• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.25 no.1B
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• pp.15-30
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• 2000

The important considerations in the design of fiber-optic networks are reliability and survivability preparing against a failure. The SDH(Synchronous Digital Hierarchy), the international standard of optical transmission, offers several network reconfiguration methods that enable network to be automatically restored from failure. One of the methods is the SHR(Self Healing Ring), which is a ring topology system. Most network providers have constructed their backbone networks with SHR architecture since it can provide survivability economically. The network architecture has eventually evolved into a multi-ring network comprised of interconnected rings. This paper addresses multi-ring network design problems is to minimize ring-construction cost. This problem can be formulated with MIP(mixed integer programming) model. However, it is difficult to solve the model within reasonable computing time on a large scale network because the model is NP-complete. Furthermore, in practice we should consider the problem of routing demands on rings to minimize total cost. This routing problem involves multiplex bundling at the intermediate nodes. A family of heuristic algorithms is presented for this problem. These algorithms include gateway selection and routing of inter-ring demands as well as load balancing on single rings. The developed heuristic algorithms are applied to some network provider's regional and long-distance transmission networks. We show an example of ring design and compare it with another ring topology design. Finally, we analysis the effect bundling.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.39-57
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• 2012

The unabated influx of micro businesses has turned the Korean retailing market to a rat race, which causes severe financial distress for micro business owners due to heavy competition. The woes of these micro business owner's are exacerbated by the presence of large scale distributors such as Super Supermarket(SSM) and large discount stores. In summary, the Korean retail market is overburdened an uneconomically viable. Retailing has low barriers to entry which attracts unskilled labor or those with little capital. These start-ups have low opportunity costs since they would make low wages elsewhere in the economy. Thus, these owners are content with relatively low returns on their investment. These 'subsistence ventures' are maintained for economical viability rather than economic growth. These 'subsistence ventures' intensifies competition among small-scale businesses. The presence of large retail corporations also aggravates the situation. The recent stagnation of the economy has worsened the retail market in Korea. The overwhelming competition solidifies the coarse structural system and the prolonged economic sluggishness has increased the risk of insolvency for micro business owners. As the economy continues to stagnate, the imminent risk in retailing market will rise up to surface threatening economic stability. More systematic inflows and outflows of retailers are required in order to redress this structural problem. It has been empirically shown that the self-employment rate is high in Korea compared to other OECD countries. To draw the comparison of self-employment rate by industry, Korea shows high rates among transportation, whole sale, retail, education, lodging, and restaurants. In the case of the transportation and education service sectors, this high rate can be explained by the idiosyncratic nature of Korean culture. In the transportation sector, political policies favor private cap service and private freight carriers. In the education service sector, Koreans put particular emphasis on education that leads to many private institutions that outnumber other OECD countries. For these singular reasons, Korea maintains high micro business, self-employed rates particularly in retailing. A comparable nation is Japan, with its similar social, economic, cultural environment among OECD countries. Unlike Korea, Japan has much lower rates of micro business which continues to decrease. Also Korean retailers are much more destitute than Japanese. The fundamental problem of Korean retailing is the involuntary exit of these 'subsistence ventures,' micro businesses with low margins, in which a small drop in demand can lead to financial difficulties for the owner. This problem will be exacerbated when Korean babyboomers retire and join the micro business ventures. The first priority in order to cope with the severity of oversupply in retailing is to provide better opportunities for the potential self-employers. There should be viable alternatives to subsistent ventures. Strengthening the retirement program, scrutiny of exit process, reconfiguration of policy funds are the recommendations.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.28
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• pp.17-36
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• 2012

This essay places the South Korean film Thirst (2009) within Park Chan-wook's oeuvre as a filmmaker notorious for graphic depictions of violence and revenge. Park's use of dark humour in his films, which is emphasized in Thirst perhaps more than ever, allows for a more self-aware depiction of violence, where both the viewer and the protagonist are awakened to the futility of revenge. This ultimately paints his characters as fascinatingly crazy - simultaneously heroes, villains, and victims. Film theorist Wes D. Gehring's three themes of dark humour ('man as beast,' 'the absurdity of the world,' and 'the omnipresence of death') become most obvious in Park's most recent film, which pays closer attention to character development through narrative detail. Rather than portraying the characters as sentimental, dark humour depicts their misfortunes in an alternative way, allowing for consideration of such taboo subjects as religion, adultery, and death/suicide. These issues are further tackled through Thirst's portrayal of its vampire protagonist, which ultimately de-mystifies the traditional vampire figure. While this character has more often been associated with romance, exoticism and the mystical powers of the supernatural, Thirst takes relatively little from the demons of Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922) and various other Dracula adaptations, nor the romantic figures of Interview with the Vampire (Jordan, 1994), and Twilight (Hardwicke, 2008). Instead, it is part of a much smaller group of contemporary vampire films, which are rather informed by a postmodern reconfiguration of the monster. Thus, this paper examines Thirst as an important contribution to the global and hybrid nature of those films in which postmodern vampires are sympathetic and de-mystified, exhibiting symptoms stemming from a natural illness or misfortune. Park's undertaking of a vampire film allows for a complex balance between narrative and visuals through his focus on the Western implications of this myth within Korean cinema. This combination of international references and traditional Korean culture marks it as highly conscious of New Korean Cinema's focus on globalization. With Thirst, Park successfully unites familiar images of the vampire hunting and feeding, with more stylistically distinct, grotesque images of violence and revenge. In this sense, dark humour highlights the less charming aspects of the vampire struggling to survive, most effective in scenes depicting the protagonist feeding from his friend's IV in the hospital, and sitting in the sunlight, slowly turning to ash, in the final minutes of the film. The international appeal of Park's style, combining conventions of the horror/thriller genre with his own mixture of dark humour and non-linear narrative, is epitomized in Thirst, which underscores South Korea's growing global interest with its overt international framework. Furthermore, he portrayal of the vampire as a sympathetic figure allows for a shift away from the conventional focus on myth and the exotic, toward a renewed construction of the vampire in terms of its contribution to generic hybridization and cultural adaptation.