• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 2010

Corporate social responsibility has become a very important issue for researchers (Greenfield, 2004; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; McWilliams et al., 2006; Pearce & Doh 2005), and many consider it necessary for businesses to define their role in society and apply social and ethical standards to their businesses (Lichtenstein et al., 2004). As a result, a significant number of retailers have adopted CSR as a strategic tool to promote their businesses. To this end, this study sought to discover U.S. consumers' attitudes and behavior in ethical purchasing and consumption based on their subjective perception and evaluation of a retailer. The objectives of this study include: 1) determine the participants awareness of retailers corporate social responsibility; 2) assess how participants evaluate retailers corporate social responsibility; 3) examine whether participants evaluation process of retailers CSR influence their attitude toward the retailer; and 4) assess if participants attitude toward the retailers CSR influence their purchase behavior. This study does not focus on actual retailers' CSR performance because a consumer's decision making process is based on an individual assessment not an actual fact. This study examines US college students' awareness and evaluations of retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR). Fifty six college students at a major Southeastern university participated in the study. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 26 years old. Content analysis was conducted with open coding and focused coding. Over 100 single-spaced pages of written responses were collected and analyzed. Two steps of coding (i.e., open coding and focused coding) were conducted (Esterberg, 2002). Coding results and analytic memos were used to understand participants' awareness of CSR and their ethical purchasing behavior supported through the selection and inclusion of direct quotes that were extracted from the written responses. Names used here are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality of participants. Participants were asked to write about retailers, their aware-ness of CSR issues, and to evaluate a retailer's CSR performance. A majority (n = 28) of respondents indicated their awareness of CSR but have not felt the need to act on this issue. Few (n=8) indicated that they are aware of this issue but not greatly concerned. Findings suggest that when college students evaluate retailers' CSR performance, they use three dimensions of CSR: employee support, community support, and environmental support. Employee treatment and support were found as an important criterion in evaluation of retailers' CSR. Respondents indicated that their good experience with a retailer as an employee made them have a positive perception and attitude toward the retailer. Regarding employee support four themes emerged: employee rewards and incentives based on performance, working environment, employee education and training program, and employee and family discounts. Well organized rewards and incentives were mentioned as an important attribute. The factors related to the working environment included: how well retailers follow the rules related to working hours, lunch time and breaks was also one of the most mentioned attributes. Regarding community support, three themes emerged: contributing a percentage of sales to the local community, financial contribution to charity organizations, and events for community support. Regarding environments, two themes emerged: recycling and selling organic or green products. It was mentioned in the responses that retailers are trying to do what they can to be environmentally friendly. One respondent mentioned that the company is creating stores that have an environmentally friendly design. Information about what the company does to help the environment can easily be found on the company’s website as well. Respondents have also noticed that the stores are starting to offer products that are organic and environmentally friendly. A retailer was also mentioned by a respondent in this category in reference to how the company uses eco-friendly cups and how they are helping to rebuild homes in New Orleans. The respondents noticed that a retailer offers reusable bags for their consumers to purchase. One respondent stated that a retailer uses its products to help the environment, through offering organic cotton. After thorough analysis of responses, we found that a participant's evaluation of a retailers' CSR influenced their attitudes towards retailers. However, there was a significant gap between attitudes and purchasing behavior. Although the participants had positive attitudes toward retailers CSR, the lack of funds and time influenced their purchase behavior. Overall, half (n=28) of the respondents mentioned that CSR performance affects their purchasing decisions making when shopping. Findings from this study provide support for retailers to consider their corporate social responsibility when developing their image with the consumer. This study implied that consumers evaluate retailers based on employee, community and environmental support. The evaluation, attitude and purchase behavior of consumers seem to be intertwined. That is, evaluation is based on the knowledge the consumer has of the retailers CSR. That knowledge may influence their attitude toward the retailer and thus influence their purchase behavior. Participants also indicated that having CSR makes them think highly of the retailer, but it does not influence their purchase behavior. Price and convenience seem to surpass the importance of CSR among the participants. Implications, recommendations for future research, and limitations of the study are also discussed.

