• Water Engineering Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.63-74
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• 2000

This paper presents a two- phase search scheme for optimal pipe expansion of expansion of existing water distribution systems. In pipe network problems, link flows affect the total cost of the system because the link flows are not uniquely determined for various pipe diameters. The two-phase search scheme based on stochastic optimization scheme is suggested to determine the optimal link flows which make the optimal design of existing pipe network. A sample pipe network is employed to test the proposed method. Once the best tree network is obtained, the link flows are perturbed to find a near global optimum over the whole feasible region. It should be noted that in the perturbation stage the loop flows obtained form the sample existing network are employed as the initial loop flows of the proposed method. It has been also found that the relationship of cost-hydraulic gradient for pipe expansion of existing network affects the total cost of the sample network. The results show that the proposed method can yield a lower cost design than the conventional design method and that the proposed method can be efficiently used to design the pipe expansion of existing water distribution systems.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.19-29
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• 2011

Cellular network is comprised of several base stations which serve cellular shaped service area and each base station (BS) is connected to the mobile switching center (MSC). In this paper, the configuration modeling and algorithm of a cellular mobile network with the aim of minimizing the overall cost of operation (handover) and network installation cost (cabling cost and installing cost of mobile switching center) are considered. Handover and cabling cost is one of the key considerations in designing cellular telecommunication networks. For real-world applications, this configuration study covers in an integrated framework for two major decisions: locating MSC and assigning BS to MSC. The problem is expressed in an integer programming model and a heuristic algorithm based on Lagrangian relaxation is proposed to resolve the problem. Searching for the optimum solution through exact algorithm to this problem appears to be unrealistic considering the large scale nature and NP-Completeness of the problem. The suggested algorithm computes both the bound for the objective value of the problem and the feasible solution for the problem. A Lagrangian heuristics is developed to find the feasible solution. Numerical tests are performed for the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed heuristic algorithm. Computational experiments show that the performance of the proposed heuristics is satisfactory in the quality of the generated solution.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.91-95
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• 2014

This paper presents the structure and process technology of simple and low-cost wafer-level packaging (WLP) for thin film radio frequency (RF) devices. Low-cost practical micromachining processes were proposed as an alternative to high-cost processes, such as silicon deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) or electro-plating, in order to reduce the fabrication cost. Gold (Au)/Tin (Sn) alloy was utilized as the solder material for bonding and hermetic sealing. The small size fabricated WLP of $1.04{\times}1.04{\times}0.4mm^3$ had an average shear strength of 10.425 $kg/mm^2$, and the leakage rate of all chips was lower than $1.2{\times}10^{-5}$ atm.cc/sec. These results met Military Standards 883F (MIL-STD-883F). As the newly proposed WLP structure is simple, and its process technology is inexpensive, the fabricated WLP is a good candidate for thin film type RF devices.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.104-115
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• 2009

In case of residential fuel cell system, it is significant to stably supply heat and power to a house with high efficiency and low cost for the successful commercialization. In this paper, the control strategy analysis has been performed to minimize the total cost including capital and operating cost of the residential fuel cell system. The proposed analysis methodology is based on the simulator including the efficiency models as well as the cost data for fuel cell components. The load control strategy is the key factor to decide the system efficiency and thus the cost analysis is performed when the fuel cell system is operated for several different load control logics. Additionally, annual efficiency of the system based on the seasonal load data is calculated since system efficiency is changeable according to the electric and heat demand change. As a result, the hybrid load control combined electricity oriented control and heat oriented control has the most economical operation.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.37-69
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• 2001

