• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.148-162
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• 1993

There is much speculation that modern capi-talist society is undergoing fundamental and qualitative chnge towards flexible specialization. The purpose of this study is to examine this hypothesis. This paper focusses on: the idea of flexible specialization; the significance of this transition; industrial district; and the implicati-ons of this new production system for Korean industrial space. Main arguments of this study are as follows: First, as all different groups of researchers apply the idea of flexible specialization according to their own specifications, the current debate on this topic is not much fruitful. Not surpri-singly, the concept of flexible specialization has overlapped with subocontracting. This intergration of subcontracting into flexible specialization systems, however, is inappropriate because the two concepts have different historical contexts. The other cause of this controversy is its inherent weekness, conceptual ambiguity. Thus, today's flexibility becomes tomorrow's rigidity. Secondly, transition towards flexible speciali-zation has only been partially achieved even in advanced capitalist countries. The application of dualistic explanatory framework, such as rigidity versus flexibiity, mass production versus small-lot multi-product production, and de-skilling versus re-skilling, has resulted in great exaggeration of the transformation, from Fordism to post-Fordism. There is no intermediary part between two places. Considering that the workers allocated to the Fordist mass production assembly line are not as large as one might imagine, the shift from mass to flexible production has only limited implications for the transformation of capitalist economy. Thirdly, 'industrial district' contorversy has contributed to highlighting the importance of small firms and areas as production space. The agglomeration of small firms in specific areas is common in Korea, but it is quite different from the industrial district based on flexible specialization. The Korean phenomenon stems from close interactions with its major parent firm rather than interactions between flexible, specialized, autonomous and technology-intensive smll firms. Most Korean subcontractors are still low-skilled, labour-intensive, and heavily dependent on their mojor parent firms. Thus, the assertion that the Seoul Metropolitan Area adopts flexible specialization has no base. Fourthly, the main concern of flexible speciali zation is small firms. However, the corporate organization that needs product diversification and technological specialization is oligopolistic large corporations typified by multinational corporations. It is because of this that most of these organizations are adoptiong Fordist mass production methods. The problem of product diversification will be resolved naturally if economic internationalization progresses further. What is more important for business success is the quality and price competitiveness of firms rather than product diversification. Lastly, in order to dispel further misunderst-anding on this issue, it is imparative that the conceptual ambiguity is resolved most urgently. This study recommends adoption of more speci-fied and direct terminology (such as, factory automation, computer design, out-sourcing, the exploitation of part-time labor, job redesign) rather than that of ideological ones (such as, Taylorism, Fordism, neo-Taylorism, neo-Fordism, post-fordism, flexible specialization, peripheral post-Fordism). As the debates on this topic just started, we still have long way to go until consensus is reached.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.99-123
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• 2004

We focus in this study on incremental financing decisions and estimate a logit model for the probability a firm will choose a private placement over a public bond issue. We hypothesize that information asymmetry, financial risk, agent cost, and proprietary information may affect a firm's choice between public debt and private placements. We find that as the size of firm increases, the probability of choosing a private placement declines significantly. The age of the firm, however, is not a significant factor affecting the firm's choice between public and privately-placed bond. The coefficients on the firm's leverage and non-investment grade dummy are significantly positive, meaning firms with high financial risk and credit risk select private placements. The findings regarding agency-related variables, PER and Tobin's Q, are somewhat complex. We find significant evidence that firms with high PER prefer private placements to public bonds, suggesting that borrowers with options to engage in asset substitution or underinvestment are more likely to choose private placements. The coefficient of Tobin's Q is negative, but not significant, which weakly support the hold-up hypothesis. When we construct an interaction term on the Tobin's Q with a non-investment rating dummy, however, the Tobin's Q interaction term becomes positive and significant. Thus, high Tobin's Q firms with a speculative rating are significantly more likely to choose a private placement, regardless of the potential hold-up problems. The ratio of R&D to sales, proxy for proprietary information, is positively significant. This result can be interpreted as evidence in favor of a role for proprietary information in the debt sourcing decision process for these firms.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.181-208
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• 2010

