctors would require more detailed and real-time information about their patients in order to monitor their condition. Therefore, this study developed a system for assisting in the maintenance and sharing of the nursing records under the attending system. In contrast to previous research on the functionality of computer-based nursing records, we have emphasized the practical usefulness of nursing records from the viewpoint of the actual implementation of the attending system. We suggested that nurses could design a nursing record dictionary for their convenience, and that doctors and nurses could confirm the definitions that they looked up in the dictionary through negotiations with intelligent agents. Such an agent-based system could facilitate networking among medical institutes. Multi-agent systems are a widely accepted paradigm for the distribution and sharing of computation workloads in the scientific community. Agent-based systems have been developed with differences in functional cooperation, coordination, and negotiation. To increase such communication, a framework for a multi-agent based system is proposed in this study. The agent-based approach is useful for developing a system that promotes trade-offs between transactions involving multiple attributes. A brief summary of our contributions follows. First, we propose an efficient and accurate utility representation and acquisition mechanism based on a preference scale while minimizing user interactions with the agent. Trade-offs between various transaction attributes can also be easily computed. Second, by providing a multi-attribute negotiation framework based on the attribute utility evaluation mechanism, we allow both the doctors in charge and nurses to negotiate over various transaction attributes in the nursing record lists that are defined by the latter. Third, we have designed the architecture of the nursing record management server and a system of agents that provides support to the doctors and nurses with regard to the framework and mechanisms proposed above. A formal protocol has also been developed to create and control the communication required for negotiations. We verified the realization of the system by developing a web-based prototype. The system was implemented using ASP and IIS5.1.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.287-310
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• 2022

Companies' interest in developing AI-based intelligent new products is increasing. Recently, the main concern of companies is to innovate customer experience and create new values by developing new products through the effective use of Artificial intelligence technology. However, due to the nature of products based on radical technologies such as artificial intelligence, intelligent products differ from existing products and development methods, so it is clear that there is a limitation to applying the existing development methodology as it is. This study proposes a new research method based on KANO-TOPSIS for the successful development of AI-based intelligent new products by using car voice assistants as an example. Using the KANO model, select and evaluate functions that customers think are necessary for new products, and use the TOPSIS method to derives priorities by finding the importance of functions that customers need. For the analysis, major categories such as vehicle condition check and function control elements, driving-related elements, characteristics of voice assistant itself, infotainment elements, and daily life support elements were selected and customer demand attributes were subdivided. As a result of the analysis, high recognition accuracy should be considered as a top priority in the development of car voice assistants. Infotainment elements that provide customized content based on driver's biometric information and usage habits showed lower priorities than expected, while functions related to driver safety such as vehicle condition notification, driving assistance, and security, also showed as the functions that should be developed preferentially. This study is meaningful in that it presented a new product development methodology suitable for the characteristics of AI-based intelligent new products with innovative characteristics through an excellent model combining KANO and TOPSIS.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 1999

Among the various seismic data processing sequences, the velocity analysis is the most time consuming and man-hour intensive processing steps. For the production seismic data processing, a good velocity analysis tool as well as the high performance computer is required. The tool must give fast and accurate velocity analysis. There are two different approches in the velocity analysis, batch and interactive. In the batch processing, a velocity plot is made at every analysis point. Generally, the plot consisted of a semblance contour, super gather, and a stack pannel. The interpreter chooses the velocity function by analyzing the velocity plot. The technique is highly dependent on the interpreters skill and requires human efforts. As the high speed graphic workstations are becoming more popular, various interactive velocity analysis programs are developed. Although, the programs enabled faster picking of the velocity nodes using mouse, the main improvement of these programs is simply the replacement of the paper plot by the graphic screen. The velocity spectrum is highly sensitive to the presence of the noise, especially the coherent noise often found in the shallow region of the marine seismic data. For the accurate velocity analysis, these noise must be removed before the spectrum is computed. Also, the velocity analysis must be carried out by carefully choosing the location of the analysis point and accuarate computation of the spectrum. The analyzed velocity function must be verified by the mute and stack, and the sequence must be repeated most time. Therefore an iterative, interactive, and unified velocity analysis tool is highly required. An interactive velocity analysis program, xva(X-Window based Velocity Analysis) was invented. The program handles all processes required in the velocity analysis such as composing the super gather, computing the velocity spectrum, NMO correction, mute, and stack. Most of the parameter changes give the final stack via a few mouse clicks thereby enabling the iterative and interactive processing. A simple trace indexing scheme is introduced and a program to nike the index of the Geobit seismic disk file was invented. The index is used to reference the original input, i.e., CDP sort, directly A transformation techinique of the mute function between the T-X domain and NMOC domain is introduced and adopted to the program. The result of the transform is simliar to the remove-NMO technique in suppressing the shallow noise such as direct wave and refracted wave. However, it has two improvements, i.e., no interpolation error and very high speed computing time. By the introduction of the technique, the mute times can be easily designed from the NMOC domain and applied to the super gather in the T-X domain, thereby producing more accurate velocity spectrum interactively. The xva program consists of 28 files, 12,029 lines, 34,990 words and 304,073 characters. The program references Geobit utility libraries and can be installed under Geobit preinstalled environment. The program runs on X-Window/Motif environment. The program menu is designed according to the Motif style guide. A brief usage of the program has been discussed. The program allows fast and accurate seismic velocity analysis, which is necessary computing the AVO (Amplitude Versus Offset) based DHI (Direct Hydrocarn Indicator), and making the high quality seismic sections.