As the usage of image/video contents increase, a security problem for the payed image data or the ones requiring confidentiality is raised. This paper proposed an image encryption methodology to hide the image information. The target data of it is the result from quantization in wavelet domain. This method encrypts only part of the image data rather than the whole data of the original image, in which three types of data selection methodologies were involved. First, by using the fact that the wavelet transform decomposes the original image into frequency sub-bands, only some of the frequency sub-bands were included in encryption to make the resulting image unrecognizable. In the data to represent each pixel, only MSBs were taken for encryption. Finally, pixels to be encrypted in a specific sub-band were selected randomly by using LFSR(Linear Feedback Shift Register). Part of the key for encryption was used for the seed value of LFSR and in selecting the parallel output bits of the LFSR for random selection so that the strength of encryption algorithm increased. The experiments have been performed with the proposed methods implemented in software for about 500 images, from which the result showed that only about 1/1000 amount of data to the original image can obtain the encryption effect not to recognize the original image. Consequently, we are sure that the proposed are efficient image encryption methods to acquire the high encryption effect with small amount of encryption. Also, in this paper, several encryption scheme according to the selection of the sub-bands and the number of bits from LFSR outputs for pixel selection have been proposed, and it has been shown that there exits a relation of trade-off between the execution time and the effect of the encryption. It means that the proposed methods can be selectively used according to the application areas. Also, because the proposed methods are performed in the application layer, they are expected to be a good solution for the end-to-end security problem, which is appearing as one of the important problems in the networks with both wired and wireless sections.
Steel plate faults is one of important factors to affect the quality and price of the steel plates. So far many steelmakers generally have used visual inspection method that could be based on an inspector's intuition or experience. Specifically, the inspector checks the steel plate faults by looking the surface of the steel plates. However, the accuracy of this method is critically low that it can cause errors above 30% in judgment. Therefore, accurate steel plate faults diagnosis system has been continuously required in the industry. In order to meet the needs, this study proposed a new steel plate faults diagnosis system using Simultaneous MTS (S-MTS), which is an advanced Mahalanobis Taguchi System (MTS) algorithm, to classify various surface defects of the steel plates. MTS has generally been used to solve binary classification problems in various fields, but MTS was not used for multiclass classification due to its low accuracy. The reason is that only one mahalanobis space is established in the MTS. In contrast, S-MTS is suitable for multi-class classification. That is, S-MTS establishes individual mahalanobis space for each class. 'Simultaneous' implies comparing mahalanobis distances at the same time. The proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system was developed in four main stages. In the first stage, after various reference groups and related variables are defined, data of the steel plate faults is collected and used to establish the individual mahalanobis space per the reference groups and construct the full measurement scale. In the second stage, the mahalanobis distances of test groups is calculated based on the established mahalanobis spaces of the reference groups. Then, appropriateness of the spaces is verified by examining the separability of the mahalanobis diatances. In the third stage, orthogonal arrays and Signal-to-Noise (SN) ratio of dynamic type are applied for variable optimization. Also, Overall SN ratio gain is derived from the SN ratio and SN ratio gain. If the derived overall SN ratio gain is negative, it means that the variable should be removed. However, the variable with the positive gain may be considered as worth keeping. Finally, in the fourth stage, the measurement scale that is composed of selected useful variables is reconstructed. Next, an experimental test should be implemented to verify the ability of multi-class classification and thus the accuracy of the classification is acquired. If the accuracy is acceptable, this diagnosis system can be used for future applications. Also, this study compared the accuracy of the proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system with that of other popular classification algorithms including Decision Tree, Multi Perception Neural Network (MLPNN), Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Tree Bagger Random Forest, Grid Search (GS), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The steel plates faults dataset used in the study is taken from the University of California at Irvine (UCI) machine learning repository. As a result, the proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system based on S-MTS shows 90.79% of classification accuracy. The accuracy of the proposed diagnosis system is 6-27% higher than MLPNN, LR, GS, GA and PSO. Based on the fact that the accuracy of commercial systems is only about 75-80%, it means that the proposed system has enough classification performance to be applied in the industry. In addition, the proposed system can reduce the number of measurement sensors that are installed in the fields because of variable optimization process. These results show that the proposed system not only can have a good ability on the steel plate faults diagnosis but also reduce operation and maintenance cost. For our future work, it will be applied in the fields to validate actual effectiveness of the proposed system and plan to improve the accuracy based on the results.