• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.147-165
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• 2009

Virtual community(VC) will increasingly be organized as commercial enterprises, with the objective of earning an attractive financial return by providing members with valuable resources and environment. For example, Cyworld.com in Korea uses several community services to enable customers of Cyworld to take control of their own value as potential purchasers of products and services. Although initial adoption is important for online network service success, it does not necessarily result in the desired managerial performance unless the initial usage is continuously related to the continuous usage and purchase. Particularly, the customer who receives relevant online services and is well equipped with online network services, will trust the online service provider and perceive less risk and experience more activities such as continuous usage and purchase. Thus, how to promote continued online service usage or, alternatively, how to prevent discontinuance is a critical issue for VC service providers to consider. By aggregating a wide range of information and online environments for customers and providing trust to its members, the service providers of virtual communities help to reduce the perceived risk of continuous usage and purchase. Drill down, online service managers realize that achieving strong and sustained customers who continuously use online service and purchase on it is crucial. Therefore, the research into this online service continuance will identify the relationship between the initial usage and the continuous usage and purchase. The research of continuous usage or post adoption has recently emerged as an important issue in the IS literature. Individuals' information systems(IS) continuous usage decisions are congruent with consumers' repeat purchase decisions. The TAM(Technology Acceptance Model) paradigm has been strongly confirmed across a wide range from product purchase on EC to online service usage contexts. The analysis of IS usage based on TAM has proven to be successful across almost online service contexts. However, most of previous studies have focused on only an area (i.e., VC or EC). Just little research has tried to analyze the relationship between VC and EC. The effect of some factors on user intention, captured through several theories such as TAM, has been demonstrated. Yet, few studies have explored the salient relationships of VC users' EC acceptance. To fill this gap between VC and EC research, this paper attempts to develop a research model that extends the TAM perspective in view of the additional contributions of trust in the service provider and trust in members on some factors that affect EC and VC adoption. In this extension, we applied the TAM-to-TAM(T2T) model, and analyzed the transfer effect of trust between these two TAMs. The research model was empirically tested on the context of a social network service. The model was to extend TAM with the trust concept for the virtual community environment from the perspective of tasks. By building an extended model of TAM and examining the relationships between trust and the existing variables of TAM, it is aimed to explain a user's continuous intention to use VC and purchase on EC. The unit of analysis in this paper is an individual user of a virtual community. The population of interest is the individual with the experiences in virtual community. The data for this paper was made available via a Web survey of VC users. In total, 281 cases were gathered for about one week, but there were some missing values in the sample and there were some inappropriate cases. Thus, only 248 cases were finally analyzed. We chose the structural equation analysis to test the hypotheses and it is better suited for explaining complex relationships than the other methods. In this test, AMOS was used to test the Structural Equation Model (SEM). Noticeable results have been found in the T2T model regarding the factors affecting the intention to use of virtual community and loyalty. Our result showed that trust transfer plays a key role in forming the two adoption beliefs. Overall, this study preliminarily confirms the salience of trust transfer in online service.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.292-303
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• 2021

This study identifies the terms frequently used together with energy in online science news articles and topics of the news reports to find out how the term energy is used in everyday life and to draw implications for science curriculum and instruction about energy. A total of 2,171 online news articles in science category published by 11 major newspaper companies in Korea for one year from March 1, 2018 were selected by using energy as a search term. As a result of natural language processing, a total of 51,224 sentences consisting of 507,901 words were compiled for analysis. Using the R program, term frequency analysis, semantic network analysis, and structural topic modeling were performed. The results show that the terms with exceptionally high frequencies were technology, research, and development, which reflected the characteristics of news articles that report new findings. On the other hand, terms used more than once per two articles were industry-related terms (industry, product, system, production, market) and terms that were sufficiently expected as energy-related terms such as 'electricity' and 'environment.' Meanwhile, 'sun', 'heat', 'temperature', and 'power generation', which are frequently used in energy-related science classes, also appeared as terms belonging to the highest frequency. From a network analysis, two clusters were found including terms related to industry and technology and terms related to basic science and research. From the analysis of terms paired with energy, it was also found that terms related to the use of energy such as 'energy efficiency,' 'energy saving,' and 'energy consumption' were the most frequently used. Out of 16 topics found, four contexts of energy were drawn including 'high-tech industry,' 'industry,' 'basic science,' and 'environment and health.' The results suggest that the introduction of the concept of energy degradation as a starting point for energy classes can be effective. It also shows the need to introduce high-tech industries or the context of environment and health into energy learning.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.55-79
