• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.203-214
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• 2020

Purpose: This study investigated customers' perception of a hygiene grade certification system for restaurants and this study also determined way to promote the application of the hygiene grade certification. Methods: A total of 315 customer responses were used for the data analysis. Statistical analyses were conducted using the SPSS program (ver. 23.0) for frequency analysis, χ²-tests, t-tests, analysis of variance, and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). Results: The composition of the respondents was 43.8% males and 56.2% females. The 73.3% lived with their families while 26.7% lived alone. Among those surveyed, 84.5% dine out at least once a week and 66.8% dine out during weekends evening. In addition, the most preferred types of restaurants were Korean restaurants (37.5%), delivery restaurants (14.6%), and Western restaurants (8.9%). Information about restaurant was most frequently obtained through Internet searches (54.0%). The average expenditure of eating-out per person was 15,483 Korean won, and the overall satisfaction averaged 3.58 out of 5 points. According to the results of IPA, the restaurant selection attributes that were priorities for improvement were the foods' taste and restroom cleanliness. In addition, 30.5% of respondents recognized the hygiene grade certification system for restaurants. The intention of dining at restaurants with a hygiene grade certification in the future was on average 4.02 out of 5 points. A total of 56.8% of respondents were willing to pay more for a restaurant with a hygiene grade certification. The average percentage of additional price was 6.02%. Conclusion: In order to apply and quickly disseminate the hygiene grade certification system all over the Korea, the study results suggest that relevant policy should be provided by the Korean government for certified restaurants along with the relevant education and promotion of the system to customers.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.29 no.1 s.97
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• pp.91-96
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• 2005

The National Marine Electronics Association(NMEA) is nonprofit-making cooperation composed with manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and educational institutions. We use the basic port of equipment in order to process the signal from NMEA signal using equipment. When we don't have enough one, we use the multi-port for processing. However, we need to have module development simulation which could multiplex and provide NMEA related signal that we could solve the problems in multi-port application and exclusive equipment generation for a number of signal. For now, we don't have any case or product using NMEA multiplexer so that we import expensive foreign equipment or embody NMEA signal transmission program like software, using multi-port. These have problems since we have to pay lots ci money and build separate processing part for every application programs. Besides, every equipment generating NMEA signal are from different manufactures and have different platform so that it could cause double waste and loss of recourse. For making up for it, I suggest the NMEA multiplexer embodiment, which could independently move by reliable process and high performance single hardware module, improve the memory efficiency of module by designing the optimized Queue, and keep having reliability for realtime communication among the equipment such as main input sensor equipment Gyrocompass, Echo-sound, and GPS.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.123-128
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• 2014

Purpose - The purpose of the study is to reexamine the price fairness as practiced by low cost airlines, as a consumer has to experience such inconveniences as inferior airport transportation, extra fees on in-flight meals, and non-negotiable seats, and consumers evaluate such experiences keeping in mind their total costs. This evaluation includes price fairness and allows a reasonable and overall consideration of factors of low cost airlines. It tries to set up a measurement of the indicators consumers' perceptions of price fairness academically as it adapts price fairness to airline services which are renowned for price volatility. Research design, data, and methodology - The research proposes an alternative pricing strategy for the long term profit of low cost airlines after going over conflicts between the traditional theory of consumers' price perception mechanism and flexible fair policy of low cost airlines. It was meaningful when it relates to the early stage of the business, while it enhances the risks relating to the long term survival of low cost airlines. In addition, it is significant as it highlights the negative influences on consumers' perceptions of price fairness, as low cost airlines run on extremely low cost perspectives. Results - The results of the research provide insight into four perspectives, as consumers' perceptions of price fairness are influenced by the frequency and range of price changes and services. The first perspective is that it would lead to positive price evaluation when a low cost airline cuts prices frequently with little changes than one big change. It also would lead to the same result when it comes to necessary services. The second perspective is that one big increase of price would rather undermine the negative aspects of price changes than those of several smaller ones. The third perspective is that additional services would be good to consumers' perceptions of price fairness as compared to discount benefits with respect to the cost. Finally, a low cost airline should consider that consumers will change airlines or defer their flight schedule if the flight fares increase beyond their limits. Conclusions - Low cost airlines should reconsider their pricing policies for services that were provided free earlier. A consumer would not like discount benefits when made to pay for services that were, for long, free of charge. If a low cost airline can provide services with no charge, it should improve volumes if the costs are standardized and, moreover, should consider the charging fees. Alternatively, a consumer can choose between services and fair discount. Low cost airlines are implementing sales promotion strategies, as the competition is more intense than it used to be. In these days, they should regard services over sales promotion, as consumers may prefer to spend money on good premium services. Some differentiation in services could create a good market position for the airlines and, hence, good financial performance.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2021

