• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.77-105
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• 2021

Natural gas consumption in Asia is growing at fast tempo because of various factors such as economic growth in the region, urbanization, coal-to-gas switch at power and industry sector. Due to geographical characteristics and lack of international pipeline connections between countries in the continent, majority of natural gas exported to Asian consumers is transported by tankers on the sea in the form of liquefied natural gas. As Asian market is the most lucrative market with the fastest demand growth, the competitions between LNG sellers for market share in Asian market are strengthening. The competitions accelerated, especially after the introduction of large volume of incremental supply into the market by new exporters from the U.S., Australia, and Russia. Cheniere Energy, the first exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the lower 48 states of U.S. has not adopted the traditional price formation mechanism and business model. Traditionally, prices of long-term LNG contracts have been indexed to the price of competing fuels, such as crude oil. The company adopted a pricing mechanism and business model based on a cost-plus system. Cheniere Energy opted for the safer and the risk-free pricing system, that annually guarantees a fixed amount of revenue to the seller. The company earns the same amount of money, regardless of natural gas price dynamics in the domestic and international market, but possibly with less revenue. However, by introducing and successfully implementing the safer and risk- free business model, Cheniere Energy, a company of a relatively smaller size in comparison with major oil and gas companies, became an example to other smaller-sized companies in the U.S. The company's business model demonstrated how to enter and operate LNG business amid increasing competitions among sellers in the U.S. and international market.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.97-125
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• 2021

Blockchain is a core technology to solve personal information leakage and data management issues, which are limitations of existing Genomic Sequencing services. Due to continuous cost reduction and deregulation, the market size of Genomic Sequencing has been increasing, also the potential of services is expected to increase when Blockchain's security and connectivity are combined. We created our research model by combining the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Innovation Resistance Theory also analyzed the factors affecting the acceptance intention and innovation resistance of the Blockchain Based Genomic Sequencing Information Platform. A survey was conducted on 150 potential users of Blockchain and Genomic Sequencing services. The analysis was conducted by setting the four Blockchain variables: Security, transparency, availability, and diversity). Also, we set the Perceived Usefulness, Perceived risk, and Perceived Complexity for Technology Acceptance and Innovation Resistance variables and analyzed the effect of the characteristics of the Blockchain on acceptance intention and innovation resistance through these variables. Through this analysis, key variables that need to be considered important to reduce resistance and increase acceptance intention could be identified. This study presents innovation factors that should be considered in companies preparing a new Blockchain Based Genomic Sequencing Information Platform.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.5-16
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• 2009

Against the backdrop of the increasing trend towards economic globalisation, many international firms are indicating that decisions on how to enter foreign markets remains one of the key strategic challenges confronting them. Despite the rich body of literature on the topic, the fact that these challenges have continued to dominate global marketing strategy discourses point to someevident lacunae. Accordingly, this paper considers the variables, categorised in terms of firm contexts (standardisation, market research, competition, structure, competitive advantage) and host country-contexts (economic development, cultural differences, regulation and political risk), which influence the degree of involvement of UK companies in overseas markets. Following hypotheses were drawn from literature review: H1: The greater the level of competition, the higher the degree of involvement in the overseas market. H2: The more centralised the firm's organisation structure, the higher the degree of involvement in the overseas market. H3a: The adoption of a low cost-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3b: The adoption of an innovation-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3c: The adoption of a market research approach to competitive advantages will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3d: The adoption of a breadth of strategic target-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a lower degree of involvement. H4: The higher the degree of standardisation of the international marketing mix the higher the degree of involvement. H5: The greater the degree of economic development in the host market, the higher the degree of involvement. H6: The greater the cultural differences between home and host countries, the lower the degree of involvement. H7: The greater the difference in regulations between the home country and the host country, the lower the degree of involvement. H8: The higher the political risk in the host country, the lower the degree of involvement. A questionnaire instrument was constructed using, wherever possible, validated measures of the concepts to serve the aims of this study. Following two sets of mailings, 112 usable completed questionnaires were returned. Correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze data. Statistically, the paper suggests that factors relating to the level of competition, competitive advantages and economic development are strong in influencing foreign market involvements. On the other hand, unexpectedly, cultural factors (especially individualism/collectivism and low and high power distance dimensions) proved to have weak moderating effects. The reason for this, in part, is due to the pervading forces of globalisation and the attendant effect on global marketing. This paper has contributed to the general literature in a way that point to two mainimplications. First, with respect to research on national systems, the study may hold out some important lessons especially for developing nations. Most of these nations are known to be actively seeking to understand what it takes to attract foreign direct investment, expand domestic market and move their economies from the margin to the mainstream global economy. Second, it should be realised that competitive conditions remain in constant flux (even in mature industries and mature economies). This implies that a range of home country factors may be as important as host country factors in explaining firms' strategic moves and the degree of foreign market involvement. Further research can consider the impact of the home country environment on foreign market involvement decisions. Such an investigation will potentially provide further perspectives not only on the influence of national origin but also how home country effects are confounded with industry effects.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.1-24
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• 2018

