• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.61-118
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.83-91
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• 2015

Mine soil contamination by high levels of metal ions that prevents the successful vegetation poses a serious problem. In the study presented here, we used the microbial biocatalyst of urease producing bacterium Sporosarcina pasteurii or plant extract based BioNeutro-GEM (BNG) agent. The ability of the biocatalysts to bioremediate contaminated soil from abandoned mine was examined by solid-state composting vegetation under field conditions. Treatment of mine soil with the 2 biocatalysts for 5 months resulted in pH increase and electric conductivity reduction compared to untreated control. Further analyses revealed that the microbial catalysts also promoted the root and shoot growth to the untreated control during the vegetation treatments. After the Sporosarcina pasteurii or plant extract based BNG treatment, the microbial community change was monitored by culture-independent pyrosequencing. These results demonstrate that the microbial biocatalysts could potentially be used in the soil bioremediation from mine-impacted area.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.6 no.11
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• pp.285-294
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a new remote control and monitoring technique using web-service technology for URC robot. URC robot needs the architecture which can be applied all over the variety hardware and software platform for supporting the several interface with external world in the ubiquitous environment. In this paper, web-service technology is preferentially deliberated how to adopt into the embedded environment and the remote control and monitoring technology based on web-service technology for URC robot is designed and implemented as to support the interaction with agent programs. It has been carried out through simulating and implementing this technology into the target robot called NETTORO and proved its practical worth.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.797-807
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• 2007

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Mahwangyunpye-tang(MYT) significantly affects mucin secretion from airway epithelial cells. Methods : Confluent hamster tracheal surface epithelial (HTSE) cells were metabolically radiolabeled with 3H-glucosamine for 24 hrs and chased for 30 min in the presence of MYT to assess the effect of the agent on 3H-mucin secretion. Total elution profiles of control spent media and treatment sample through Sepharose CL-4B column were analyzed. Effect of MYT on contractility of isolated tracheal smooth muscle was investigated; also investigated was effect of the agent on MUC5AC gene expression in cultured NCI-H292 cells. Possible cytotoxicities of the agent were assessed both by measuring lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release from HTSE cells and examining the rate of survival and proliferation of NCI-H292 cells. Results : MYT significantly increased mucin secretion from cultured HTSE cells, without significant cytotoxicity. MYT chiefly affected the 'mucin' secretion. MYT inhibited Acetylcholine-induced contraction of isolated tracheal smooth muscle. MYT did not significantly affect the expression levels of MUC 5AC gene in cultured NCI-H292 cells. Conclusions : Based on the above results, it is suggested that MYT increased mucin secretion from cultured HTSE cells without significant cytotoxicity and inhibited contraction of isolated tracheal smooth muscle.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.86-93
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• 2010

With the introduction of smart phones, the augmented reality became popular and is increasingly drawing attention. The augmented reality in the mobile devices is becoming an individual area to study. Many applications of the augmented reality have been studied, but there are just a few studies on its combination with artificial intelligence in games. In this study, an artificial intelligence algorithm was proposed, which dynamically converts the state of the 3D agent in the augmented reality environment using the 3-Axis acceleration sensor in the smart phone. To control the state of the agent to which the artificial intelligence is applied, users used to directly enter the data or use markers to detect them. The critical values, which were determined via test, were given to the acceleration sensor to ensure accurate state conversion. In this paper, makerless tracking technology was used to implement the augmented reality, and the state of the agent was dynamically converted using the 3-Axis acceleration seonsor.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.57-62
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• 2020

The selection of anesthetic agent is important in preclinical studies, since each agent affects the systemic hemodynamics in different ways. For that reason, we hypothesized that different anesthetic agents will result in different vaginal hemodynamic response and temperature during sexual arousal, in an animal model. To validate the hypothesis, animal experiments were performed using female rats with two anesthetic agents widely used in preclinical studies: ketamine and isoflurane. Our previously developed near-infrared-spectroscopy-based probe was used to measure the changes of oxyhemoglobin (OHb), deoxyhemoglobin (RHb), and total hemoglobin (THb) concentrations along with temperature from the animal vaginal wall. As a control, saline was administered to both isoflurane- and ketamine-anesthetized animals, and did not show any significant changes in OHb, RHb, THb, or temperature. However, an administration of apomorphine (APO, 80 ㎍/kg) induced increases of OHb (63 ± 28 μM/DPF), RHb (35 ± 20 μM/DPF), and THb (98 ± 49 μM/DPF) in ketamine-anesthetized animals, while decreases of OHb (52 ± 76 μM/DPF) and THb (38 ± 30 μM/DPF) and an increase of RHb (28 ± 51 μM/DPF) were found in isoflurane-anesthetized animals. The vaginal temperature decreased from the baseline in both ketamine-(0.42℃) and isoflurane-(1.22℃)anesthetized animals. These results confirmed our hypothesis, and suggest that a preclinical study monitoring hemodynamic responses under anesthesia should employ an appropriate anesthetic agent for the study.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.38-47
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• 2003

