• Title/Summary/Keyword: Power Industry

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A Study on Interactions of Competitive Promotions Between the New and Used Cars (신차와 중고차간 프로모션의 상호작용에 대한 연구)

  • Chang, Kwangpil
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.83-98
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    • 2012
  • In a market where new and used cars are competing with each other, we would run the risk of obtaining biased estimates of cross elasticity between them if we focus on only new cars or on only used cars. Unfortunately, most of previous studies on the automobile industry have focused on only new car models without taking into account the effect of used cars' pricing policy on new cars' market shares and vice versa, resulting in inadequate prediction of reactive pricing in response to competitors' rebate or price discount. However, there are some exceptions. Purohit (1992) and Sullivan (1990) looked into both new and used car markets at the same time to examine the effect of new car model launching on the used car prices. But their studies have some limitations in that they employed the average used car prices reported in NADA Used Car Guide instead of actual transaction prices. Some of the conflicting results may be due to this problem in the data. Park (1998) recognized this problem and used the actual prices in his study. His work is notable in that he investigated the qualitative effect of new car model launching on the pricing policy of the used car in terms of reinforcement of brand equity. The current work also used the actual price like Park (1998) but the quantitative aspect of competitive price promotion between new and used cars of the same model was explored. In this study, I develop a model that assumes that the cross elasticity between new and used cars of the same model is higher than those amongst new cars and used cars of the different model. Specifically, I apply the nested logit model that assumes the car model choice at the first stage and the choice between new and used cars at the second stage. This proposed model is compared to the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model that assumes that there is no decision hierarchy but that new and used cars of the different model are all substitutable at the first stage. The data for this study are drawn from Power Information Network (PIN), an affiliate of J.D. Power and Associates. PIN collects sales transaction data from a sample of dealerships in the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. These are retail transactions, i.e., sales or leases to final consumers, excluding fleet sales and including both new car and used car sales. Each observation in the PIN database contains the transaction date, the manufacturer, model year, make, model, trim and other car information, the transaction price, consumer rebates, the interest rate, term, amount financed (when the vehicle is financed or leased), etc. I used data for the compact cars sold during the period January 2009- June 2009. The new and used cars of the top nine selling models are included in the study: Mazda 3, Honda Civic, Chevrolet Cobalt, Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Elantra, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Jetta, Nissan Sentra, and Kia Spectra. These models in the study accounted for 87% of category unit sales. Empirical application of the nested logit model showed that the proposed model outperformed the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model in both calibration and holdout samples. The other comparison model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and car model choice at the second stage turned out to be mis-specfied since the dissimilarity parameter (i.e., inclusive or categroy value parameter) was estimated to be greater than 1. Post hoc analysis based on estimated parameters was conducted employing the modified Lanczo's iterative method. This method is intuitively appealing. For example, suppose a new car offers a certain amount of rebate and gains market share at first. In response to this rebate, a used car of the same model keeps decreasing price until it regains the lost market share to maintain the status quo. The new car settle down to a lowered market share due to the used car's reaction. The method enables us to find the amount of price discount to main the status quo and equilibrium market shares of the new and used cars. In the first simulation, I used Jetta as a focal brand to see how its new and used cars set prices, rebates or APR interactively assuming that reactive cars respond to price promotion to maintain the status quo. The simulation results showed that the IIA model underestimates cross elasticities, resulting in suggesting less aggressive used car price discount in response to new cars' rebate than the proposed nested logit model. In the second simulation, I used Elantra to reconfirm the result for Jetta and came to the same conclusion. In the third simulation, I had Corolla offer $1,000 rebate to see what could be the best response for Elantra's new and used cars. Interestingly, Elantra's used car could maintain the status quo by offering lower price discount ($160) than the new car ($205). In the future research, we might want to explore the plausibility of the alternative nested logit model. For example, the NUB model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and brand choice at the second stage could be a possibility even though it was rejected in the current study because of mis-specification (A dissimilarity parameter turned out to be higher than 1). The NUB model may have been rejected due to true mis-specification or data structure transmitted from a typical car dealership. In a typical car dealership, both new and used cars of the same model are displayed. Because of this fact, the BNU model that assumes brand choice at the first stage and choice between new and used cars at the second stage may have been favored in the current study since customers first choose a dealership (brand) then choose between new and used cars given this market environment. However, suppose there are dealerships that carry both new and used cars of various models, then the NUB model might fit the data as well as the BNU model. Which model is a better description of the data is an empirical question. In addition, it would be interesting to test a probabilistic mixture model of the BNU and NUB on a new data set.

