• Information Systems Review
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.161-179
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• 2009

Nowadays an increasing number of Internet users are running individual websites as Blog or Cyworld. As this type of personal media has a great influence on communication among people, business comes to care about Network Effect, Network Software, and Social Network. For instance, Cyworld created the web service called 'Minihompy' for individual web-logs, and acquired 2.4milion users in 2007. Although many people assumed that the popularity of Minihompy, or Blog would be a passing fad, Cyworld has improved its service, and expanded its Network with various contents. This kind of expansion reflects survival efforts from infinite competitions among ISPs (Internet Service Provider) with focus on enhancing usability to users. However, Cyworld's Network Effect is gradually diminished in these days. Both of low production cost of service vendors and the low searching/conversing costs of users combine to make ISPs hard to keep their market share sustainable. To overcome this lackluster trend, Cyworld has adopted new strategies and try to lock their users in their service. Various efforts to improve the continuance and expansion of Network effect remain unclear and uncertain. If we understand beforehand how a service would improve Network effect, and which service could bring more effect, ISPs can get substantial help in launching their new business strategy. Regardless many diverse ideas to increase their user's duration online ISPs cannot guarantee 'how the new service strategies will end up in profitability. Therefore, this research studies about Network effect of Cyworld's 'Minihompy' using System-Dynamics method which could analyze dynamic relation between users and ISPs. Furthermore, the research aims to predict changes of Network Effect based on the strategy of new service. 'Page View' and 'Duration Time' can be enhanced for the short tenn because they enhance the service functionality. However, these services cannot increase the Network in the long-run. Limitations of this research include that we predict the future merely based on the limited data. We also limit the independent variables over Network Effect only to the following two issues: Increasing the number of users and increasing the Service Functionality. Despite of some limitations, this study perhaps gives some insights to the policy makers or others facing the stiff competition in the network business.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.31
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• pp.27-56
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• 2006

Today's financial institutions usually take environmental issues seriously into consideration as they could not evade lender liability in an increasing number of cases. On the international scene, a brand-new concept of the "Equator Principles" in the New Millenium has driven more and more international banks to adopt these Principles in project financing. Sustainable development has been a key word in understanding new trends of the governments, financial institutions, corporations and civic groups in the 21st century. The Equator Principles are a set of voluntary environmental and social guidelines for sustainable finance. These Principles commit bank officers to avoid financial support to projects that fail to meet these guidelines. The Principles were conceived in 2002 on an initiative of the International Finance Corporation(IFC), and launched in June 2003. Since then, dozens of major banks, accounting for up to 80 percent of project loan market, have adopted the Principles. Accordingly, the Principles have become the de facto standard for all banks and investors on how to deal with potential social and environmental issues of projects to be financed. Compliance with the Equator Principles facilitates for endorsing banks to participate in the syndicated loan and help them to manage the risks associated with large-scale projects. The Equator Principles call for financial institutions to provide loans to projects under the following circumstances: - The risk of the project is categorized in accordance with internal guidelines based upon the environmental and social screening criteria of the IFC. - For Category A and B projects, borrowers or sponsors are required to conduct a Social and Environmental Assessment, the preparation of which must meet certain requirements and satisfactorily address key social and environmental issues. - The Social and Environmental Assessment report should address baseline social and environmental conditions, requirements under host country laws and regulations, sustainable development, and, as appropriate, IFC's Environmental, Health and Safety Guidelines, etc. - Based on the Social and Environmental Assessment, Equator banks then make agreements with borrowers on how they mitigate, monitor and manage the risks through a Social and Environmental Management System. Compliance with the plan is included in the covenant clause of loan agreements. If the borrower doesn't comply with the agreed terms, the bank will take corrective actions. The Equator Principles are not a mere declaration of cautious banks but a full commitment of lenders. A violation of the Principles in the process of project financing, which led to an unexpected damage to the affected community, would not give rise to any specific legal remedies other than ordinary lawsuits. So it is more effective for banks to ensure consistent implementation of the Principles and to have them take responsible measures to solve social and environmental issues. Public interests have recently mounted up with respect to environmental issues on the occasion of the Supreme Court's decision (2006Du330) on the fiercely debated reclamation project at Saemangeum. The majority Justices said that the expected environmental damages like probable pollution of water and soil were not believed so serious and that the Administration should continue to implement the project seeking ways to make it more environment friendly. In this case, though the Category A Saemangeum Project was carried out by a government agency, the Supreme Court behaved itself as a signal giver to approve or stop the environment-related project like an Equator bank in project financing. At present, there is no Equator bank in Korea in contrast to three big banks in Japan. Also Korean contractors, which are aggressively bidding for Category A-type projects in South East Asia and Mideast, might find themselves in a disadvantageous position because they are generally ignorant of the environmental assessment associated with project financing. In this regard, Korean banks and overseas project contractors should care for the revised Equator Principles and the latest developments in project financing more seriously. It's because its scope has expanded to the capital cost of US$10 million or more across all industry sectors regardless of developing countries or not. It should be noted that, for a Korean bank, being an Equator bank is more or less burdensome in a short-term period, but it must be conducive to minimizing risks and building up good reputation in the long run.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.183-190
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• 2009

