• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.53-61
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• 2011

For construction projects, the importance of early cost estimates is highly recognized by the project team and sponsoring organization because early cost estimates are frequently a foundation of business decisions as well as a basis for identifying any changes as the project progresses from design to construction. However, it is difficult to accurately estimate construction cost in the early stage of a project due to various uncertainties in construction. To deal with these uncertainties, cost estimates should be made several times over the course of the project. In particular, early cost estimates are essential process for successful project management. For accurate construction cost estimates, it is necessary to compare cost estimates with actual costs based on historical project data. In this context, case-based reasoning (CBR), which is the process of solving new problems based on the solutions of similar past problems, can be considered as an effective method for cost estimating. To obtain this, it is also required to define the attribute similarities and the attribute weights. However, no existing method is capable of determining attribute weights of qualitative variables. Consequently, it has been a well-known barrier of accurate early cost estimates. Using Genetic Algorithms (GA), this research suggests the method of determining the attribute weight of qualitative variables. Based on building project case studies, the proposed methodology was validated.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.384-392
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• 2011

Recruitment and selection are separate but mutually reinforcing processes. The goal of recruitment is to attract the largest number of applicants possible to apply to the agency, and selection is the process of weeding out unqualified candidates and identifying qualified candidates. In this context, the recruitment and selection system of police officials is an important issue because it affects their future performance as police officers on the job, especially their policing skills, perception of society, occupational ethics. This study suggested the characteristics of U. S. recruitment and selection system of police officials. In the U. S, each police agency sets up its own recruitment and selection standards and procedures. However, recruitment and selection process follows a certain sequence : receiving application, psychological examination, background check, polygraph test, drug screening, interview, physical agility, and medical test. Special characteristic of American police system regarding recruitment and selection is that many law enforcement agencies use a polygraph test to ensure the integrity of the candidates. Another interesting screening process is a drug test because many Americans abuse illegal drugs. A candidate officer must submit urine or a hair sample for screening test. Police human resources specialists should continually identify the most innovative tests and approaches recruit and select police officers. Recruitment and selection strategies should increasingly attract and retain those officers who have the attributes to work in a community-oriented policing environment.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.38B no.5
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• pp.385-393
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• 2013

In the past decade, a paradigm shift from machine-centered to human-centered and from technology-driven to user-driven has been witnessed. Consequently, Social search is getting more social and Social Network Service (SNS) is a popular Web service to connect and/or find friends, and the tendency of users interests often affects his/her who have similar interests. If we can track users' preferences in certain boundaries in terms of Web search and/or knowledge sharing, we can find more relevant information for users. In this paper, we propose a novel Topic Sensitive_Social Relationship Rank (TS_SRR) algorithm. We propose enhanced Web searching idea by finding similar and credible users in a Social Network incorporating social information in Web search. The Social Relation Rank between users are Social Relation Value, that is, for a different topics, a different subset of the above attributes is used to measure the Social Relation Rank. We observe that a user has a certain common interest with his/her credible friends in a Social Network, then focus on the problem of identifying users who have similar interests and high credibility, and sharing their search experiences. Thus, the proposed algorithm can make social search improve one step forward.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.5
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• pp.609-617
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• 2009

This study was conducted to investigate ecological indicators of forest degradation after forest fire and clear-cutting in the Siberian larch (Larix sibirica Ledeb.) stand of Mongolia. The species abundance and biodiversity indices were higher in burned and clear-cut stands than those of reference stand, but boreal understory species, such as Vaccinium vitis-idaea, Pyrola incarnata, Linnea borealis and Maianthemum bifolium, completely disappeared and was replaced by sedge species, such as Carex duriuscula, C. lanceolata, C. pediformis, Poa attenuata and P. pratensis. During the research period, temperature increased by an average of $1.6^{\circ}C$ in burned stand and $1.7^{\circ}C$ in clear-cut stand compared to reference stand, but RH sharply decreased up to 15.7% in clear-cut stand. This result indicates that Larix sibirica stand became warmer and drier after forest fire and clear-cutting, and contributed to the abundance of sedge and grass species in the understory. Moreover, intense occupation of tall sedge grass after forest fire and clear-cutting had a vital role as obstacle on natural regeneration of Larix sibirica. The similarity of species composition between reference and burned stands was higher (73.6%) than between reference and clear-cut stands (63.8%). Soil moisture significantly decreased after forest fire and clear-cutting, and the extent of decrease was more severe in the clear-cut stand. The chemical properties at soil organic layer were significantly affected by forest fire and clear-cutting but not the mineral horizons. Inorganic nitrogen of the forest floor significantly decreased in the clear-cut stand ($1.1{\pm}0.4mg{\cdot}kg^{-1}$) than that of the burned ($4.5{\pm}2.3mg{\cdot}kg^{-1}$) and reference stands ($5.0{\pm}2.3mg{\cdot}kg^{-1}$). Available P of the forest floor significantly increased after fire, whereas it decreased after clear-cutting. These results indicate that existence of boreal understory vegetation, and changes in soil moisture and available P are distinct attributes applicable as ecological indicators for identifying forest degradation in Mongolia.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.21-42
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• 2005

