• Title/Summary/Keyword: Tool Cost

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The Design and Application of Vibrator Type(AM) Combination Apparatus for Improving Police Equipment for Fugitive Prevention (도주방지용 경찰장구의 기능개선을 위한 진동자 방식(AM) 결속장치 설계 및 응용)

  • Choi, Ki-Nam;Lee, Seon-Jeh
    • Convergence Security Journal
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.13-24
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    • 2011
  • Policemen judge the situations rationally and use their equipment such as handcuffs and rope within the purview, finding them needed to arrest criminals in the act who commit crimes which conforms to death penalty, life imprisonment or long imprisonment for over 3 years in accordance with Clause 10-2, Article 1 of the Police Mandate Law and prevent fleeing from them, defend their and others' lives and bodies, or if there are probable causes to be recognized that using equipment is necessary to restrain the interference with government officials in the execution of their duties. However, as the cases which the criminals run away in handcuffs or with both hands tied occur, it results in the waste of police force, distrust and enormous trouble in the pursuit of their duties. Therefore, if the way to perceive fleeing of criminals who have already worn the police equipment by some simple assistive devices without developing other new equipment, it will be very effective for police duties. This study is about the combination apparatus for fugitive prevention attached to the existing handcuffs and rope whose alert sounds let the staffs working inside the office perceive the fleeing of wanted criminals and examined suspects who wear the handcuffs or are tied up with rope, providing that they go through the exit where a transmitter and a receiver were set. The combination apparatus for fugitive prevention which the study introduces contains the connecting parts which connect a flexible tube(cognition tags inside of the tube) of connector equipped with the police equipment with the ends of the tube and the part where these two meet and which connect them inside of the tube. The connecting parts are easy to be attached to the police equipment such as handcuffs and rope, but hard to be dismantled by the people tied up with the equipment. It enables watchers to perceive the fleeing of wanted criminals and examined suspects who wear the handcuffs or are tied up with rope, providing that they go through the exit where a transmitter and a receiver were set. Plus, if it is combined together with the portable receiver, it can be installed on the patrol cars and easily adopted to supervise illegally accessing of evidences. It is also avaliable to be adjunctively utilized for the handcuffs provided and the cost is so reasonable. Owing to its snap-on way to the cuffs, it can clear up any invasion of privacy and it can not be used as a self-injury tool because of the soft tube. Using AM Tag minimizes the lack of malfunction.

A Study on the Performance Evaluation of G2B Procurement Process Innovation by Using MAS: Korea G2B KONEPS Case (멀티에이전트시스템(MAS)을 이용한 G2B 조달 프로세스 혁신의 효과평가에 관한 연구 : 나라장터 G2B사례)

  • Seo, Won-Jun;Lee, Dae-Cheor;Lim, Gyoo-Gun
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.157-175
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    • 2012
  • It is difficult to evaluate the performance of process innovation of e-procurement which has large scale and complex processes. The existing evaluation methods for measuring the effects of process innovation have been mainly done with statistically quantitative methods by analyzing operational data or with qualitative methods by conducting surveys and interviews. However, these methods have some limitations to evaluate the effects because the performance evaluation of e-procurement process innovation should consider the interactions among participants who are active either directly or indirectly through the processes. This study considers the e-procurement process as a complex system and develops a simulation model based on MAS(Multi-Agent System) to evaluate the effects of e-procurement process innovation. Multi-agent based simulation allows observing interaction patterns of objects in virtual world through relationship among objects and their behavioral mechanism. Agent-based simulation is suitable especially for complex business problems. In this study, we used Netlogo Version 4.1.3 as a MAS simulation tool which was developed in Northwestern University. To do this, we developed a interaction model of agents in MAS environment. We defined process agents and task agents, and assigned their behavioral characteristics. The developed simulation model was applied to G2B system (KONEPS: Korea ON-line E-Procurement System) of Public Procurement Service (PPS) in Korea and used to evaluate the innovation effects of the G2B system. KONEPS is a successfully established e-procurement system started in the year 2002. KONEPS is a representative e-Procurement system which integrates characteristics of e-commerce into government for business procurement activities. KONEPS deserves the international recognition considering the annual transaction volume of 56 billion dollars, daily exchanges of electronic documents, users consisted of 121,000 suppliers and 37,000 public organizations, and the 4.5 billion dollars of cost saving. For the simulation, we analyzed the e-procurement of process of KONEPS into eight sub processes such as 'process 1: search products and acquisition of proposal', 'process 2 : review the methods of contracts and item features', 'process 3 : a notice of bid', 'process 4 : registration and confirmation of qualification', 'process 5 : bidding', 'process 6 : a screening test', 'process 7 : contracts', and 'process 8 : invoice and payment'. For the parameter settings of the agents behavior, we collected some data from the transactional database of PPS and some information by conducting a survey. The used data for the simulation are 'participants (government organizations, local government organizations and public institutions)', 'the number of bidding per year', 'the number of total contracts', 'the number of shopping mall transactions', 'the rate of contracts between bidding and shopping mall', 'the successful bidding ratio', and the estimated time for each process. The comparison was done for the difference of time consumption between 'before the innovation (As-was)' and 'after the innovation (As-is).' The results showed that there were productivity improvements in every eight sub processes. The decrease ratio of 'average number of task processing' was 92.7% and the decrease ratio of 'average time of task processing' was 95.4% in entire processes when we use G2B system comparing to the conventional method. Also, this study found that the process innovation effect will be enhanced if the task process related to the 'contract' can be improved. This study shows the usability and possibility of using MAS in process innovation evaluation and its modeling.