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• 2013

In this paper, we propose a hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) approach to effectively solve the reverse logistics network with centralized centers (RLNCC). For the proposed HGA approach, genetic algorithm (GA) is used as a main algorithm. For implementing GA, a new bit-string representation scheme using 0 and 1 values is suggested, which can easily make initial population of GA. As genetic operators, the elitist strategy in enlarged sampling space developed by Gen and Chang (1997), a new two-point crossover operator, and a new random mutation operator are used for selection, crossover and mutation, respectively. For hybrid concept of GA, an iterative hill climbing method (IHCM) developed by Michalewicz (1994) is inserted into HGA search loop. The IHCM is one of local search techniques and precisely explores the space converged by GA search. The RLNCC is composed of collection centers, remanufacturing centers, redistribution centers, and secondary markets in reverse logistics networks. Of the centers and secondary markets, only one collection center, remanufacturing center, redistribution center, and secondary market should be opened in reverse logistics networks. Some assumptions are considered for effectively implementing the RLNCC The RLNCC is represented by a mixed integer programming (MIP) model using indexes, parameters and decision variables. The objective function of the MIP model is to minimize the total cost which is consisted of transportation cost, fixed cost, and handling cost. The transportation cost is obtained by transporting the returned products between each centers and secondary markets. The fixed cost is calculated by opening or closing decision at each center and secondary markets. That is, if there are three collection centers (the opening costs of collection center 1 2, and 3 are 10.5, 12.1, 8.9, respectively), and the collection center 1 is opened and the remainders are all closed, then the fixed cost is 10.5. The handling cost means the cost of treating the products returned from customers at each center and secondary markets which are opened at each RLNCC stage. The RLNCC is solved by the proposed HGA approach. In numerical experiment, the proposed HGA and a conventional competing approach is compared with each other using various measures of performance. For the conventional competing approach, the GA approach by Yun (2013) is used. The GA approach has not any local search technique such as the IHCM proposed the HGA approach. As measures of performance, CPU time, optimal solution, and optimal setting are used. Two types of the RLNCC with different numbers of customers, collection centers, remanufacturing centers, redistribution centers and secondary markets are presented for comparing the performances of the HGA and GA approaches. The MIP models using the two types of the RLNCC are programmed by Visual Basic Version 6.0, and the computer implementing environment is the IBM compatible PC with 3.06Ghz CPU speed and 1GB RAM on Windows XP. The parameters used in the HGA and GA approaches are that the total number of generations is 10,000, population size 20, crossover rate 0.5, mutation rate 0.1, and the search range for the IHCM is 2.0. Total 20 iterations are made for eliminating the randomness of the searches of the HGA and GA approaches. With performance comparisons, network representations by opening/closing decision, and convergence processes using two types of the RLNCCs, the experimental result shows that the HGA has significantly better performance in terms of the optimal solution than the GA, though the GA is slightly quicker than the HGA in terms of the CPU time. Finally, it has been proved that the proposed HGA approach is more efficient than conventional GA approach in two types of the RLNCC since the former has a GA search process as well as a local search process for additional search scheme, while the latter has a GA search process alone. For a future study, much more large-sized RLNCCs will be tested for robustness of our approach.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.109-122
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• 2016

Recently, big data analysis has developed into a field of interest to individuals and non-experts as well as companies and professionals. Accordingly, it is utilized for marketing and social problem solving by analyzing the data currently opened or collected directly. In Korea, various companies and individuals are challenging big data analysis, but it is difficult from the initial stage of analysis due to limitation of big data disclosure and collection difficulties. Nowadays, the system improvement for big data activation and big data disclosure services are variously carried out in Korea and abroad, and services for opening public data such as domestic government 3.0 (data.go.kr) are mainly implemented. In addition to the efforts made by the government, services that share data held by corporations or individuals are running, but it is difficult to find useful data because of the lack of shared data. In addition, big data traffic problems can occur because it is necessary to download and