In the last decade, the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a new technology has been applied with traditional Computer-aided design implementations in an increasing number of architecture, engineering, and construction projects and applications. Its employment alongside construction management, can be a valuable tool in helping move these activities and projects forward in a more efficient and time-effective manner. The traditional stakeholders, i.e., Owner, A/E and the Contractor are involved in this BIM system that is used in almost every activity of construction projects, such as design, cost estimate and scheduling. This article extracts major features of the application of BIM from perspective of participating BIM components, along with the different phrases, and applies to them a logistic analysis using a fuzzy performance tree, quantifying these phrases to judge the effectiveness of the BIM techniques employed. That is to say, these fuzzy performance trees with fuzzy logic concepts can properly translate the linguistic rating into numeric expressions, and are thus employed in evaluating the influence of BIM applications as a mathematical process. The rotational fuzzy models are used to represent the membership functions of the performance values and their corresponding weights. Illustrations of the use of this fuzzy BIM performance tree are presented in the study for the uninitiated users. The results of these processes are an evaluation of BIM project performance as highly positive. The quantification of the performance ratings for the individual factors is a significant contributor to this assessment, capable of parsing vernacular language into numerical data for a more accurate and precise use in performance analysis. It is hoped that fuzzy performance trees and fuzzy set analysis can be used as a tool for the quality and risk analysis for other construction techniques in the future. Baldwin's rotational models are used to represent the membership functions of the fuzzy sets. Three scenarios are presented using fuzzy MEAN, AND and OR gates from the lowest to intermediate levels of the tree, and fuzzy SUM gate to relate the intermediate level to the top component of the tree, i.e., BIM application final performance. The use of fuzzy MEAN for lower levels and fuzzy SUM gates to reach the top level suggests the most realistic and accurate results. The methodology (fuzzy performance tree) described in this paper is appropriate to implement in today's construction industry when limited objective data is presented and it is heavily relied on experts' subjective judgment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.947-956
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• 2009

Residual petroleum hydrocarbons after an oil spill may accumulate in the marine benthic ecosystem due to their high hydrophobicity. A lot of monitoring data are required for the estimation of ecosystem exposure to residual petrochemicals in an ecological risk assessment in the affected region. To save time and cost, the environmental exposure to them in the affected ecosystem can also be assessed using a simple food-web bioaccumulation model. In this study, we evaluated residual concentrations of four selected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (phenanthrene, anthracene, pyrene, and benzo[a]pyrene) in a hypothetic benthic ecosystem composed of six species under two exposure scenarios. Body-residue concentration ranged 5~250 mg/kg body depending on trophic positions in an extreme scenario in which the aqueous concentrations of PAHs were assumed to be one-tenth of their aqueous solubility. In addition, bioconcentration factors (BCFs) and bioaccumulation factors (BAFs) were evaluated for model species. The logarithm of bioconcentration factor (log BCF) linearly increased with increasing the logarithm of 1-octanol-water partition coefficient (log $K_{OW}$) until log $K_{OW}$ of 7.0, followed by a gradual decrease with further increase in log $K_{OW}$ without metabolic degradation. Biomagnification became significant when log $K_{OW}$ of a pollutant exceeded 5.0 in the model ecosystem, indicating that investigation of food-web structure should be critical to predict biomagnifications in the affected ecosystem because log $K_{OW}$ values of many petrochemicals are higher than 5.0. Although further research is required for better site-specific evaluation of exposure, the model simulation can be used to estimate the level of the ecosystem exposure to residual oil contaminants at the screening level.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.71-130
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• 2008

Using data from the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study (KLIPS), this study investigates private income transfers in Korea, where adult children have undertaken the most responsibility of supporting their elderly parents without well-established social safety net for the elderly. According to the KLIPS data, three out of five households provided some type of support for their aged parents and two out of five households of the elderly received financial support from their adult children on a regular base. However, the private income transfers in Korea are not enough to alleviate the impact of the fall in the earned income of those who retired and are approaching an age of needing financial assistance from external source. The monthly income of those at least the age of 75, even with the earning of their spouses, is below the staggering amount of 450,000 won, which indicates that the elderly in Korea are at high risk of poverty. In order to analyze microeconomic factors affecting the private income transfers to the elderly parents, the following three samples extracted from the KLIPS data are used: a sample of respondents of age 50 or older with detailed information on their financial status; a five-year household panel sample in which their unobserved family-specific and time-invariant characteristics can be controlled by the fixed-effects model; and a sample of the younger split-off household in which characteristics of both the elderly household and their adult children household can be controlled simultaneously. The results of estimating private income transfer models using these samples can be summarized as follows. First, the dominant motive lies on the children-to-parent altruistic relationship. Additionally, another is based on exchange motive, which is paid to the elderly parents who take care of their grandchildren. Second, the amount of private income transfers has negative correlation with the income of the elderly parents, while being positively correlated with the income of the adult children. However, its income elasticity is not that high. Third, the amount of private income transfers shows a pattern of reaching the highest level when the elderly parents are in the age of 75 years old, following a decreasing pattern thereafter. Fourth, public assistance, such as the National Basic Livelihood Security benefit, appears to crowd out private transfers. Private transfers have fared better than public transfers in alleviating elderly poverty, but the role of public transfers has been increasing rapidly since the welfare expansion after the financial crisis in the late 1990s, so that one of four elderly people depends on public transfers as their main income source in 2003. As of the same year, however, there existed and occupied 12% of the elderly households those who seemed eligible for the National Basic Livelihood benefit but did not receive any public assistance. To remove elderly poverty, government may need to improve welfare delivery system as well as to increase welfare budget for the poor. In the face of persistent elderly poverty and increasing demand for public support for the elderly, which will lead to increasing government debt, welfare policy needs targeting toward the neediest rather than expanding universal benefits that have less effect of income redistribution and heavier cost. Identifying every disadvantaged elderly in dire need for economic support and providing them with the basic livelihood security would be the most important and imminent responsibility that we all should assume to prepare for the growing aged population, and this also should accompany measures to utilize the elderly workforce with enough capability and strong will to work.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.45-55
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• 2012