The Effects of Virtual Reality Advertisement on Consumer's Intention to Purchase: Focused on Rational and Emotional Responses (가상현실(Virtual Reality) 광고가 소비자 구매의도에 미치는 영향: 이성적인 반응과 감성적인 반응의 통합)

  • Cha, Jae-Yol;Im, Kun-Shin
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.101-124
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    • 2009
  • According to Wikipedia, virtual reality (VR) is defined as a technology that allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment. Due to a rapid growth in information technology (IT), the cost of virtual reality has been decreasing while the utility of virtual reality advertisements has dramatically increased. Nevertheless, only a few studies have investigated the effects of virtual reality advertisement on consumer behaviors. Therefore, the objective of this study is to empirically examine the effects of virtual reality advertisement. Compared to traditional online advertisements, virtual reality advertisement enables consumers to experience products realistically over the Internet by providing high media richness, interactivity, and telepresence (Suh and Lee, 2005). Advertisements with high media richness facilitate consumers' understanding of advertised products by providing them with a large amount and a high variety of information on the products. Interactivity also provides consumers with a high level of control over the computer-simulated environment in terms of their abilities to adjust the information according to their individual interests and concerns and to be active rather than passive in their engagement with the information (Pimentel and Teixera, 1994). Through high media richness and interactivity, virtual reality advertisements can generate compelling feelings of "telepresence" (Suh and Lee, 2005). Telepresence is a sense of being there in an environment by means of a communication medium (Steuer, 1992). Virtual reality advertisements enable consumers to create a perceptual illusion of being present and highly engaged in a simulated environment, while they are in reality physically present in another place (Biocca, 1997). Based on the characteristics of virtual reality advertisements, a research model has been proposed to explain consumer responses to the virtual reality advertisements. The proposed model includes two dimensions of consumer responses. One dimension is consumers' rational response, which is based on the Information Processing Theory. Based on the Information Processing Theory, product knowledge and perceived risk are selected as antecedents of intention to purchase. The other dimension is emotional response of consumers, which is based on the Attitude-Structure Theory. Based on the Attitude-Structure Theory, arousal, flow, and positive affect are selected as antecedents of intention to purchase. Because it has been criticized to have investigated only one of the two dimensions of consumer response in prior studies, our research model has been built so as to incorporate both dimensions. Based on the Attitude-Structure Theory, we hypothesized the path of consumers' emotional responses to a virtual reality advertisement: (H1) Arousal by the virtual reality advertisement increases flow; (H2) Flow increases positive affect; and (H3) Positive affect increases intension to purchase. In addition, we hypothesized the path of consumers' rational responses to the virtual reality advertisement based on the Information Processing Theory: (H4) Increased product knowledge through the virtual reality advertisement decreases perceived risk; and (H5) Perceived risk decreases intension to purchase. Based on literature of flow, we additionally hypothesized the relationship between flow and product knowledge: (H6) Flow increases product knowledge. To test the hypotheses, we conducted a free simulation experiment [Fromkin and Streufert, 1976] with 300 people. Subjects were asked to use the virtual reality advertisement of a cellular phone on the Internet and then answer questions about the variables. To check whether subjects fully experienced the virtual reality advertisement, they were asked to answer a quiz about the virtual reality advertisement itself. Responses of 26 subjects were dropped because of their incomplete answers. Responses of 274 subjects were used to test the hypotheses. It was found that all of six hypotheses are accepted. In addition, we found that consumers' emotional response has stronger impact on their intention to purchase than their rational response does. This study sheds much light into practical implications for both IS researchers and managers. First of all, while most of previous research has analyzed only one of the customers' rational and emotional responses, we theoretically incorporated and empirically examined both of the two sides. Second, we empirically showed that mediators such as arousal, flow, positive affect, product knowledge, and perceived risk play an important role between virtual reality advertisement and customer's intention to purchase. In addition, the findings of this study can provide a basis of practical strategies for managers. It was found that consumers' emotional response is stronger than their rational response. This result indicates that advertisements using virtual reality should focus on the emotional side, and that virtual reality can be served as an appropriate advertisement tool for fancy products that require their online advertisements to give an impetus to customers' emotion. Finally, even if this study examined the effects of virtual reality advertisement of cellular phone, its findings could be applied to other products that are suited for virtual experience. However, this research has some limitations. We were unable to control different kinds of consumers and different attributes of products on consumers' intention to purchase. It is, therefore, deemed important for future research to control the consumer and product types for more reliable results. In addition to the consumer and product attributes, other variables could affect consumers' intention to purchase. Thus, the future research needs to find ways t control other variables.