examine the entire data in order to grasp the attributes and simple information about the shared data. Therefore, We need for a new system for big data processing and utilization. First, big data pre-analysis technology is needed as a way to solve big data sharing problem. Pre-analysis is a concept proposed in this paper in order to solve the problem of sharing big data, and it means to provide users with the results generated by pre-analyzing the data in advance. Through preliminary analysis, it is possible to improve the usability of big data by providing information that can grasp the properties and characteristics of big data when the data user searches for big data. In addition, by sharing the summary data or sample data generated through the pre-analysis, it is possible to solve the security problem that may occur when the original data is disclosed, thereby enabling the big data sharing between the data provider and the data user. Second, it is necessary to quickly generate appropriate preprocessing results according to the level of disclosure or network status of raw data and to provide the results to users through big data distribution processing using spark. Third, in order to solve the problem of big traffic, the system monitors the traffic of the network in real time. When preprocessing the data requested by the user, preprocessing to a size available in the current network and transmitting it to the user is required so that no big traffic occurs. In this paper, we present various data sizes according to the level of disclosure through pre - analysis. This method is expected to show a low traffic volume when compared with the conventional method of sharing only raw data in a large number of systems. In this paper, we describe how to solve problems that occur when big data is released and used, and to help facilitate sharing and analysis. The client-server model uses SPARK for fast analysis and processing of user requests. Server Agent and a Client Agent, each of which is deployed on the Server and Client side. The Server Agent is a necessary agent for the data provider and performs preliminary analysis of big data to generate Data Descriptor with information of Sample Data, Summary Data, and Raw Data. In addition, it performs fast and efficient big data preprocessing through big data distribution processing and continuously monitors network traffic. The Client Agent is an agent placed on the data user side. It can search the big data through the Data Descriptor which is the result of the pre-analysis and can quickly search the data. The desired data can be requested from the server to download the big data according to the level of disclosure. It separates the Server Agent and the client agent when the data provider publishes the data for data to be used by the user. In particular, we focus on the Big Data Sharing, Distributed Big Data Processing, Big Traffic problem, and construct the detailed module of the client - server model and present the design method of each module. The system designed on the basis of the proposed model, the user who acquires the data analyzes the data in the desired direction or preprocesses the new data. By analyzing the newly processed data through the server agent, the data user changes its role as the data provider. The data provider can also obtain useful statistical information from the Data Descriptor of the data it discloses and become a data user to perform new analysis using the sample data. In this way, raw data is processed and processed big data is utilized by the user, thereby forming a natural shared environment. The role of data provider and data user is not distinguished, and provides an ideal shared service that enables everyone to be a provider and a user. The client-server model solves the problem of sharing big data and provides a free sharing environment to securely big data disclosure and provides an ideal shared service to easily find big data.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.35-55
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• 2013

Information technology is a critical resource necessary for any company hoping to support and realize its strategic goals, which contribute to growth promotion and sustainable development. The selection of information technology and its strategic use are imperative for the enhanced performance of every aspect of company management, leading a wide range of companies to have invested continuously in information technology. Despite researchers, managers, and policy makers' keen interest in how information technology contributes to organizational performance, there is uncertainty and debate about the result of information technology investment. In other words, researchers and managers cannot easily identify the independent factors that can impact the investment performance of information technology. This is mainly owing to the fact that many factors, ranging from the internal components of a company, strategies, and external customers, are interconnected with the investment performance of information technology. Using an agent-based simulation technique, this research extracts factors expected to affect investment performance on information technology, simplifies the analyses of their relationship with economic modeling, and examines the performance dependent on changes in the factors. In terms of economic modeling, I expand the model that highlights the way in which product quality moderates the relationship between information technology investments and economic performance (Thatcher and Pingry, 2004) by considering the cost of information technology investment and the demand creation resulting from product quality enhancement. For quality enhancement and its consequences for demand creation, I apply the concept of information quality and decision-maker quality (Raghunathan, 1999). This concept