A new cost management system, called Activity Based Costing (ABC) system, has arisen to solve the limitation of a Traditional Cost Accounting (TCA) system until last two decades and ABC has been applied by many companies. TCA systems have limitation in tracing cost because they arbitrarily allocate overhead cost to the cost objects without standard for direct cost distribution. ABC is an accounting system that assigns costs to products or services based on the resources they consume. The costs of all activities are traced to the products for which they are performed. Therefore ABC is a cost management system that provides a matrix to accurately quantify consumed resources triggered by activities and activities triggered by products and services. There is little implementation of ABC in the health services field, one of service industries, due to complicated and many activities, and volatile cost object. However, the necessity for applying reasonable cost accounting system is largely issuing as strategy responding hostile environment, and financial pressure, and it is imperative to implement the Activity Based Costing (ABC) system. Therefore, this study presents the framework to develop ABC system for total health service organizations. Cost objects in this study base on medical service activities per health insurance claim from one general hospital located in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). Medical service activities include all health insurance claims in the hospital. The purpose of the study is presenting useful tools and basic frame to develop Activity Based Costing system for health service organizations which want to use ABC system. The steps to develop ABC system for health service organizations are following: 1. Identifying of activity centers; 2. Definition of cost objects and activity by activity center; 3. Analysis of activity and tracing activity contribution; 4. Allocation of direct cost for specific activity; 5. Allocation of indirect cost for specific activity; 6. Allocation of depreciation for facilities, applicants, and consumption goods; 7. Allocation of administration cost; 8. Allocation of cost among activity centers; and 9. Tracing cost of cost objects by activity center. This study identified necessary information from existing reports which hospitals generally made by each step, and defined outcome which had to be produced in each step using this information. The steps of this study had limitation to apply all different size hospitals because the steps were structured ABC system by one hospital, however, this study used similar basic framework and methods with general cases. When a health service organization want to apply Activity Based Costing (ABC) system on all activities of it in future days, this study is very useful to design system structure in the health service organization.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.169-179
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• 2017

This study was conducted to supply information that can be utilized as data for desalination plant construction in the future by estimating unit cost of water production in the potential site of Incheon, Daesan, Yeosu, Busan, Ulsan and Sokcho in Korea. The production costs in Sokcho and Ulsan were similar to those of Busan and Yeosu. Those four sites showed better economic range due to low construction cost for intake facility compared to Incheon and Daesan. Although the salinity measured in the above 6 sites did not show perceptible effect on the production cost, the difference of seasonal seawater temperature needs to be considered due to the change of flux in reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. It turned out that the most critical parameters are the amortization in a year by the analysis of life cycle and the capacity of plant. Incheon and Daesan showed the difference of production cost up to 29% at the condition of amortization in 25 year, and up to 22% depending on plant capacity. However, the production cost in this study did not take into account of other indirect costs, therefore, this should be considered as the minimum cost.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.124-134
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• 2018

Despite the many advantages of modular housing, low preference for modular housing for consumers who are familiar with RC structure leads to high construction cost of modular housing. The cost of modular buildings is about 130% of that of RC structures, so it is urgent to secure economical efficiency of modular buildings. Therefore, in this study, after calculating the savings amount of modular housing by type of construction work, economic analysis was conducted from a long - term perspective. In order to carry out the research, the authors compiled and analyzed the material cost, labor cost, and expenses incurred by each type of work by reclassifying the statement of the modular housing into the factory production and the site installation. After that, Pareto diagrams were created to find a core work that is included in the cost ratio of about 80%, and selected it as a cost reduction subject. Based on the assumption that the market size of domestic modular housing is similar to the level of modular advanced countries such as Japan and European countries, six cost reduction methods were set up that reflects the characteristics of the modular construction method and used for the expert interviews. Cost saving potentials in percentage from the interview were converted to the amount of savings that can be achieved by each type of method when applying the method. Finally, the findings of the study are expected to suggest long-term directions for technical development for modular construction and cost savings.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.55-79
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• 2013

