• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.5-14
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• 2015

Purpose - Loyalty programs enable retailers to maintain longer and better customer relationships. In successful services, customers actively use and value these programs. As the proximity to the goal (goal gradient) might signal active participation, this study empirically examines customer's goal gradient behavior in a multi-vendor loyalty program. We also consider the effect of customer's accrual diversity on goal gradients, which is a differentiating feature in a multi-vendor loyalty program, and is further examined. Research Design, Data, and Methodology - The data consists of6,646 OK Cashbag members' individual transaction records from 2006 to 2009. The goal gradient hypothesis was tested as an increase in both the speed and the amount of accumulated award points. Result - The findings suggest that the goal gradient is also observed in a multi-vendor loyalty program, occurring more strongly among members with high accrual diversity. Conclusions - The results indicate that customers with high accrual diversity attend strongly to goal gradients in multi-vendor loyalty programs; hence, it is important for such program managers to better inform members about affiliated partners.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2014

The goal-gradient hypothesis states that the tendency to approach a goal increases with the increasing proximity of the goal (Hull 1932). It was initially supported with an evidence of animal experiments and since then, several papers have investigated the goal-gradient hypothesis in humans. Although there are some evidences related to the goal-gradient hypothesis in human behaviors, none of previous studies can properly explain its underlying mechanism, and what's more, they were not able to suggest useful managerial applications in human behaviors. From these perspectives, this work points out that there are some theoretical weaknesses to apply the goal-gradient hypothesis into the complicated human decision-making behaviors and proposes an alternative theoretical mechanismthat underlies the goal-gradient hypothesis in human. Finally, it offers insights into managerial implications of the goal-gradient hypothesis in the marketing field. This study focuses on the changes in motivations for achieving goals, in terms of how approaches to goals vary according to temporal distance from those goals. Specifically, the temporal construal theory (Liberman and Trope 1998) is considered as the underlying mechanism of the goal-gradient in that the temporal construal theory argues how the temporal distance from a goal makes people change their associated values regarding to that goal. According to the temporal construal theory, the value of distant future outcomes (near future outcomes) is construed on the basis of abstract and central features (concrete and peripheral features), and it argues that distant future situations are construed on a higher level than near future situations. This means that the value associated with the high-level construal is enhanced over delay, whereas the value associated with the low-level construal is discounted over delay. Our propositions suggest that the goal-gradient behavior in human can be motivated by the different aspects or characteristics of the goal as time changes based on the temporal construal theory. Thus, the following propositions are proposed. P 1-1: If the goal is far away, consumers put more value on the central features that are more associated with the desirability of the goal. P 1-2: If the goal is far away, consumers put more effort into accomplishing the goal that has more central features, regardless of its peripheral features. P 2-1: If a goal is near, consumers put more value on the peripheral features that are more associated with the feasibility of the goal. P 2-2: If a goal is near, consumers put more effort into accomplishing the goal that has more peripheral features, regardless of its central features. We hope to provide sufficient managerial implications for the companies as our research aims to show how consumers react differently as they progress toward the goal. Proposed propositions may provide guidance for companies developing a loyalty program, enabling them to understand what kinds of benefits or services they should provide or emphasize to consumers in loyalty programs on the basis of the time-dependent changes in outcome values (such as gifts, reward coupons). The effects of temporal distance from a goal should inform companies' marketing activities and help themto determine where emphasis should be placed in designing the benefits of their loyalty program.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.173-193
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• 2019

Reward-based crowdfunding is a funding platform that allows funds to be raised to early operators who have lack of funds, and is seen as an outstanding infrastructure that is going to lead the fourth industrial revolution in that it is a field of realization of new technologies and creative ideas by start-ups. Reward-based crowdfunding has grown in line with the trend of the fourth industrial revolution, and funding success cases are taking place in various industries that culture/art to technology/IT, including as a new means of knowledge management in a rapidly changing industrial environment. The study focused on the fact that consumer's donation purposes may also vary depending on the category of projects classified as reward-based crowdfunding. Because consumer payment decisions and motivation of consumer purchasing behavior are classified according to the purpose of purchase, the previous papers that the goal gradient effect that the main motivation of consumer donation for reward-based crowdfunding introduced vary depending on project category of utilitarian and hedonic. In this study, consumer's daily donation data is collected by Indiegogo which is a leading reward-based crowdfunding company using web-crawling and the model was defined as propensity score matching (PSM) and random effect model. The results showed that the goal gradient effect occurred in utilitarian project category, but no goal gradient effect for the hedonic project category. Furthermore, this paper developed the study of motivation of consumer donation and contributes theoretical foundation by the results consumer donation may vary depending on the project category; also, this paper has implications for an effective marketing strategy depending on the project category leaves real meaning to the projector.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.63-82
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• 2014