A Lifelog Management System Based on the Relational Data Model and its Applications (관계 데이터 모델 기반 라이프로그 관리 시스템과 그 응용)

  • Song, In-Chul;Lee, Yu-Won;Kim, Hyeon-Gyu;Kim, Hang-Kyu;Haam, Deok-Min;Kim, Myoung-Ho
    • Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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    • v.15 no.9
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    • pp.637-648
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    • 2009
  • As the cost of disks decreases, PCs are soon expected to be equipped with a disk of 1TB or more. Assuming that a single person generates 1GB of data per month, 1TB is enough to store data for the entire lifetime of a person. This has lead to the growth of researches on lifelog management, which manages what people see and listen to in everyday life. Although many different lifelog management systems have been proposed, including those based on the relational data model, based on ontology, and based on file systems, they have all advantages and disadvantages: Those based on the relational data model provide good query processing performance but they do not support complex queries properly; Those based on ontology handle more complex queries but their performances are not satisfactory: Those based on file systems support only keyword queries. Moreover, these systems are lack of support for lifelog group management and do not provide a convenient user interface for modifying and adding tags (metadata) to lifelogs for effective lifelog search. To address these problems, we propose a lifelog management system based on the relational data model. The proposed system models lifelogs by using the relational data model and transforms queries on lifelogs into SQL statements, which results in good query processing performance. It also supports a simplified relationship query that finds a lifelog based on other lifelogs directly related to it, to overcome the disadvantage of not supporting complex queries properly. In addition, the proposed system supports for the management of lifelog groups by providing ways to create, edit, search, play, and share them. Finally, it is equipped with a tagging tool that helps the user to modify and add tags conveniently through the ion of various tags. This paper describes the design and implementation of the proposed system and its various applications.

A Study on the Establishment Process and Design Conception of KoKwan Park in Modern Busan (근대 부산에서 고관공원의 성립과 설계 사상)

  • Kang, Youngjo
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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    • v.31 no.4
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    • pp.22-32
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    • 2013
  • This study aimed to reveal the establishment process and design concept of KoKwan park built in modern Busan, which is called three major park includes YongDuSan park and TaeJeong Park, by analyzing BusanIlbo published modern period in Busan and 'Busan' published modern Busan prefecture. In KoKwan, there was installed DuMoPo Waegwan. The Japanese residents built the cemetery and memorial stone for Tsunohe Heigo's sudden death in the KoKwan hill, who was an envoy dispatched by Tsusima prefecture, in order to enhance awareness of the old territory DuMoPo Waegwan. In 1916, the Japanese residents repaired ruined the place by rasing funds and donated to Busan prefecture. Busan prefecture went public this place as a park. Meanwhile, In order to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the opening of Busan port, Oike Chusuke's memorial statue was built in private house neiboring KoKwan park. He became the richest person in Busan while engaged in commerce and industry since he come to the Busan the year before the opening of Busan port. He donate garden site includes his statue and 10,000 Won for KoKwan park construction expenses to Busan prefecture Busan prefecture invite Oya Rejo, who was Osaka-Hu's landscape designer, to design the KoKwan park. He visited Busan and survey KoKwan park and other Busan's park and submitted the plan to Busan prefecture. His Plan for KoKwan includes shrine and Oike's statue, arboretum and greenhouses, children's play garden, etc. Oya's design concept of KoKwan park was analyzed as follows: the juxtaposition of the sacred and secular, the succession of present landscape context, the complement of parks content, the tool of nation-state formation. KoKwan park was completed with cost 20,000 won, insufficient budget compared with Oya's estimated amount. However, in this thesis, it was not cleared whether Busan prefecture built the park as it was. In 1945, after the independence, KoKwan Park was destroyed due to build Dong-gu Office, houses. The remained subjects from this study are to clarify the process the destruction of the park.