This study aims to analyze online game user's game items transacting behaviors for the two game genres such as MMORPG and sports game. For the sake of conducting the analysis, we adopted a fuzzy logic agent-based modeling. In the online game fields, game items transactions are crucial to game company's profitability. However, there are lack of previous studies investigating the online game user's game items transacting activities. Since many factors need to be addressed in a complicated way, ABM (agent-based modeling) simulation mechanism is adopted. Besides, a fuzzy logic is also considered due to the fact that a number of uncertainties and ambiguities exist with respect to online game user's complex behaviors in transacting game items. Simulation results from applying the fuzzy logic ABM method revealed that MMORPG game users are motivated to pay expensive price for high-performance game items, while sports game users tend to transact game items within a reasonable price range. We could conclude that the proposed fuzzy logic ABM simulation mechanism proved to be very useful in organizing an effective strategy for online game items management and customers retention.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.151-171
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• 2014

Firms today have sought management effectiveness and efficiency utilizing information technologies (IT). Numerous firms are outsourcing specific information systems functions to cope with their short of information resources or IT experts, or to reduce their capital cost. Recently, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) as a new type of information system has become one of the powerful outsourcing alternatives. SaaS is software deployed as a hosted and accessed over the internet. It is regarded as the idea of on-demand, pay-per-use, and utility computing and is now being applied to support the core competencies of clients in areas ranging from the individual productivity area to the vertical industry and e-commerce area. In this study, therefore, we seek to quantify the value that SaaS has on business performance by examining the relationships among firm strategies, SaaS technology maturity, and business performance of SaaS providers. We begin by drawing from prior literature on SaaS, technology maturity and firm strategy. SaaS technology maturity is classified into three different phases such as application service providing (ASP), Web-native application, and Web-service application. Firm strategies are manipulated by the low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy. Finally, we considered customer acquisition as a business performance. In this sense, specific objectives of this study are as follows. First, we examine the relationships between customer acquisition performance and both low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy of SaaS providers. Secondly, we investigate the mediating and moderating effects of SaaS technology maturity on those relationships. For this purpose, study collects data from the SaaS providers, and their line of applications registered in the database in CNK (Commerce net Korea) in Korea using a questionnaire method by the professional research institution. The unit of analysis in this study is the SBUs (strategic business unit) in the software provider. A total of 199 SBUs is used for analyzing and testing our hypotheses. With regards to the measurement of firm strategy, we take three measurement items for differentiation strategy such as the application uniqueness (referring an application aims to differentiate within just one or a small number of target industry), supply channel diversification (regarding whether SaaS vendor had diversified supply chain) as well as the number of specialized expertise and take two items for low cost strategy like subscription fee and initial set-up fee. We employ a hierarchical regression analysis technique for testing moderation effects of SaaS technology maturity and follow the Baron and Kenny's procedure for determining if firm strategies affect customer acquisition through technology maturity. Empirical results revealed that, firstly, when differentiation strategy is applied to attain business performance like customer acquisition, the effects of the strategy is moderated by the technology maturity level of SaaS providers. In other words, securing higher level of SaaS technology maturity is essential for higher business performance. For instance, given that firms implement application uniqueness or a distribution channel diversification as a differentiation strategy, they can acquire more customers when their level of SaaS technology maturity is higher rather than lower. Secondly, results indicate that pursuing differentiation strategy or low cost strategy effectively works for SaaS providers' obtaining customer, which means that continuously differentiating their service from others or making their service fee (subscription fee or initial set-up fee) lower are helpful for their business success in terms of acquiring their customers. Lastly, results show that the level of SaaS technology maturity mediates the relationships between low cost strategy and customer acquisition. That is, based on our research design, customers usually perceive the real value of the low subscription fee or initial set-up fee only through the SaaS service provide by vender and, in turn, this will affect their decision making whether subscribe or not.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.10
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• pp.331-340
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• 2013