Characterization of the analysis of forest vegetation, soil environmental conditions and water quality were performed from March 2003 to March 2007. The two basins were characterized by cultivated area (Kaesim reservoir) and mountain area (Jangchan reservoir), and divided into eleven small basins, where dynamics of pollutants, forest vegetation and soil environmental conditions were surveyed. The vegetation can be divided into 10 types by $Z\ddot{u}rich$-Montpellier school's method. Pearson coefficients between vegetation type and water quality were correlated with dissolved oxygen (DO) in the Quercus variabilis community at the 5% level and total phosphorus (TP) in the Larix leptolepis plantation at the 1% level. Especially total phosphorous and total nitrogen increased in small basins where the proportion of cultivated and residential area increased. The analysis of influences of pollutant discharge on water quality showed that pollutant charge was very low in forest land area ($Y_{T-P}$=-0.0017X+0.2215, r=0.16, $Y_{COD}$=- 0.0395X+8.5051 r=0.47). The soil types of western area were comparatively simple, but those of eastern area were complicated with regosols, red-yellow soils, lithosoles, etc. The pH, total solid (TS) and volatile substance (VS) of the forest and agricultural land soils collected in each site were 5.4~6.9, 75.8~80.2%, and 3.80%~5.80%, respectively. According to the analytical result of soil environmental conditions, heavy metal contents fell short to the mean value of natural conditions. Runoff amount (Y) and depth of topsoil (X) were negatively correlated, $Y_{ron}=-1.0088X_{top}+35.378$ (r=0.68). The correlation was much lower in up-stream but much higher in down-stream, because permeation into soil particle was larger on down-stream due to its more or less gentle slope. Pearson coefficients between soil pH and water pH were statistically significant at 1% level.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.101-114
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• 2001

Transportation enterprises should maintain constant and qualitative operation. Thus, in short period, transportation enterprises don't change supply in accordance with demand. In the result, transportation enterprises don't reduce operation in spite of management deficit at will. In freight transportation type, less-than-truckload(LTL) has more relation with above transportation feature than truckload(TL) does. Because freight transportation supply of TL is more flexible than that of LTL in correspondence of freight transportation demand. Relating to above mention, it appears that shortage of road and freight terminal of LTL is larger than that of TL. Especially in road and freight terminal comparison, shortage of freight terminal is larger than that of road. Shortage of road is the largest in 1990, and improved after-ward. But shortage of freight terminal is serious lately. So freight terminal needs more expansion than road, and shows better investment condition than road. Freight terminal expansion brings road expansion in LTL, on the contrary, freight terminal expansion substitutes freight terminal for road in TL. In transportation revenue, freight terminal's contribution to LTL is larger than that to TL. However, when we adjust quasi-fixed factor - road and freight terminal - to optimal level in the long run, in TL, diseconomies of scale becomes large, but in LTL, economies of scale becomes large. Consequently, it is necessary for TL to make counterplans to activate management of small size enterprises and owner drivers. And LTL should make use of economies of scale by solving the problem, such as nonprofit route, excess of rental freight handling of office, insufficiency of freight terminal, shortage of driver, and unpreparedness of freight insurance.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.209-213
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• 2019