implies that the investment on information technology improves the quality of information, which, in turn, improves decision quality and performance, thus enhancing the level of product or service quality. Additionally, I consider the effect of word of mouth among consumers, which creates new demand for a product or service through the information diffusion effect. This demand creation is analyzed with an agent-based simulation model that is widely used for network analyses. Results show that the investment on information technology enhances the quality of a company's product or service, which indirectly affects the economic performance of that company, particularly with regard to factors such as consumer surplus, company profit, and company productivity. Specifically, when a company makes its initial investment in information technology, the resultant increase in the quality of a company's product or service immediately has a positive effect on consumer surplus, but the investment cost has a negative effect on company productivity and profit. As time goes by, the enhancement of the quality of that company's product or service creates new consumer demand through the information diffusion effect. Finally, the new demand positively affects the company's profit and productivity. In terms of the investment strategy for information technology, this study's results also reveal that the selection of information technology needs to be based on analysis of service and the network effect of customers, and demonstrate that information technology implementation should fit into the company's business strategy. Specifically, if a company seeks the short-term enhancement of company performance, it needs to have a one-shot strategy (making a large investment at one time). On the other hand, if a company seeks a long-term sustainable profit structure, it needs to have a split strategy (making several small investments at different times). The findings from this study make several contributions to the literature. In terms of methodology, the study integrates both economic modeling and simulation technique in order to overcome the limitations of each methodology. It also indicates the mediating effect of product quality on the relationship between information technology and the performance of a company. Finally, it analyzes the effect of information technology investment strategies and information diffusion among consumers on the investment performance of information technology.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.61-75
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• 2011

A Geographic Information System(GIS) is a system that captures, stores, analyzes, manages and presents data with reference to geographic location data. In the later 1990s and earlier 2000s it was limitedly used in government sectors such as public utility management, urban planning, landscape architecture, and environmental contamination control. However, a growing number of open-source packages running on a range of operating systems enabled many private enterprises to explore the concept of viewing GIS-based sales and customer data over their own computer monitors. K telecommunication company has dominated the Korean telecommunication market by providing diverse services, such as high-speed internet, PSTN(Public Switched Telephone Network), VOLP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), and IPTV(Internet Protocol Television). Even though the telecommunication market in Korea is huge, the competition between major services providers is growing more fierce than ever before. Service providers struggled to acquire as many new customers as possible, attempted to cross sell more products to their regular customers, and made more efforts on retaining the best customers by offering unprecedented benefits. Most service providers including K telecommunication company tried to adopt the concept of customer relationship management(CRM), and analyze customer's demographic and transactional data statistically in order to understand their customer's behavior. However, managing customer information has still remained at the basic level, and the quality and the quantity of customer data were not enough not only to understand the customers but also to design a strategy for marketing and sales. For example, the currently used 3,074 legal regional divisions, which are originally defined by the government, were too broad to calculate sub-regional customer's service subscription and cancellation ratio. Additional external data such as house size, house price, and household demographics are also needed to measure sales potential. Furthermore, making tables and reports were time consuming and they were insufficient to make a clear judgment about the market situation. In 2009, this company needed a dramatic shift in the way marketing and sales activities, and finally developed a dedicated GIS_based market analysis and sales management system. This system made huge improvement in the efficiency with which the company was able to manage and organize all customer and sales related information, and access to those information easily and visually. After the GIS information system was developed, and applied to marketing and sales activities at the corporate level, the company was reported to increase sales and market share substantially. This was due to the fact that by analyzing past market and sales initiatives, creating sales potential, and targeting key markets, the system could make suggestions and enable the company to focus its resources on the demographics most likely to respond to the promotion. This paper reviews subjective and unclear marketing and sales activities that K telecommunication company operated, and introduces the whole process of developing the GIS information system. The process consists of the following 5 modules : (1) Customer profile cleansing and standardization, (2) Internal/External DB enrichment, (3) Segmentation of 3,074 legal regions into 46,590 sub_regions called blocks, (4) GIS data mart design, and (5) GIS system construction. The objective of this case study is to emphasize the need of GIS system and how it works in the private enterprises by reviewing the development process of the K company's market analysis and sales management system. We hope that this paper suggest valuable guideline to companies that consider introducing or constructing a GIS information system.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.105-130
