• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.27-34
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• 2020

Purpose: North Korea is a very close country geographically and culturally, but the nation has been one of the most secretive countries in the world. However, in recent years, North Korean society has been known to rapidly change its economic environment as well as its diplomatic and political environment. Since the gaining power of Jong-un, Kim in 2012, the North Korean government has implemented a new set of economic policies. North Korea has embraced limited market systems and mechanisms that have become a part of the formal planned economy. This study is concerned with the recent changes in the market and marketing activities of the communist country. It also seeks to gain an understanding of the changing market behavior of North Korean consumers. The purpose of this study is to enhance understanding of the market environments of North Korea and to provide appropriate implications for practitioners and researchers. Research design, data and methodology: Academic access to information that can understand North Korea's reality is minimal. Therefore, this study was conducted based on a qualitative analysis of secondary data. The existing literature on North Korea, related news and reports were the basis of the analysis. Analysis of secondary data related to North Korea was the main methodology of the study. Results: The official ideology of North Korea rejected most aspects of marketing, and yet there were marketing activities in North Korea. This article focuses on the development of market and marketing activities in North Korea during the recent years. This study indirectly confirmed that the market function is being activated in North Korea, and the basic functions of marketing such as advertisement, price, and distribution are being formed. In this process, the activation of the 'Jangmadang(market)' played a significant role. Conclusions: Research shows that North Korea is rapidly developing its own market function. In addition, marketing activities such as advertising and pricing strategies seem to be unprecedentedly active. However, due to changes in the political environment, the future development of North Korea's marketing is still in flux. Efforts to improve mutual understanding through continuous research are required.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.147-152
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• 2016

Purpose - High quality films are affected by both the production stage and various variables such as the size of the movie investment and marketing that changes consumers' perceptions. Consumer preferences should be recognized first to ensure that the movie is successful. If a film is produced without pre-investigation and analysis of consumer demand and taste, the probability of success will be low. This study investigates the balance of production costs, marketing costs, and profits using game theory, suggesting an optimization strategy using the simplex method of linear programming. Research design, data, and methodology - Before the release of the movie, initial demand is assumed to be driven largely by marketing costs. In the next phase, demand is assumed to be driven purely by a movie's production cost and quality, which might also further determine consumer demand. Thus, it is essential to determine how to distribute pure production costs and other costs (marketing) in a limited movie production budget. Moreover, it should be taken into account how to optimally distribute under the assumption that the audience and production company's input resources are limited. This research simplifies the assumptions for large-scale and relatively small-scale movie investments and examines how movie distribution participant profits differ when each cost is invested differently. Results - When first movers or market leaders have to choose both quality and marketing, it has been proven that pursuing a strategy choosing only one is more likely than choosing both. In this situation, market leaders should maximize marketing costs under the premise that market leaders will not lag their quality behind the quality of second movers. Additionally, focusing on movie marketing that produces a quick effect while ceding creative activity to increase movie quality is a natural outcome in the movie distribution environment since a cooperative strategy between market competitors is not feasible. Conclusions - Government film development policy should ignore quality competition between movie production companies and focus on preventing marketing competition. If movie production companies focus on movie production quality improvement then a creative competition would ensue.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.9 no.11
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• pp.4268-4290
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• 2015

Future mobile communications face enormous challenges as traditional voice services are replaced with increasing mobile multimedia and data services. To address the vast data traffic volume and the requirement of user Quality of Experience (QoE) in the next generation mobile networks, it is imperative to develop efficient content distribution technique, aiming at significantly reducing redundant data transmissions and improving content delivery performance. On the other hand, in recent years cloud computing as a promising new content-centric paradigm is exploited to fulfil the multimedia requirements by provisioning data and computing resources on demand. In this paper, we propose a cooperative caching framework which implements State based Content Distribution (SCD) algorithm for future mobile networks. In our proposed framework, cloud service providers deploy a plurality of cloudlets in the network forming a Distributed Cloud Service Network (DCSN), and pre-allocate content services in local cloudlets to avoid redundant content transmissions. We use content popularity and content state which is determined by content requests, editorial updates and new arrivals to formulate a content distribution optimization model. Data contents are deployed in local cloudlets according to the optimal solution to achieve the lowest average content delivery latency. We use simulation experiments to validate the effectiveness of our proposed framework. Numerical results show that the proposed framework can significantly improve content cache hit rate, reduce content delivery latency and outbound traffic volume in comparison with known existing caching strategies.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.69-83
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• 2019