Monitoring of a Time-series of Land Subsidence in Mexico City Using Space-based Synthetic Aperture Radar Observations (인공위성 영상레이더를 이용한 멕시코시티 시계열 지반침하 관측)

  • Ju, Jeongheon;Hong, Sang-Hoon
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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    • v.37 no.6_1
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    • pp.1657-1667
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    • 2021
  • Anthropogenic activities and natural processes have been causes of land subsidence which is sudden sinking or gradual settlement of the earth's solid surface. Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, is one of the most severe land subsidence areas which are resulted from excessive groundwater extraction. Because groundwater is the primary water resource occupies almost 70% of total water usage in the city. Traditional terrestrial observations like the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) or leveling survey have been preferred to measure land subsidence accurately. Although the GNSS observations have highly accurate information of the surfaces' displacement with a very high temporal resolution, it has often been limited due to its sparse spatial resolution and highly time-consuming and high cost. However, space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry has been widely used as a powerful tool to monitor surfaces' displacement with high spatial resolution and high accuracy from mm to cm-scale, regardless of day-or-night and weather conditions. In this paper, advanced interferometric approaches have been applied to get a time-series of land subsidence of Mexico City using four-year-long twenty ALOS PALSAR L-band observations acquired from Feb-11, 2007 to Feb-22, 2011. We utilized persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) and small baseline subset (SBAS) techniques to suppress atmospheric artifacts and topography errors. The results show that the maximum subsidence rates of the PSI and SBAS method were -29.5 cm/year and -27.0 cm/year, respectively. In addition, we discuss the different subsidence rates where the study area is discriminated into three districts according to distinctive geotechnical characteristics. The significant subsidence rate occurred in the lacustrine sediments with higher compressibility than harder bedrock.

A Study on the Evaluation of Nepal's Inclusive Business Solution: Focusing on the Application of OECD DAC Evaluation Criteria (네팔의 포용적 비즈니스 프로그램 평가에 관한 연구: 경제협력개발기구 개발원조위원회 평가기준 적용을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Yeon-Hong;Lee, Sung-Soon
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.177-192
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    • 2021
  • The Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development discusses the reorganization of the five evaluation criteria of the Public Development Assistance Committee, which are used internationally, and the five evaluation criteria including adequacy, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability when assessing public development assistance in 1991. This study is to derive alternatives by applying the evaluation criteria of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the evaluation of the inclusive business program being implemented in Nepal since 2019. As a result of the study, the adequacy of Nepal's inclusive business program was consistent with continuous employment and job creation for vulnerable groups such as disabled and orphan women. Efficiency can be said to be efficient in that processes such as work order and work confirmation are made with an electronic management tool, and delivery of the result is transmitted online, saving time and cost compared to other industries. The effectiveness of this project can be said to be an effective program in that it provides high-quality jobs such as providing specialized computer graphics education for the vulnerable, such as disabled and orphan women in Nepal, and hiring graduates as employees. Sustainability is the point that KOICA's inclusive business program has enabled vulnerable groups in the existing fields of agriculture and manufacturing to engage in the computer graphics industry, and the scalability of movies, characters, education businesses, and role models in other countries.However, considering that the scale of public development assistance will continue to increase in the future, it is necessary to establish a systematic monitoring system and a recirculation system so that the project between the donor and recipient countries can continue.

