• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.1501-1509
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• 2003

The simultaneous addition of xylanase (5,600 EXU/kg) and phytase (500 FTU/kg) feed enzymes to wheat-based broiler diets was investigated. Starter, grower and finisher diets, with three tiers of nutrient specifications, were fed to 1,440 broiler chicks kept on deep litter from 1-42 days post-hatch, without and with xylanase plus phytase, to determine the effects of diet type and enzyme supplementation on growth performance. The nutrient specifications of type A diets were standard; energy density and protein/amino acid levels were reduced on a least-cost basis to formulate type B diets and further reduced to type C diets. Phosphorus (P) and calcium (Ca) levels were adjusted in supplemented diets. From 1-42 days post-hatch, diet type significantly influenced growth performance. Birds on type C diets had lower growth rates (2,429 vs. 2,631 g/bird; p<0.001), higher feed intakes (4,753 vs. 4,534 g/bird; p<0.005) and less efficient feed conversion (1.96 vs. 1.72; p<0.001) than birds offered type A diets. Enzyme supplementation increased growth rates by 3.2% (2,580 vs. 2,501 g/bird; p<0.005) and improved feed efficiency by 2.7% (1.80 vs. 1.85; p<0.05) over the entire feeding period. There were no interactions between diet type and enzyme supplementation. At 21 days, 5 out of 30 birds per pen were transferred to cages to ascertain treatment effect on apparent metabolisable energy (AME) and nitrogen (N) retention. Xylanase plus phytase enhanced AME (13.48 to 13.91 MJ/kg DM; p<0.001) and N retention (56.3 to 59.7%; p<0.005). Carcass and breast weights of the caged birds were determined following commercial processing. Diet type significantly influenced breast weight, carcass weight and yield. Birds offered Type A diets, in comparison to Type C diets, supported heavier breast (467 vs. 424 g; p<0.001) and carcass weights (1,868 vs. 1,699 g; p<0.001) with superior carcass yields (71.8 vs. 70.6%; p<0.005). Enzyme addition increased carcass weight by 3.9% (1,752 vs. 1,821 g; p<0.005) and breast weight by 5.8% (431 vs. 456 g; p<0.01) without influencing yields. Feed ingredient costs per kg live weight gain and per kg carcass weight indicated that enzyme addition was economically feasible, where supplementation of Type A diets generated the most effective results. Importantly, soluble and total non-starch polysaccharide and phytate contents of the wheat used were typical by local standards. This study confirms the potential of supplementing wheat-based broiler diets with xylanase plus phytase but further investigations are required to define the most appropriate inclusion rates and dietary nutrient specifications in this context.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.41-60
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• 2003

It is noted that the paper mapping system for University Building Facility has many limitations in terms of data maintenance, real-time GIS data acquisition, and economic efficiency. The aim of this research was to evaluate an operational potential of an on site real-time mobile GIS technique to resolve the problem faced in the university. The idea is based upon the recent trends in the field of 'Telecommunication and Information Technology' that uses a PDA (personal Digital Assistants), wireless network computing, mobile computing, etc. A real time mobile GIS approach has been adopted, in which a PDA is linked to a wireless internet and field workers record data on the computer at the site and analyse data on site. While there should be a considerable number and variety of factors associated with real-time mobile GIS quality, this research focuses on three criteria that are identified as fundamental to customer requirements; (1) data quarry (2) spatial analysis (3) real-time GIS database building. 'Art--empirical study for a case study facility has been conducted to confirm the validity for the system. The system has been checked experimentally, enabled the field users to quarry the data required simply and execute spatial analysis (buffer, overlay etc.,) accommodating versatile alternatives on the site. Detailed visual maps can be generated over large areas quickly and easily. The PDA interface, in particular, were ideally suited for field users to interactively displaying positional information with attribute data. This system has shown to be quite convenient to maintaining a highly reliable database since it could playa crucial role in documenting at real-time basis temporal and spatial changes occurred in the facilities. It is anticipated that this research output will greatly serve to introduce the reliable and cost-effective facility mapping system in the university by overcoming serious constraints suffered from the past non-real time mobile GIS approach.

