• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.77-85
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• 2018

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to subdivide trade transaction-centered structure in a logistics/distribution industry system to apply blockchain, to establish and resolve with which types of technology, and to provide policy direction of government institution and technology to apply blockchain in this kind of industry. Research design, data, and methodology - This study was conducted with previous researches centered on cases applied in various industry sectors on the basis of blockchain technology. Results - General fields of blockchain application include digital contents distribution, IoT platform, e-Commerce, real-estate transaction, decentralized app. development(storage), certification service, smart contract, P2P network infrastructure, publication/storage of public documents, smart voting, money exchange, payment/settlement, banking security platform, actual asset storage, stock transaction and crowd funding. Blockchain is being applied in various fields home and abroad and its application cases can be explained in the banking industry, public sector, e-Commerce, medical industry, distribution and supply chain management, copyright protection. As examined in the blockchain application cases, it is expected to establish blockchain that can secure safety through distributed ledger in trade transaction because blockchain is established and applied in various sectors of industries home and abroad. Parties concerned of trade transaction can secure visibility even in interrupted specific section when they provide it as a base for distributed ledger application in trade and establish trade transaction model by applying blockchain. In case of interrupted specific section by using distributed ledger, blockchain model of trade transaction needs to be formed to make it possible for parties concerned involved in trade transaction to secure visibility and real-time tracking. Additionally, management should be possible from the time of contract until payment, freight transfer to buyers through land, air and maritime transportation. Conclusions - In order to boost blockchain-based logistics/distribution industry, the government, institutionally, needs to back up adding legal plan of shipping, logistics and distribution, reviewing standardization of electronic switching system and coming up with blockchain-based industrial road maps. In addition, the government, technologically, has to support R&D for integration with other high technology, standardization of distribution industry's blockchain technology and manpower training to expand technology development.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.18D no.5
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• pp.371-384
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• 2011

This paper considers logistics decision support system which deals with transportation mode selection considering transportation and carbon emission cost. Transportation and carbon emission costs vary with the choice of transportation modes and to become competitive companies need to find proper transportation modes for their logistics services. However, due to the restricted capacity of transportation modes, it is difficult to balance transportation and carbon emission costs when designing logistics network including transportation mode choice for each service. Therefore this paper aims to analyze the trade-off relationship between transportation and carbon emission cost in mode selection of intermodal transportation and to provide optimal green logistics strategy. In this paper, the logistics decision support system is designed based on mixed integer programming model. To understand the trade-off relationship of transportation and carbon emission cost, the system is tested with various scenarios including transportation of containers between Seoul and Busan. The analysis results show that, even though sea transportation combined with trucking is competitive in carbon emission per unit distance travelled, the total cost of carbon emission and transportation for the sea transportation may not have competitive advantage over other transportation modes including rail and truck transportation modes. The sea-based intermodal logistics service may induce detours which have negative impacts on the overall carbon emission. The proposed logistics decision support system is expected to play key role in green logistics and supply chain management.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.10D no.2
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• pp.233-246
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• 2003

The mediator-based system integrates heterogeneous information systems with the flexible manner. But it does not give much attention on the query optimization issues, especially for the query reusing. The other thing is that it does not use standardized metadata for schema matching. To improve this two issues, we propose mediator-based Distributed Information Integration System (DIIS) which uses query caching regarding performance and uses ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registry in terms of standardization. The DIIS is designed to provide decision-making support, which logically integrates the distributed heterogeneous business information systems based on the Web environment. We designed the system in the aspect of three-layer expression formula architecture using the layered pattern to improve the system reusability and to facilitate the system maintenance. The functionality and flow of core components of three-layer architecture are expressed in terms of process line diagrams and assembly line diagrams of Eriksson Penker Extension Model (EPEM), a methodology of an extension of UML. For the implementation, Supply Chain Management (SCM) domain is used. And we used the Web-based environment for user interface. The DIIS supports functions of query caching and query reusability through Query Function Manager (QFM) and Query Function Repository (QFR) such that it enhances the query processing speed and query reusability by caching the frequently used queries and optimizing the query cost. The DIIS solves the diverse heterogeneity problems by mapping MetaData Registry (MDR) based on ISO/IEC 11179 and Schema Repository (SCR).