Purpose - This paper investigates the long term impact of RFID investment on firm value in Korea. We wand to find out why the long term performance of some firm's RFID investment is better than others. To understand the dynamics of the long term returns from RFID investment announcements, we divide our events into groups for each of the independent firm characteristic variable such as investment time period, kind of markets, industries, solvency and growth potential. We composed portfolios based on the RFID investment announcement date for each group and evaluate the monthly abnormal excess returns. Research design, data, and methodology - Based on these calendar-time portfolios, we measure the long term returns from 86 RFID investment announcements of 46 firms from 2003 to 2017. We construct the calendar-time portfolio for 3, 6, 9, 12 months of holding periods. Using the weighted least squares method, we regress the raw monthly returns of the portfolios on the Fama-French model and Carhart(1997) model. As a result, we can get the estimated risk adjusted mean monthly abnormal excess return α_P for each of the calendar-time portfolio. Results - We found that early adopters, large firms, non-manufacturing firms have very significant excess returns. We also found modestly significant excess returns for financially stable firms and slow growing firms. Put together, top managers of the firms which plan to invest RFID should understand the strategic role of RFID adoption and the generalized business process of distribution information technology investment in Korea. Moreover, the findings of this paper provide useful trading strategies to the managers of large funds who are considering on investing in RFID adopting firms. Conclusions - Put together, the results of this paper give us a new insight into how the RFID and IT technology in general and other characteristic factors' interactions affect the long term performance of firms. Using the unbiased estimates of long term returns of the calendar-time portfolios, this paper extends the understandings on short term impact of RFID adoption of existing studies. This paper also extends the current understandings of firm characteristics that affect the long term performance of RFID adopting firms.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.217-225
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• 2022

The population of pet cats has increased significantly, from 0.3% in 2002 to 5.6% in 2017. Large-scale feline demographic and disease data from Korea are lacking. The aim of this study was to investigate the demographic data (breed, sex, and age) and disease distribution of cats who visited private veterinary practices in Korea. Data including breed, sex, age, and disease, were compiled from 32,728 electronic medical records from 30 selected private veterinary practices, between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2017. Diseases were classified based on the International Classification of Diseases 11 by the World Health Organization, and then compared and cross-analyzed according to breed, sex, and age. Korean shorthair was the most common breed. There was a high distribution of young cats, with 77.6% of the cats under 4 years of age, and an average age of 2.5 years. Diagnoses related to preventative medicine were the most frequent and diagnoses common to young cats had higher incidence. This demographic data and information about disease distribution can be used as a basis for future research and may be helpful for determining priorities in the diagnosis of diseases and establishing strategies for health management in cats.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.3383-3397
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• 2023

Scene graphs serve as semantic abstractions of images and play a crucial role in enhancing visual comprehension and reasoning. However, the performance of Scene Graph Generation is often compromised when working with biased data in real-world situations. While many existing systems focus on a single stage of learning for both feature extraction and classification, some employ Class-Balancing strategies, such as Re-weighting, Data Resampling, and Transfer Learning from head to tail. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that decouples the feature extraction and classification phases of the scene graph generation process. For feature extraction, we leverage a transformer-based architecture and design an adaptive calibration function specifically for predicate classification. This function enables us to dynamically adjust the classification scores for each predicate category. Additionally, we introduce a Distribution Alignment technique that effectively balances the class distribution after the feature extraction phase reaches a stable state, thereby facilitating the retraining of the classification head. Importantly, our Distribution Alignment strategy is model-independent and does not require additional supervision, making it applicable to a wide range of SGG models. Using the scene graph diagnostic toolkit on Visual Genome and several popular models, we achieved significant improvements over the previous state-of-the-art methods with our model. Compared to the TDE model, our model improved mR@100 by 70.5% for PredCls, by 84.0% for SGCls, and by 97.6% for SGDet tasks.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.183-195
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• 2024

