• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.289-298
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• 2019

In this present study, the effects of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM), Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), $O_3$ Vertical Column Density ($O_3$ VCD), and Solar Zenith Angle (SZA) on the accuracy of sulfur dioxide Vertical Column Density ($SO_2$ VCD) retrieval have been quantified using the Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) method with the ground-based direct-sun synthetic radiances. The synthetic radiances produced based on the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer law without consideration of the diffuse effect. In the SNR condition of 650 (1300) with FWHM = 0.6 nm, AOD = 0.2, $O_3$ VCD = 300 DU, and $SZA=30^{\circ}$, the Absolute Percentage Difference (APD) between the true $SO_2$ VCD values and those retrieved ranges from 80% (28%) to 16% (5%) for the $SO_2$ VCD of $8.1{\times}10^{15}$ and $2.7{\times}10^{16}molecules\;cm^{-2}$, respectively. For an FWHM of 0.2 nm (1.0 nm) with the $SO_2$ VCD values equal to or greater than $2.7{\times}10^{16}molecules\;cm^{-2}$, the APD ranges from 6.4% (29%) to 6.2% (10%). Additionally, when FWHM, SZA, AOD, and $O_3$ VCD values increase, APDs tend to be large. On the other hand, SNR values increase, APDs are found to decrease. Eventually, it is revealed that the effects of FWHM and SZA on $SO_2$ VCD retrieval accuracy are larger than those of $O_3$ VCD and AOD. The SZA effects on the reduction of $SO_2$ VCD retrieval accuracy is found to be dominant over the that of FWHM for the condition of $SO_2$ VCD larger than $2.7{\times}10^{16}molecules\;cm^{-2}$.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.283-302
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• 2022

Despite the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in China since January 23, 2020, haze days with high PM₁₀ levels of 88-98 ㎍ m^-3 occurred on February 1 and 2, 2020. During these haze days, the East Asian region was affected by a warm and stagnant air mass with positive air temperature anomalies and negative zonal wind anomalies at 850 hPa. The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) was used to analyze the variation of regional PM₁₀ aerosol transport in Korea due to decreased anthropogenic emissions in East Asia. The base experiment (BASE), which applies the basic anthropogenic emissions in the WRF-Chem model, and the control experiment (CTL) applied by reducing the anthropogenic emission to 50%, were used to assess uncertainty with ground-based PM₁₀ measurements in Korea. The index of agreement (IOA) for the CTL simulation was 0.71, which was higher than that of BASE (0.67). A statistical analysis of the results suggests that anthropogenic emissions were reduced during the COVID-19 lockdown period in China. Furthermore, BASE and CTL applied to zero-out anthropogenic emissions outside Korea (BASE_ZEOK and CTL_ZEOK) were used to analyze the variations of regional PM₁₀ aerosol transport in Korea. Regional PM₁₀ transport in CTL was reduced by only 10-20% compared to BASE. Synthetic weather variables may be another reason for the non-linear response to changes in the contribution of regional transport to PM₁₀ in Korea with the reduction of anthropogenic emissions in East Asia. Although the regional transport contribution of other inorganic aerosols was high in CTL (80-90%), sulfate-nitrate-ammonium (SNA) aerosols showed lower contributions of 0-20%, 30-60%, and 30-60%, respectively. The SNA secondary aerosols, particularly nitrates, presumably declined as the Chinese lockdown induced traffic.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.139-153
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• 2024

The importance of sustainable growth and cost reduction has increased globally, leading to the expansion of outsourcing by companies. Additionally, the spread of the platform economy has brought changes in the way we work, and the online outsourcing market, where tasks are mediated through platforms, is growing. Academically, while research on general outsourcing is actively conducted, studies on online outsourcing are relatively insufficient compared to its actual utilization. This study aims to analyze the factors and performance factors of online outsourcing utilization by startups, to identify the effects and concerns of using online outsourcing from multiple perspectives, and to suggest the roles of various stakeholders for effective utilization and industry development. For the research, a survey was conducted with 281 employees of startups who have experience in using online outsourcing, and the main findings are as follows. First, the enhancement of efficiency, profitability, and innovation through the use of online outsourcing positively affects organizational commitment and job satisfaction of startup members. Especially, the improvement of efficiency due to the use of online outsourcing has a significant effect on enhancing job satisfaction. Second, concerns about the burden of online outsourcing fees or uncertain outcomes negatively affect organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Third, there are perceptual differences in the motivations and performance regarding the utilization of online outsourcing depending on the job position. Practitioners perceive that the use of online outsourcing increases organizational commitment, whereas managers have relatively higher concerns about the uncertainty of outsourced task outcomes and information security. Through this study, the possibility that human resource shortages and employee management issues in startups can be improved through online outsourcing was confirmed. By verifying the influence of various factors of online outsourcing utilization, this study also provides meaningful implications for establishing business strategies for online outsourcing intermediary platform companies and for formulating startup support policies by government and other startup support organizations.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.247-269
