• Title/Summary/Keyword: R&D Framework

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Causal inference from nonrandomized data: key concepts and recent trends (비실험 자료로부터의 인과 추론: 핵심 개념과 최근 동향)

  • Choi, Young-Geun;Yu, Donghyeon
    • The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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    • v.32 no.2
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    • pp.173-185
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    • 2019
  • Causal questions are prevalent in scientific research, for example, how effective a treatment was for preventing an infectious disease, how much a policy increased utility, or which advertisement would give the highest click rate for a given customer. Causal inference theory in statistics interprets those questions as inferring the effect of a given intervention (treatment or policy) in the data generating process. Causal inference has been used in medicine, public health, and economics; in addition, it has received recent attention as a tool for data-driven decision making processes. Many recent datasets are observational, rather than experimental, which makes the causal inference theory more complex. This review introduces key concepts and recent trends of statistical causal inference in observational studies. We first introduce the Neyman-Rubin's potential outcome framework to formularize from causal questions to average treatment effects as well as discuss popular methods to estimate treatment effects such as propensity score approaches and regression approaches. For recent trends, we briefly discuss (1) conditional (heterogeneous) treatment effects and machine learning-based approaches, (2) curse of dimensionality on the estimation of treatment effect and its remedies, and (3) Pearl's structural causal model to deal with more complex causal relationships and its connection to the Neyman-Rubin's potential outcome model.

A Study on Establishing Strategy of Living Lab Utilization to Enhance Energy Sector Innovation (에너지 섹터의 혁신성 제고를 위한 리빙랩 활용 전략 수립에 관한 연구)

  • Choi, Kwang Hun;Kwon, Gyu Hyun
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.1-38
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    • 2021
  • In this paper, an exploratory analysis study was conducted on establishing a strategy to utilize living labs to enhance the innovation of the energy sector. Through the previous research literature, it was possible to confirm the concept, essential components, innovation characteristics of living labs, and types of innovation issues in the energy sector as the theoretical background. Based on this, the case studies of energy living lab (8 overseas, 1 domestic) were analyzed focusing on the possibility of utilizing living lab as an approach to innovation issues in the energy sector, establishing a customized strategy for essential components of living lab and enhancing innovation. It was confirmed that the establishment of a customized strategy for the essential components of the living lab could be a driving force in enhancing innovation, and the Living Lab is effectively used as an approach method for innovation issues(demand management, supply technology, enhance R&D acceptance and promote commercialization, technology policies) in the energy sector. As a result of the case studies, the driving force of each living lab was derived from the viewpoint of contributing to innovation, and strategies for using the living labs for each energy innovation problem were established. This study is an exploratory and descriptive analytical study of the utilization strategy and value of the living lab model as an approach to innovation issues in the energy field, which can provide a living lab strategy framework that has not been tried in the past and enables living lab activation and network formation. It can also be considered to have academic, practical, and policy implications in that it can also contribute.

Experimental assessment of thermal radiation effects on containment atmospheres with varying steam content

  • R. Kapulla;S. Paranjape;U. Doll;E. Kirkby;D. Paladino
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.54 no.11
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    • pp.4348-4358
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    • 2022
  • The thermal-hydraulics phenomena in a containment during an accident will necessarily include radiative heat transfer (i) within the gas mixture due to the high radiative absorption and emission of steam and (ii) between the gas mixture and the surrounding structures. The analysis of some previous PANDA experiments (PSI, Switzerland) demonstrated the importance of the proper modelling of radiation for the benefit of numerical simulations. These results together with dedicated scoping calculations conducted for the present experiments indicated that the radiative heat transfer is considerable, even for a very low amount of steam (≈2%). The H2P2 series conducted in the large-scale PANDA facility at the Paul-Scherrer-Institut (PSI) in the framework of the OECD/NEA HYMERES-2 project is intended to enhance the understanding of thermal radiation phenomena and to provide a benchmark for corresponding numerical simulations. Thus, the test matrix was tailored around the two opposite extremes: either gas compositions with small steam content such that radiative heat transfer phenomena can be neglected. Or gas mixtures containing larger amounts of steam, so that radiative heat transfer is expected to play a dominant role. The H2P2 series consists of 5 experiments designed to isolate the radiation phenomena from convective and diffusive effects as much as possible. One vessel with a diameter of 4 m and a height of 8 m was preconditioned with different mixtures of air / steam at room and elevated temperatures. This was followed by the build-up of a stable helium stratification at constant pressure in the upper part of the vessel. After that, helium was injected from the top into the vessel which leads to an increase of the vessel pressure and a corresponding elevation-dependent and transient rise of the gas temperature. It is shown that even the addition of small amounts of steam in the initial gas atmosphere considerably impacts the radiative heat transport throughout all phases of the experiments and markedly influences i) the monitored gas peak temperature, ii) the temperature history during the compression and iii) the following relaxation phase after the compression was stopped. These PANDA experiments are the first of its kind conducted in a large scale thermal-hydraulic facility.