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a corporate marketing strategy maintaining and managing customers. And with CRM companies maximize the customer's value through a series of processes of new customer retention, VIP customer retention, customer value increase, potential customer activation, and customers for lifetime by collecting the customer information and taking advantage of it effectively. In particular, as the competitive environment is changing rapidly and getting more intense, maintaining the customer retention through customer churn management becomes more important in order to increase the customer value for maximizing the company's profit and to build up the relationship with customers. For example, the financial industry has managed the customer churn with the concept of customer segmentation. Recently the customer retention and churn management is becoming increasingly important in all business fields as well as financial industry since the companies expect the effect of preventing the customer churn by identifying characteristics of customers. However, despite the increasing interest and importance of the management of the customer churn, not many of studies are systematically executed by analyzing the data of customer churn. In this study we analyze the actual data of CRM activities for the customer retention, specifically the data of TV home-shopping. By doing so, we hope to identify the differences of demographic attributes and transaction specific characteristics in consumer behaviors between the churning customer and the retained customers. In addition, we try to find out the variables which can impact the churning of the customers and to predict the churn rate of individual customer through our proposed model of customer churn. In the end, based on our findings we suggest the possible marketing strategies for TV home-shopping companies.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.93-111
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• 2013

As Internet and information technology (IT) continues to develop and evolve, the issue of big data has emerged at the foreground of scholarly and industrial attention. Big data is generally defined as data that exceed the range that can be collected, stored, managed and analyzed by existing conventional information systems and it also refers to the new technologies designed to effectively extract values from such data. With the widespread dissemination of IT systems, continual efforts have been made in various fields of industry such as R&D, manufacturing, and finance to collect and analyze immense quantities of data in order to extract meaningful information and to use this information to solve various problems. Since IT has converged with various industries in many aspects, digital data are now being generated at a remarkably accelerating rate while developments in state-of-the-art technology have led to continual enhancements in system performance. The types of big data that are currently receiving the most attention include information available within companies, such as information on consumer characteristics, information on purchase records, logistics information and log information indicating the usage of products and services by consumers, as well as information accumulated outside companies, such as information on the web search traffic of online users, social network information, and patent information. Among these various types of big data, web searches performed by online users constitute one of the most effective and important sources of information for marketing purposes because consumers search for information on the internet in order to make efficient and rational choices. Recently, Google has provided public access to its information on the web search traffic of online users through a service named Google Trends. Research that uses this web search traffic information to analyze the information search behavior of online users is now receiving much attention in academia and in fields of industry. Studies using web search traffic information can be broadly classified into two fields. The first field consists of empirical demonstrations that show how web search information can be used to forecast social phenomena, the purchasing power of consumers, the outcomes of political elections, etc. The other field focuses on using web search traffic information to observe consumer behavior, identifying the attributes of a product that consumers regard as important or tracking changes on consumers' expectations, for example, but relatively less research has been completed in this field. In particular, to the extent of our knowledge, hardly any studies related to brands have yet attempted to use web search traffic information to analyze the factors that influence consumers' purchasing activities. This study aims to demonstrate that consumers' web search traffic information can be used to derive the relations among brands and the relations between an individual brand and product attributes. When consumers input their search words on the web, they may use a single keyword for the search, but they also often input multiple keywords to seek related information (this is referred to as simultaneous searching). A consumer performs a simultaneous search either to simultaneously compare two product brands to obtain information on their similarities and differences, or to acquire more in-depth information about a specific attribute in a specific brand. Web search traffic information shows that the quantity of simultaneous searches using certain keywords increases when the relation is closer in the consumer's mind and it will be possible to derive the relations between each of the keywords by collecting this relational data and subjecting it to network analysis. Accordingly, this study proposes a method of analyzing how brands are positioned by consumers and what relationships exist between product attributes and an individual brand, using simultaneous search traffic information. It also presents case studies demonstrating the actual application of this method, with a focus on tablets, belonging to innovative product groups.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.30 no.1_2
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• pp.117-128
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• 2003