Additional functional upgrades to the large-area compton camera (LACC) measurement device that can provide characteristics evaluation information (nuclear species and radioactivity) and two-dimensional or three-dimensional distribution imaging information of radioactive materials existing in surface or internal of concrete structures are required in terms of work stability and efficiency in order to apply to actual decommissioning sites such as nuclear power plants or medical cyclotron facilities by using this measurement device. To this purpose, the technology that allows radiation workers to intuitively and visually check the distribution of radioactive materials in advance by matching the two-dimensional distribution imaging information of radioactive materials obtained through the LACC measurement device and visual imaging of the measurement zone (10 m × 5 m) was developed. In addition, the separate system that can automatically adjust the position (height) in units of the measurement area size (0.7 m × 0.3 m × 0.8 m) of the LACC measurement device was developed and the integrated management system for characteristics evaluation information and two-dimensional or three-dimensional distribution imaging information obtained per unit of measurement for radioactive materials was developed. These functional upgrades related to LACC measurement device can improve work efficiency and safety when measuring radioactivity of concrete structures and enable the establishment of appropriate decommissioning strategies using radioactivity measurement information for decommissioning nuclear power plants or medical cyclotron facilities.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.31-41
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• 2024

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine the supply chain issues in the palm oil industry in Malaysia and by proposing a comprehensive and strategic plan. Research design, data and methodology: Through meticulous qualitative analysis, we have identified the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) affecting the Malaysian palm oil supply chain. Leveraging the SWOT-Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM), we have critically assessed a range of strategies. Results: Our findings have underscored the supply chain's robust infrastructure and efficient operations as significant strengths, while environmental impact and distribution concerns emerged as notable weaknesses. The study highlights the promotion of certified sustainable palm oil to meet global demands as the most promising opportunity, juxtaposed against stricter regulations hampering market access as the primary threat. Remarkably, the QSPM has singled out the activation of existing infrastructure as the top priority. Conclusions: This study contributes substantially to the field by offering an in-depth analysis and improvement blueprint specifically tailored to the palm oil supply chain. In light of prevailing negative perceptions, distribution campaigns, and trade hurdles, businesses can harness the strategic insights presented here to unlock the full potential of the supply chain and steer it towards sustainable prosperity.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.352-365
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• 1997

As a serials of researches for the restoration model of evergreen broad-leaved forests, the restoration strategies of the case study areas were proposed. Restoration type of vegetation were classified into an improvement type and a reconstruction type and a reconstruction type for Wando(Island). Improvement type of restoration was suggested for Mokdo(Island). Quercus acuta community, Q. salicina community, Neolitsea sericea community, Castanopsis cuspidata var. sieboldii community, Machilus thunbergii community, Cinnamomum japonicum community, etc. were suggested as a restoration goal of vegetation for Sando(Island). Machlus thunvergii community was suggested as a restoration goal of vegetation for Mokdo(Island). Also the species restoration olan of the Wando(Island) was prepared for Quercus salicina of Fagaceae and Ostrya japonica of Betulaceae those which the natural distribution and population size were very limited. There was no species which needed for species restoration urgently at Mokdo(Island).

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.327-337
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• 2019

The aim of this research is to contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of automotive parts suppliers while departing from the dependent relationship structure, by developing and interpreting factors that affect sale, which are financial achievements, in a practical way. The research data covered 200 companies from 2013-2017. The study hypothesis was verified by dividing the hypothesis into Model1 with control variables only and Model2 with control variables in independent variables. As a result of hypothesis testing, regarding sales, only capital size showed to have an effect in Model1, while in Model2, asset size, number of employees and joint ventures with foreign companies did but the other remaining factors did not. In particular, the results showed that an increase in financial performance required 'Economies of scale', and that companies that concentrated on a small number of items, diversified products into four or more items, or owned two to four suppliers, reaped positive results in financial performance. Therefore, in addition to the selection and concentration of corporate management for production items and account management, applying strategies, like the inter-company M&A, consortiums and co-branded strategies to achieve 'Economy of scale', would highly enhance the financial performance of automotive parts suppliers.