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• 2007

In recent years, one of the major reasons for the fierce competition amongst firms is that they strive to increase their own market shares and customer acquisition rate in the same market with similar and apparently undifferentiated products in terms of quality and perceived benefit. Because of this change in recent marketing environment, the differentiated after-sales service and diversified promotion strategies have become more important to gain competitive advantage. Price promotion is the favorite strategy that most retailers use to achieve short-term sales increase, induce consumer's brand switch, in troduce new product into market, and so forth. However, if marketers apply or copy an identical price promotion strategy without considering the characteristic differences in product and consumer preference, it will cause serious problems because discounted price itself could make people skeptical about product quality, and the changes of perceived value might appear differently depending on other factors such as consumer involvement or brand attitude. Previous studies showed that price promotion would certainly increase sales, and the discounted price compared to regular price would enhance the consumer's perceived values. On the other hand, discounted price itself could make people depreciate or skeptical about product quality, and reduce the consumers' positivity bias because consumers might be unsure whether the current price promotion is the retailer's best price offer. Moreover, we cannot say that discounted price absolutely enhances the consumer's perceived values regardless of product category and purchase situations. That is, the factors that affect consumers' value perceptions and buying behavior are so diverse in reality that the results of studies on the same dependent variable come out differently depending on what variable was used or how experiment conditions were designed. Majority of previous researches on the effect of price-comparison advertising have used consumers' buying behavior as dependent variable. In order to figure out consumers' buying behavior theoretically, analysis of value perceptions which influence buying intentions is needed. In addition, they did not combined the independent variables such as brand loyalty and price discount rate together. For this reason, this paper tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception. And we provided with theoretical and managerial implications that marketers need to consider such variables as product attributes, brand loyalty, and consumer involvement at the same time, and then establish a differentiated pricing strategy case by case in order to enhance consumer's perceived values properl. Three research concepts were used in our study and each concept based on past researches was defined. The perceived acquisition value in this study was defined as the perceived net gains associated with the products or services acquired. That is, the perceived acquisition value of the product will be positively influenced by the benefits buyers believe they are getting by acquiring and using the product, and negatively influenced by the money given up to acquire the product. And the perceived transaction value was defined as the perception of psychological satisfaction or pleasure obtained from taking advantage of the financial terms of the price deal. Lastly, the brand loyalty was defined as favorable attitude towards a purchased product. Thus, a consumer loyal to a brand has an emotional attachment to the brand or firm. Repeat purchasers continue to buy the same brand even though they do not have an emotional attachment to it. We assumed that if the degree of brand loyalty is high, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value will increase when higher discount rate is provided. But we found that there are no significant differences in values between two different discount rates as a result of empirical analysis. It means that price reduction did not affect consumer's brand choice significantly because the perceived sacrifice decreased only a little, and customers are satisfied with product's benefits when brand loyalty is high. From the result, we confirmed that consumers with high degree of brand loyalty to a specific product are less sensitive to price change. Thus, using price promotion strategy to merely expect sale increase is not recommendable. Instead of discounting price, marketers need to strengthen consumers' brand loyalty and maintain the skimming strategy. On the contrary, when the degree of brand loyalty is low, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value decreased significantly when higher discount rate is provided. Generally brands that are considered inferior might be able to draw attention away from the quality of the product by making consumers focus more on the sacrifice component of price. But considering the fact that consumers with low degree of brand loyalty are known to be unsatisfied with product's benefits and have relatively negative brand attitude, bigger price reduction offered in experiment condition of this paper made consumers depreciate product's quality and benefit more and more, and consumer's psychological