• International Area Studies Review
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.3-27
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• 2018

This paper analyzes Cuba's market-oriented reforms to alleviate essential problems with socialist countries such as soft budget constraints and incentive problems. It also discuss about effectiveness of industrial policy as a development strategy. The soft budget constraints and incentive problems resulted in the collapse of Soviet bloc and COMECON in early 1990s. After the collapse, Cuban economy suffered a steep dive, and national income tumbling down rapidly. Cuban faced serious shortages of food, gasoline, and other basic necessities of life. To halt and partially reverse economic downturn and dire austerity in the 1990's, the Cuban government made some partial reforms to the inherited Soviet system of cental planningand faced severe shortage in food, energy, and daily necessities. In response to the economic crisis. Cuba introduced economic reforms and implemented industrial policy as a development strategy as long as Cuba maintained a strong socialist country. Cuban government established the economic free zone law and attempted to induce foreign direct investment by implementing export-led industrial policy. Fiedel Castro approved the Law No. 165 "Free Zones and Industrial Parks", in 1996. However, Cuba's ESZ strategy seems to have failed because of the U.S. sanctions, but also because of Cuba's own policies, which do not allow foreign investors to hire workers directly and impose a high implicit tax on wages. By limiting advanced techniques of personnel and organization management, indirect employment can result in lowering work efforts and productivity of workers, and aggravating production efficiency in the ESZs. Another reason to fail comes from the double wage structure due to the double monetary-exchange rate system. Most of the high non-wage costs result from the double exchange rate system. Due to Cuba's imbalanced industry and production structures, concentrated labor force, and urbanization and centralization of agriculture production, the industrial transformation development model suggested by Lewis has not been successful unlike other Asian agriculture-led development model. Cuba has to overcome many difficulties in implementing industrial policy as a development strategy.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.111-119
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• 2021

A bacterial strain isolated from a Malva verticillata leaf was identified as Bacillus velezensis MV2 based on the 16S rRNA sequencing results. Complete genome sequencing revealed that B. velezensis MV2 possessed a single 4,191,702-bp contig with 45.57% GC content. Generally, Bacillus spp. are known to produce diverse antimicrobial compounds including bacteriocins, polyketides, and non-ribosomal peptides. Antimicrobial compounds in the B. velezensis MV2 were extracted from culture supernatants using hydrophobic interaction chromatography. The crude extracts showed antimicrobial activity against both gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria; however, they were more effective against gram-positive bacteria. The extracts also showed antifungal activity against phytopathogenic fungi such as Fusarium fujikuroi and F. graminearum. In time-kill assays, these antimicrobial compounds showed bactericidal activity against Bacillus cereus, used as indicator strain. To predict the type of antimicrobial compounds produced by this strain, we used the antiSMASH algorithm. Forty-seven secondary metabolites were predicted to be synthesized in MV2, and among them, fourteen were identified with a similarity of 80% or more with those previously identified. Based on the antimicrobial properties, the antimicrobial compounds may be nonribosomal peptides or polyketides. These compounds possess the potential to be used as biopesticides in the food and agricultural industry as an alternative to antibiotics.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2021

This study was intended to present measures for the improvement of the apartment house landscaping supervision system by examining the adequacy of landscaping supervision, which is aimed at improving the quality of landscape plants and facilities in apartment house landscaping sites. Additionally, this study aims to identify the problems occurring in the process of the performance of landscaping supervision and to provide the evidence for legislative activities and revision of the laws currently being pushed forward for the mandatory deployment of apartment house landscaping supervision personnel. The results of the analysis showed that no landscaping supervision personnel was deployed to apartment complexes with less than 1,500 households and that the landscaping comprised 19% to 46% of the entire construction process. The civil engineering firm performed the landscaping supervision, which made it impracticable to fully focus on the construction quality in the field of landscaping. The quality control in terms of landscape plants revealed differences in quality control, depending on the competence and experience of the civil engineer supervising the personnel, where the landscaping supervision personnel was not deployed. The apartment houses landscaping supervision activity index was analyzed, and the results showed that the supervision activity index for apartment house A was 72.0, B was 70.4, and apartment houses C to G ranged from 38.7 to 46.9, which suggested that the difference in quality control, process control, and technical support affected the construction quality and occurrence of defects.The improvement of landscaping process quality control and process management will be carried out more smoothly and the rate of defects will be drastically reduced if the landscaping supervision personnel placement threshold is lowered from 1,500 households to 300 households in complexes. The results of this study are expected to be useful in promoting and re-establishing the landscaping industry based on the improvement of construction quality in the field of landscaping in connection with the construction of apartment houses.