An Installation and Model Assessment of the UM, U.K. Earth System Model, in a Linux Cluster (U.K. 지구시스템모델 UM의 리눅스 클러스터 설치와 성능 평가)

  • Daeok Youn;Hyunggyu Song;Sungsu Park
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
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    • v.43 no.6
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    • pp.691-711
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    • 2022
  • The state-of-the-art Earth system model as a virtual Earth is required for studies of current and future climate change or climate crises. This complex numerical model can account for almost all human activities and natural phenomena affecting the atmosphere of Earth. The Unified Model (UM) from the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UK Met Office) is among the best Earth system models as a scientific tool for studying the atmosphere. However, owing to the expansive numerical integration cost and substantial output size required to maintain the UM, individual research groups have had to rely only on supercomputers. The limitations of computer resources, especially the computer environment being blocked from outside network connections, reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of conducting research using the model, as well as improving the component codes. Therefore, this study has presented detailed guidance for installing a new version of the UM on high-performance parallel computers (Linux clusters) owned by individual researchers, which would help researchers to easily work with the UM. The numerical integration performance of the UM on Linux clusters was also evaluated for two different model resolutions, namely N96L85 (1.875° ×1.25° with 85 vertical levels up to 85 km) and N48L70 (3.75° ×2.5° with 70 vertical levels up to 80 km). The one-month integration times using 256 cores for the AMIP and CMIP simulations of N96L85 resolution were 169 and 205 min, respectively. The one-month integration time for an N48L70 AMIP run using 252 cores was 33 min. Simulated results on 2-m surface temperature and precipitation intensity were compared with ERA5 re-analysis data. The spatial distributions of the simulated results were qualitatively compared to those of ERA5 in terms of spatial distribution, despite the quantitative differences caused by different resolutions and atmosphere-ocean coupling. In conclusion, this study has confirmed that UM can be successfully installed and used in high-performance Linux clusters.

Literature Review on Applying Digital Therapeutic Art Therapy for Adolescent Substance Addiction Treatment (청소년 마약류 중독 치료를 위한 디지털치료제 예술치료 적용을 위한 문헌연구)

  • Jiwon Kim;Daniel H. Byun
    • Trans-
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    • v.16
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    • pp.1-31
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    • 2024
  • The advent of digital media has facilitated easy access for adolescents to environments conducive to the purchase of narcotics. In particular, there's an increasing trend in the purchase and consumption of narcotics mediated through Social Network Services (SNS) and messenger services. Adolescents, sensitive to such environments, are at risk of experiencing neurological and mental health issues due to narcotic addiction, increasing their exposure to criminal activities, hence necessitating national-level management and support. Consequently, the quest for sustainable treatment methods for adolescents exposed to narcotics emerges as a critical challenge. In the context of high relapse rates in narcotic addiction, the necessity for cost-effective and user-friendly treatment programs is emphasized. This study conducts a literature review aimed at utilizing digital platforms to create an environment where adolescents can voluntarily participate, focusing on the development of therapeutic content through art. Specifically, it reviews societal perceptions and treatment statuses of adolescent drug addiction, analyzes the impact of narcotic addiction on adolescent brain activity and cognitive function degradation, and explores approaches for developing digital therapeutics to promote the rehabilitation of the addicted brain through analysis of precedential case studies. Moreover, the study investigates the benefits that the integration of digital therapeutic approaches and art therapy can provide in the treatment process and proposes the possibility of enhancing therapeutic effects through various treatment programs such as drama therapy, music therapy, and art therapy. The application of art therapy methods is anticipated to offer positive effects in terms of tool expansion, diversification of expression, data acquisition, and motivation. Through such approaches, an enhancement in the effectiveness of treatments for adolescent narcotic addiction is anticipated. Overall, this study undertakes foundational research for the development of digital therapeutics and related applications, offering economically viable and sustainable treatment options in consideration of the societal context of adolescent narcotic addiction.

The Impact of the Internet Channel Introduction Depending on the Ownership of the Internet Channel (도입주체에 따른 인터넷경로의 도입효과)