The recent economic downturn has created new challenges for today's company workers such as increased job instability; layoffs; the need to maintain dual income households and the associated childcare requirements; and other job stresses. These stresses give rise to serious problems for workers and ultimately to organizations. Companies therefore need to pay attention to solving the problem of stress. These days, many companies seek a solution from EAP. EAP aims to support workers through counseling, consulting and coaching services to help them overcome issues which may adversely affect job satisfaction and performance. EAP was introduced in this country ten years ago. Formerly, many companies viewed stress primarily as a personal issue. But now more companies are in a hurry to adopt EAP as a means for individuals to resolve stress. This study draws on the example of EAP use in LG Hausys. The company has adopted EAP under the CEO's strong support. The company has effectively managed EAP services which include professional counseling and the training of internal counselors. This study derives implications for the further implementation of EAP services.

• The Journal of Bigdata
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.31-41
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• 2022

Steel is one of the most fundamental components to mechanical industry. However, the quality of products are greatly impacted by the surface defects in the steel. Thus, researchers pay attention to the need for surface defects detector and the deep learning methods are the current trend of object detector. There are still limitations and rooms for improvements, for example, related works focus on developing the models but don't take into account real-time application with practical implication on industrial settings. In this paper, a real-time application of steel surface defects detection based on YOLOv4 is proposed. Firstly, as the aim of this work to deploying model on real-time application, we studied related works on this field, particularly focusing on one-stage detector and YOLO algorithm, which is one of the most famous algorithm for real-time object detectors. Secondly, using pre-trained Yolov4-Darknet platform models and transfer learning, we trained and test on the hot rolled steel defects open-source dataset NEU-DET. In our study, we applied our application with 4 types of typical defects of a steel surface, namely patches, pitted surface, inclusion and scratches. Thirdly, we evaluated YOLOv4 trained model real-time performance to deploying our system with accuracy of 87.1 % mAP@0.5 and over 60 fps with GPU processing.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.29-52
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• 2012

Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.111-118
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• 2009

This study is to analyze the performance of SWH(Solar Water Heating) and GSHP(Ground Source Heat Pump) systems by evaluating their energy efficiency and LCC(Life Cycle Cost) as being applied to the OO hall as a selected building in the Army. The OO hall, used as bathrooms, dining rooms, accommodations and offices, has reinforced concrete structure system with three floors above the ground and one underground, and its total floor area is approximately 2,917$m^2$. Two energy simulations are conducted to predict the yearly cooling and heating energy of the selected building: One is for analysis of an air-conditioning energy consumption using the e-Quest program, and another is for two new-renewable energy facilities as a water heating source using the RETScreen. The installed capacity of two new-renewable energy facilities is determined according to the 5% level of total standard construction cost. As a briefly result, SWH system is more energy-effective than GSHP system. Considering the break-even point, it is expected that SWH can take only 3 years 11 months to pay for itself in savings while the investment of GSHP can be recovered in more than 16 years 6 months.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.211-219
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• 2017

The spray-applied waterproofing membrane is installed on shotcrete or concrete surface to make impermeable layer with 3-5 mm thick for the purpose of waterproofing. This study aims to determine the internal structure of a spray-applied waterproofing membrane including pores by using X-ray CT technique. Before obtaining X-ray images of the membrane specimens, a waterproof performance test was performed on the membrane specimens with a water pressure of 500 kPa for 28 days. Results show that the movement of moisture is made through micropores. This is based on the fact that the large pores inside the membrane are not saturated and the degrees of saturation of the micropores are high. X-ray image is effective for determining the pore size distribution and whether the membrane with pores contains the water However, it is necessary to pay attention to the determination of water content, since water content may vary depending on the threshold value of X-ray image analysis applied to calculate the water content.