In July 2007, Korean government has passed "The Capital Market and Financial Investment Services Act" to further develop the capital markets and the Act was to become effective in February 2009. Using a large sample of Korean firms, we have examined (i) the effect of underwriting activities on the firm value (bond spread) comparing commercial bank and investment bank, and (ii) the determinants of the firm value changes following underwriting activities of bank. To test our goal, we collected a wide range of samples of data for bond issuing activities executed by Korean firms listed on the Korea Stock Exchange (KSE) between 2000 and 2003. Our paper is distinguished from previous studies on this subject in a way that we analyzed the effect of corporate bond underwriting activities with regard to commercial banking and investment banking. Initially, we set up a hypothesis that "Certification View" and "Conflict-of-interest View" are major driving forces behind cross-firm differences in performance following bond issuance. We find that, in general, underwriting by investment bank (securities company) brings a positive effect on the firm value (spread between bench mark rate and bond issuing rate). This result indicates that firm value has been negatively affected by the bank underwriting and provides the evidence for "Conflict-of-interest View" in Korea. Our studies have also revealed that any change in firm value following bond issuance is positively related with the firm size (total asset), operating performance, liquidity (cashflow), and equity ownership by foreign investors. Overall, our results support the view that bank underwriting activities can play an important role in determining firm value and financial strategies under "The Capital Market and Financial Investment Services Act" of 2007.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1026-1038
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• 1995

Although aloe lost a lot of its previous popularity in modern clinical uses as medicine numerous scientific researches still have claimed the beneficial properties(curing and general tonic effect) of aloe gel. Whereas considerable contradictory reports have helped to confuse the aloe gel issue and continually aroused controversy about aloe gel efficacy. However health food, cosmetic and medicinal products made from aloe gel are widely available in the world market especially in U.S.A. so the growing of Aloe plant and the processing of A. vera gel have become big industries in some countries. In some previous papers the salicylic acid, one of the common trace gel components, was thought to have an analgetic and antinflammatory effect. Large amount of Mg ion in the gel was suggested to act as anesthetic, Mg-lactate as antihistamic, and Aloctin A(a glycoprotein) as wound healer by promoting the cell growth. The carboxypeptidase and bradykinase activity in the gel were proposed to have the pain relieving and antiinflammatory effect. But any of thes etheories concerining the physiological action of the trace gel components has not been demonstrated by modern pharmacology, and failed to be supported by clinical research. It was suggested by some research workers that trace amount of anthraquinone compounds in the gel play an important role to act as false substrate inhibitors for PG and TX production(antiprostanoid effect), by which, they believed, inflammation, burn and frostbite, and infected wound could be healed. This hypothesis has not been substantiated. Butthe suggested antimicrobial action, antidiabetic, and antidotic effect of aloe gel are likely to be attributed to the trace anthraquinone compounds. In a lot of recent experimental reports it has been claimed that aloe gel polysaccharides(acetylglucomannan, acetylmannan, and glycoprotein) have the antimicrobial, antinflammatory, antitumour, and infected wound healing effect by immunoenhancement. It is hoped that these effects will be soon documented in clinical studies, then the controversy on aloe gel beneficial effect will cease. In the 30 days subchronic toxicity test the lowest observed adverse effect level of acemannan(acetylmannan) on dog was 5.0 mg/kg, IP. But the aloe gel is generally agreed to be harmless and non toxic even for the internal use such as health food. In the case of idiosynrasy one must keep the delayed type hypersensitivity reaction of aloe gel in mind. In conclusion it seem to be impossible to simply refuse a lot of evidences made by research workers who have claimed aloe gel's beneficial effects and to deny the fact that there had been long therapeutic histories of Aloe plants.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.67-101
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• 2014