• Clean Technology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.141-152
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• 2015

As environmental issues are emerging, bio-plastic suppliers in leading countries have been foreseeing the strong needs for environment-friendly materials such as eco-packing materials due to increased attention and regulation on recycle. To catch up with the demand, various types of bio-plastics based on natural feedstocks were developed and released on a market. These bio-plastic products drew the great attention even in domestic industries. At present, international oil price fluctuation and heavy charge on waste raise the unit cost of production and disposal expense of conventional plastic materials. These conditions make bio-plastic an alternative, because it is not restrained by oil prices and problem in the disposal. It is also expected that bio-plastic will be applied to various types of products including containers, industrial supplies, disposables, and medical supplies. However, the bio-plastic is still in its infancy, thus more research and understanding should be followed to put it to application. Bio-plastic is considered as environment-friendly material with high potential which has the advantages of production and disposal.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.691-702
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• 2019

Flood inundation map has various important roles in terms of municipal planning, timely dam operation, economic levee design, and building flood forecasting systems. Considering that the riparian areas adjacent to national rivers with high potential flood vulnerability conventionally imposed special cares to justify applications of recently available two- or three-dimensional flood inundation numerical models on top of digital elevation models of dense spatial resolution such as LiDAR irrespective of their high costs. On the contrary, local streams usually could not have benefits from recent technological advances, instead they inevitably have relied upon time-consuming manual drawings or have accepted DEMs with poor resolutions or inaccurate 1D numerical models for producing inundation maps due mainly to limited budgets and suitable techniques. In order to efficiently and cost-effectively provide a series of flood inundation maps dedicatedly for the local streams, this study proposed an OpenGIS-based flood mapping tool named Open Flood Mapper (OFM). The spatial accuracy of flood inundation map derived from the OFM was validated throughout comparison with an inundation trace map acquired after typhoon Nari in Hancheon basin located in Jeju Island. Also, a series of inundation maps from the OFM were comprehensively investigated to track the burst of flood in the extreme flood events.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.47-57
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• 2015

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to investigate the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory (the cost of financing increases with asymmetric information) among Korean retail firms from the perspective of debt capacity. According to the Pecking-order theory, a firm's first preference is to use internal funds for its capital needs, its next preference is the issuance of debt, and its last preference is the issuance of equity; this is due to the information asymmetry problem between existing shareholders and investors. However, prior empirical studies, such as Lemmon and Zender (2010), argue that the entire sample test for the Pecking-order theory could be misleading due to the different levels of debt issuance capability of each of the individual firms; in fact, they confirm that the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory improves after taking into account the differences in debt capacity of the U.S. firms they examined. This paper implements a case study approach among Korean retail firms to examine the relationship between debt capacity and the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory in Korea. Research design, data, and methodology - This study uses the sample of public retail firms on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) from the time period of 1990 to 2013. We gather related financial and accounting statements from the financial information firm WISEfn. Credit rating information is provided by the Korea Investor Service. We employ the models of Lemmon and Zender (2010) and Son and Kim (2013) to measure a firm's debt capacity. Their logit models use the rating dummy variable as a dependent variable and incorporate other firm characteristics as independent variables to estimate debt capacity. To test the Pecking-order theory, we adopt variants of the financing deficit model of Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). In the test of the Pecking-order theory, we consider all of the changes in total debt obligations, current debt obligations, and long-term debt obligations. Results - Our main contribution to the literature is our confirmation of the predicted relationship between debt capacity and the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory among Korean retail firms. The coefficients on financing deficits become greater as a firm's debt capacity improves. This is consistent with the results of Lemmon and Zender (2010). The coefficients on the square of the financing deficits are also negative for the firms in the largest debt capacity group, which is also consistent with the predictions in prior literature. Conclusions - This study takes a case study approach by examining Korean retail firms. We confirm that the Pecking-order theory explains the capital structure of retail firms more appropriately, after taking into account the debt capacity of each firm. This result suggests the importance of debt capacity consideration in the testing of the Pecking-order theory. Our result also implies that there has been a potential underestimation of the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory in existing studies.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.609-617
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• 2017

Lignocellulosic biomass is a renewable resource for production of biofuels and biochemicals. Furfural (FF) is an important platform chemical catalytically derived from the hemicellulose fraction of biomass. Tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFA) is a FF derivative and can be used as an eco-friendly solvent with thermal and chemical stability. Despite large numbers of experimental studies for catalytic conversion of FF to THFA, few research have conducted on the economic feasibility for large-scale THFA production from FF. At the stage of assessment of the potential for commercialization of conversion technology, a large-scale process study is required to identify technological bottleneck and to obtain information for solving scale-up problems. In this study, process simulation and technoeconomic evaluation for catalytic conversion of FF to THFA are performed, as the following three steps: integrated process design, heat integration, and economic evaluation. First, a large-scale process including conversion and separation processes is designed based on experimental results. When the FF processing rate is 255 tonnes per day, the FF-to-THFA yields are 63.2~67.9 mol%. After heat integration, the heating requirements are reduced by 14.4~16.4%. Finally, we analyze the cost drivers and calculate minimum selling price of THFA by economic evaluation. The minimum selling price of THFA for the developed process are $2,120~2,340 per tonne, which are close to the current THFA market price.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.57-63
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• 2016