• Journal of Science of Art and Design
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• v.12
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• pp.5-41
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• 2007

As public attention on Well-being culture increases, it is now considered to be a new trend of modern society. The purpose of this study is to publicize the necessity of design products which are advanced in quality and encourage the use of it. The researcher judged that study on design of lighting product to adopt well-being trend is in preliminary level and aims to research on the tendency of well-bing trend and lighting design which the consumer of this age is demanding. As the result of changes in modern consumption trend, design is considered to be a factor of capricious cultural phenomenon. In addition to this, as high technology such as ubiquitous develops with the degitalisation and informatization, the consumer are paying attention to dynamic products rather than static products or products which respond to external stimulus. Products which adopt well-being trend pursuing nature friendly life are particularly preferred It means that not only the basic function of products but also design which satisfy the five sense is required. Modern consumers use products in various way. However, the pro-environmental and human-centered tendency is tried only in very limited area and general study on this matter is extremely rare. This study analyzes the factors which intercepts the adoption of well-being trend to lighting products and seeks for an alternative to solve the problem. Interaction design with well-being trend was adopted to lighting design and the result presented that there is a possibility to differentiate existing lighting design by adding interaction design to the existing lighting design. Therefore, the need for further study on this matter is presented.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.43-48
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• 2015

Purpose: Recently, many countries around the world are actively looking for the ways to make full use of natural energy sources and also develop and apply an environmentally friendly system designed to save building energy consumption. Under these circumstances, this study intended to determine the applicability and energy saving effect by deriving the indoor thermal performance characteristics and the PCM temperature appropriate for a double skin façade to reduce indoor energy consumption through the application of different PCM temperatures to double skin façade and perform a performance evaluation depending on the application or non-application of PCM to a double skin façade. Method: For this study, the physical variables of the double skin façade with PCM were configured through a preliminary examination based on an experimental measurement, and experimental measurements were taken with a total of 7 types of mockup cases: Type-1 (Basic), the basic double skin façade, Type-2 (PCM $18^{\circ}C$) which was applied to the inner skin of the double skin façade depending on the phase-change temperature of PCM, Type-3 (PCM $20^{\circ}C$), Type-4 (PCM $22^{\circ}C$), Type-5 (PCM $24^{\circ}C$), Type-6 (PCM $26^{\circ}C$), and Type-7 (PCM $28^{\circ}C$) with reference to the data analysis of the basic double skin façade which preceded this study, to analyze the indoor thermal performance of the double skin façade depending on PCM temperature and the installation or non-installation of a double skin façade applying PCM based on the selected unit space. Result: Indoor thermal performance was analyzed depending on the PCM temperature applicable to double skin façade, and the analysis of heating energy reduction showed that Type-2 (PCM $18^{\circ}C$) gained 15.9% more heat compared with Type-1 (Basic) and secondly, Type-3 (PCM $20^{\circ}C$) gained 11.5% more heat. Based on these findings, it is deemed possible that the use of energy for heating can be reduced when heat coming indoors increases during the heating period, and the appropriate temperature for PCM applied to the inner skin of a double skin façade to reduce heating energy in winter, Type-2 (PCM $18^{\circ}C$) showed the highest efficiency and Type-3 (PCM $20^{\circ}C$) was also deemed appropriate.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1636-1643
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• 2012