Software usability is a characteristic of the software that is decided based on learnability, effectiveness, and satisfaction when it is evaluated. The usability is a main factor of the software quality. A software has to be continuously improved by taking guidelines that comes from the usability evaluation. Usability factors may vary among the different software products and even for the same factor, the users may have different opinions according to their experience and knowledge. Therefore, a usability evaluation process must be developed with the consideration of many factors like various applications and users. Existing systems such as satisfaction evaluation and performance evaluation only evaluate the result and do not perform cause analysis. And also unified evaluation items and contents do not reflect the characteristics of the products. To address these problems, this paper presents a evaluation model that is based on the mental model of user and the problems, this paper presents a evaluation model that is based on the mental model of user and the emotion of users. This model uses evaluation factors of the user task which are extracted by analyzing usage of the target product. In the mental model approach, the conceptual model of designer and the mental model of the user are compared and the differences are taken as a gap also reported as a part to be improved in the future. In the emotional factor approach, the emotional factors are extracted for the target products and evaluated in terms of the emotional factors. With this proposed method, we can evaluate the software products with customized attributes of the products and deduce the guidelines for the future improvements. We also takes the GUI framework as a sample case and extracts the directions for improvement. As this model analyzes tasks of users and uses evaluation factors for each task, it is capable of not only reflecting the characteristics of the product, but exactly identifying the items that should be modified and improved.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1118-1130
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• 2004

This article aims to (a) investigate children's images of a scientist's life style by comparing children's drawings about a scientist's schedule with those about a company employee's schedule in a weekday and on Sunday; and (b) examine the usefulness of 'Drawing A Scientist's Schedule (DASS)' test as a new instrument of learners' conceptions of a scientist and his/her work. To do those, thirty sixth- grade children participated in this study. The children, 15 boys and 15 girls, were selected from a classroom of an elementary school located in Gongju city. The children's drawings were analyzed in conjunction with individual interviews. The interviews facilitated the clarification of any ambiguous attributes of the drawings by questioning after their completion. Several significant conclusions can be drawn from this work: First, the children conceived that a scientist has more mandatory time, and less necessary and leisure time than does a company employee. Interestingly, many children thought that a scientist has similar life style on Sunday to that in a weekday, unlike a company employee. Second, in case of necessary time use in a weekday and on Sunday, the difference between a scientist and a company employee results from their sleeping time. Also, the children showed more various conceptions of a scientist's sleeping time than those of a company employee's sleeping time. Third, in case of mandatory time use, the children conceived that a scientist spends more time for his/her occupational work and less time for his/her housework activities than does a company employee. Fourth, the children's drawings showed that there is difference between a scientist's and a company employee's leisure time use and activities. Finally, the DASS test indicated its possibility and usefulness as an instrument for investigating learners' images on a scientist and his/her work. The instrument exhibited several distinctive children's conceptions that is difficult in identifying by using the DAST, a popular instrument.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.109-124
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• 2024

The value of platform companies is rapidly increasing, exerting significant influence across industries. Identifying and fostering promising platform companies is crucial for enhancing national competitiveness. Consequently, tailored evaluation standards are necessary for such companies. This study derived investment decision factors specific to platform companies and compared the importance of each factor using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis. Key factors included platform characteristics, finance, entrepreneur (team), market, and product/service attributes. The findings revealed that platform characteristics were deemed the most crucial factor for investors. Specifically, factors such as platform size, ease of value fixation, core participant group, and data value were identified as pertinent for evaluating platform companies. Moreover, analysis distinguished between investors with prior platform investment experience and those without. Significantly, investors with platform investment experience placed greater emphasis on the value of data secured by platform Furthermore, it was observed that investors prioritized future value and growth potential over current value when investing in platform. Notably, founder/team characteristics, typically highly regarded in previous studies, ranked lower in importance in this study, highlighting a shift in focus. The discrepancy between this study's results and prior research on investment decision factors is attributed to the specificity of the questions posed. By focusing on investment decision factors for platform startups rather than generic startup inquiries, investor responses aligned more closely with platform-focused considerations. Given the burgeoning venture investment landscape, there's a growing need for detailed research on startups within specific sectors like IT, travel, and biotech. This approach can replace extensive research covering all startup types to identify investment decision factors suited to the characteristics of each individual industry.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.56
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• pp.147-170
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• 2014