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A Study on Medium-Sized Enterprises of Japan (일본의 중견기업에 관한 연구 : 현황과 특징, 정책을 중심으로)

  • Kang, Cheol Gu;Kim, Hyun Sung;Kim, Hyun Chul
    • Korean small business review
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    • v.32 no.2
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    • pp.209-223
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    • 2010
  • Korea's business is composed of a few large-sized enterprises (which can be abbreviated as LSE) and a majority of small-sized enterprises (SSE). Although there has been a growing recognition of the need for the development of medium-sized enterprises (MSE) which can serve as a link between SSE and LSE, as yet there has not yet been a consensus on the definition, characteristics and the function of the MSE in Korea. Nowadays, the world is being globalized, and Japan and China are in competition to ne a great economic power. While East Asia is experiencing rapid changes, promoting MSE which can secure flexibility and efficiency through covering up the limitation of LSE and SSE is needed in order to respond the global market which is being specialized. The features of MSE in Japan can be listed as follows. First, the MSE in Japan is developing the company through getting into niche markets which are hard for major companies to enter rather than developing markets in order to compete against major companies directly. While MSEs are endeavoring to build the business firmly in the domestic market, they can possess special and competitive technical skills through trials and errors; so that they can get a chance develop their business through independent business system rather than putting their effort to compete against major companies. Second, from the MSEs with competitive edge in the market, there are many contributions to the national exportation. Those MSEs produce in domestic and maintain the quality of high price products which need cutting-edge technology, while they relocate the low and middle priced goods to the country where manufacturing costs are low, so that they can maintain the price competitiveness. Third, the industrial structure in Japan is formed from dual structure between major companies and small sized companies. In other words, in Japan's industrial structure which are composed of subcontract structure, this dual structure has taken a major role of small sized companies' growth and manufacturing businesses' international competitive power. Forth, MSE in Japan adopt a strategy of putting their value on qualitative scale growth rather than quantitative scale growth. In this paper, the case of Japanese MSE is analyzed. Along with its long history of Industrialization, Japan has a corporate environment where the SSEs can develop as a MSE and later a LSE through a full-support system. Among its SSEs, there are a number of world class corporations equipped with a large domestic market, win-win cooperation with the LSEs and an independent technology development. It can also be observed that these SSEs develop into MSEs with sustainable growth potentials. This study will focus on the condition under which the MSEs of Japan have been developed, and how they have survived the competition between SSEs and LSEs. Through this study, this paper attempts to offer solutions to Korea's polarization between the SSE and LSE, while providing the basis for SSEs revitalization. In general, if both extremities phenomenon deepen between LSE and SSE, there are possible fears of occurring disutility in national economy by the monopolization of LSE. For that reason, enterprise group, which can make SSE or MSE compete LSE in some area and ease the monopoly and oligopoly problem, is needed. This awareness has been shared for ages long. Nevertheless, there is no legal definition for MSE in Japan, and there is no definition about the enterprise size or unified view of MSE between scholars, but it is defined differently by each of academical person or research institution and study meeting. For that reason, this paper will organize the definition of MSE in Japan, and then will propose the characteristics of the background which has made MSE secure competitiveness and sustainable growth in global market. This study focus on that because through this process, the positive change to the awareness of MSE can be proposed in Korea and to seek the policy direction for building institutional framework which can make SSE become MES. Through this way, the fundamentals for SSE to become MSE can be managed and some appropriate suggestions which will be able to make MSE enter the global market in the future can also be proposed. Due to these facts, this study is very important and well timed task. In a sense of this way, this study will examine the definition and role of MSE in Japan. after this examination, this study will deal with the status, special feature, and promotion policy for MSE. Through this analysis of MSE in Japan, the foundation which be able to set the desirable role model for MSE in Korea can be proposed. Also, the political implication which is needed to push ahead to contribute to creating employment and economic growth through sustainable growth of MSEs in economic system of Korea can be offered through this study. It has been found that Japan's MSE functions as an indispensable link among various industrial structures by holding a significant position in employment rate, production and value added. Although the MSEs took up less than 1% of the entire number of businesses with 2700 manufacturing firms and 7000 non-manufacturing firms, its employment ratios are about 15%, while taking about 25% of the manufacturing industry's exports. In industries such as machinery and electronics which is considered Japan's major industry, the MSEs showed a higher than average ratio of manufacturing exports and employment rate. It can be analyzed that behind Japan's advantageous industries, close and deeply knit MSEs exist. Although there are no clearly stated policies geared towards the MSEs by the Japanese government, various political measures exist such as the R&D Project and the inducement of cooperation between enterprises which gives room for MSEs to participate in the SSE policies. In relation to these findings, the following practical measures can be considered in order to revitalize Korea's MSEs: First, there is a need for a legal definition of MSE and the incentives to provide legal support for its growth. Second, if a law to support the MSEs is established, it could provide a powerful inducement for the SSE to grow as a MSE, rather than stay as a SSE. Third, there is a need for a strategy of MSEs to establish a stable base in the domestic market and then advance to the global market with the accumulated trial and error and competitiveness. Fourth, the SSE themselves need the spirit of entrepreneurship in order to make the leap to a MSE. Because if nothing is to be changed about the system on the firms that grew, and the parts of the past custom was left to be managed alone, confusion and absence of management can take place. No matter how much tax favors the government will give and no matter how much incentive there could be through the policies, there are limits for industries to higher the ability to propagate. And because of that it is a period where industries need their own innovative skills to reform their firms.