Enzymatic pre-bleaching by modification of pulp fibers with xylanases is an attractive approach to reduce the consumption of toxic bleaching chemicals in the paper industry. In this study, an alkaliphilic endoxylanase gene was isolated from metagenomic DNA of a structurally stable thermophilic lignocellulose-degrading microbial consortium using amplification with conserved glycosyl hydrolase family 10 primers and subsequent genome walking. The full-length xylanase showed 78% sequence identity to an endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanase of Clostridium phytofermentans and was expressed in a mature form with an N-terminal His6 tag fusion in Escherichia coli. The recombinant xylanase Xyn3F was thermotolerant and alkaliphilic, working optimally at $65-70^{\circ}C$ with an optimal pH at 9-10 and retaining >80% activity at pH 9, $60^{\circ}C$ for 1 h. Xyn3F showed a $V_{max}$ of 2,327 IU/mg and $K_m$ of 3.5 mg/ml on birchwood xylan. Pre-bleaching of industrial eucalyptus pulp with no prior pH adjustment (pH 9) using Xyn3F at 50 IU/g dried pulp led to 4.5-5.1% increase in final pulp brightness and 90.4-102.4% increase in whiteness after a single-step hypochlorite bleaching over the untreated pulp, which allowed at least 20% decrease in hypochlorite consumption to achieve the same final bleaching indices. The alkaliphilic xylanase is promising for application in an environmentally friendly bleaching step of kraft and soda pulps with no requirement for pH adjustment, leading to improved economic feasibility of the process.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.41-52
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• 2011

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of energy saving and sound insulation of building materials mixed with charcoal. To investigate the functionality of building based on the difference of construction materials, three different experimental buildings were constructed. They were buildings built with the conventional construction materials (A), the charcoal construction materials (B), and the charcoal-sericite construction materials (C). The study showed that energy consumption could be reduced approximately 9.5% and 14.5% by replacing A with B and C, respectively. Especially, it is revealed that the lower outdoor temperature was, the higher energy saving effect was. Also, after shutoff the boiler switch the decrease rate of room temperature of the one using B was lower than those of others using A and C so that the room temperature at the building using B was higher by $3.5{\sim}4.2^{\circ}C$ in the 1 meter air above the ground and by $4.4{\sim}5.4^{\circ}C$ on the floor surface after 12 hours passed. In the building noise test the heavy-and light-weight impact sound of the plate, represented by criterion of noise between floors in multi-story building, tended to decrease in the test sample containing charcoal.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.1215-1224
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• 2013

Great efforts have been made worldwide to reduce the Green House Gas (GHG) emission following the "Kyoto Protocol" declared during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997. Many industries have restructured to meet the standard set by the Protocol. However, no clear guidance has been established for the purpose of reducing the GHG emission in construction industry. In addition, no significant effort has been made to conserve the energy during construction activities. For more effective energy saving in construction industry, it is essential to collect data about energy consumption, quantity of environmental emissions and costs. However, most studies on sustainable construction have been concentrated on the use of equipment, maintenance and repair works during construction due to the difficulties of collecting such data. This study suggests a method to select the most environmentally friendly equipment combination for earthwork with comparing environmental loads and costs using the database of Life Cycle Inventory in the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and Ministry of Environment of Korea.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.158-167
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• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that encouraged the industrial growth of Koran city gas industry during 1995-2009, by carrying out input-output structural decomposition analysis(IO-SDA) using Syrquin's model. The results show that the main factors which contributed to the growth of the Korean city gas industry are final domestic demand(48.4%) and technological change(38.6%). By examining the results for the three periods of 1995-2000, 2000-2005, and 2005-2009, the tendency of changes between the two main factors is drawn. In contrast to the drastic decreasing tendency of the final domestic demand's contribution to the growth, 84.5%, 18.9%, and 15.4%, respectively for each period, there is an increasing tendency for technological change as seen by the results of 7.4%, 70.0%, and 42.2%, respectively. These findings may be a result from the fact that the rate of gas supply in the residential sector has been saturated recently. They are also reflective of the energy consumption trend of industrial activities as there has been a shift in the approach for supplying energy, from the traditional approach which use fossil fuels to the newer approach which uses environmentally friendly energy sources. For the continued growth of the city gas industry, policymakers sould consider greater investment in the expansion of city gas supply infrastructure for industrial activities rather than for the residential sector.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.335-342
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• 2013

