• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.23 no.12
• /
• pp.1977-1985
• /
• 2014

Many countries around the world are amplifying interest and studies on irrigation, flood control and environment with concern on serious water problems. Especially for irrigation in water supply vulnerable areas such as coastal areas - islands, business on underwater resource security facilities are promoted to secure stable water resources due to development of society and increase of life quality. Also, various policies such as reuse of leaking underwater, utilization of underwater at waterfront, and artificial recharge, etc are planned and designed. In order to develop small sized underwater resource secure technology, verification of seawater-freshwater interface is executed and how the balance between these will develop is a great interest of coastal areas - islands. In this study, seawater-freshwater interface behavior analysis experiment was conducted while reflecting properties of coastal areas - islands and executed hydraulic similitude of saltwater intrusion form control technology on abstraction.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.35-42
• /
• 2020

Purpose: Islamic banking products and services have always claimed to be unique from its traditional interest-based counterpart. However, in practice, many Islamic banks are alleged to have drifted away from its paradigm version. The purpose of this study is to gauge the perception of university students in Malaysia towards Islamic banking products. Research design, data and methodology: Data were collected from 250 Malaysian university students. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed to test proposed hypotheses to identify factors influencing customers' perception toward Islamic banking products. Results: The main finding indicates that most of the respondents are familiar with Islamic banking products and consider Islamic banking products as useful as its conventional counterparts. The regression results show that respondents are less convinced of adherence to Shari'ah, efficiency and helpfulness of existing Islamic banks. Conclusions: This is a cue to the Islamic banks' stakeholders that they need to realign their practices in an ethically responsible way in accordance with Shari'ah if they wish to secure existing customers and attract potential ones. In a competitive banking environment, most banks provide efficient and readily available service; thus, focusing on this as a strategy hardly distinguishes an Islamic bank from an interest-based bank.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.73-87
• /
• 2016

Combining power generation and water production by desalination is economically advantageous. Most desalination projects use fossil fuels as an energy source, and thus contribute to increased levels of greenhouse gases. Environmental concerns have spurred researchers to find new sources of energy for desalination plants. The coupling of nuclear power production with desalination is one of the best options to achieve growth with lower environmental impact. In this paper, we will per-form a sensitivity study of coupling nuclear power to various combinations of desalination technology: {1} thermal (MSF [Multi-Stage Flashing], MED [Multi-Effect Distillation], and MED-TVC [Multi-Effect Distillation with Thermal Vapour Compression]); {2} membrane RO [Reverse Osmosis]; and {3} hybrid (MSF-RO [Multi-Stage Flashing & Reverse Osmosis] and MED-RO [Multi-Effect Distillation & Reverse Osmosis]). The Korean designed reactor plant, the APR1400 will be modeled as the energy production facility. The economical evaluation will then be executed using the computer program DEEP (Desalination Economic Evaluation Program) as developed by the IAEA. The program has capabilities to model several types of nuclear and fossil power plants, nuclear and fossil heat sources, and thermal distillation and membrane desalination technologies. The output of DEEP includes levelized water and power costs, breakdowns of cost components, energy consumption, and net saleable power for any selected option. In this study, we will examine the APR1400 coupled with a desalination power plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as a prototypical example. The KSA currently has approximately 20% of the installed worldwide capacity for seawater desalination. Utilities such as power and water are constructed and run by the government. Per state practice, economic evaluation for these utilities do not consider or apply interest or carrying cost. Therefore, in this paper the evaluation results will be based on two scenarios. The first one assumes the water utility is under direct government control and in this case the interest and discount rate will be set to zero. The second scenario will assume that the water utility is controlled by a private enterprise and in this case we will consider different values of interest and discount rates (4%, 8%, & 12%).