A Study on the Critical Success Factors of Social Commerce through the Analysis of the Perception Gap between the Service Providers and the Users: Focused on Ticket Monster in Korea (서비스제공자와 사용자의 인식차이 분석을 통한 소셜커머스 핵심성공요인에 대한 연구: 한국의 티켓몬스터 중심으로)

  • Kim, Il Jung;Lee, Dae Chul;Lim, Gyoo Gun
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.211-232
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    • 2014
  • Recently, there is a growing interest toward social commerce using SNS(Social Networking Service), and the size of its market is also expanding due to popularization of smart phones, tablet PCs and other smart devices. Accordingly, various studies have been attempted but it is shown that most of the previous studies have been conducted from perspectives of the users. The purpose of this study is to derive user-centered CSF(Critical Success Factor) of social commerce from the previous studies and analyze the CSF perception gap between social commerce service providers and users. The CSF perception gap between two groups shows that there is a difference between ideal images the service providers hope for and the actual image the service users have on social commerce companies. This study provides effective improvement directions for social commerce companies by presenting current business problems and its solution plans. For this, This study selected Korea's representative social commerce business Ticket Monster, which is dominant in sales and staff size together with its excellent funding power through M&A by stock exchange with the US social commerce business Living Social with Amazon.com as a shareholder in August, 2011, as a target group of social commerce service provider. we have gathered questionnaires from both service providers and the users from October 22, 2012 until October 31, 2012 to conduct an empirical analysis. We surveyed 160 service providers of Ticket Monster We also surveyed 160 social commerce users who have experienced in using Ticket Monster service. Out of 320 surveys, 20 questionaries which were unfit or undependable were discarded. Consequently the remaining 300(service provider 150, user 150)were used for this empirical study. The statistics were analyzed using SPSS 12.0. Implications of the empirical analysis result of this study are as follows: First of all, There are order differences in the importance of social commerce CSF between two groups. While service providers regard Price Economic as the most important CSF influencing purchasing intention, the users regard 'Trust' as the most important CSF influencing purchasing intention. This means that the service providers have to utilize the unique strong point of social commerce which make the customers be trusted rathe than just focusing on selling product at a discounted price. It means that service Providers need to enhance effective communication skills by using SNS and play a vital role as a trusted adviser who provides curation services and explains the value of products through information filtering. Also, they need to pay attention to preventing consumer damages from deceptive and false advertising. service providers have to create the detailed reward system in case of a consumer damages caused by above problems. It can make strong ties with customers. Second, both service providers and users tend to consider that social commerce CSF influencing purchasing intention are Price Economic, Utility, Trust, and Word of Mouth Effect. Accordingly, it can be learned that users are expecting the benefit from the aspect of prices and economy when using social commerce, and service providers should be able to suggest the individualized discount benefit through diverse methods using social network service. Looking into it from the aspect of usefulness, service providers are required to get users to be cognizant of time-saving, efficiency, and convenience when they are using social commerce. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the usefulness of social commerce through the introduction of a new management strategy, such as intensification of search engine of the Website, facilitation in payment through shopping basket, and package distribution. Trust, as mentioned before, is the most important variable in consumers' mind, so it should definitely be managed for sustainable management. If the trust in social commerce should fall due to consumers' damage case due to false and puffery advertising forgeries, it could have a negative influence on the image of the social commerce industry in general. Instead of advertising with famous celebrities and using a bombastic amount of money on marketing expenses, the social commerce industry should be able to use the word of mouth effect between users by making use of the social network service, the major marketing method of initial social commerce. The word of mouth effect occurring from consumers' spontaneous self-marketer's duty performance can bring not only reduction effect in advertising cost to a service provider but it can also prepare the basis of discounted price suggestion to consumers; in this context, the word of mouth effect should be managed as the CSF of social commerce. Third, Trade safety was not derived as one of the CSF. Recently, with e-commerce like social commerce and Internet shopping increasing in a variety of methods, the importance of trade safety on the Internet also increases, but in this study result, trade safety