Recently, demand for high energy density and long cycling stability of energy storage system has increased for application using with frequency regulation (F/R) in power grid. Supercapacitor have long lifetime and high charge and discharge rate, it is very adaptable to apply a frequency regulation in power grid. Supercapacitor can complement batteries to reduce the size and installation of batteries. Because their utilization in a system can potentially eliminate the need for short-term frequent replacement as required by batteries, hence, saving the resources invested in the upkeep of the whole system or extension of lifecycle of batteries in the long run of power grid. However, low energy density in supercapacitor is critical weakness to utilization for huge energy storage system of power grid. So, it is still far from being able to replace batteries and struggle in meeting the demand for a high energy density. But, today, LIC (Lithium Ion Capacitor) considered as an attractive structure to improve energy density much more than EDLC (Electric double layer capacitor) because LIC has high voltage range up to 3.8 V. But, many aspects of the electrochemical performance of LIC still need to be examined closely in order to apply for commercial use. In this study, in order to improve the capacitance of LIC related with energy density, we designed new method of pre-doping in anode electrode. The electrode in cathode were fabricated in dry room which has a relative humidity under 0.1% and constant electrode thickness over $100{\mu}m$ was manufactured for stable mechanical strength and anode doping. To minimize of contact resistance, fabricated electrode was conducted hot compression process from room temperature to $65^{\circ}C$. We designed various pre-doping method for LIC structure and analyzing the doping mechanism issues. Finally, we suggest new pre-doping method to improve the capacitance and electrochemical stability for LIC.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.163-191
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• 2017

This article aims to review the recent, especially focusing on the year of 2016, situations and prospects of the Vietnamese politics, economy, and international relations. Politically, Vietnam completed the election of members for the National Assembly and organized new leadership at the 12th National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party in 2016. One characteristic of the new leadership is that the politicians, especially the members of politburo, from the North continue to occupy the position of majority. The other one is that the new leadership promised to carry out the restructuring of economy toward industries producing higher value-added commodities even though Vietnam industries admittedly need to accelerate present industrialization and modernization as a developing country under the seemingly contradictory slogan of "the development of market economy for socialism." The declared goals of the new leadership in Vietnam are inevitable in a sense since the development of Vietnamese economy has been heavily dependent upon Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) taking advantage of Vietnamese cheap labor and simultaneously it is evident that its future is unsecure if it maintains status quo. In fact, the Vietnamese economy has impressively showed high growth rate by the help of foreign capitals since 1990s despite the repetitive recessions of global economy but its growth is not likely to be sustainable anymore if it will not reduce foreign dependency and social economic inequality in a long term. In a short run, global economic recession, the financial and monetary policies of global powers, and recent protectionism and uncertainty of trade agreements will be three crucial variables to affect Vietnamese economy. In terms of international relations, Vietnam is continuously expected to practise the policy of checks and balances among the powerful countries. Vietnam has seriously disputed with China on islands sovereignty in the South China Sea and attempted to maintain close relationship with other powerful countries including especially America. However, mainly due to the new protectionism by the regime of American president Donald Trump, the Vietnamese government also need to keep close relationship with China increasingly for both economic and diplomatic security. Under the circumstances, Vietnam is expected to maintain more practical and balanced international relations.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-48
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• 2009