In Korea, the parcel delivery service was launched officially in 1992, and the market has grown to 13.2 billion units, or 3.5 trillion won, as of 2011. The service companies accept small packages under 30 kg and deliver them on the next day in most domestic areas. This service plays an important role in business and personal activities. The parcel service companies have themselves designed the tariff for the delivery service based on two criteria: weight and the sum of three side lengths. Further, the tariff is graded in steps of three or four rate structures based on size (small, medium, large, and extra-small). However, the basic freight rate is generally decided according to the cargo's weight or measurement size, and an extra rate is added according to some factors (handling, stowability, liability, and so on). The parcel service tariff adopted by the companies is illogically designed, and this study was carried out to assess the need for redesigning the tariff structure. The cargo volume cannot be logically reflected by three side lengths. For example, two parcels measuring 160 cm based on three side lengths may have different volumes, one measuring 0.152 cbm (53.33 cm × 53.33 cm × 53.34 cm) and the other 0.05 cbm (100 cm × 50 cm × 10 cm). A small package of less than120 cm (sum of three side lengths) may have a volume of as much as 0.064 cbm (40 cm × 40 cm × 40 cm). Sample comparison showed that 17% of medium-size parcels (based on the sum of three side lengths) are small-volume packages, 24% of large-size parcels are small- or medium-volume packages, and 40% of extra-big-size parcels are big- or under-size packages. Therefore, if parcel service companies rate their services for volume cargo based on the three side lengths standard, users may have to pay higher than normal rates, particularly because a large percentage of parcels are volume cargo. According to this study, the average weight per 1 cbm is less than 300 kg. Therefore, users face an increasing risk of paying higher than logical freight charges. Generally, transportation companies are called "public interest enterprises," and parcel service companies operate as postal services. Public interest enterprises must provide the delivery service to all customers without discrimination at a reasonable service level and logical service charges. Therefore, parcels service tariffs must be designed and adopted logically. In this study, freight theories and prior research findings were used to consider the importance of freight rates, and distortion of parcel service rates based on the three side lengths system was verified through regression analysis of a parcel sample and sample comparison. In conclusion, volume sizes based on three side lengths have a higher correlation to the rate level than does the sum of three side lengths. Further, compared to the sum of three side lengths, volume size has a higher correlation to cargo weight, which is the most basic factor determining transportation cost. Therefore, the existing parcel service tariff should be changed to weight- and volume-based rates, and the tariff must be graded in steps of 8 to 10 higher rate structures for a logical freight schedule based on service cost.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.623-634
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• 2022

Due to river maintenance projects such as the creation of hydrophilic areas around rivers and the Four Rivers Project, the flow characteristics of rivers are continuously changing, and the risk of water quality accidents due to the inflow of various pollutants is increasing. In the event of a water quality accident, it is necessary to minimize the effect on the downstream side by predicting the concentration and arrival time of pollutants in consideration of the flow characteristics of the river. In order to track the behavior of these pollutants, it is necessary to calculate the diffusion coefficient and dispersion coefficient for each section of the river. Among them, the dispersion coefficient is used to analyze the diffusion range of soluble pollutants. Existing experimental research cases for tracking the behavior of pollutants require a lot of manpower and cost, and it is difficult to obtain spatially high-resolution data due to limited equipment operation. Recently, research on tracking contaminants using RGB drones has been conducted, but RGB images also have a limitation in that spectral information is limitedly collected. In this study, to supplement the limitations of existing studies, a hyperspectral sensor was mounted on a remote sensing platform using a drone to collect temporally and spatially higher-resolution data than conventional contact measurement. Using the collected spatio-temporal hyperspectral images, the tracer concentration was calculated and the transverse dispersion coefficient was derived. It is expected that by overcoming the limitations of the drone platform through future research and upgrading the dispersion coefficient calculation technology, it will be possible to detect various pollutants leaking into the water system, and to detect changes in various water quality items and river factors.