wasn't evaluated as CSF of social commerce by both groups. This study judges that it's because both service provider groups and user group are perceiving that there is a reliable PG(Payment Gateway) which acts for e-payment of Internet transaction. Accordingly, it is understood that both two groups feel that social commerce can have a corporate identity by website and differentiation in products and services in sales, but don't feel a big difference by business in case of e-payment system. In other words, trade safety should be perceived as natural, basic universal service. Fourth, it's necessary that service providers should intensify the communication with users by making use of social network service which is the major marketing method of social commerce and should be able to use the word of mouth effect between users. The word of mouth effect occurring from consumers' spontaneous self- marketer's duty performance can bring not only reduction effect in advertising cost to a service provider but it can also prepare the basis of discounted price suggestion to consumers. in this context, it is judged that the word of mouth effect should be managed as CSF of social commerce. In this paper, the characteristics of social commerce are limited as five independent variables, however, if an additional study is proceeded with more various independent variables, more in-depth study results will be derived. In addition, this research targets social commerce service providers and the users, however, in the consideration of the fact that social commerce is a two-sided market, drawing CSF through an analysis of perception gap between social commerce service providers and its advertisement clients would be worth to be dealt with in a follow-up study.

Conclusion of Conventions on Compensation for Damage Caused by Aircraft in Flight to Third Parties (항공운항 시 제3자 피해 배상 관련 협약 채택 -그 혁신적 내용과 배경 고찰-)

  • Park, Won-Hwa
    • The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.35-58
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    • 2009
  • A treaty that governs the compensation on damage caused by aircraft to the third parties on surface was first adopted in Rome in 1933, but without support from the international aviation community it was replaced by another convention adopted again in Rome in 1952. Despite the increase of the compensation amount and some improvements to the old version, the Rome Convention 1952 with 49 State parties as of today is not considered universally accepted. Neither is the Montreal Protocol 1978 amending the Rome Convention 1952, with only 12 State parties excluding major aviation powers like USA, Japan, UK, and Germany. Consequently, it is mostly the local laws that apply to the compensation case of surface damage caused by the aircraft, contrary to the intention of those countries and people who involved themselves in the drafting of the early conventions on surface damage. The terrorist attacks 9/11 proved that even the strongest power in the world like the USA cannot with ease bear all the damages done to the third parties by the terrorist acts involving aircraft. Accordingly as a matter of urgency, the International Civil Aviation Organization(ICAO) picked up the matter and have it considered among member States for a few years through its Legal Committee before proposing for adoption as a new treaty in the Diplomatic Conference held in Montreal, Canada 20 April to 2 May 2009. Accordingly, two treaties based on the drafts of the Legal Committee were adopted in Montreal by consensus, one on the compensation for general risk damage caused by aircraft, the other one on compensation for damage from acts of unlawful interference involving aircraft. Both Conventions improved the old Convention/Protocol in many aspects. Deleting 'surface' in defining the damage to the third parties in the title and contents of the Conventions is the first improvement because the third party damage is not necessarily limited to surface on the soil and sea of the Earth. Thus Mid-air collision is now the new scope of application. Increasing compensation limit in big gallop is another improvement, so is the inclusion of the mental injury accompanied by bodily injury as the damage to be compensated. In fact, jurisprudence in recent years for cases of passengers in aircraft accident holds aircraft operators to be liable to such mental injuries. However, "Terror Convention" involving unlawful interference of aircraft has some unique provisions of innovation and others. While establishing the International Civil Aviation Compensation Fund to supplement, when necessary, the damages that exceed the limit to be covered by aircraft operators through insurance taking is an innovation, leaving the fate of the Convention to a State Party, implying in fact the USA, is harming its universality. Furthermore, taking into account the fact that the damage incurred by the terrorist acts, where ever it takes place targeting whichever sector or industry, are the domain of the State responsibility, imposing the burden of compensation resulting from terrorist acts in the air industry on the aircraft operators and passengers/shippers is a source of serious concern for the prospect of the Convention. This is more so when the risks of terrorist acts normally aimed at a few countries because of current international political situation are spread out to many innocent countries without quid pro quo.