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• 2008

Consumers of e-learning market differ from those of other markets in that they are replaced in a specific time scale. For example, e-learning contents aimed at highschool senior students cannot be consumed by a specific consumer over the designated period of time. Hence e-learning service providers need to attract new groups of students every year. Due to lack of information on products designed for continuously emerging consumers, the consumers face difficulties in making rational decisions in a short time period. Increased uncertainty of product purchase leads customers to herding behaviors to obtain information of the product from others and imitate them. Taking into consideration of these features of e-learning market, this study will focus on the online herding behavior in purchasing e-learning contents. There is no definite concept for e-learning. However, it is being discussed in a wide range of perspectives from educational engineering to management to e-business etc. Based upon the existing studies, we identify two main view-points regarding e-learning. The first defines e-learning as a concept that includes existing terminologies, such as CBT (Computer Based Training), WBT (Web Based Training), and IBT (Internet Based Training). In this view, e-learning utilizes IT in order to support professors and a part of or entire education systems. In the second perspective, e-learning is defined as the usage of Internet technology to deliver diverse intelligence and achievement enhancing solutions. In other words, only the educations that are done through the Internet and network can be classified as e-learning. We take the second definition of e-learning for our working definition. The main goal of this study is to investigate what factors affect consumer intention to purchase e-learning contents and to identify the differential impact of the factors between consumers with purchase experience and those without the experience. To accomplish the goal of this study, it focuses on herding behavior and perceived usefulness as antecedents to behavioral intention. The proposed research model in the study extends the Technology Acceptance Model by adding herding behavior and usability to take into account the unique characteristics of e-learning content market and e-learning systems use, respectively. The current study also includes consumer experience with e-learning content purchase because the previous experience is believed to affect purchasing intention when consumers buy experience goods or services. Previous studies on e-learning did not consider the characteristics of e-learning contents market and the differential impact of consumer experience on the relationship between the antecedents and behavioral intention, which is the target of this study. This study employs a survey method to empirically test the proposed research model. A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to 629 informants. 528 responses were collected, which consist of potential customer group (n = 133) and experienced customer group (n = 395). The data were analyzed using PLS method, a structural equation modeling method. Overall, both herding behavior and perceived usefulness influence consumer intention to purchase e-learning contents. In detail, in the case of potential customer group, herding behavior has stronger effect on purchase intention than does perceived usefulness. However, in the case of shopping-experienced customer group, perceived usefulness has stronger effect than does herding behavior. In sum, the results of the analysis show that with regard to purchasing experience, perceived usefulness and herding behavior had differential effects upon the purchase of e-learning contents. As a follow-up analysis, the interaction effects of the number of purchase transaction and herding behavior/perceived usefulness on purchase intention were investigated. The results show that there are no interaction effects. This study contributes to the literature in a couple of ways. From a theoretical perspective, this study examined and showed evidence that the characteristics of e-learning market such as continuous renewal of consumers and thus high uncertainty and individual experiences are important factors to be considered when the purchase intention of e-learning content is studied. This study can be used as a basis for future studies on e-learning success. From a practical perspective, this study provides several important implications on what types of marketing strategies e-learning companies need to build. The bottom lines of these strategies include target group attraction, word-of-mouth management, enhancement of web site usability quality, etc. The limitations of this study are also discussed for future studies.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.34-43
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• 2022