Distributed problem solving is the cooperative solution of problem by a decentralized and loosely couped collection of knowledge-sources (KS's), located in a number of distinct processor nodes. The contract net protocol has been developed to specify problem-solving communication and control for nodes in a distributed problem solver. Task distribution is affected by a negotiation process, a discussion carried on between nodes with tasks to be executed and nodes that may be able to execute tasks In this paper, we present the coordination method among distributed intrusion detection system and firewall by the contract net protocol. The method enhances the intrusion detection performance and provides the communication methods. To mode IDS and firewall, security models hue been hierarchically constructed based on the DEVS (Discrete Event system Specification) formalism. Each ID agent cooperates through the contract net protocol for detecting intrusions. The IDS which detects the intrusion informs to firewall, so the harmful network traffic is blocked. If an agent detects infusions, the agent transfers attacker's information to a firewall. Using this mechanism attacker's packets detected by In can be prevented from damaging the network.

• Journal of Conservation Science
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.370-379
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• 2021

In the past, PVAc [poly(vinyl acetate)] was used as a fixative for the conservation of the murals in the murals of the Payathonzu temple located in Bagan, Myanmar. In this study, attention was paid to gel cleaning as a method for stably removing such PVAc fixatives. Based on the recent research trend related to the cleaning of murals in Bagan ruins, 3 types of gelling agents (Nevek^®, Laponite^®RD, Carbopol^®980) and 2 types of organic solvents (Acetone, Dimethyl carbonate) were selected. Six types of gel cleaners were prepared by mixing gelling agents and organic solvents, and the properties and fixative removability of these cleaners were compared. As a result of confirming the properties of the prepared gel cleaners, the pH of the cleaners was all in the weak acidic to weakly alkaline range, which was a stable condition for mural application. Also, there was no difference in the viscosity of the cleaners depending on the type of solvent, but there was a difference depending on the type of gelling agent used. Regarding the weight loss ratio of PVAc, which is an indicator of removability, the exposure conditions of the gel cleaners, the boiling point of the solvent used, and the viscosity of the gelling agent acted as factors affecting. As a result of comparing the removability of gel cleaners, it was confirmed that the solvent's fixative solubility, the volatility of the solvent itself, and the solvent release control properties of the gelling agent had a great effect on the removability of the gel cleaners. In Part 2, the stability and the running applicability of the gel cleaners will be investigated by making mockup samples reflecting the properties of the materials and techniques used to produce the mural paintings in the Payathonzu Temple.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.49-58
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• 2009

Top-down approach in the intelligent robot research has focused on the single object intelligence however, it has two weaknesses. One is that has a high cost and a long spending time of sensing, calculating and communications. The other is the difficulty of responding to react changes in the unpredictable environment. we propose the collective intelligence algorithm based on Bottom-up approach for improving these weaknesses and the applied agent model and verify by simulation. The Modified Flocking Algorithm proposed in this research is the algorithm which is modified version of the concept of the Flocking (Craig Reynolds) which is used to model the flocks, herds, and schools in the graphics or games, and simplified the operation of conventional Flocking algorithm to make it easy to apply for the number of group robots. We modeled the Boid agent and verified possibility collectivization of the Modified Flocking Algorithm by simulation. And We validated by the actual multiple mobile robot experiment.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1134-1139
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• 2003

Tracking is a fundamental technique which is able to be applied to gesture recognition, visual surveillance, tangible agent and so forth. Especially, multiple object tracking has been extensively studied in recent years in order to perform many and more complicated tasks. In this paper, we propose a new approach of multiple object tracking which is based on discrete event. We call this system the DEMOT (Discrete Event based Multiple Object Tracking). This approach is based on the fact that a multiple object tracking can have just four situations - initiation, continuation, termination, and overlapping. Here, initiation, continuation, termination, and overlapping constitute a primary event set and this is based on the change of the number of extracted objects between a previous frame and a current frame. This system reduces computational costs and holds down the identity of all targets. We make experiments for this system with respect to the number of targets, each event, and processing period. We describe experimental results that show the successful multiple object tracking by using our approach.