• Journal of Ginseng Culture
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• v.3
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• pp.90-118
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• 2021

Gaeseong fostered the conditions necessary for modern capitalism, as huge capital was accumulated through the cultivation and trade of ginseng, which were activities that flourished in the 18th century. During the Japanese colonial era, ginseng merchants were not simply limited to acquiring landowner capital from ginseng trade but actively converted such resource to productive and financial capital, thereby becoming modern entrepreneurs. Ginseng merchants led the joint management and investment of Gaeseong Electric Co., Ltd., Daehan Cheonil Bank, Gaeseong Brewing Co., Ltd., and Songgo Textile Company, founded in the early 20th century. They pursued corporate profits and, as leading individuals of society, spearheaded regional development by supporting educational and cultural projects in Gaeseong. These projects included the establishment of the Gaeseong Commercial School, the publication of Goryeo Times, and the operation of the Gaeseong Jwa Theater. Although liberal economics prioritized shareholder interest, the 21st century witnessed an emphasis on social responsibility among stakeholders asthe major purpose of enterprises. A trend that emerged was ESG (environment, social, governance) management, in which non-financial factors are valued more highly than financial performance. A successful business, which was denoted only by high profits in the past, is now defined by whether a company fulfills its social responsibility. In the early 20th century, the corporate activities of ginseng merchants in Gaeseong reflected entrepreneurship and stakeholder-centered ESG management, which later emerged as essential elements of modern business management. The modern management philosophy ahead of its times stemmed from the regionality of Gaeseong. The political discrimination against Gaeseong residents in the Joseon Dynasty precluded them from becoming government officers, and under a strict social hierarchy, yangban ("noblemen"), the intellectuals of the Joseon Dynasty, were forced to serve as merchants. Son Bong-sang and Kong Seong-hak, aside from being representative ginseng merchants, were both Confucian scholars and writers. The second and third generations of ginseng merchant families who had received higher education abroad returned to Gaeseong to carry on with their family businesses, then established modern companies with capital accrued from the ginseng industry. An analysis of the commercial activities of ginseng merchants in the early 20th century confirmed that these individuals were pioneering entrepreneurs who adopted the ESG management philosophy. In ginseng merchants, one sees a dimension of capitalism with a human face, as with ginseng thatsaves human life.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.150-162
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• 2021

Companies have recently become increasingly interested in corporate entrepreneurship to establish a core employment policy in order to secure and maintain core employees and to foster an innovation-oriented organizational culture. Therefore, The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the causal relationship between core employment policies and the team leader's the perceived internal process organizational competency and job satisfaction, and to investigate whether corporate entrepreneurship has a moderation effect. Non-financial service industries including ICT companies were subject of the study and human capital corporate panel(HCCP) was utilized. The samples were 367 team leaders from 79 domestic companies. This study also applied Multi-Level Analysis(HLM), which simultaneously analyzes variables at both the individual level and the organizational level in order to improve the accuracy of the study. According to the result of the study analysis, core employment policies have a positive(+) impact on the perceived internal process organizational competency and job satisfaction. In addition, the moderation effect of corporate entrepreneurship was verified during the process when core employment policies influence the two outcome variables. corporate entrepreneurship was found to have a moderation effect that strengthens the influence on job satisfaction, but the moderation effect on the perceived internal process organizational competency was not statistically significant. These results confirm that organizational cultural factors such as corporate entrepreneurship are important influence variables in the process of influencing individual-level variables such as core employment policies. Academically, It suggests that in order to enhance the effectiveness of company strategies in respect of human resource management such as core employment policies, it is important to foster a cultural environment that suits the industry and characteristics of the organization. In addition, it suggested that companies in need of new innovation need to utilize corporate entrepreneurship.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.211-220
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• 2022