The use of new technology greatly shapes the marketing strategies used by companies to engage their consumers. Among these new technologies, social media is used to reach out to the organization's audience online. One of the most popular social media channels to date is the microblogging platform Twitter. With 500 million tweets sent on average daily, the microblogging platform is definitely a rich source of data for researchers, and a lucrative marketing medium for companies. Nonetheless, one of the challenges for companies in developing an effective Twitter campaign is the limited theoretical and empirical evidence on the proper organizational usage of Twitter despite its potential advantages for a firm's external communications. The current study aims to provide empirical evidence on how firms can utilize Twitter effectively in their marketing communications using the association between brand personality and brand engagement that several branding researchers propose. The study extends Aaker's previous empirical work on brand personality by applying the Brand Personality Scale to explore whether Twitter brand communities convey distinctive brand personalities online and its influence on the communities' level or intensity of consumer engagement and sentiment quality. Moreover, the moderating effect of the product involvement construct in consumer engagement is also measured. By collecting data for a period of eight weeks using the publicly available Twitter application programming interface (API) from 23 accounts of Twitter-verified business-to-consumer (B2C) brands, we analyze the validity of the paper's hypothesis by using computerized content analysis and opinion mining. The study is the first to compare Twitter marketing across organizations using the brand personality concept. It demonstrates a potential basis for Twitter strategies and discusses the benefits of these strategies, thus providing a framework of analysis for Twitter practice and strategic direction for companies developing their use of Twitter to communicate with their followers on this social media platform. This study has four specific research objectives. The first objective is to examine the applicability of brand personality dimensions used in marketing research to online brand communities on Twitter. The second is to establish a connection between the congruence of offline and online brand personalities in building a successful social media brand community. Third, we test the moderating effect of product involvement in the effect of brand personality on brand community engagement. Lastly, we investigate the sentiment quality of consumer messages to the firms that succeed in communicating their brands' personalities on Twitter.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.19-29
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• 2010

Objectives：Authors hypothesized that bipolar tendency of non-psychiatric person would be associated with stress vulnerability. To test the hypothesis, we compared perceived stress level, Type A Behavioral Pattern (TABP) and unhealthy lifestyle between person with and without bipolar tendency. Methods：The study cohort consisted of 1987 subjects without past and current psychiatric history. In this study, bipolar tendency was determined by MDQ response which requires endorsement of at least 7 of the 13 "yes or no" questions. We compared the scores of Perceived Stress Scale, A/B lifestyle questionnaire, and unhealthy lifestyle(alcohol, smoking, lack of exercise, irregular meal) between MDQ positive and negative respondents. Results：We identified the bipolar tendency group determined by the MDQ positive response were 329 subjects(16.6%). The overall score of the bipolar tendency group was significantly high on the A/B lifestyle questionnaire compared to the non-bipolar tendency group(125.4 vs. 115.9, p<0.001), and the rate of the subjects defined as TABP was also significantly high(41.3% vs. 30.1%, p<0.001). In comparison of subjectively perceived stress level, the bipolar tendency group was observed to be significantly higher than the non-bipolar tendency group (18.5% vs. 16.5%, p<0.001). The bipolar tendency group was significantly higher than the non-bipolar tendency group on the rate of answering：'irregular eating habit' (20.1% vs. 14.3%, p=0.002), '4-or-more-times alcohol intake per week' (29.8% vs. 16.5%, p<0.001), 'currently smoking' (41.9% vs. 23.0%, p<0.001), '2-or-less-times physical exercises per week' (63.2% vs. 55.1%, p=0.007). Conclusion：By clinical diagnosis, even a person who does not meet the criteria of bipolar disorder has a high risk of stress-related behavioral pattern, and perceived stress when possessing bipolar tendencies such as the (hypo) maniac tendency or affective instability. Such individual has significantly higher risk of having unhealthy life-style such as smoking, drinking, irregular eating habit and lack of exercise compared to non-bipolar tendency group. Since these risk factors lead to increase the risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, the individual with the bipolar tendency requires a more effort to manage stress and to maintain healthy lifestyle.