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange. The innovative SMEs is defined as the firms with high level of R&D intensity which is measured by (R&D investment/total sales) ratio, according to Chauvin and Hirschey (1993). The R&D investment plays an important role as the innovative driver that can increase the future growth opportunity and profitability of the firms. Therefore, the R&D investment have large, positive, and consistent influences on the market value of the firm. In this point of view, we expect that the innovative SMEs can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. And also, we expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Aivazian et al.(2006) exert that the financial unconstrained firms with the high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms. We collect the sample firms among the total SMEs listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange during the periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. The total number of firm-year observations of the total sample firms throughout the entire period is 5,544, the number of firm-year observations of the dividend firms is 2,919, and the number of firm-year observations of the non-dividend firms is 2,625. About 53%(or 2,919) of these total 5,544 observations involve firms that make a dividend payment. The dividend firms are divided into two groups according to the R&D intensity, such as the innovative SMEs with larger than median of R&D intensity and the noninnovative SMEs with smaller than median of R&D intensity. The number of firm-year observations of the innovative SMEs is 1,506, and the number of firm-year observations of the noninnovative SMEs is 1,413. Furthermore, the innovative SMEs are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints, such as the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms. The number of firm-year observations of the former is 894, and the number of firm-year observations of the latter is 612. Although all available firm-year observations of the dividend firms are collected, deletions are made in the case of financial industries such as banks, securities company, insurance company, and other financial services company, because their capital structure and business style are widely different from the general manufacturing firms. The stock repurchase was involved in dividend payment because Grullon and Michaely (2002) examined the substitution hypothesis between dividends and stock repurchases. However, our data structure is an unbalanced panel data since there is no requirement that the firm-year observations data are all available for each firms during the entire periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. We firstly estimate the classic Lintner(1956) dividend adjustment model, where the decision to smooth dividend or to adopt a residual dividend policy depends on financial constraints measured by market accessibility. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between current payout rato and target payout ratio each year. In the Lintner model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPSt), and independent variables are the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) and the current earnings per share(EPSt). We hypothesized that firms adjust partially the gap between the current dividend per share(DPSt) and the target payout ratio(Ω) each year, when the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) deviate from the target payout ratio(Ω). We secondly estimate the expansion model that extend the Lintner model by including the determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory. In the expansion model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPSt), explanatory variables are the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) and the current earnings per share(EPSt), and control variables are the current capital expenditure ratio(CEAt), the current leverage ratio(LEVt), the current operating return on assets(ROAt), the current business risk(RISKt), the current trading volume turnover ratio(TURNt), and the current dividend premium(DPREMt). In these control variables, CEAt, LEVt, and ROAt are the determinants suggested by the residual dividend theory and the agency theory, ROAt and RISKt are the determinants suggested by the dividend signaling theory, TURNt is the determinant suggested by the transactions cost theory, and DPREMt is the determinant suggested by the catering theory. Furthermore, we thirdly estimate the Lintner model and the expansion model by using the panel data of the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms, that are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints. We expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, because the former can finance more easily the investment funds through the market accessibility than the latter. We analyzed descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and median to delete the outliers from the panel data, conducted one way analysis of variance to check up the industry-specfic effects, and conducted difference test of firms characteristic variables between innovative SMEs and noninnovative SMEs as well as difference test of firms characteristic variables between financial unconstrained firms and financial constrained firms. We also conducted the correlation analysis and the variance inflation factors analysis to detect any multicollinearity among the independent variables. Both of the correlation coefficients and the variance inflation factors are roughly low to the extent that may be ignored the multicollinearity among the independent variables. Furthermore, we estimate both of the Lintner model and the expansion model using the panel regression analysis. We firstly test the time-specific effects and the firm-specific effects may be involved in our panel data through the Lagrange multiplier test that was proposed by Breusch and Pagan(1980), and secondly conduct Hausman test to prove that fixed effect model is fitter with our panel data than the random effect model. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. The determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory explain significantly the dividend policy of the innovative SMEs. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between the current payout ratio and the target payout ratio each year. In the core variables of Lintner model, the past dividend per share has more effects to dividend smoothing than the current earnings per share. These results suggest that the innovative SMEs maintain stable and long run dividend policy which sustains the past dividend per share level without corporate special reasons. The main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs is faster than that of the noninnovative SMEs. This means that the innovative SMEs with high level of R&D intensity can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. The other main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the financial unconstrained SMEs is faster than that of the financial constrained SMEs. This means that the financial unconstrained firms with high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Futhermore, the other additional results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs classified by the Small and Medium Business Administration is faster than that of the unclassified SMEs. They are linked with various financial policies and services such as credit guaranteed service, policy fund for SMEs, venture investment fund, insurance program, and so on. In conclusion, the past dividend per share and the current earnings per share suggested by the Lintner model explain mainly dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs, and also the financial constraints explain partially. Therefore, if managers can properly understand of the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative SMEs, they can maintain stable and long run dividend policy of the innovative SMEs through dividend smoothing. These are encouraging results for Korea government, that is, the Small and Medium Business Administration as it has implemented many policies to commit to the innovative SMEs. This paper may have a few limitations because it may be only early study about the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of the innovative SMEs. Specifically, this paper may not adequately capture all of the subtle features of the innovative SMEs and the financial unconstrained SMEs. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to expand sample firms and control variables, and use more elaborate analysis methods in the future studies.
Land was originally communized by a community in the primitive society of Korea, and in the age of the ancient society SAM KUK-SILLA, KOKURYOE and PAEK JE-it was distributed under the principle of land-nationalization. But by the occupation of the lands which were permitted to transmit from generation to generation as Royal Grant Lands and newly cleared lands, the private occupation had already begun to be formed. Thus the private ownership of land originated by chiefs of the tribes had a trend to be gradually pervaded to the communal members. After the, SILLA Kingdom unified SAM KUK in 668 A.D., JEONG JEON System and KWAN RYO JEON System, which were the distribution systems of farmlands originated from the TANG Dynasty in China, were enforced to established the basis of an absolute monarchy. Even in this age the forest area was jointly controlled and commonly used by village communities because of the abundance of area and stocked volume, and the private ownership of the forest land was prohibited by law under the influence of the TANG Dynasty system. Toward the end of the SILLA Dynasty, however, as its centralism become weak, the tendency of the private occupancy of farmland by influential persons was expanded, and at the same time the occupancy of the forest land by the aristocrats and Buddhist temples began to come out. In the ensuing KORYO Dynasty (519 to 1391 A.D.) JEON SI KWA System under the principle of land-nationalization was strengthened and the privilege of tax collection was transferred to the bureaucrats and the aristocrats as a means of material compensation for them. Taking this opportunity the influential persons began to expand their lands for the tax collection on a large scale. Therefore, about in the middle of 11th century the farmlands and the forest lands were annexed not only around the vicinity of the capital but also in the border area by influential persons. Toward the end of the KORYO Dynasty the royal families, the bureaucrats and the local lords all possessed manors and occupied the forest lands on a large scale as a part of their farmlands. In the KORYO Dynasty, where national economic foundation was based upon the lands, the disorder of the land system threatened the fall of the Dynasty and so the land reform carried out by General YI SEONG-GYE had led to the creation of ensuing YI Dynasty. All systems of the YI Dynasty were substantially adopted from those of the KORYO Dynasty and thereby KWA JEON System was enforced under the principle of land-nationalization, while the occupancy or the forest land was strictly prohibited, except the national or royal uses, by the forbidden item in KYEONG JE YUK