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
• /
• v.42 no.2
• /
• pp.159-163
• /
• 2015

Background Interest in global health and international mission trips among medical student and resident trainees is growing rapidly. How these electives and international mission experiences affect future practice is still being elucidated. No study has identified if participation in international surgical missions during residency is a predictor of participation in international surgical missions in practice after training completion. Methods All trainees of our plastic surgery residency program from 1990 to 2011, during the implementation of optional annual international surgical missions, were surveyed to determine if the graduate had gone on a mission as a resident and as a plastic surgeon. Data were compared between graduates who participated in missions as residents and graduates who did not, from 1990 to 2011 and 1990 to 2007. Results Of Plastic Surgery graduates from 1990 to 2011 who participated in international missions as residents, 60% participated in missions when in practice, versus 5.9% of graduates participating in missions in practice but not residency (P<0.0001). When excluding last 5 years, graduates participating in international missions in practice after doing so as residents increases to 85.7%, versus 7.41% who participate in practice but not residency P<0.002. Conclusions Results reveal plastic surgeons who participate in international surgical missions as residents participate in international surgical missions in practice at higher rates than graduates who did not participate in missions during residency. International missions have significant intrinsic value both to trainee and international communities served, and this opportunity should be readily and easily accessible to all plastic surgery residents nationwide.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.35-44
• /
• 2022

In this study, we tried to confirm the characteristics of books published on the topic of international cooperation, what kind of international cooperation-related research is being conducted through this book, and what are the main contents of international cooperation. In order to achieve this research purpose, we conducted data construction, statistical analysis, and text mining based on textom in international research cooperation at home and abroad. As a result of the study, it can be seen that there has been a particularly high interest in international research and international cooperation since the 2010s. Through this, it was found that he is interested in development, economy, technology, development, region, and relations and wants to promote development. In addition, topics such as environment, trade, education, and society appeared, and interest in international research cooperation centered on environment, trade, and education was high, was found to have a high influence on society as a whole. Through this study, we find the research significance in that it can serve as a basic research to confirm the characteristics of some national and public research institutes participating in international research cooperation, and that it confirms the trend of participating in international research cooperation in a relatively specific type of institution. can see.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.283-303
• /
• 2006

This is the research on the correlation between the marketing activities conducted by the companies participating in the overseas exhibitions in the exhibition and the satisfaction of the visitors. I have been able to obtain the following findings through the positive research on the satisfaction of the visitors to the overseas exhibitions. The research findings show that the external elements of the participating companies such as 'external appearances of booths, interior facilities and the atmosphere', 'designs of exhibits', 'size of the participating companies', and the publicity elements of the participating companies such as 'the degree of application of mass media', 'prior publicity of the participating companies', etc. among the marketing activities conducted by the participating companies in the exhibition affect the interest and repeat business deals of the visitors. The findings also show that the elements to induce the interest of the visitors such as the booth design and display of products where the participating companies may produce their unique image and the prior publicity to the visitors constitute the important elements of marketing. It has also been revealed that the visitors whose purpose of the visits are to purchase the products and to satisfy their interest in 'the events and contents of the events affect the interest and the repeat business deals of the visitors, among the interest and repeat business deals pursuant to the characteristics of the visitors. It has also been found that the visitors who have recognized the representative brands in the exhibitions affect the interest and the repeat business deals and the visitors who have visited the exhibition several times are more satisfied than the visitors who have visited the exhibition for the first time. The comparative evaluation of the degree of importance of the marketing activities of the participating companies before the visitors' visit to the exhibitions and the degree of satisfaction after their visit reveals degrees of satisfaction in the order of 'the booth staff's professional knowledge of the exhibits', 'foreign language proficiency and their techniques of negotiation and demonstration', 'designs of the exhibits (colors and packaging), 'prior publicity of the participating companies. Such being the case, the companies participating in any of the overseas should maximize the result of their participation in the exhibition by training their staff in the products and foreign languages and through the prior publicity. It has also been found out that "the atmosphere of the booth in the exhibition such as 'launching of new products', 'external appearances of the booth, layout of the interior facilities and the atmosphere and events of the participating companies affect the interest and repeat business deals of the visitors, among the factors for the satisfaction of the visitors. Therefore, it has been proven that the external factors such as the external appearances of the booth, display of the products, launching of new products and events producing the atmosphere of the booth of the participating companies among the marketing activities conducted by the participating companies, and the extent of the training of the booth staff and prior publicity are the major factors affecting the interest and repeat business deals of the visitors.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.44
• /
• pp.373-391
• /
• 2016