Quantitative impacts of climate change and human activities on the watershed runoff variation of the Geum River basin (기후변화 및 인간 활동이 금강 유역의 중권역 유출량 변동에 미치는 영향의 정량적 평가)

  • Oh, Mi Ju;Kim, Dongwook;Lee, Joo-Heon;Kim, Tae-Woong
    • Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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    • v.56 no.6
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    • pp.381-392
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    • 2023
  • Precipitation, runoff, and evapotranspiration are changing worldwide due to climate change and human activities. Because watershed runoff is an important component of the hydrological cycle, it is important to investigate the changes in watershed runoff for water resources management. This study collected observed data of runoff, precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration in the Geum River basin as well as their synthetic data according to Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios, investigated the trend of hydro-meteorological variables using the Mann-Kendall test, and quantitatively evaluated the effects of climate change and human activities on the watershed runoff using the climate elasticity approach and the Budyko framework. The results indicated that the relative contribution of climate change and human activity to changes in runoff varies from region to region. For example, the watershed with the greatest contribution from climate change and human activity were the Yongdam Dam (#3001) basin and the Daecheong Dam (#3008) basin, respectively. Future climate change showed an increase in precipitation and temperature in both RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, resulting in changes in runoff in the Geum River basin from 44.8% to 65.5%, respectively. We concluded that the effect on watershed runoff can be separated into climate change and human activities, which will be important information in establishing sustainable water resource management plans.

Computing Resource Sharing and Utilization System for Efficient Research Data Utilization (연구데이터 활용성 극대화 위한 컴퓨팅 리소스 공유활용 체계)

  • Song, Sa-kwang;Cho, Minhee;Lee, Mikyoung;Yim, Hyung-Jun
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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    • 2022.10a
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    • pp.430-432
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    • 2022
  • With the recent increase in interest in the open science movement in science and technology fields such as open access, open data, and open source, the movement to share and utilize publicly funded research products is materializing and revitalizing. In line with this trend, many efforts are being made to establish and revitalize a system for sharing and utilizing research data, which is a key resource for research in Korea. These efforts are mainly focused on collecting research data by field and institution, and linking it with DataON, a national research data platform, to search and utilize it. However, developed countries are building a system that can share and utilize not only such research data but also various types of R&D-related computing resources such as IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and MLaaS. EOSC (European Open Science Cloud), ARDC (Australian Research Data Commons), and CSTCloud (China S&T Cloud) are representative examples. In Korea, the Korea Research Data Commons (KRDC) is designed and a core framework is being developed to facilitate the sharing of these computing resources. In this study, the necessity, concept, composition, and future plans of KRDC are introduced.