perceived sacrifice increased while perceived values decreased accordingly. We infer that, in the case of inferior brand, a drastic price-cut or frequent price promotion may increase consumers' uncertainty about overall components of product. Therefore, it appears that reinforcing the augmented product such as after-sale service, delivery and giving credit which is one of the levels consisting of product would be more effective in reality. This will be better rather than competing with product that holds high brand loyalty by reducing sale price. Although this study tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception, there are several limitations. This study was conducted in controlled conditions where the high involvement product and two different levels of discount rate were applied. Given the presence of low involvement product, when both pieces of information are available, it is likely that the results we have reported here may have been different. Thus, this research results explain only the specific situation. Second, the sample selected in this study was university students in their twenties, so we cannot say that the results are firmly effective to all generations. Future research that manipulates the level of discount along with the consumer involvement might lead to a more robust understanding of the effects various discount rate. And, we used a cellular phone as a product stimulus, so it would be very interesting to analyze the result when the product stimulus is an intangible product such as service. It could be also valuable to analyze whether the change of perceived value affects consumers' final buying behavior positively or negatively.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.127-135
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• 2014

Purpose : By taking advantage of each imaging modality, the use of fused CT/MRI image has increased in prostate cancer radiation therapy. However, fusion uncertainty may cause partial target miss or normal organ overdose. In order to complement such limitation, our hospital acquired MRI image (Planning MRI) by setting up patients with the same fixing tool and posture as CT simulation. This study aims to evaluate the usefulness of the Planning MRI through comparing and analyzing the diagnostic MRI image and Planning MRI image. Materials and Methods : This study targeted 10 patients who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and prescribed nonhormone and definitive RT 70 Gy/28 fx from August 2011 to July 2013. Each patient had both CT and MRI simulations. The MRI images were acquired within one half hour after the CT simulation. The acquired CT/MRI images were fused primarily based on bony structure matching. This study measured the volume of prostate in the images of Planning MRI and diagnostic MRI. The diameters at the craniocaudal, anteroposterior and left-to-right directions from the center of prostate were measured in order to compare changes in the shape of prostate. Results : As a result of comparing the volume of prostate in the images of Planning MRI and diagnostic MRI, they were found to be $25.01cm^3$(range $15.84-34.75cm^3$) and $25.05cm^3$(range $15.28-35.88cm^3$) on average respectively. The diagnostic MRI had an increase of 0.12 % as compared with the Planning MRI. On the planning MRI, there was an increase in the volume by $7.46cm^3$(29 %) at the transition zone directions, and there was a decrease in the volume by $8.52cm^3$(34 %) in the peripheral zone direction. As a result of measuring the diameters at the craniocaudal, anteroposterior and left-to-right directions in the prostate, the Planning MRI was found to have on average 3.82cm, 2.38cm and 4.59cm respectively and the diagnostic MRI was found to have on average 3.37cm, 2.76cm and 4.51cm respectively. All three prostate diameters changed and the change was significant in the Planning MRI. On average, the anteroposterior prostate diameter decrease by 0.38cm(13 %). The mean right-to-left and craniocaudal diameter increased by 0.08cm(1.6 %) and 0.45cm(13 %), respectively. Conclusion : Based on the results of this study, it was found that the total volumes of prostate in the Planning MRI and the diagnostic MRI were not significantly different. However, there was a change in the shape and partial volume of prostate due to the insertion of prostate balloon tube to the rectum. Thus, if the Planning MRI images were used when conducting the fusion of CT/MRI images, it would be possible to include the target in the CTV without a loss as much as the increased volume in the transition zone. Also, it would be possible to reduce the radiation dose delivered to the rectum through separating more clearly the reduction of peripheral zone volume. Therefore, the author of this study believes that acquisition of Planning MRI image should be made to ensure target delineation and localization accuracy.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.231-252
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• 2021