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An Exploratory Study on the Competition Patterns Between Internet Sites in Korea (한국 인터넷사이트들의 산업별 경쟁유형에 대한 탐색적 연구)

  • Park, Yoonseo;Kim, Yongsik
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.79-111
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    • 2011
  • Digital economy has grown rapidly so that the new business area called 'Internet business' has been dramatically extended as time goes on. However, in the case of Internet business, market shares of individual companies seem to fluctuate very extremely. Thus marketing managers who operate the Internet sites have seriously observed the competition structure of the Internet business market and carefully analyzed the competitors' behavior in order to achieve their own business goals in the market. The newly created Internet business might differ from the offline ones in management styles, because it has totally different business circumstances when compared with the existing offline businesses. Thus, there should be a lot of researches for finding the solutions about what the features of Internet business are and how the management style of those Internet business companies should be changed. Most marketing literatures related to the Internet business have focused on individual business markets. Specifically, many researchers have studied the Internet portal sites and the Internet shopping mall sites, which are the most general forms of Internet business. On the other hand, this study focuses on the entire Internet business industry to understand the competitive circumstance of online market. This approach makes it possible not only to have a broader view to comprehend overall e-business industry, but also to understand the differences in competition structures among Internet business markets. We used time-series data of Internet connection rates by consumers as the basic data to figure out the competition patterns in the Internet business markets. Specifically, the data for this research was obtained from one of Internet ranking sites, 'Fian'. The Internet business ranking data is obtained based on web surfing record of some pre-selected sample group where the possibility of double-count for page-views is controlled by method of same IP check. The ranking site offers several data which are very useful for comparison and analysis of competitive sites. The Fian site divides the Internet business areas into 34 area and offers market shares of big 5 sites which are on high rank in each category daily. We collected the daily market share data about Internet sites on each area from April 22, 2008 to August 5, 2008, where some errors of data was found and 30 business area data were finally used for our research after the data purification. This study performed several empirical analyses in focusing on market shares of each site to understand the competition among sites in Internet business of Korea. We tried to perform more statistically precise analysis for looking into business fields with similar competitive structures by applying the cluster analysis to the data. The research results are as follows. First, the leading sites in each area were classified into three groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The first group includes the sites with the lowest market shares, which give more increased convenience to consumers by offering the Internet sites as complimentary services for existing offline services. The second group includes sites with medium level of market shares, where the site users are limited to specific small group. The third group includes sites with the highest market shares, which usually require online registration in advance and have difficulty in switching to another site. Second, we analyzed the second place sites in each business area because it may help us understand the competitive power of the strongest competitor against the leading site. The second place sites in each business area were classified into four groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The four groups are the sites showing consistent inferiority compared to the leading sites, the sites with relatively high volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and high level of shares whose gaps are not big compared to the leading sites. Except 'web agency' area, these second place sites show relatively stable shares below 0.1 point of standard deviation. Third, we also classified the types of relative strength between leading sites and the second place sites by applying the cluster analysis to the gap values of market shares between two sites. They were also classified into four groups, the sites with the relatively lowest gaps even though the values of standard deviation are various, the sites with under the average level of gaps, the sites with over the average level of gaps, the sites with the relatively higher gaps and lower volatility. Then we also found that while the areas with relatively bigger gap values usually have smaller standard deviation values, the areas with very small differences between the first and the second sites have a wider range of standard deviation values. The practical and theoretical implications of this study are as follows. First, the result of this study might provide the current market participants with the useful information to understand the competitive circumstance of the market and build the effective new business strategy for the market success. Also it might be useful to help new potential companies find a new business area and set up successful competitive strategies. Second, it might help Internet marketing researchers take a macro view of the overall Internet market so that make possible to begin the new studies on overall Internet market beyond individual Internet market studies.