JEON SOK JEON, one of codes provided by the successive kings in the YI Dynasty. Thus the basis of the forest land system through the YI Dynasty had been established, while the private forest area possessed by influential persons since the previous KORYO Dynasty was preserved continuously under the influence of their authorities. Therefore, this principle of the prohibition was nothing but a legal fiction for the security of sovereign powers. Consequently the private occupancy of the forest area was gradually enlarged and finally toward the end of YI Dynasty the privately possessed forest lands were to be officially authorized. The forest administration systems in the YI Dynasty are summarized as follows: a) KEUM SAN and BONG SAN. Under the principle of land-nationalization by a powerful centralism KWA JEON System was established at the beginning of the YI Dynasty and its government expropriated all the forests and prohibited strictly the private occupation. In order to maintain the dignity of the royal capital, the forests surounding capital areas were instituted as KEUM SAN (the reserved forests) and the well-stocked natural forest lands were chosen throughout the nation by the government as BONG SAN(national forests for timber production), where the government nominated SAN JIK(forest rangers) and gave them duties to protect and afforest the forests. This forest reservation system exacted statute labors from the people of mountainious districts and yet their commons of the forest were restricted rigidly. This consequently aroused their strong aversion against such forest reservation, therefore those forest lands were radically spoiled by them. To settle this difficult problem successive kings emphasized the preservation of the forests repeatedly, and in KYEONG KUK DAI JOEN, the written constitution of the YI Dynasty, a regulation for the forest preservation was provided but the desired results could not be obtained. Subsequently the split of bureaucrats with incessant feuds among politicians and scholars weakened the centralism and moreover, the foreign invasions since 1592 made the national land devasted and the rural communities impoverished. It happned that many wandering peasants from rural areas moved into the deep forest lands, where they cultivated burnt fields recklessly in the reserved forest resulting in the severe damage of the national forests. And it was inevitable for the government to increase the number of BONG SAN in order to solve the problem of the timber shortage. The increase of its number accelerated illegal and reckless cutting inevitably by the people living mountainuos districts and so the government issued excessive laws and ordinances to reserve the forests. In the middle of the 18th century the severe feuds among the politicians being brought under control, the excessive laws and ordinances were put in good order and the political situation became temporarily stabilized. But in spite of those endeavors evil habitudes of forest devastation, which had been inveterate since the KORYO Dynasty, continued to become greater in degree. After the conclusion of "the Treaty of KANG WHA with Japan" in 1876 western administration system began to be adopted, and thereafter through the promulgation of the Forest Law in 1908 the Imperial Forests were separated from the National Forests and the modern forest ownership system was fixed. b) KANG MU JANG. After the reorganization of the military system, attaching importance to the Royal Guard Corps, the founder of the YI Dynasty, TAI JO (1392 to 1398 A.D.) instituted the royal preserves-KANG MU JANG-to attain the purposes for military training and royal hunting, prohibiting strictly private hunting, felling and clearing by the rural inhabitants. Moreover, the tyrant, YEON SAN (1495 to 1506 A.D.), expanded widely the preserves at random and strengthened its prohibition, so KANG MU JANG had become the focus of the public antipathy. Since the invasion of Japanese in 1592, however, the innovation of military training methods had to be made because of the changes of arms and tactics, and the royal preserves were laid aside consequently and finally they had become the private forests of influential persons since 17th century. c) Forests for official use. All the forests for official use occupied by government officies since the KORYO Dynasty were expropriated by the YI Dynasty in 1392, and afterwards the forests were allotted on a fixed standard area to the government officies in need of firewoods, and as the forest resources became exhausted due to the depredated forest yield, each office gradually enlarged the allotted area. In the 17th century the national land had been almost devastated by the Japanese invasion and therefore each office was in the difficulty with severe deficit in revenue, thereafter waste lands and forest lands were allotted to government offices inorder to promote the land clearing and the increase in the collections of taxes. And an abuse of wide occupation of the forests by them was derived and there appeared a cause of disorder in the forest land system. So a provision prohibiting to allot the forests newly official use was enacted in 1672, nevertheless the government offices were trying to enlarge their occupied area by encroaching the boundary and this abuse continued up to the end of the YI Dynasty. d) Private forests. The government, at the bigninning of the YI Dynasty, expropriated the forests all over the country under the principle of prohibition of private occupancy of forest lands except for the national uses, while it could not expropriate completely all of the forest lands privately occupied and inherited successively by bureaucrats, and even local governors could not control them because of their strong influences. Accordingly the King, TAI