Since the seriousness of environmental pollution came to the fore recently, various efforts have been made globally for the reduction of the environmental load. In particular, in the field of construction, an industry responsible for a considerable amount of pollution, studies have been actively conducted to reduce $CO_2$ emissions and energy consumption. However, most conventional research about pollution as it relates to construction is focused on the maintenance stages where $CO_2$ emissions are the greatest. Research related to the design stage is in its infancy, as it has only been conducted thus far on steel buildings and RC buildings. In fact, in order to achieve environmentally friendly construction considering the Life Cycle Assessment(LCA), the building design should be derived to reduce the $CO_2$ emissions from the early building design stage, and structural engineers should be able to suggest a design plan considering its environmental friendliness. In this study, optimal structural design method for steel reinforced concrete(SRC) columns considering $CO_2$ emissions is presented. The trends of $CO_2$ emissions in SRC columns according to the variations of steel shapes, concrete strengths and loads are investigated.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.153-161
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• 2023

The worldwide effects of COVID-19 have led to a surge in online shopping and contactless services. The consumption pattern has caused the issues such as the environmental pollution together with the increase of plastic waste. Reducing the reliance on the petroleum based plastic use for the package and replacing it with environmentally friendly material are the simple ways in order to solve those problems. Paper is an eco-friendly product with high recyclability as the food packaging materials but has still poor barrier properties. A barrier coating on surface of the paper can be achieved with the proper packaging materials featuring water, gas and grease barrier. Polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP) coatings which are generally laminated or coated to paper are widely used in food packaging applications to protect products from moisture and provide water or grease resistance. However, recycling of packaging containing PE or PP matrix is limited and costly because those films are difficult to degrade in the environment. This study investigated the recyclability of modified acrylic emulsion coating papers compared to PE and PP polymer matrixes as well as their mechanical and gas barrier properties. The results showed that PE or modified acrylic emulsion coated papers had better mechanical properties compared to the uncoated paper as a control. PE or PP coating papers showed strong oil resistance property, achieving a kit rating of 12. Those papers also had a significantly higher percentage of screen reject during the recycling process than modified acrylic coated paper which had a screen rejection rate of 6.25%. In addition an uncoated paper had similar value of a screen rejection rate. It may suggest that modified acrylic emulsion coating paper can be more easily recycled than PE or PP coating papers. The overall results of the study found that modified acrylic emulsion coating paper would be a viable alternative to suggest a possible solution to an environmental problem as well as enhancing the weak mechanical and poor gas barrier properties of the paper against moisture.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.43-58
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• 2015

The greenhouse gas emission caused by rapid economic growth and population is increasing in Korea. Also, climate change from greenhouse gases emission is accelerated. IPCC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report projects an increase of greenhouse gas emissions by 90% from the year 2000 to 2030(SRES, 2000). Within this context, establishing countermeasures on climate adaptation and mitigation is becoming increasingly important to reduce the negative effect of climate change at a global level. Along with global efforts to tackle climate change, Korean government has incorporated 'Low Carbon Green Growth'strategies into its national policy agenda. Local governments have also conducted a number of studies to devise plans for environmentally friendly and sustainable city development. In this paper, the land-use equilibrium model, which reflects economic and geographical characteristics, is used to analyze the change in residential land use and population density. The target area for study is Jeju island in Korea. With an application of land use equilibrium model, it derived three types of scenarios of the land use change: (1) dispersion scenario-reflecting present-day conditions (2) adaptation scenario-applying adaptation measures to climate change and (3) combined scenario-integrating both adaptation and mitigation measures in model to climate change. By applying dispersion to combined scenario, the general trend shows a downward shift in population density. Subsequently, energy consumption and expected cost associated with casualties were calculated on the basis of the findings of respective scenario. The results show a descending trend in energy consumption and expected casualtie. Therefore, understanding for residential land use and population density of each scenario that analyzed land use equilibrium model in the study is expected to devise a environmental city plan for climate change stabilization and climate adaptation and mitigation.