Poultry are exposed to extremely high levels of oxidative stress as a consequence of the excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced by endogenous and exogenous stressors, such as high-stocking densities, thermal stress, environmental and feed contamination, along with factors associated with intensive breeding systems. Oxidative stress promotes lipid peroxidation, DNA damage, and inflammation, which can have detrimental effects on the health of birds. During the course of evolution, birds have developed antioxidant defense mechanisms that contribute to maintaining homeostasis when exposed to endogenous and exogenous stressors. The primary antioxidant defense systems are enzymatic and non-enzymatic in nature and play roles in protecting cells from ROS attack. Recently, plant flavonoids, which have been established to reduce oxidative stress, have been attracting considerable attention as potential feed additives. Flavonoids are a group of polyphenolic compounds that can be stabilized by binding structural compounds with ROS, and can promote the elimination of ROS by inducing the expression of antioxidant enzymes. However, although flavonoids can contribute to reducing lipid peroxidation and thereby enhance the antioxidant capacity of birds, they have low solubility in the gastrointestinal tract, and consequently, it is necessary to develop a delivery technology that can facilitate the effect intestinal absorption of these compounds. Furthermore, it is important to determine the dietary levels of flavonoids by assessing the exact antioxidant effects in the gastrointestinal tract wherein the concentrations of dietary flavonoids are highest. It is also necessary to examine the expression of transcriptional factors and vitagenes associated with the efficient antioxidant effects induced by flavonoids. It is anticipated that the application of flavonoids as natural antioxidants will become a particularly important field in the poultry industry.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.853-860
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to suggest an improvement plan for the calculation method of the engineer standard wage rate (ESWR) and to compute a reasonable ESWR. To this end, an adequacy review of theESWR calculation criteria was conducted along with an extensive engineering industry survey. The survey results were analyzed using an effective response sample of 748 companies out of 1,000 survey samples extracted by stratifying the 5,879 survey population. The main results were as follows. ①When calculating the engineering service fee, the prime contractor's engineer wage is suitable for the ESWR. The ESWR can be estimated by the formula 'average wage÷[1-proportion of subcontract orders×(1-subcontract rate)].' ② The field survey showed that the number of monthly working days was 20.35-20.54 days at 99 % confidence interval, which was significantly different from the current standard (22 days). In addition, as a result of a legal review of the ESWR criteria, it was found that the number of working days should be calculated in accordance with the Labor Standards Act after 2022. ③ Applying government guidelines, the time difference between the wage survey and the ESWR application can be corrected by the past ESWR increase rate for a specific period. ④ Using modeling based on the analysis above, the current ESWR was 13.5-14.5 % lower than the appropriate level. A lower ESWR was driven by the non-reflection of subcontract structure (4.1 %), overestimation of monthly work days (6.8-7.8 %), and application of past wage (2.6 %). The proposed model is expected to be widely used in policy making, as it can provide a useful framework for calculating the standard wage rate in similar industries as well as calculating appropriate engineering fees.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.601-610
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• 2022

P. tenebrifer (PT) belongs to the Diptera order and Stratiomyidae family. Recently, insect industry have been focused as food, animal feed and environmental advantages. γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and melatonin have been associated with regulating sleep and depression. GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter and is synthesized via biotransformation of monosodium glutamate (MSG) to GABA by lactic acid bacteria. In this study, we first used a GABA-enhanced PT extract, wherein GABA was enhanced by feeding MSG to PT. The underlying mechanisms preventing stress and insomnia were investigated in a corticosterone (CORT)-induced endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and chronic restraint stress (CRS)-exposed mouse model, as well as in pentobarbital (45 mg/kg)-induced sleep behaviors in mice. In the present study, the GABA peak was detected in high-performance liquid chromatography-evaporative light scattering detector (HPLC-ELSD) analysis and showed in Ptecticus tenebrifer water extract (PTW) but not in non-PTW extract. The results showed that PTW and Ptecticus tenebrifer with 70% ethanol extract (PTE) exerted neuroprotective effects by protecting against CORT-induced downregulation of phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB) expression. In addition, PTW (300 mg/kg) significantly reduced CORT levels in CRS-exposed mice. Furthermore, PTW (100 and 300 mg/kg) significantly reduced sleep latency and increased total sleep duration in pentobarbital (45 mg/kg)-induced sleeping behaviors, which was related to serum melatonin levels. In conclusion, our results suggest that PTW exerts anti-stress and sleep-enhancing effects by regulating serum CORT and melatonin levels.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2013

