• Korea Trade Review
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.215-241
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• 2023

As competition between ports intensifies, port efficiency has always been a hot topic in the port and shipping economy. Boosting regional and national economies by improving port efficiency and promoting sustainable development of ports is also a concern for port operators and local and national governments. In this situation, this study has the following objectives. First, using panel data from 2010 to 2017, the efficiency of 14 major inland ports along the Yangtze River was analyzed, and changes in port efficiency over time were examined. Second, 14 inland ports are divided into the middle, upper, and lower Yangtze River port groups to compare and review differences in efficiency levels of ports by basin. For the study, we applied a three-step DEA analysis method, which evaluated the pure relative efficiency of the port itself by removing the effects of environmental factors and statistical noise that could affect the efficiency evaluation and presented the results. As a result, it was confirmed that there was a clear difference in the efficiency value of the port between the first-stage and the third-stage efficiency evaluation result. In addition, the downstream ports showed relatively high efficiency compared to the middle and upstream ports.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.27-42
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• 2016

This study is to investigate seaport clustering by using meta-frontier and cross-efficiency models. Data covers the 13 Asian ports during 2009, 2010 and 2013 with 3 inputs(depth, total area, and number of cranes) and 1 output(TEU). Correlations coefficient from cross-efficiency matrix are used for measuring clustering dendrogram. After that, meta-frontier analysis for investigating whether the clustering using cross-efficiency method increases the meta-efficiency. Empirical main results are as follows: First, group efficiencies of Busan, Incheon, and Gwangyang ports are increased. Second, meta and group efficiencies of China ports are greater than those of Korean ports. Third, distortion of technology gap of Gwangyang is lower than that of Busan and Incheon. Fourth, Gwangyang, clustering with Ningbo, Chingtao, Tokyo and Caosung ports in 2009 and with Dubai port in 2013 can increase the efficiency. Fifth, to enhance the efficiency, Busan port should be clustered to group 2 in 2010 and group 1 in 2013, and Incheon port clustered to group 2 in 2010 and 2013. Fifth, it is empirically investigated that Busan, Incheon and Gwangyang ports can increase the efficiency by using Cross-efficiency and Meta-frontier models. Port policy planner should promote the clustering policy for Busan with Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore, Incheon and Gwangyang with Chingtao, Nagoya, Ningbo, Tokyo, and Kaoshung ports.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.97-119
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• 2014

This study measures the efficiency of intellectual capital of Korea's banks, financial investment companies, and insurance companies using the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAICTM) model, which was developed by A. Pulic and investigates into the relationship of each of VAIC's elements - efficiency of human, structural, and material capital -with business performance of the institution. we found, first, average VAIC and human capital efficiency(HCE) of Korean financial institutions during 2001 - 2012 were highest among banks, followed by insurance companies and securities firm. Secondly, in general, banks in advanced countries tend to have higher HCE and VAIC compared with the banks of developing countries. Thirdly, Korean financial institutions' HCE and VAIC are lower than those of Australia and even Taiwan and Thailand and have been on the decrease in recent years. This suggests that Korean financial institutions should enhance VAIC and HCE to build-up the international competitiveness.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.117-125
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• 2020

This paper aims to investigate FDI attractive factors, which are important to formulate policies to attract Korean direct investment into Vietnam. Based on the literature review and the results of interview with 27 Korean investors in Vietnam, we determined the model of variables attracting Korea's FDI into Vietnam. It is used to assess the impact of attractive factors belonging to three groups of variables to support investment decision; they are macroeconomics variables (including market size factor, labor cost factor, and market openness factor), policies variables (including monetary policy factor and tax rate gap factor), and microeconomics variables (geographic advantage factor representative by location). This research also utilized a relatively new quantitative research method based on the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model (ARDL) with the time data chain from 1995 to 2017 of Korean FDI into Vietnam. It analyzes long-term relationships between dependent variables and independent variables. The result of this study indicates that there are three positive factors (low wages, trade openness and government policy) explaining the FDI flows in the long term. The result also shows that incentive tax policy has had a positive impact on Korean FDI, which has satisfied the aim of seeking efficiency of Korean investors.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.73-92
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• 2020

Purpose - The letter of credit has been playing a major role to diminish overall risks which exist among concerned parties even though there are differences such as language, culture, law, and distance. This paper reviews essence of the letter of credit and its transaction principles, as well as overall practical questions based on the L/C transaction principle. It also investigates the risk of fraud occurrences in L/C transactions and the importance of fraud prevention and preventive measures in international L/C transactions, including the Fraud Rule, which is a major topic to consider in business transactions. Design/methodology - It is considered that an importing country's concerned parties and an exporting country's concerned parties face different situations. This study employs the existing framework to identify liability, responsibility, and obligation for all concerned parties across countries. Using a quite direct measurement of principles in the letter of credit, such as principle of independence, principle of abstraction, and principle of strictness and coincidence, we studied these differences. Findings - Our main findings can be summarized as follow. The paper enhances the efficiency of the L/C payment method to provide fraud generated from L/C transactions, presentation of a theoretical framework about fraud and fraud prevention, which international trading companies should acknowledge in a material way based on fraud risk resulting from taking advantage of L/C transaction principles. Originality/value - Existing studies focus on fraud accidents in L/C transactions by taking bad advantage of the characteristics of the letter of credit without suggesting risks of fraud. This paper attempts to evaluate and provide preventive measures as a solution for fraud and risky international business in a letter of credit transaction. This area of trade studies is underexplored, both empirically and theoretically, although the issue has long been important to Korean and world community foreign trade.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.27-33
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• 2014