This study compared the characteristics of cultural heritage in China and Vietnam, which have developed in the relationship of mutual geopolitical and cultural influence in history, and the following conclusions were made. First, the definition of cultural heritage in China and Vietnam has similar meanings in both countries. In the case of cultural heritage classification, both countries introduced the legal concept of intangible cultural heritage through UNESCO, and have similarities in terms of intangible cultural heritage. Second, while China has separate laws for managing tangible and intangible cultural heritages, Vietnam integrally manages the two types of cultural heritages under a single law. Vietnam has a slower introduction of the concept of cultural heritage than China, but it shows high integration in terms of system. Third, cultural heritages in both China and Vietnam are graded, which is applied differently depending on the type of heritage. The designation method has a similarity in which the two countries have a vertical structure and pass through steps. By restoring the value of heritage and complementing integrity through such a step-by-step review, balanced development across the country is being sought through tourism to enjoy heritage and create economic effects. Fourth, it was confirmed that the cultural heritage management organization has a central government management agency in both countries, but in China, the authority of local governments is higher than that of Vietnam. In addition, unlike Vietnam, where tangible and intangible cultural heritage are managed by an integrated institution, China had a separate institution in charge of intangible cultural heritage. Fifth, China is establishing a conservation management policy focusing on sustainability that harmonizes the protection and utilization of heritage. Vietnam is making efforts to integrate the contents and spirit of the agreement into laws, programs, and projects related to cultural heritage, especially intangible heritage and economic and social as a whole. However, it is still dependent on the influence of international organizations. Sixth, China and Vietnam are now paying attention to intangible heritage recently introduced, breaking away from the cultural heritage protection policy centered on tangible heritage. In addition, they aim to unite the people through cultural heritage and achieve the nation's unified policy goals. The two countries need to use intangible heritage as an efficient means of preserving local communities or regions. A cultural heritage preservation network should be established for each subject that can integrate the components of intangible heritage into one unit to lay the foundation for the enjoyment of the people. This study has limitations as a research stage comparing the cultural heritage system and preservation management status in China and Vietnam, and the characteristic comparison of cultural heritage policies by type remains a future research task.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.38C no.3
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• pp.278-287
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• 2013

Modern information technologies continue to provide industries with new and improved methods. With the rapid development of Machine to Machine (M2M) communication, a smart container supply chain management is formed based on high performance sensors, computer vision, Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, and Globle System for Mobile (GSM) communication. Existing supply chain management has limitation to real time container tracking. This paper focuses on the studies and implementation of real time container chain management with the development of the container identification system and automatic alert system for interrupts and for normal periodical alerts. The concept and methods of smart container modeling are introduced together with the structure explained prior to the implementation of smart container tracking alert system. Firstly, the paper introduces the container code identification and recognition algorithm implemented in visual studio 2010 with Opencv (computer vision library) and Tesseract (OCR engine) for real time operation. Secondly it discusses the current automatic alert system provided for real time container tracking and the limitations of those systems. Finally the paper summarizes the challenges and the possibilities for the future work for real time container tracking solutions with the ubiquitous mobile and satellite network together with the high performance sensors and computer vision. All of those components combine to provide an excellent delivery of supply chain management with outstanding operation and security.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.225-244
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• 2010

In the information society, characterized by knowledge and network economy, standards and standardization became a very important factor in determining the competitiveness of nations and firms. This paper defines the concept of standards and standardization and reconstructs the theory on the relationship between standards and technological innovation. The findings and policy implications are as follows. First, the effect of standards on technological innovation differs according to its function(compatibility, minimum quality, information, and variety reduction) and types(product-related and non-product). On the other hand, standards can impede technological innovation. Second, in terms of national innovation system(NIS), standards are an infra-technology, which is a public good. Therefore, government should decide the optimal level of investment on standards and standardization. Third, since standards foster firms' innovation over the all stages of business activities company, industry, and government should connect standardization activities with R&D, manufacturing, marketing, supply chain, and technology transfer, Fourth, standards play an important role in product innovation as well as process innovation. Based on these theoretical background and hypotheses, the empirical study of the Korean firms is needed.