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An Empirical Study on How the Moderating Effects of Individual Cultural Characteristics towards a Specific Target Affects User Experience: Based on the Survey Results of Four Types of Digital Device Users in the US, Germany, and Russia (특정 대상에 대한 개인 수준의 문화적 성향이 사용자 경험에 미치는 조절효과에 대한 실증적 연구: 미국, 독일, 러시아의 4개 디지털 기기 사용자를 대상으로)

  • Lee, In-Seong;Choi, Gi-Woong;Kim, So-Lyung;Lee, Ki-Ho;Kim, Jin-Woo
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.113-145
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    • 2009
  • Recently, due to the globalization of the IT(Information Technology) market, devices and systems designed in one country are used in other countries as well. This phenomenon is becoming the key factor for increased interest on cross-cultural, or cross-national, research within the IT area. However, as the IT market is becoming bigger and more globalized, a great number of IT practitioners are having difficulty in designing and developing devices or systems which can provide optimal experience. This is because not only tangible factors such as language and a country's economic or industrial power affect the user experience of a certain device or system but also invisible and intangible factors as well. Among such invisible and intangible factors, the cultural characteristics of users from different countries may affect the user experience of certain devices or systems because cultural characteristics affect how they understand and interpret the devices or systems. In other words, when users evaluate the quality of overall user experience, the cultural characteristics of each user act as a perceptual lens that leads the user to focus on a certain elements of experience. Therefore, there is a need within the IT field to consider cultural characteristics when designing or developing certain devices or systems and plan a strategy for localization. In such an environment, existing IS studies identify the culture with the country, emphasize the importance of culture in a national level perspective, and hypothesize that users within the same country have same cultural characteristics. Under such assumptions, these studies focus on the moderating effects of cultural characteristics on a national level within a certain theoretical framework. This has already been suggested by cross-cultural studies conducted by scholars such as Hofstede(1980) in providing numerical research results and measurement items for cultural characteristics and using such results or items as they increase the efficiency of studies. However, such national level culture has its limitations in forecasting and explaining individual-level behaviors such as voluntary device or system usage. This is because individual cultural characteristics are the outcome of not only the national culture but also the culture of a race, company, local area, family, and other groups that are formulated through interaction within the group. Therefore, national or nationally dominant cultural characteristics may have its limitations in forecasting and explaining the cultural characteristics of an individual. Moreover, past studies in psychology suggest a possibility that there exist different cultural characteristics within a single individual depending on the subject being measured or its context. For example, in relation to individual vs. collective characteristics, which is one of the major cultural characteristics, an individual may show collectivistic characteristics when he or she is with family or friends but show individualistic characteristics in his or her workplace. Therefore, this study acknowledged such limitations of past studies and conducted a research within the framework of 'theoretically integrated model of user satisfaction and emotional attachment', which was developed through a former study, on how the effects of different experience elements on emotional attachment or user satisfaction are differentiated depending on the individual cultural characteristics related to a system or device usage. In order to do this, this study hypothesized the moderating effects of four cultural dimensions (uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs, collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, and power distance) as suggested by Hofstede(1980) within the theoretically integrated model of emotional attachment and user satisfaction. Statistical tests were then implemented on these moderating effects through conducting surveys with users of four digital devices (mobile phone, MP3 player, LCD TV, and refrigerator) in three countries (US, Germany, and Russia). In order to explain and forecast the behavior of personal device or system users, individual cultural characteristics must be measured, and depending on the target device or system, measurements must be measured independently. Through this suggestion, this study hopes to provide new and useful perspectives for future IS research.

Research Framework for International Franchising (국제프랜차이징 연구요소 및 연구방향)

  • Kim, Ju-Young;Lim, Young-Kyun;Shim, Jae-Duck
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.61-118
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    • 2008
  • The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

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The Changes of System Design Premises and the Structural Reforms of Korean Government S&T Development Management System (시스템 설계전제의 변화와 공공부문 과학기술발전관리시스템 구조의 개혁)