• Clinics in Shoulder and Elbow
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.173-179
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• 2009

Purpose: On the hypothesis that the acromion morphology is changed according to the its site, we identified the morphology of the acromion on the oblique slices of MRI and we investigated the association of the acromial shape with the clinical stages of rotator cuff disorder on the magnetic resonance (MR) images. In addition, we compared the acromion morphology on MRI and simple X-rays. Material and Methods: The MR images of seventy one patients with rotator cuff disorder and who underwent arthroscopic surgery were compared with that of a control group of sixteen patients who didn't have rotator cuff disorder on MRI. On three subsequent oblique sagittal slices from the lateral edge of the acromion (S1, S2 and S3), each acromion morphology on the MRI slices was classified according to Epstein et al: flat, curved or hooked. We investigated the changing parttern of the acromion shape and we compared the acromion shape on MRI and that on simple X-rays. We classified the rotator cuff tear by the severity: bursitis, partial thickness tear or full thickness tear. We investigated which acromial type on the MRI oblique slice was associated with the severity of rotator cuff disease. Results: Changes of the acromial shape occurred in 54 patients (76.1%). The most frequent pattern was that the types are same on S1 and S2 and different on S3 (22 cases, 31.0%). The acromial type on S1 and S2 was significantly associated with the severity of rotator cuff disorder (p=0.001 and 0.022), respectively. There was no reliability of the acromial shape on MRI and roentgenography (p>0.05) Conclusion: The type of acromion changed from lateral to medial. Among the three positions, the shape of the acromion on S1 and S2 had meaningful correlation with the clinical stage of rotator cuff disorder. There was no statistical correlation of the acromial shape between MRI and simple X-ray.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.6-14
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• 1980

One of the physiological disease, sudden wiliting of Yushin variety suggested that low sunlight, excessive nitrogen application, and highly reduced soil condions either singly or combined, might be possible causes of the disorder. Some visual symptom of sudden wilting are discoloration of leaves, development of nodal roots above the soil surface, total root rot, and lodging. Those observations led to the hypothesis that suffocation of root tissues was a direct cause of the wilting. The oxygen transport characteristics of Yushin, IR262 and Tongil were examined by two methods. First, Soil-cultured plants of the three varieties were subjected to paraffin treatment to decrease the oxygen supply from the air to root tissues through the soil-water system, liquid paraffin was applied to the water surface in the pots at panicle formation stage. In this experiment, sudden wilting was observed of Yushin and IR262 at about a week after the treatment, but Tongil remained green and healthy. Wilting-resistant variety Tongil had higher oxygen release, whereas the susceptible Yushin and IR262 had lower oxygen release. Second, the number and size of the air spaces in each internode were investigated in the 5th internode from the top, all three varieties have a similar number of air spaces, although the air spaces of Thongil were larger. In the 4th internode, Tongil had plenty air spaces, Yushin and one of the Yushin's parents IR262 had scanty or none. The observations indicated that the ability of Yushin and IR262 for oxygen transport is very limited compared with that of Tongil. The limited oxygen supply due to poor development of air space in internode of rice plants may cause suffocation of root tissues, weaken metabolic activity of the tissues, and induce root rot, subsequently inducing sudden wilting and lodging under unfavorable weather, soil and cultural conditions.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.25-34
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• 1970