JONG (1401 to 1418 A.D.), legislated the prohibition of private forest occupancy in his code, KYEONG JE YUK JEON (1413), and furthermore he repeatedly emphasized to observe the law. But The private occupancy of forest lands was not yet ceased up at the age of the King, SE JO (1455 to 1468 A.D.), so he prescribed the provision in KYEONG KUK DAI JEON (1474), an immutable law as a written constitution in the YI Dynasty: "Anyone who privately occupy the forest land shall be inflicted 80 floggings" and he prohibited the private possession of forest area even by princes and princesses. But, it seemed to be almost impossible for only one provsion in a code to obstruct the historical growing tendecy of private forest occupancy, for example, the King, SEONG JONG (1470 to 1494 A.D.), himself granted the forests to his royal families in defiance of the prohibition and thereafter such precedents were successively expanded, and besides, taking advantage of these facts, the influential persons openly acquired their private forest lands. After tyrannical rule of the King, YEON SAN (1945 to 1506 A.D.), the political disorder due to the splits to bureaucrats with successional feuds and the usurpations of thrones accelerated the private forest occupancy in all parts of the country, thus the forbidden clause on the private forest occupancy in the law had become merely a legal fiction since the establishment of the Dynasty. As above mentioned, after the invasion of Japanese in 1592, the courts of princes (KUNG BANGG) fell into the financial difficulties, and successive kings transferred the right of tax collection from fisherys and saltfarms to each KUNG BANG and at the same time they allotted the forest areas in attempt to promote the clearing. Availing themselves of this opportunity, royal families and bureaucrats intended to occupy the forests on large scale. Besides a privilege of free selection of grave yard, which had been conventionalized from the era of the KORYO Dynasty, created an abuse of occuping too wide area for grave yards in any forest at their random, so the King, TAI JONG, restricted the area of grave yard and homestead of each family. Under the policy of suppresion of Buddhism in the YI Dynasty a privilege of taxexemption for Buddhist temples was deprived and temple forests had to follow the same course as private forests did. In the middle of 18th century the King, YEONG JO (1725 to 1776 A.D.), took an impartial policy for political parties and promoted the spirit of observing laws by putting royal orders and regulations in good order excessively issued before, thus the confused political situation was saved, meanwhile the government officially permittd the private forest ownership which substantially had already been permitted tacitly and at the same time the private afforestation areas around the grave yards was authorized as private forests at least within YONG HO (a boundary of grave yard). Consequently by the enforcement of above mentioned policies the forbidden clause of private forest ownership which had been a basic principle of forest system in the YI Dynasty entireely remained as only a historical document. Under the rule of the King, SUN JO (1801 to 1834 A.D.), the political situation again got into confusion and as the result of the exploitation from farmers by bureaucrats, the extremely impoverished rural communities created successively wandering peasants who cleared burnt fields and deforested recklessly. In this way the devastation of forests come to the peak regardless of being private forests or national forests, moreover, the influential persons extorted private forests or reserved forests and their expansion of grave yards became also excessive. In 1894 a regulation was issued that the extorted private forests shall be returned to the initial propriators and besides taking wide area of the grave yards was prohibited. And after a reform of the administrative structure following western style, a modern forest possession system was prepared in 1908 by the forest law including a regulation of the return system of forest land ownership. At this point a forbidden clause of private occupancy of forest land got abolished which had been kept even in fictitious state since the foundation of the YI Dynasty. e) Common forests. As above mentioned, the forest system in the YI Dynasty was on the ground of public ownership principle but there was a high restriction to the forest profits of farmers according to the progressive private possession of forest area. And the farmers realized the necessity of possessing common forest. They organized village associations, SONGE or KEUM SONGE, to take the ownerless forests remained around the village as the common forest in opposition to influential persons and on the other hand, they prepared the self-punishment system for the common management of their forests. They made a contribution to the forest protection by preserving the common forests in the late YI Dynasty. It is generally known that the absolute monarchy expr opriates the widespread common forests all over the country in the process of chainging from thefeudal society to the capitalistic one. At this turning point in Korea, Japanese colonialists made public that the ratio of national and private forest lands was 8 to 2 in the late YI Dynasty, but this was merely a distorted statistics with the intention of rationalizing of their dispossession of forests from Korean owners, and they took advantage of dead forbidden clause on the private occupancy of forests for their colonization. They were pretending as if all forests had been in ownerless state, but, in truth, almost all the forest lands in the late YI Dynasty except national forests were in the state of private ownership or private occupancy regardless of their lawfulness.