The main objective of this research is to investigate whether the RFM (recency-frequency-monetary value) information of a customer's redemption behavior of loyalty points can improve the prediction of future value of the customer. The conventional measurement of customer value has been primarily based on purchase transactions behavior although a customer's future behavior can be also influenced by other interactions between the customer and the firm such as redemption of rewards in a loyalty program. We theorize why a customer's redemption behavior can influence her future purchases and thereby the customer's total value based on operant learning theory, goal gradient hypothesis, and lock-in effect. Using a dataset from a major book store in Korea spanning three years between 2008 and 2010, we analyze both purchase transactions and redemption records of over 10,000 customers. The results show that the redemption-based RFM information does improve the prediction accuracy of the customer's future purchases. Based on this result, we also propose an improved estimate of customer lifetime value (CLV) by combining purchase transactions and loyalty points redemption data. Managerial implications will be also discussed for firms managing loyalty programs to maximize the total value customers.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.1680-1688
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• 2017

In this study, analysis is performed on entropy generation during cilia transport of water based titanium dioxide nanoparticles in the presence of viscous dissipation. Moreover, thermal heat flux is considered at the surface of a channel with ciliated walls. Mathematical formulation is constructed in the form of nonlinear partial differential equations. Making use of suitable variables, the set of partial differential equations is reduced to coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations. Closed form exact solutions are obtained for velocity, temperature, and pressure gradient. Graphical illustrations for emerging flow parameters, such as Hartmann number (Ha), Brinkmann number (Br), radiation parameter (Rn), and flow rate, have been prepared in order to capture the physical behavior of these parameters. The main goal (i.e., the minimizing of entropy generation) of the second law of thermodynamics can be achieved by decreasing the magnitude of Br, Ha and ${\Lambda}$ parameters.

• Journal of KIEE
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.7-15
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• 2000

Source separation is a statistical method, the goal of which is to separate the linear instantaneous mixtures of statistically independent sources without resorting to any prior knowledge. This paper addresses a source separation algorithm which is able to separate the mixtures of sub- and super-Gaussian sources. The nonlinear function in the proposed algorithm is derived from the generalized Gaussian distribution that is a set of distributions parameterized by a real positive number (Gaussian exponent). Based on the relationship between the kurtosis and the Gaussian exponent, we present a simple and efficient way of selecting proper nonlinear functions for source separation. Useful behavior of the proposed method is demonstrated by computer simulations.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.1-22
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• 2022

This study aims to investigate the gamification effect of the badge awards, the most popular gamification process, on users participation behavior. This study also attempts to investigate the effect of tailored gamification, which designs the system of gamification differently based on users' characteristics, focusing on the level of online user information disclosure. For this, we collect and analyze data on 557 users and 1,048,020 answers from StackOverflow, an online Q&A community for developers. The results show that providing a badge is effective for increasing the amount of user participation, whereas providing a goal through the badge is partially effective for increasing the quality of participation. However, the moderating effect of whether users disclose their SNS information on the relationship between badge gaining and participation decrease is not statistically significant. For platform operators, our findings emphasize the importance of gamification design to enhance user engagement effectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.345-352
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• 2009

The purpose of inlet baffle is to distribute the flow uniformly over the entire cross-sectional area of the sedimentation basin. The goal when designing this baffle is to achieve some head loss while keeping the velocity gradients through the ports equal to the velocity gradient in the end of the flocculator, so as to not break up the flocs. Sedimentation tank performance is strongly influenced by hydrodynamic and physical effects such as inlet design. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of open ratio of the inlet baffle on hydraulic behavior within a rectangular sedimentation basin using CFD simulation and ADV technique. In order to verify the CFD simulation, we measured the factual velocity at 18 points in the full-scale sedimentation basin at Y water treatment plant. Good agreement was obtained between the CFD predictions and the experimentally measured data. From the simulation results of the existing basin with 7.4 % open ratio, it was investigated that extreme decrease in velocity occurred in the middle of basin. Since then, flow features was unstable. The region which the velocity decrease rapidly moved forward to the flow direction in proportion to the increase of inflow velocity. Also, it was investigated that the flow characteristic of 6.0 % open ratio was significantly different from 7.4 % open ratio at the same configuration condition. These results are a clear indication that inflow momentum and open ratio are the parameters affecting the characteristics of hydraulic patterns. The influence of these parameters on the sedimentation performance requires further study.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.212-220
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• 2013

Recently, there has been tremendous increase in human-computer/machine interaction system, where the goal is to provide with an appropriate service to the user at the right time with minimal human inputs for human augmented cognition system. To develop an efficient human augmented cognition system based on human computer/machine interaction, it is important to interpret the user's implicit intention, which is vague, in addition to the explicit intention. According to cognitive visual-motor theory, human eye movements and pupillary responses are rich sources of information about human intention and behavior. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for the identification of human implicit visual search intention based on eye movement pattern and pupillary analysis such as pupil size, gradient of pupil size variation, fixation length/count for the area of interest. The proposed model identifies the human's implicit intention into three types such as navigational intent generation, informational intent generation, and informational intent disappearance. Navigational intent refers to the search to find something interesting in an input scene with no specific instructions, while informational intent refers to the search to find a particular target object at a specific location in the input scene. In the present study, based on the human eye movement pattern and pupillary analysis, we used a hierarchical support vector machine which can detect the transitions between the different implicit intents - navigational intent generation to informational intent generation and informational intent disappearance.