  • 노화준
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
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    • v.5 no.2
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    • pp.1-21
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    • 1997
  • The objective of this paper is to think about what structural reforms of the Korean government S&T development management system might be. Korean society is currently experiencing a drastic socio-economic transformation. The results of this transformation should be reflected on the determining process of the directions and breadths of structural reforms of government S&T development management system. Because the government system design will be based on the premises of socio-economic conditions under which administrative activities perform and also this socio-economic changes can influence on changes of the premises of government management system design. Moreover, S&T development management system is a subsystem of government system so that the directions of structural reform of those subsystems should be considered in the broad framework changes in the development management system of the government. For the last forty years, the Korean government S&T development management system has been based on the premises including transformation from an agrarian society to an industrial society, authoritarianism and centrally controlled institutions, and exteremely small portions of private investments for science and thechonology R & D of the total. Recently, however, the premises of Korean government S&T development management system have rapidly changed. the characteristics of these changes are including tranformation from an industrial society to a knowledge and information intensive society, globalization, localization, and relatively large portion of private investments for science and technology R & C of the total. The basis of government reforms in Korea was the realization of the performances and values through the enhancement of national competitive capacity, attainment of lean government, decentralization and autonomy. However, the Korean government has attached a symbolic value of strategic organizations representing strong policy intentions of government for the science and technology based development. Most problems associated with the Korean government S&T development management system have grown worse during 1990s. Many people perceive that considerable part of this problem was generated because the government could not properly adapt itself to new administrative environment and the paradigm shift in its role. First of all, the Korean government S&T development management system as a whole failed to develop an integrated vision under which processes in formulating science and thechology development goals and developing consistent government plans concerning science and technology development are guided. Second, most of the local governments have little organizational capacity and manpowers to handle localized activities to promote science and technology in their regions. Third, the measure to coordinate and set priorities to invest resources for the development of science and technology was not effective. Fourth, the Most has been losing its reputation as the symbol of ideological commitment of the top policy maker to promote science and technology. Various ideas to reform government S&T development management system have been suggested recently. Most frequently cited ideas are as follow : (ⅰ)strengthen the functions of MoST by supplementing the strong incentive and regulatory measures; (ⅱ)create a new Ministry of Education, Science & Technology and Research by merging the Ministry of Education and the MoST; (ⅲ)create a new Ministry of Science & Technology and Industry ; and(ⅳ)create a National Science and Technology Policy Council under the chairmanship of the President. Four alternatives suggested have been widely discussed among the interested parties and they each have merits as well as weaknesses. The first alternative could be seen as an alternative which cannot resolve current conflicts among various ministries concerning priority setting and resource allocation. However, this alternatives can be seen as a way of showing the top policymaker's strong intention to emphasize science and technology based development. Second alternative is giving a strategic to emphasize on the training and supplying qualified manpower to meet knowledge and information intensive future society. This alternative is considered to be consistent with the new administrative paradigm emphasizing lean government and decentralization. However, opponents are worrying about the linkages and cooperative research between university and industry could be weakening. The third alternative has been adopted mostly in nations which have strong basic science research but weak industrial innovation traditions. Main weakness of this alternative for Korea is that Korean science and technology development system has no strong basic science and technology research traditions. The fourth alternative is consistent with new administrative paradigms and government reform bases. However, opponents to this alternative are worried that the intensive development of science and technology because of Korea's low potential research capabilities in science and technology development. Considerning the present Korean socio-economic situation which demands highly qualified human resources and development strategies which emphasizes the accumulations of knowledge-based stocks, I would like to suggest the route of creating a new Ministry of Education, Science & Technology and Research by intergrating education administration functions and science & technology development function into one ministry.

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Development of the forecasting model for import volume by item of major countries based on economic, industrial structural and cultural factors: Focusing on the cultural factors of Korea (경제적, 산업구조적, 문화적 요인을 기반으로 한 주요 국가의 한국 품목별 수입액 예측 모형 개발: 한국의, 한국에 대한 문화적 요인을 중심으로)