In this paper, we propose a hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) approach to effectively solve the reverse logistics network with centralized centers (RLNCC). For the proposed HGA approach, genetic algorithm (GA) is used as a main algorithm. For implementing GA, a new bit-string representation scheme using 0 and 1 values is suggested, which can easily make initial population of GA. As genetic operators, the elitist strategy in enlarged sampling space developed by Gen and Chang (1997), a new two-point crossover operator, and a new random mutation operator are used for selection, crossover and mutation, respectively. For hybrid concept of GA, an iterative hill climbing method (IHCM) developed by Michalewicz (1994) is inserted into HGA search loop. The IHCM is one of local search techniques and precisely explores the space converged by GA search. The RLNCC is composed of collection centers, remanufacturing centers, redistribution centers, and secondary markets in reverse logistics networks. Of the centers and secondary markets, only one collection center, remanufacturing center, redistribution center, and secondary market should be opened in reverse logistics networks. Some assumptions are considered for effectively implementing the RLNCC The RLNCC is represented by a mixed integer programming (MIP) model using indexes, parameters and decision variables. The objective function of the MIP model is to minimize the total cost which is consisted of transportation cost, fixed cost, and handling cost. The transportation cost is obtained by transporting the returned products between each centers and secondary markets. The fixed cost is calculated by opening or closing decision at each center and secondary markets. That is, if there are three collection centers (the opening costs of collection center 1 2, and 3 are 10.5, 12.1, 8.9, respectively), and the collection center 1 is opened and the remainders are all closed, then the fixed cost is 10.5. The handling cost means the cost of treating the products returned from customers at each center and secondary markets which are opened at each RLNCC stage. The RLNCC is solved by the proposed HGA approach. In numerical experiment, the proposed HGA and a conventional competing approach is compared with each other using various measures of performance. For the conventional competing approach, the GA approach by Yun (2013) is used. The GA approach has not any local search technique such as the IHCM proposed the HGA approach. As measures of performance, CPU time, optimal solution, and optimal setting are used. Two types of the RLNCC with different numbers of customers, collection centers, remanufacturing centers, redistribution centers and secondary markets are presented for comparing the performances of the HGA and GA approaches. The MIP models using the two types of the RLNCC are programmed by Visual Basic Version 6.0, and the computer implementing environment is the IBM compatible PC with 3.06Ghz CPU speed and 1GB RAM on Windows XP. The parameters used in the HGA and GA approaches are that the total number of generations is 10,000, population size 20, crossover rate 0.5, mutation rate 0.1, and the search range for the IHCM is 2.0. Total 20 iterations are made for eliminating the randomness of the searches of the HGA and GA approaches. With performance comparisons, network representations by opening/closing decision, and convergence processes using two types of the RLNCCs, the experimental result shows that the HGA has significantly better performance in terms of the optimal solution than the GA, though the GA is slightly quicker than the HGA in terms of the CPU time. Finally, it has been proved that the proposed HGA approach is more efficient than conventional GA approach in two types of the RLNCC since the former has a GA search process as well as a local search process for additional search scheme, while the latter has a GA search process alone. For a future study, much more large-sized RLNCCs will be tested for robustness of our approach.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.1355-1362
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• 2000

Microstrip antennas are attractive for many applications because of their compact size, low profile, and light weight. Recently, the demand for the miniaturization of the personal communication equipment has been increasing along with the proliferation of personal communication systems. Thus, the development of small antenna has been highly demanded. In this paper, a new technique to reduce the overall dimension of a microstrip antenna with a locally non-homogeneous substrate configuration is proposed. The miniaturized microstrip antenna for a repeater system in a mobile communication cellular band(824~894 MHz) is designed with the proposed technique, and commercialized with low cost, light weight, and small size. Comparison between simulations, based on Agilent Technologies HFSS software, and measurements are provided. The proposed method will be more attractive for a light-weight, small-size, and low-cost microstrip array design. This paper also presents the bandwidth improvement technique for under-coupled microstrip patch antenna with a tuning stub.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.194-200
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• 2009

This study provides a heuristic algorithm to solve the locating problem of repair service centers (RSCs). To enhance the customer service level with more satisfaction and quicker responsiveness, the locating problem of RSCs has become one of the important issues in reverse supply chain management. This problem is formulated as a zero-one mixed integer programming in which an exiting distributor will be considered to be an un-capacitated repair service center for the objective of cost-minimizing. Since logistical costs are highly interrelated with the multinational location of distributors and RSCs, the fixed cost for setting a repair service center, variable cost, transportation cost, and exchange rates are considered in this study. Recognizing the selection of un-capacitated RSCs' locations is a combinatorial optimization problem and is a zero-one mixed integer programming with NP-hard complexity, we provide a heuristic algorithm named as incremental cost matrix procedure (ICMP) to simplify the solving procedure. By using the concise and structural cost matrix, ICMP can efficiently screen the potential location with cost advantage and effectively decide which distributor should be a RSC. Results obtained from the numerical experiments conducted in small scale problem have shown the fact that ICMP is an effective and efficient heuristic algorithm for solving the RSCs locating problem. In the future, using the extended ICMP to solve problems with larger industrial scale or problems with congestion effects caused by the variation of customer demand and the restriction of the RSC capacity is worth a further investigation.