Though a valve is a very important part in a system to control properly, it has potential failure caused by gap from valve stem to ball connection, and abrasion, crack, fixation causing operational trouble and accidents. 64% of the valve failure in the real case was the failure of airtightness and most accidents of leakage and explosion were occurred while fixing the failure. While there are no proper safety manual, maintenance procedure and regulation for industrial valves excluding safety valve, safety management for the valves is left to the discretion of the maintenance company. Strict maintenance that removes hazards and emergency response procedure are required to prevent and reduce the loss of accident. This study suggests safety enhancement measures through valve monitoring by investigating the status of use of valve and current maintenance. Enhancement of gas safety management can be acquired by a monitoring system that provides diagnosis for valve status, monitoring real-time gas leakage, management of entire cycle lifetime that can reduce maintenance cost.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.305-314
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• 2017

Ocean wave energy harvesting is still too expensive despite developing a variety of wave energy converter (WEC) devices. For the cost-effective wave energy harvesting, it can be an effective measure to use existing breakwaters or newly installed breakwaters for both wave control and energy harvesting purposes. In this study, we investigated the functionality of both breakwater and wave-power generator for the oscillating water column (OWC)-type wave energy converter (WEC) installed in a pneumatic floating breakwater, which was originally developed as a floating breakwater. In order to verify the performance of the breakwater as a WEC, the air flow velocity from air-chamber to WEC has to be evaluated properly. Therefore, air flow velocity, wave transformation and motion of floating structure was numerically implemented based on BEM from linear velocity potential theory without considering the compressibility of air within the chamber. Air pressure, meanwhile, was assumed to be fluctuated by the motions of structure and the water level change within air-chamber. The validity of the obtained values can be determined by comparing the previous results from the numerical analysis for different shapes. Based on numerical model results, wave transformation characteristics around OWC system mounted on the fixed and floating breakwaters, and motions of the structure with air flow velocities are investigated. In summary, all numerical results are almost identical to the previous research considering air compressibility. Therefore, it can be concluded that this analysis not considering air compressibility in the air chamber is more efficient and practical method.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.496-523
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• 2018

The objective of this study is to evaluate the economic feasibility of two fast pyrolysis and biooil upgrading (FPBU) plants including feed drying, fast pyrolysis by fluidized-bed, biooil recovery, hydro-processing for biooil upgrading, electricity generation, and wastewater treatment. The two FPBU plants are Case 1 of an FPBU plant with steam methane reforming (SMR) for $H_2$ generation (FPBU-HG, 20% yield), and Case 2 of an FPBU with external $H_2$ supply (FPBUEH, 25% yield). The process flow diagrams (PFDs) for the two plants were constructed, and the mass and energy balances were calculated, using a commercial process simulator (ASPEN Plus). A four-level economic potential approach (4-level EP) was used for techno-economic analysis (TEA) under the assumption of sawdust 100 t//d containing 40% water, 30% equity, capital expenditure equal to the equity, $H_2$ price of $1050/ton, and hydrocarbon yield from dried sawdust equal to 20 and 25 % for Case 1 and 2, respectively. TCI (total capital investment), TPC (total production cost), ASR (annual sales revenue), and MFSP (minimum fuel selling price) of Case 1 were $22.2 million, $3.98 million/yr, $4.64 million/yr, and $1.56/l, respectively. Those of Case 2 were $16.1 million, $5.20 million/yr, $5.55 million/yr, and $1.18/l, respectively. Both ROI (return on investment) and PBP (payback period) of Case 1(FPBU-HG) and Case 2(FPBU-EH) were the almost same. If the plant capacity increases into 1,500 t/d for Case 1 and Case 2, ROI would be improved into 15%/yr.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.125-146
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• 2009

The emergence of open source software(OSS) with its most prominent advantages creates a vast interest among practitioners. A study on Linux, the most well-known OSS, estimated that it would cost as 5.4 billion Euros taking over 73,000 person-years if it had been developed by conventional means. However, Linux has achieved only 0.65 percent of the operating system market for individual users while Microsoft windows family counts for nearly 90 percent of the market. Much of the effort being spent in the development of OSS is going to waste and potential value that OSS can bring to users is not being realized. Adoption of OSS is often accompanied by the discontinuance of existing software that is already in place. If users resist changing, they may not adopt OSS. Using the case of Linux, this study examines user resistance to change from the commercial operating software to the free operating system. This study identifies six sub-types of switching costs (uncertainty, emotional, setup, learning, lost benefit, and sunk costs) and tests their effects on user resistance to change based on a survey of 201 users. The results show that user resistance to change has a negative impact on the adoption of OSS. Further, this study shows that uncertainty and emotional costs have significant effects on user resistance to change. Beyond previous research on technology adoption, this research contributes towards an understanding of the switching costs leading to user resistance to change and offers suggestions to OSS practitioners for developing strategies to improve the adoption of OSS.