To divide by the concept of Cheon (天) before and after the period of Song Dynasty: before Song Dynasty; according to the ancient Book of Odes (Sigyeong-詩經), "Cheon (天) gives birth to a large number of people", and, Confucius(孔子) say "Cheon(天) gave me Virtue(德)." Mencius(孟子) say "The person done with all his heart knows Seong(性, personality), so if he knows such Seong(性, personality), then he knows Cheon(天)." In Doctrine of the Mean(中庸), it says "Cheon(天) ordered it to be called - Seong(性, personality)." So, Cheon(天) had a religious meaning, such as Sangje(上帝) - Supreme Ruler. During the Song period, Cheon(天), the source of its existence, had construed as Mugeuk i Taegeuk Non(無極而太極論 - Theory of Supreme Ultimate while being Indeterminate) and Theory of li and ki (iginon-理氣論). Juja (朱子, a honorary name of Juhui, 朱熹) had said a reasonable Cheon(天), that is, Heavenly Principle (天理 - Cheolli) by interpreting Cheon(天) as Taegeuk(太極 - Supreme Polarity) and li(理) of Muwi(無爲 - uncontrived action). That's why Juja had lost the religiosity because of his reasonable frame. The purpose of this dissertation is to identify of the quality of being religious of li(理) on the basis of attribute of Cheon(天) argued by Toegye and Juja. In the text of Seomyeong(西銘 - Western Inscription), we can see their interpretation of the content that Toegye as "西銘考證講義"(Lecture on Historical Research of Western Inscription), and Juja as "西銘解"(Commentary on the Western Inscription). Seomyeong(西銘 - Western Inscription) was expounded as a logic of 'iil bunsu' (理一分殊 - coherence is one and distinguished into many). '理一分殊' means to live in as meaningful as possible according to the human nature that has been bestowed upon thyself. Juja and Toegye both said that in the aspect of 'iil'(理一 - coherence is one), Reverence(事天) ought to be done, but to look into the aspect of 'bunsu'(分殊-distinguished into many), Juja argued that people should follow the order of Heavenly Principle(天理 - Cheolli), and Toegye argued that people should have to perform the filial piety(孝). There are differences in methods of Toegye and Juja on account of distinction between attributes of Cheon(天). Such a distinction affects the attribute of li(理). Juja said divisively that Soiyeon(所以然-why its principle is so) is li(理), and Sodangyeon(所當然-what should be so) is Sa(事-divine project). Toegye argued that Sodangyeon(所當然-what should be so) is indeed li(理). It is the position of Toegye that to know Seong(性-the personality) of Sodangyeon(所當然-what should be so) is the first, rather than to know Cheon(天) of Soiyeon(所以然-why its principle is so) that is out of reach in a faraway place. Seong(性-the personality) is li(理) that bestowed by Cheon(天). In view of discussion about the essence and existence, for Toegye, the existence is the first, rather than the essence. The issues of existence is now enabled to talk about amid the discussion of metaphysics, namely li(理). Different from Juja, a theory noticed in Toegye is the theory of 'Lijado'(理自到). 'Lijado'(理自到) denotes 'Li(理) leads on their own.' It tells that separate from thing-in-itself, there is an energy that moves and oversees the thing. This is an issue of response between "I" as the principal agent and other people. If "I" as the principal agent is sincere to others, the others will come to me insomuch as they will be revealed through me. Here, a problem between the host and guest arises. Toegye perceived this problem that do not see me and others as same, and also do not see me and others as two. This is the logic of 'ilii iiil'(一而二 二而一 - looks like one but two, looks like two but one) of '理一分殊' (coherence is one and distinguished into many). The first thing to do between these two processes is to recognize the existence of 'iil'(理一). Toegye strongly displays a religious attitude identifying Cheon(天)=Li (理)=Sangje(上帝- Supreme Ruler) in the same light.