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Adaptive RFID anti-collision scheme using collision information and m-bit identification (충돌 정보와 m-bit인식을 이용한 적응형 RFID 충돌 방지 기법)

  • Lee, Je-Yul;Shin, Jongmin;Yang, Dongmin
    • Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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    • v.14 no.5
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    • pp.1-10
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    • 2013
  • RFID(Radio Frequency Identification) system is non-contact identification technology. A basic RFID system consists of a reader, and a set of tags. RFID tags can be divided into active and passive tags. Active tags with power source allows their own operation execution and passive tags are small and low-cost. So passive tags are more suitable for distribution industry than active tags. A reader processes the information receiving from tags. RFID system achieves a fast identification of multiple tags using radio frequency. RFID systems has been applied into a variety of fields such as distribution, logistics, transportation, inventory management, access control, finance and etc. To encourage the introduction of RFID systems, several problems (price, size, power consumption, security) should be resolved. In this paper, we proposed an algorithm to significantly alleviate the collision problem caused by simultaneous responses of multiple tags. In the RFID systems, in anti-collision schemes, there are three methods: probabilistic, deterministic, and hybrid. In this paper, we introduce ALOHA-based protocol as a probabilistic method, and Tree-based protocol as a deterministic one. In Aloha-based protocols, time is divided into multiple slots. Tags randomly select their own IDs and transmit it. But Aloha-based protocol cannot guarantee that all tags are identified because they are probabilistic methods. In contrast, Tree-based protocols guarantee that a reader identifies all tags within the transmission range of the reader. In Tree-based protocols, a reader sends a query, and tags respond it with their own IDs. When a reader sends a query and two or more tags respond, a collision occurs. Then the reader makes and sends a new query. Frequent collisions make the identification performance degrade. Therefore, to identify tags quickly, it is necessary to reduce collisions efficiently. Each RFID tag has an ID of 96bit EPC(Electronic Product Code). The tags in a company or manufacturer have similar tag IDs with the same prefix. Unnecessary collisions occur while identifying multiple tags using Query Tree protocol. It results in growth of query-responses and idle time, which the identification time significantly increases. To solve this problem, Collision Tree protocol and M-ary Query Tree protocol have been proposed. However, in Collision Tree protocol and Query Tree protocol, only one bit is identified during one query-response. And, when similar tag IDs exist, M-ary Query Tree Protocol generates unnecessary query-responses. In this paper, we propose Adaptive M-ary Query Tree protocol that improves the identification performance using m-bit recognition, collision information of tag IDs, and prediction technique. We compare our proposed scheme with other Tree-based protocols under the same conditions. We show that our proposed scheme outperforms others in terms of identification time and identification efficiency.

Export Control System based on Case Based Reasoning: Design and Evaluation (사례 기반 지능형 수출통제 시스템 : 설계와 평가)