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.345-358
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• 2021

This study focuses on the development of the liquid air production process that uses LNG (liquefied natural gas) cold energy which usually wasted during the regasification stage. The liquid air can be transported to the LNG exporter, and it can be utilized as the cold source to replace certain amount of refrigerant for the natural gas liquefaction. Therefore, the condition of the liquid air has to satisfy the available pressure of LNG storage tank. To satisfy pressure constraint of the membrane type LNG tank, proposed process is designed to produce liquid air at 1.3bar. In proposed process, the air is precooled by heat exchange with LNG and subcooled by nitrogen refrigeration cycle. When the amount of transported liquid air is as large as the capacity of the LNG carrier, it could be economical in terms of the transportation cost. In addition, larger liquid air can give more cold energy that can be used in natural gas liquefaction plant. To analyze the effect of the liquid air production amount, under the same LNG supply condition, the proposed process is simulated under 3 different air flow rate: 0.50 kg/s, 0.75 kg/s, 1.00 kg/s, correspond to Case1, Case2, and Case3, respectively. Each case was analyzed thermodynamically and economically. It shows a tendency that the more liquid air production, the more energy demanded per same mass of product as Case3 is 0.18kWh higher than Base case. In consequence the production cost per 1 kg liquid air in Case3 was $0.0172 higher. However, as liquid air production increases, the transportation cost per 1 kg liquid air has reduced by $0.0395. In terms of overall cost, Case 3 confirmed that liquid air can be produced and transported with $0.0223 less per kilogram than Base case.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.151-171
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• 2014

Firms today have sought management effectiveness and efficiency utilizing information technologies (IT). Numerous firms are outsourcing specific information systems functions to cope with their short of information resources or IT experts, or to reduce their capital cost. Recently, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) as a new type of information system has become one of the powerful outsourcing alternatives. SaaS is software deployed as a hosted and accessed over the internet. It is regarded as the idea of on-demand, pay-per-use, and utility computing and is now being applied to support the core competencies of clients in areas ranging from the individual productivity area to the vertical industry and e-commerce area. In this study, therefore, we seek to quantify the value that SaaS has on business performance by examining the relationships among firm strategies, SaaS technology maturity, and business performance of SaaS providers. We begin by drawing from prior literature on SaaS, technology maturity and firm strategy. SaaS technology maturity is classified into three different phases such as application service providing (ASP), Web-native application, and Web-service application. Firm strategies are manipulated by the low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy. Finally, we considered customer acquisition as a business performance. In this sense, specific objectives of this study are as follows. First, we examine the relationships between customer acquisition performance and both low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy of SaaS providers. Secondly, we investigate the mediating and moderating effects of SaaS technology maturity on those relationships. For this purpose, study collects data from the SaaS providers, and their line of applications registered in the database in CNK (Commerce net Korea) in Korea using a questionnaire method by the professional research institution. The unit of analysis in this study is the SBUs (strategic business unit) in the software provider. A total of 199 SBUs is used for analyzing and testing our hypotheses. With regards to the measurement of firm strategy, we take three measurement items for differentiation strategy such as the application uniqueness (referring an application aims to differentiate within just one or a small number of target industry), supply channel diversification (regarding whether SaaS vendor had diversified supply chain) as well as the number of specialized expertise and take two items for low cost strategy like subscription fee and initial set-up fee. We employ a hierarchical regression analysis technique for testing moderation effects of SaaS technology maturity and follow the Baron and Kenny's procedure for determining if firm strategies affect customer acquisition through technology maturity. Empirical results revealed that, firstly, when differentiation strategy is applied to attain business performance like customer acquisition, the effects of the strategy is moderated by the technology maturity level of SaaS providers. In other words, securing higher level of SaaS technology maturity is essential for higher business performance. For instance, given that firms implement application uniqueness or a distribution channel diversification as a differentiation strategy, they can acquire more customers when their level of SaaS technology maturity is higher rather than lower. Secondly, results indicate that pursuing differentiation strategy or low cost strategy effectively works for SaaS providers' obtaining customer, which means that continuously differentiating their service from others or making their service fee (subscription fee or initial set-up fee) lower are helpful for their business success in terms of acquiring their customers. Lastly, results show that the level of SaaS technology maturity mediates the relationships between low cost strategy and customer acquisition. That is, based on our research design, customers usually perceive the real value of the low subscription fee or initial set-up fee only through the SaaS service provide by vender and, in turn, this will affect their decision making whether subscribe or not.