Very few articles are available on geologic structure and genesis of Sangdong scheelite-deposits in spite of the fact that the mine is one of the leading tungsten producer in the world. Sangdong scheelite deposits, embedded in Myobong slate of Cambrian age at the southem limb of the Hambaek syncline which strikes $N70{\sim}80^{\circ}W$ and dips $15{\sim}30^{\circ}$ northeast, comprise six parallel veins in coincide with the bedding plane of Myobong formation, namely four footwall veins, a main vein, and a hangingwall vein. Four footwall veins are discontinuous and diminish both directions in short distance and were worked at near surface in old time. Hangingwall vein is emplaced in brecciated zone in contact plane of Myobong slate and overlying Pungchon limestone bed of Cambrian age and has not been worked until recent. The main vein, presently working, continues more than 1,500 m in both strike and dip sides and has a thickness varying 3.5 to 5 m. Characteristic is the distinct zonal arrangement of the main vein along strike side which gives a clue to the genesis of the deposits. The zones symmetrically arranged in both sides from center are, in order of center to both margins, muscovite-biotite-quartz zone, biotite-hornblende-quartz zone and garnet-diopside zone. The zones grade into each other with no boundary, and minable part of the vein streches in the former two zones extending roughly 1,000 m in strike side and over 1,100 m in dip side to which mining is underway at present. The quartz in both muscovite-biotite-quartz and biotite-hornblende-quartz zones is not network type of later intrusion, but the primary constituent of the special type of rock that forms the main vein. The minable zone has been enriched several times by numerous quartz veins along post-mineral fractures in the vein which carry scheelite, molybdenite, bismuthinite, fluorite and other sulfide minerals. These quartz veins varying from few centimeter to few tens of centimeter in width are roughly parallel to the main vein although few of them are diagonal, and distributed in rich zones not beyond the vein into both walls and garnet-diopside zone. Ore grade ranges from 1.5~2.5% $WO_3$ in center zone to less than 0.5% in garnet-diopside zone at margin, biotite-hornblende-quartz zone being inbetween in garde. The grade is, in general, proportional to the content of primary quartz. Judging from regional structure in mid-central parts of South Korea, Hambaek syncline was formed by the disturbance at the end of Triassic period with which bedding thrust and accompanied feather cracks in footwall side were created in Myobong slate and brecciated zone in contact plane between Myobong slate and Pungchon limestone. These fractures acted as a pathway of hot solution from interior which was in turn differentiated in situ to form deposit of the main vein with zonal arrangement. The footwall veins were developed along feather cracks accompanied with the main thrust by intrusion of biotite-hornblende-quartz vein and the hangingwall vein in shear zone along contact plane by replacement. The main vein thus formed was enriched at later stage by hydrothermal solutions now represented by quartz veins. The main mineralization and subsequent hydrothermal enrichments had probably taken place in post-Triassic to pre-Cretaceous periods. The veins were slightly displaced by post-mineral faults which cross diagonally the vein. This hypothesis differs from those done by previous workers who postulated that the deposits were formed by pyrometasomatic to contact replacement of the intercalated thin limestone bed in Myobong slate at the end of Cretaceous period.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.493-502
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• 2011

We study the deep structure of Korean Peninsula by estimating Moho depth and crustal thickness from using land and oceanic topography and free-air gravity anomaly data. Based on Airy-Heiskanen isostatic hypothesis, the correlated components between the terrain gravity effects and free-air gravity anomalies by wavenumber correlation analysis(WCA) are extracted to estimate the gravity effects that will be resulted from isostatic compensation for the area. With the resulting compensated gravity estimates, Moho depth that is a subsurface between the crust and mantle is estimated by the inversion in an iterative method with the constraints of 20 seismic depth estimates by the receiver function analysis, to minimize the uncertainty of non-uniqueness. Consequently, the average of the resulting crustal thickness estimate of Korean Peninsula is 32.15 km and the standard deviation is 3.12 km. Moho depth of South Korea estimated from this study is compared with the ones from the previous studies, showing they are approximately consistent. And the aspects of Moho undulation from the respective study are in common deep along Taebaek Mountains and Sobaek Mountains and low depth in Gyeongsang Basin relatively. Also, it is discussed that the terrain decorrelated free-air gravity anomalies inferring from the intracrustal characteristics of the crust are compared to the heat flow distributions of South Korea. The low-frequency components of terrain decorrelated Free-air gravity anomalies are highly correlated with the heat flow data, especially in the area of Gyeongsang basin where high heat flow causes to decrease the density of the rocks in the lower crust resulting in lowering the Moho depth by compensation. This result confirms that the high heat sources in this area coming from the upper mantle by Kim et al. (2008).