Since the 2000's, interest toward Africa in Korea has increased rapidly. Korea's interest in Africa began in the second half of the 1960's. However, this interest in the 1960's was motivated by political and diplomatic necessity at the time rather than the needs of indigenous groups in Africa. Korea had to oppose North Korea's diplomatic expansion in Africa to gain the support of international organizations like the United Nations. This interest in Africa motivated by diplomatic needs vanished quickly after the end of the cold war in the 1990's. Authentic Korean interest in Africa began to emerge in the 2000's. Korea's rising international status based on economic development led to a natural interest in Africa, which was the last frontier on earth. As a result, African studies in Korea increased significantly after 2010. The increase in the number of theses, articles and books was remarkable from 2010-2016, in comparison with 1957-2010. In spite of the increase in the quantity of thesis, articles, and books, the problem with Korea's African studies is above all, its preponderance. Over 75% of thesis and 70% of articles are concentrated in the domain of politics and economics. This reflects the fact that Korea's interest in Africa is based on short term political and economic interest, indicating that Korea's African studies did not deviate from the rudimentary phase in its quantity and quality. Another problem with Korea's African studies is the lack of integration of different types of research. African studies in Korea has three components, government funded research centers, university laboratories and individual researchers. The government funded research centers focus on the overview of African nations and their political and economic information. University laboratories mainly perform research on the theoretical aspects of politics, economics, human sciences and culture in Africa. Individual researchers are concerned with various categories. However, these three groups have failed to achieve a synergic effect on African studies in Korea and most of the research on Africa does not extend beyond each academic area. To overcome this problem, first of all, a live exchange may be necessary between domestic researchers.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.155-160
• /
• 2018

The article studies the effect of US real effective exchange rate and short-term interest rate on Chnise exports and imports using the EGARCH-GED model. This article analyze the effect of US major economic variables on China's exports and imports as the US pushes for interest rate hikes and worsens trade wars with China. The main results are as follows. The US short-term interest rate has a significant positive effect on China's trade volume. Even in the case of China's exports, US short-term interest rate has a significant positive effect. However, in the case of China's imports, in contrast to exports, US short-term interest rate do not have a significant effects and US real effective exchange rate has a significant positive effect. On the other hand, China's policy interest rate has a negative impact on China's imports and not statistically significant, but it has a significant positive effect on China's exports.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.42 no.4
• /
• pp.49-68
• /
• 2017

This paper investigates the spillover effect of the U.S. Interest on Korea's interest rate as well as the role of exchange rate in the spillover effects, by utilizing a open macro model on the determinants of long-term interest rates. According to the cointegration estimation and the Impulse response function, it is found that, across both long-term and short-term, there exist the spillover effect of the U.S. Interest on Korea's interest rate. The fiscal deficit and expected exchange rate have significantly positive relationship with the Koreas's long-term interest rate. Further, foreign exchange market intervention in Korea did not have significant effect on the spillover effect. Thus, this study suggests that exchange rate flexibility would not be enough to restrain the spillover effects of the U.S. interest rate.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.246-253
• /
• 2016

Infrared (IR) imaging has been researched for various applications such as surveillance. IR radiation has the capability to detect thermal characteristics of objects under low-light conditions. However, automatic segmentation for finding the object of interest would be challenging since the IR detector often provides the low spatial and contrast resolution image without color and texture information. Another hindrance is that the image can be degraded by noise and clutters. This paper proposes multi-level segmentation for extracting regions of interest (ROIs) and objects of interest (OOIs) in the IR scene. Each level of the multi-level segmentation is composed of a k-means clustering algorithm, an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm, and a decision process. The k-means clustering initializes the parameters of the Gaussian mixture model (GMM), and the EM algorithm estimates those parameters iteratively. During the multi-level segmentation, the area extracted at one level becomes the input to the next level segmentation. Thus, the segmentation is consecutively performed narrowing the area to be processed. The foreground objects are individually extracted from the final ROI windows. In the experiments, the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using several IR images, in which human subjects are captured at a long distance. The average probability of error is shown to be lower than that obtained from other conventional methods such as Gonzalez, Otsu, k-means, and EM methods.