  • Hong, Woneui;Kim, Uihyun;Cho, Sinhee;Kim, Sansung;Yi, Mun Yong;Shin, Donghoon
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.109-131
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    • 2014
  • As the demand of nuclear power plant equipment is continuously growing worldwide, the importance of handling nuclear strategic materials is also increasing. While the number of cases submitted for the exports of nuclear-power commodity and technology is dramatically increasing, preadjudication (or prescreening to be simple) of strategic materials has been done so far by experts of a long-time experience and extensive field knowledge. However, there is severe shortage of experts in this domain, not to mention that it takes a long time to develop an expert. Because human experts must manually evaluate all the documents submitted for export permission, the current practice of nuclear material export is neither time-efficient nor cost-effective. Toward alleviating the problem of relying on costly human experts only, our research proposes a new system designed to help field experts make their decisions more effectively and efficiently. The proposed system is built upon case-based reasoning, which in essence extracts key features from the existing cases, compares the features with the features of a new case, and derives a solution for the new case by referencing similar cases and their solutions. Our research proposes a framework of case-based reasoning system, designs a case-based reasoning system for the control of nuclear material exports, and evaluates the performance of alternative keyword extraction methods (full automatic, full manual, and semi-automatic). A keyword extraction method is an essential component of the case-based reasoning system as it is used to extract key features of the cases. The full automatic method was conducted using TF-IDF, which is a widely used de facto standard method for representative keyword extraction in text mining. TF (Term Frequency) is based on the frequency count of the term within a document, showing how important the term is within a document while IDF (Inverted Document Frequency) is based on the infrequency of the term within a document set, showing how uniquely the term represents the document. The results show that the semi-automatic approach, which is based on the collaboration of machine and human, is the most effective solution regardless of whether the human is a field expert or a student who majors in nuclear engineering. Moreover, we propose a new approach of computing nuclear document similarity along with a new framework of document analysis. The proposed algorithm of nuclear document similarity considers both document-to-document similarity (${\alpha}$) and document-to-nuclear system similarity (${\beta}$), in order to derive the final score (${\gamma}$) for the decision of whether the presented case is of strategic material or not. The final score (${\gamma}$) represents a document similarity between the past cases and the new case. The score is induced by not only exploiting conventional TF-IDF, but utilizing a nuclear system similarity score, which takes the context of nuclear system domain into account. Finally, the system retrieves top-3 documents stored in the case base that are considered as the most similar cases with regard to the new case, and provides them with the degree of credibility. With this final score and the credibility score, it becomes easier for a user to see which documents in the case base are more worthy of looking up so that the user can make a proper decision with relatively lower cost. The evaluation of the system has been conducted by developing a prototype and testing with field data. The system workflows and outcomes have been verified by the field experts. This research is expected to contribute the growth of knowledge service industry by proposing a new system that can effectively reduce the burden of relying on costly human experts for the export control of nuclear materials and that can be considered as a meaningful example of knowledge service application.

Antioxidation Effect of Leg Bone Extracts and Enzyme Hydrolysates from Jeju Crossbred Horses (Jeju Native Horse×Thoroughbred) (제주 재래마와 더러브렛종과의 교잡종인 한라마 사골추출물과 효소분해물의 항산화 효과)

  • Kim, Dongwook;Pak, Jae-In;Chae, Hyun-Seok;Kim, Young-Boong;Jang, Aera
    • Journal of Life Science
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    • v.23 no.9
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    • pp.1147-1154
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    • 2013
  • This study was conducted to evaluate the antioxidation activity of Jeju crossbred horse (Jeju native horse ${\times}$ thoroughbred) leg bone extracts (HLBE) and its enzyme hydrolysates by determination of 1,1-diphenyl-2picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzo thiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS) radical scavenging activity, ferric reducing/antioxidant power (FRAP), and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC). HLBE was extracted with hot water for 24 hr and lyophilized. The lyophilized HLBE was hydrolyzed using multifect PR6L (MP), pepsin (PS), and a pepsin and pancreatin mixture (PSPC) for 4 hr at 60, 50, and $50^{\circ}C$, respectively. The hydrolysates were separated by a molecular weight of 3 kDa more or less. When the yield of HLBE was 100%, the yield of hydrolysates less than 3 kDa of MP, PS, and PSPC was 10.86, 3.26, and 8.00%, respectively. Enzyme hydrolysates with low molecular weight less than 3 kDa in MP and PSPC showed significantly higher DPPH, ABTS radical scavenging activity, and ORAC compared to HLBE and its hydrolysates with more than 3 kDa. However, the FRAP of the hydrolysates less than 3 kDa in PS was significantly higher than in MP. These results suggest that low molecular weight enzyme hydrolysates less than 3 kDa have more powerful antioxidation activity, especially when they are hydrolyzed by MP and PSPC rather than PS. Therefore, low molecular weight enzyme hydrolysates of HLBE hydrolyzed with MP and PSPC have significant potential as antioxidants in the food industry. Further in vivo studies are required to support the antioxidation activities of the hydrolysates in vitro.