Recently we have found some symptoms that R&D fiscal incentives might not work well what it has intended through the analysis of current statistics of firm's R&D data. Firstly, we found that the growth rate of R&D investment in private sector during the recent decade has been slowdown. The average of growth rate (real value) of R&D investment is 7.1% from 1998 to 2005, while it was 13.9% from 1980 to 1997. Secondly, the relative share of R&D investment of SME has been decreased to 21%('05) from 29%('01), even though the tax credit for SME has been more beneficial than large size firm, Thirdly, The R&D expenditure of large size firms (besides 3 leading firms) has not been increased since late of 1990s. We need to find some evidence whether fiscal incentives are effective in increasing firm's R&D investment. To analyse econometric model we use firm level unbalanced panel data for 4 years (from 2002 to 2005) derived from MOST database compiled from the annual survey, "Report on the Survey of Research and Development in Science and Technology". Also we use fixed effect model (Hausman test results accept fixed effect model with 1% of significant level) and estimate the model for all firms, large firms and SME respectively. We have following results from the analysis of econometric model. For large firm: i ) R&D investment responds elastically (1.20) to sales volume. ii) government R&D subsidy induces R&D investment (0.03) not so effectively. iii) Tax price elasticity is almost unity (-0.99). iv) For large firm tax incentive is more effective than R&D subsidy For SME: i ) Sales volume increase R&D investment of SME (0.043) not so effectively. ii ) government R&D subsidy is crowding out R&D investment of SME not seriously (-0.0079) iii) Tax price elasticity is very inelastic (-0.054) To compare with other studies, Koga(2003) has a similar result of tax price elasticity for Japanese firm (-1.0036), Hall((l992) has a unit tax price elasticity, Bloom et al. (2002) has $-0.354{\sim}-0.124$ in the short run. From the results of our analysis we recommend that government R&D subsidy has to focus on such an areas like basic research and public sector (defense, energy, health etc.) not overlapped private R&D sector. For SME government has to focus on establishing R&D infrastructure. To promote tax incentive policy, we need to strengthen the tax incentive scheme for large size firm's R&D investment. We recommend tax credit for large size film be extended to total volume of R&D investment.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.9
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• pp.3856-3868
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• 2011

Until recently, research trend in real estate has been focused on real estate market and the market analysis. But the studies on real estate training program development for real estate agents to improve their job performance are relatively short in numbers. Thus, this study shows empirical analysis of the needs for the training programs for real estate agents in Cheonan to improve their job performance. The results are as follows. First, in the survey of asking what educational contents they need in order to improve real estate agents' job performance, most of the respondents show their needs for the analysis of house's value, legal knowledge, real estate management, accounting, real estate marketing, and understanding of the real estate policy. This is because they are well aware that the best way of responding to the changing clients' needs comes from training programs. Secondly, asked about real estate marketing strategies, most of respondents showed their awareness of new strategies to meet the needs of clients. This is because new forms of marketing strategies including internet ads are needed in the field as the paradigm including Information Technology changes. Thirdly, asked about the need for real estate-related training programs, 92% of the respondents answered they need real estate education programs run by the continuing education centers of the universities. In addition, the survey showed their needs for retraining programs that utilize the resources in the local universities. Other than this, to have effective and efficient training programs, they demanded running a training system by utilizing the human resources of the universities under the name of the department of 'Real Estate Contract' for real estate agents' job performance. Fourthly, the survey revealed real estate management(44.2%) and real estate marketing(42.3%) is the most chosen contents they want to take in the regular course for improving real estate agents' job performance. This shows their will to understand clients' needs through the mind of real estate management and real estate marketing. The survey showed they prefer the training programs as an irregular course to those in the regular one. Despite the above results, this study chose subjects only in Cheanan and thus it needs to research more diverse areas. The needs of programs to improve real estate agents job performance should be analyzed empirically targeting the real estate agents not just in Cheonan but also cities like Pyeongchon, Ilsan and Bundang in which real estate business is booming, as well as undergraduate and graduate students whose major is real estate studies. These studies will be able to provide information to help develop the customized training programs by evaluating elements that real estate agents need in order to meet clients satisfaction and improve their job performance. Many variables of the program development learned through these studies can be incorporated in the curriculum of the real estate studies and used very practically as information for the development of the real estate studies in this fast changing era.