This case focuses on Shanghai Tang, the first truly Chinese luxury brand that appeals to both Westerners and, more recently, to Chinese consumers worldwide. A visionary and wealthy businessman Sir David Tang created this company from scratch in 1994 in Hong Kong. Its story, spanned over almost two decades, has been fascinating. It went from what best a Chinese brand could be in the eyes of Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a nearly-bankrupted company in 1998, before being acquired by Richemont, the second largest luxury group in the world. Since then, its turnaround has been spectacular with a growing appeal among Chinese luxury consumers who represent the core segment of the luxury industry today. The main objective of this case study is to formally examine how Shanghai Tang overcame its downfall and re-emerged as one the very few well- known Chinese luxury brands. More specifically, this case highlights the ways with which Shanghai Tang made a transitional change from a brand for Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a brand for both, Westerners who love the Chinese culture and Chinese who love luxury. A close examination reveals that Shanghai Tang has followed the brand identity concept that consists of two major components: functional and emotional. The functional component for developing a luxury brand concerns all product characteristics that will make a product 'luxurious' in the eyes of the consumer, such as premium quality of cachemire from Mongolia, Chinese silk, lacquer, finest leather, porcelain, and jade in the case of Shanghai Tang. The emotional component consists of non-functional symbolic meanings of a brand. The symbolic meaning marks the major difference between a premium and a luxury brand. In the case of Shanghai Tang, its symbolic meaning refers to the Chinese culture and the brand aims to represent the best of Chinese traditions and establish itself as "the ambassador of modern Chinese style". It touches the Chinese heritage and emotions. Shanghai Tang has reinvented the modern Chinese chic by drawing back to the stylish decadence of Shanghai in the 1930s, which was then called the "Paris of the East", and this is where the brand finds inspiration to create its own myth. Once the functional and emotional components assured, Shanghai Tang has gone through a four-stage development to become the first global Chinese luxury brand: introduction, deepening, expansion, and revitalization. Introduction: David Tang discovered a market gap and had a vision to launch the first Chinese luxury brand to the world. The key success drivers for the introduction and management of a Chinese luxury brand are a solid brand identity and, above all, a creative mind, an inspired person. This was David Tang then, and this is now Raphael Le Masne de Chermont, the current Executive Chairman. Shanghai Tang combines Chinese and Western elements, which it finds to be the most sustainable platform for drawing consumers. Deepening: A major objective of the next phase is to become recognized as a luxury brand and a fashion or design authority. For this purpose, Shanghai Tang has cooperated with other well-regarded luxury and lifestyle brands such as Puma and Swarovski. It also expanded its product lines from high-end custom-made garments to music CDs and restaurant. Expansion: After the opening of his first store in Hong Kong in 1994, David Tang went on to open his second store in New York City three years later. However this New York retail operation was a financial disaster. Barely nineteen months after the opening, the store was shut down and quietly relocated to a cheaper location of Madison Avenue. Despite this failure, Shanghai Tang products found numerous followers especially among Western tourists and became "souvenir-like" must-haves. However, despite its strong brand DNA, the brand did not generate enough repeated sales and over the years the company cumulated heavy debts and became unprofitable. Revitalizing: After its purchase by Richemont in 1998, Le Masne de Chermont was appointed to lead the company, reposition the brand and undertake some major strategic changes such as revising the "Shanghai Tang" designs to appeal not only to Westerners but also to Chinese consumers, and to open new stores around the world. Since then, Shanghai Tang has become synonymous to a modern Chinese luxury lifestyle brand.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.117-129
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• 2023

Organizations must seek change in order to adapt to environmental changes and achieve better performance. However, despite this obvious statement, empirical analysis has been almost non-existent due to the difficulty of manipulating organizational performance or change. In this study, we overcame these limitations and analyzed the causes and effects of organizational change by assuming a professional sports team as a venture company, which is relatively easy to objectively measure and evaluate organizational change or performance. We systematically collected and preprocessed traditional and advanced metrics of National Basketball Association (NBA) statistics along with preprocessed trade data from eight years of regular seasons (2014~2015-2021~2022) to analyze our research model. Assessment of process macro model 7 derives the following empirical result. The results of the empirical analysis depict that NBA teams with low organizational performance in the previous season are more likely to make organizational changes through player trades to improve performance. Into the bargain player trades mediate the static relationship between the winning percentage in the previous season and the winning percentage in the current season. However, the indirect effect of a team's previous season's performance on player trades appears to vary depending on the current situations and context of each NBA team. Teams that made the playoffs in the previous season tend to make fewer trades than teams that did not and the previous season's performance is highly correlated with the current season's performance. On the other hand, teams that did not make the playoffs in the previous season tend to make a relatively larger amount of player trades in total, and the mediating effect of trades vanishes in this case. In other words, teams that did not make the playoffs in the previous season experience a larger change in performance due to trades than teams that made the playoffs, even if they achieved the same winning percentage. This empirical analysis of the inverse relationship between organizational change and the performance of professional sports teams has both theoretical and practical implications in the field of sports industry and management by analyzing the fundamentals of organizational change and the performance of professional sports teams.