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key technology that will change the future the most. It affects the industry as a whole and daily life in various ways. As data availability increases, artificial intelligence finds an optimal solution and infers/predicts through self-learning. Research and investment related to automation that discovers and solves problems on its own are ongoing continuously. Automation of artificial intelligence has benefits such as cost reduction, minimization of human intervention and the difference of human capability. However, there are side effects, such as limiting the artificial intelligence's autonomy and erroneous results due to algorithmic bias. In the labor market, it raises the fear of job replacement. Prior studies on the utilization of artificial intelligence have shown that individuals do not necessarily use the information (or advice) it provides. Algorithm error is more sensitive than human error; so, people avoid algorithms after seeing errors, which is called "algorithm aversion." Recently, artificial intelligence has begun to be understood from the perspective of the augmentation of human intelligence. We have started to be interested in Human-AI collaboration rather than AI alone without human. A study of 1500 companies in various industries found that human-AI collaboration outperformed AI alone. In the medicine area, pathologist-deep learning collaboration dropped the pathologist cancer diagnosis error rate by 85%. Leading AI companies, such as IBM and Microsoft, are starting to adopt the direction of AI as augmented intelligence. Human-AI collaboration is emphasized in the decision-making process, because artificial intelligence is superior in analysis ability based on information. Intuition is a unique human capability so that human-AI collaboration can make optimal decisions. In an environment where change is getting faster and uncertainty increases, the need for artificial intelligence in decision-making will increase. In addition, active discussions are expected on approaches that utilize artificial intelligence for rational decision-making. This study investigates the impact of artificial intelligence on decision-making focuses on human-AI collaboration and the interaction between the decision maker personal traits and advisor type. The advisors were classified into three types: human, artificial intelligence, and human-AI collaboration. We investigated perceived usefulness of advice and the utilization of advice in decision making and whether the decision-maker's personal traits are influencing factors. Three hundred and eleven adult male and female experimenters conducted a task that predicts the age of faces in photos and the results showed that the advisor type does not directly affect the utilization of advice. The decision-maker utilizes it only when they believed advice can improve prediction performance. In the case of human-AI collaboration, decision-makers higher evaluated the perceived usefulness of advice, regardless of the decision maker's personal traits and the advice was more actively utilized. If the type of advisor was artificial intelligence alone, decision-makers who scored high in conscientiousness, high in extroversion, or low in neuroticism, high evaluated the perceived usefulness of the advice so they utilized advice actively. This study has academic significance in that it focuses on human-AI collaboration that the recent growing interest in artificial intelligence roles. It has expanded the relevant research area by considering the role of artificial intelligence as an advisor of decision-making and judgment research, and in aspects of practical significance, suggested views that companies should consider in order to enhance AI capability. To improve the effectiveness of AI-based systems, companies not only must introduce high-performance systems, but also need employees who properly understand digital information presented by AI, and can add non-digital information to make decisions. Moreover, to increase utilization in AI-based systems, task-oriented competencies, such as analytical skills and information technology capabilities, are important. in addition, it is expected that greater performance will be achieved if employee's personal traits are considered.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1-32
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• 2008

Brown and Dacin (1997) have investigated the relationship between corporate associations and product evaluations. Their study focused on the effects of associations with a company's corporate ability (CA) and its corporate social responsibility (CSR) on consumers' product evaluations. Their study has found that both of CA and CSR influenced product evaluation but CA association has a stronger effect than CSR associations. Brown and Dacin (1997) have, however, claimed that there are few researches on how corporate association impacts product responses. Accordingly, some of researchers have found the variables to moderate or to mediate the relationship between the corporate association and the product responses. In particular, there has been existed a few of studies that tested the influence of the reputation on the product-relevant perceived risk, but the effects of two types of the corporate association on the product-relevant perceived risk were not identified so far. The primary goal of this article is to identify and empirically examine some variables to moderate the effects of CA association and CSR association on the perceived risk of the product. In this articles, we take the concept of the corporate associations that Brown and Dacin (1997) had proposed. CA association is those association related to the company's expertise in producing and delivering its outputs and CSR association reflected the organization's status and activities with respect to its perceived societal obligations. Also, this study defines the risk, which is the uncertainty or loss of the product and corporate that consumers have taken in a particular purchase decision or after having purchased. The risk is classified into product-relevant performance risk and financial risk. Performance risk is the possibility or the consequence of a product not functioning at some expected level and financial risk is the monetary loss one perceives to be