  • Jun, Seung-pyo;Seo, Bong-Goon;Park, Do-Hyung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.23-48
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    • 2021
  • The Korean economy has achieved continuous economic growth for the past several decades thanks to the government's export strategy policy. This increase in exports is playing a leading role in driving Korea's economic growth by improving economic efficiency, creating jobs, and promoting technology development. Traditionally, the main factors affecting Korea's exports can be found from two perspectives: economic factors and industrial structural factors. First, economic factors are related to exchange rates and global economic fluctuations. The impact of the exchange rate on Korea's exports depends on the exchange rate level and exchange rate volatility. Global economic fluctuations affect global import demand, which is an absolute factor influencing Korea's exports. Second, industrial structural factors are unique characteristics that occur depending on industries or products, such as slow international division of labor, increased domestic substitution of certain imported goods by China, and changes in overseas production patterns of major export industries. Looking at the most recent studies related to global exchanges, several literatures show the importance of cultural aspects as well as economic and industrial structural factors. Therefore, this study attempted to develop a forecasting model by considering cultural factors along with economic and industrial structural factors in calculating the import volume of each country from Korea. In particular, this study approaches the influence of cultural factors on imports of Korean products from the perspective of PUSH-PULL framework. The PUSH dimension is a perspective that Korea develops and actively promotes its own brand and can be defined as the degree of interest in each country for Korean brands represented by K-POP, K-FOOD, and K-CULTURE. In addition, the PULL dimension is a perspective centered on the cultural and psychological characteristics of the people of each country. This can be defined as how much they are inclined to accept Korean Flow as each country's cultural code represented by the country's governance system, masculinity, risk avoidance, and short-term/long-term orientation. The unique feature of this study is that the proposed final prediction model can be selected based on Design Principles. The design principles we presented are as follows. 1) A model was developed to reflect interest in Korea and cultural characteristics through newly added data sources. 2) It was designed in a practical and convenient way so that the forecast value can be immediately recalled by inputting changes in economic factors, item code and country code. 3) In order to derive theoretically meaningful results, an algorithm was selected that can interpret the relationship between the input and the target variable. This study can suggest meaningful implications from the technical, economic and policy aspects, and is expected to make a meaningful contribution to the export support strategies of small and medium-sized enterprises by using the import forecasting model.

The Production Structure of Genetic Information in South Korea (한국의 유전적 정보 생산 구조)

  • Yi Cheong-Ho
    • Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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    • v.5 no.1 s.9
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    • pp.55-92
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    • 2005
  • The factors contributing to the formation of an important scientific concept in South Korea and its circulation in the society are the scientific knowledge that had been already formed, matured, and established in the U.S.A, Europe and Japan and has been introduced into Korea, and the institutions that have been formed during the recent modernization in South Korea. The concept of 'genetic information' cannot be an exception in this context. The concept of genetic information is the one that has been extended and intensified by the genomics and bioinformatics formed and matured through the Human Genome Projects from the former concept of inheritance or heredity within the framework of classical and molecular genetics. The purpose of this study was to find out 'how the production structure of genetic information in South Korea has been formed', under the perspective of the conceptual, epistemic, and institutional holisticity or integratedness in the concept and knowledge production structure idealized in Western advanced nations. The discourse of genetic engineering popular in the mid 1980's in South Korea has catalyzed the development of molecular biology. However, the institutional balance that had been established for the biochemistry departments in Natural Science College and Medical College was not formed between the genetic engineering and genetics departments in South Korea. Therefore, they were unable to achieve the more integrative and macro-level disciplinary impact on life sciences, largely due to institutional lack of the capable (human) genetics departments in some leading Korean colleges of Medicine. In genomics, the cutting-edge reprogramming and restructuring of the traditional genetics in the West, South Korea has not invested, even meagerly, in the infrastructure, fund, and research and development (R & D) for the Basic or First Phase of the research trajectory in the Human Genome Project. Without a minimal Basic Phase, the genomics research and development in Korea has been running more or less for the Advanced or Second Phase. Bioinformatics has started developing in Korea under a narrow perspective which regards it as a mere sub-discipline of information technology (IT). Having developed itself in parallel with genomics, bioinformatics contains its own unique logics and contents that can be both directly and indirectly connected to the information science and technology. As a result, bioinformatics reveals a defect in respect of being synergistically integrated into genetics and life sciences in Korea. Owing to the structural problem in the production, genetic information appears to be produced in a fragmented pattern in the Korean society since its fundamental base is weak and thin. A good example of the conceptual and institutional fragmentedness is that 'the genetics of individual identification' is not a normal integrated part of the Korean genetics, but a scientific practice exercised in the departments of legal medicine in a few Medical Colleges. And the environment contributing to the production structure of genetic information in South Korea today comprises 'sangmyung gonghak'(or life engineering) discourse and non-governmental organization movement.

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