Evaluation of Useful Biological Activities of Hot-Water Extracts of Raw-Red Bean and Boiled-Red Bean (Phaseolus radiatus L.) (생팥 및 삶은 팥의 열수 추출물의 유용 생리활성 평가)

  • Jung, In-Chang;Lee, Ye-Seul;Kang, Dong-Kyoon;Sohn, Ho-Yong
    • Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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    • v.25 no.3
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    • pp.451-459
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    • 2015
  • Raw-red bean (RR) should be boiled in hot water, and only boiled-red bean (BR) has been used in the food industry. In the course of development of functional food using red- bean (Phaseolus radiatus L), hot- water extracts (HWEs) of RR and BR were prepared, respectively and their components and various biological activities were compared. The extraction yield at $100^{\circ}C$ of RR (16.2%) was higher than that of BR (14.8%), and contents of total polyphenols, total flavonoids and reducing sugars of HWE of RR were 2.5-fold, 2.1-fold and 1.5-fold higher than those of HWE of BR. In anti-oxidation activity assay, scavenging activities against DPPH anion and ABTS cation as well as reducing power of RR was higher than those of BR. The results suggest that the anti-oxidant compounds in red bean might be heat-liable or discarded during boiling in hot-water as a cooking drip. Unexpectedly, nitrite scavenging activity was stronger in HWE of BR than RR. In anti-microbial activity assay, HWE of RR ($500{\mu}g/disc$) showed growth inhibition activity against gram-positive bacteria, whereas HWE of BR did not show any activity against any tested bacteria and fungi. Assay of in-vitro anti-diabetes and anti-thrombosis activities, which were previously reported in ethanol extract of red-bean, revealed that HWEs of RR and BR did not show significant activities against ${\alpha}$-amylase, ${\alpha}$-glucosidase, thrombin, prothrombin, or blood coagulation factors. Our results suggest that the anti-oxidation, anti-diabetes and anti-thrombosis activities of HWEs of RR and BR were lower than those of ethanol extracts of red bean, and bioactive substances in RR were destroyed during boiling or discarded after boiling. Further research on suitable boiling and re-use of cooking drip of red bean is necessary.

A Research on Effective Combination of Elementary Math and Game (초등수학과 게임의 효과적인 접목을 위한 연구)

  • Kim, Ge-won
    • Cartoon and Animation Studies
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    • s.37
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    • pp.393-411
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    • 2014
  • The volume of world market for serious game in year 2015 is expected to be about 9.6 trillion, and the volume of educational serious game market is expected to surpass half of the whole serious game market. In Korea, the development of game for educational purpose has dominated around the education enterprises since late 90s. In 2008, 'Serious Game Forum' was founded led by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism with experts from many fields in the society and there were progressing of making policies and plans for potential development of the serious game industry, but the effects were not successful than expected. In 2012, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology announced commercialization policy of digital textbook by 2015 and the serious game for educational purpose got attention again. Then, the serious game market became more vigorous with the dispersion of smart devices.13) As a result, the serious games on the smart devices or interlocking between the online and smart devices became an important issue in development rather than the online only serious games. Math field has international competitive power through export in the educational serious game market which takes more than half of the serious game market. Therefore, developing serious game for math education is a good area to raise competitiveness in domestic and international game industries. Moreover, it has no received preferences from students and parents although it has high potential for positive change of individuals and society. The reason is that students recognize it as educational content rather than a game and they avoid it, while parents recognize it as game but not an education. This phenomenon happens because the game elements and educational elements are not properly mixed but focused only on education or emphasized only the fun factors of game when it was developed. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to suggest a direction of developing serious games effectively combining with elementary math for elementary students to get interested in math while playing games. The research will analyze the current elementary math textbooks and find contents which may be combined with the game genre that elementary students enjoy playing these days. This research received advice from serious game developers and math education expert group to reflect the inclination of elementary school students, and respond to the demands from parents and educational institutions, and suggested a direction of developing serious games for effective math education.