incurring if a product does not function at some expected level. In relation to consumer's knowledge, expert consumers have much of the experiences or knowledge of the product in consumer position and novice consumers does not. The model tested in this article are shown in Figure 1. The model indicates that both of CA association and CSR association influence on performance risk and financial risk. In addition, the effects of CA and CSR are moderated by product category knowledge (product knowledge) and product category involvement (product involvement). In this study, the relationships between the corporate association and product-relevant perceived risk are hypothesized as the following form. For example, Hypothesis 1a($H_{1a}$) is represented that CA association has a positive influence on the performance risk of consumer. Also, the hypotheses that identified some variables to moderate the effects of two types of corporate association on the perceived risk of the product are laid down. One of the hypotheses of the interaction effect is Hypothesis 3a($H_{3a}$), it is described that consumer's knowledges of the product moderates the negative relationship between CA association and product-relevant performance risk. A field experiment was conducted in order to examine our model. The company tested was not real but imagined to meet the internal validity. Water purifiers were used for our study. Four scenarios have been developed and described as the imaginary company: Type A with both of superior CA and CSR, Type B with superior CSR and inferior CA, Type C with superior CA and inferior CSR, and Type D with both inferior of CA and CSR. The respondents of this study were classified into four groups. One type of four scenarios (Type A, B, C, or D) in its questionnaire was given to the respondent who filled out questions. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire to the respondents, chosen in convenience. A total of 300 respondents filled out the questionnaire but 207 were used for further analysis. Table 1 indicates that the scales in this study are reliable because the range of coefficients of Cronbach's $\alpha$ are from 0.85 to 0.92. The composite reliability is in the range of 0,85 to 0,92 and average variance extracted is in 0.72-0.98 range that is higher than the base level of 0.6. As shown in Table 2, the values for CFI, NNFI, root-mean-square error approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) are acceptably close to the standards suggested by Hu and Bentler (1999):.95 for CFI and NNFI,.06 for RMSEA, and.08 for SRMR. We also tested discriminant validity provided by Fornell and Larcker (1981). As shown in Table 2, we found strong evidence for discriminant validity between each possible pair of latent constructs in all samples. Given that these batteries of overall goodness-of-fit indices were accurate and that the model was developed on theoretical bases, and given the high level of consistency across samples, this enables us to proceed the previously defined scales. We used the moderated hierarchical regression analysis to test the influence of the corporate association(CA and CSR associations) on product-relevant perceived risk(performance and financial risks) and to identify the variables moderating the relationship between the corporate association and product-relevant performance risk. In this study, dependent variables are performance and financial risk. CA and CSR associations are described the independent variables. The moderating variables are product category knowledge and product category involvement. The results are, as expected, found that CA association has statistically a significant influence on the perceived risk of the product, but CSR association does not. Product category knowledge and involvement moderate the relationship between the CA association and the perceived risk of the product. However, the effect of CSR association on the perceived risk of the product is not moderated by the consumers' knowledge and involvement. For this result, it is necessary for a corporate to inform its customers CA association more than CSR association so that they could be felt to be the reduction of the perceived risk. The important theoretical contribution of this research is the meanings that two types of corporate association that Brown and Dacin(1997), and Brown(1998) have proposed replicated the difference of the effects on product evaluation. According to Hunter(2001), it was an important affair to accomplish the validity of a particular study and we had to take about ten studies to deduce a strict study. Next, there is the contribution of the this study to find that the effects of corporate association on the perceived risk of the product are varied by the moderator variables. In particular, the moderating effect of knowledge on the relationship between corporate association and product-relevant perceived risk has not been tested in Korea. In the managerial implications of this research, we suggest the necessity to stress the ability that corporate manufactures the product well(CA association) than the accomplishment of corporate's social obligation(CSR association). This study suffers from various limitations that imply future research directions. The moderating effects of product category knowledge and involvement on the relationship between corporate association and perceived risk need to be replicated. Next, future research could explore whether the mediated effects of the perceived risk has the relationship between corporate association and consumer's product purchase. In addition, to ensure the external validity of the study will be needed to use realistic company, not artificial.