There are several methods to improve the flight efficiency of HALE(High Altitude Long Endurance) UAV(Unmaned Aerial Vehicle). Airframe structural point of view, weight reduction of the airframe structure is the most important method to improve the flight efficiency. In order to reduce the weight of airframe structures, new concepts which are different from traditional airframe structure design such as the mylar wing skin should be introduced. The spar is the most important component in a mylar skin wing structure, so the spar weight reduction is the key point for reduction of the wing structural weight. In this study, design trade-off study for the front spar of the HALE UAV wing is conducted in order to reduce the weight. Design and analysis procedure of high aspect ratio wing spar are introduced. Several front spar structures are designed and trade-off study regarding the weight and strength for the each spar are performed. Spar design configurations are verified by the static strength test. Finally, optimal front spar design is decided and applied to the HALE UAV wing design.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.621-631
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• 2011

In space qualified DC-DC converters, optimization of the following electrical characteristics is of greater interest in comparison with other specifications; power loss/efficiency, output voltage ripple and volume/weight. The main goal of this paper is to present an appropriate solution for optimizing the above mentioned characteristics. For this purpose, a comprehensive power loss model of a DC-DC converter is fully developed. Proper models are also demonstrated for assessment of the output voltage ripple and the utilized transformer volume as the bulkiest component in a DC-DC converter. In order to provide a test bed for evaluation of the proposed models, a 50W push-pull DC-DC converter is designed and implemented. Finally, a novel cost function with three assigned weight functions is proposed in order to have a trade-off among the power loss, the output voltage ripple and the utilized transformer volume of the converter. The cost function is optimized for applications in which volume has the highest priority in comparison with power loss and ripple. The optimization results show that the transformer volume can be decreased by up to 51% and this result is verified by experimental results. The developed models and algorithms in this paper can be used for other DC-DC converter topologies with some minor modifications.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.113-125
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• 2022

Purpose - The primary purpose of this study is to verify whether the target set out by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for reducing carbon emissions from ships can be achieved by quantitatively analyzing the trends in technological advances of fuel oil consumption in the container shipping market. To achieve this purpose, several scenarios are designed considering various options such as eco-friendly fuels, low-speed operation, and the growth in ship size. Design/methodology - The vessel size and speed used in prior studies are utilized to estimate the fuel oil consumption of container ships and the pace of technological progress and Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) regulations are added. A database of 5,260 container ships, as of 2019, is used for multiple linear regression and quantile regression analyses. Findings - The fuel oil consumption of vessels is predominantly affected by their speed, followed by their size, and the annual technological progress is estimated to be 0.57%. As the quantile increases, the influence of ship size and pace of technological progress increases, while the influence of speed and coefficient of EEDI variables decreases. Originality/value - The conservative estimation of carbon emission drawn by a quantitative analysis of the technological progress concerning the fuel efficiency of container vessels shows that it is not possible to achieve IMO targets. Therefore, innovative efforts beyond the current scope of technological progress are required.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.13-20
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• 2022

An effective capacitive deionization process termed membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI) is newly designed and experimentally tested for seawater desalination. By preventing co-ions to be expelled, MCDI can improve the ion removal performance, but there is a trade-off between blocking co-ion transfer and increasing contact resistance. The conventional MCDI uses 2D-shaped films which increase contact resistance and reduce desalination performance in the trade-off. In this paper, with the 3-D shape of Nafion coated activated carbon cloth, the mentioned problems are expected to be solved making the desalination performance better. We visualized ion concentration and fluid flows with half-MCDI cell that can measure only efficiency of cathode. We found the optimal number of coatings which have the better efficiency than CMX, commercial cation exchange membrane in fixed current conditions of 100uA.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.51-63
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• 2016

In this study, we conducted a comparative analysis of R&D investment efficiency and operational efficiency of IT firms using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We categorized thirteen sample firms into two groups-IT manufacturing and IT service-after an extensive literature review on IT industry classification. We adopted an output-oriented two-stage DEA model suggested by Banker et al. (1984) with total asset and R&D investment as input variables. Then, we constructed investment efficiency and operational efficiency by using Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Asset (ROA) as intervening variables and operating income and Earnings Per Share (EPS) as output variables. The outcome of the analysis is summarized as follows. First of all, IT manufacturing firms were more efficient (57% on average) than IT service firms. To be specific, IT service firms showed decreasing returns to scale (DRS) with diseconomy of scale. In contrast, IT service firms showed higher operational efficiency (81.5% on average) than IT manufacturing firms. Also, we conducted a Mann-Whitney U test to compare the output of IT service firms and IT manufacturing firms. Lastly, we found a negative correlation ($R^2$ = -.754) between R&D investment efficiency and operational efficiency which infers the trade-off between two constructs