  • Yoo, Weon-Sang
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.37-46
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    • 2009
  • The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced in May 2008 that U.S. retail e-commerce sales for 2006 reached $ 107 billion, up from $ 87 billion in 2005 - an increase of 22 percent. From 2001 to 2006, retail e-sales increased at an average annual growth rate of 25.4 percent. The explosive growth of E-Commerce has caused profound changes in marketing channel relationships and structures in many industries. Despite the great potential implications for both academicians and practitioners, there still exists a great deal of uncertainty about the impact of the Internet channel introduction on distribution channel management. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the ownership of the new Internet channel affects the existing channel members and consumers. To explore the above research questions, this study conducts well-controlled mathematical experiments to isolate the impact of the Internet channel by comparing before and after the Internet channel entry. The model consists of a monopolist manufacturer selling its product through a channel system including one independent physical store before the entry of an Internet store. The addition of the Internet store to this channel system results in a mixed channel comprised of two different types of channels. The new Internet store can be launched by the independent physical store such as Bestbuy. In this case, the physical retailer coordinates the two types of stores to maximize the joint profits from the two stores. The Internet store also can be introduced by an independent Internet retailer such as Amazon. In this case, a retail level competition occurs between the two types of stores. Although the manufacturer sells only one product, consumers view each product-outlet pair as a unique offering. Thus, the introduction of the Internet channel provides two product offerings for consumers. The channel structures analyzed in this study are illustrated in Fig.1. It is assumed that the manufacturer plays as a Stackelberg leader maximizing its own profits with the foresight of the independent retailer's optimal responses as typically assumed in previous analytical channel studies. As a Stackelberg follower, the independent physical retailer or independent Internet retailer maximizes its own profits, conditional on the manufacturer's wholesale price. The price competition between two the independent retailers is assumed to be a Bertrand Nash game. For simplicity, the marginal cost is set at zero, as typically assumed in this type of study. In order to explore the research questions above, this study develops a game theoretic model that possesses the following three key characteristics. First, the model explicitly captures the fact that an Internet channel and a physical store exist in two independent dimensions (one in physical space and the other in cyber space). This enables this model to demonstrate that the effect of adding an Internet store is different from that of adding another physical store. Second, the model reflects the fact that consumers are heterogeneous in their preferences for using a physical store and for using an Internet channel. Third, the model captures the vertical strategic interactions between an upstream manufacturer and a downstream retailer, making it possible to analyze the channel structure issues discussed in this paper. Although numerous previous models capture this vertical dimension of marketing channels, none simultaneously incorporates the three characteristics reflected in this model. The analysis results are summarized in Table 1. When the new Internet channel is introduced by the existing physical retailer and the retailer coordinates both types of stores to maximize the joint profits from the both stores, retail prices increase due to a combination of the coordination of the retail prices and the wider market coverage. The quantity sold does not significantly increase despite the wider market coverage, because the excessively high retail prices alleviate the market coverage effect to a degree. Interestingly, the coordinated total retail profits are lower than the combined retail profits of two competing independent retailers. This implies that when a physical retailer opens an Internet channel, the retailers could be better off managing the two channels separately rather than coordinating them, unless they have the foresight of the manufacturer's pricing behavior. It is also found that the introduction of an Internet channel affects the power balance of the channel. The retail competition is strong when an independent Internet store joins a channel with an independent physical retailer. This implies that each retailer in this structure has weak channel power. Due to intense retail competition, the manufacturer uses its channel power to increase its wholesale price to extract more profits from the total channel profit. However, the retailers cannot increase retail prices accordingly because of the intense retail level competition, leading to lower channel power. In this case, consumer welfare increases due to the wider market coverage and lower retail prices caused by the retail competition. The model employed for this study is not designed to capture all the characteristics of the Internet channel. The theoretical model in this study can also be applied for any stores that are not geographically constrained such as TV home shopping or catalog sales via mail. The reasons the model in this study is names as "Internet" are as follows: first, the most representative example of the stores that are not geographically constrained is the Internet. Second, catalog sales usually determine the target markets using the pre-specified mailing lists. In this aspect, the model used in this study is closer to the Internet than catalog sales. However, it would be a desirable future research direction to mathematically and theoretically distinguish the core differences among the stores that are not geographically constrained. The model is simplified by a set of assumptions to obtain mathematical traceability. First, this study assumes the price is the only strategic tool for competition. In the real world, however, various marketing variables can be used for competition. Therefore, a more realistic model can be designed if a model incorporates other various marketing variables such as service levels or operation costs. Second, this study assumes the market with one monopoly manufacturer. Therefore, the results from this study should be carefully interpreted considering this limitation. Future research could extend this limitation by introducing manufacturer level competition. Finally, some of the results are drawn from the assumption that the monopoly manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader. Although this is a standard assumption among game theoretic studies of this kind, we could gain deeper understanding and generalize our findings beyond this assumption if the model is analyzed by different game rules.

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