• 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.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.30 no.1_2
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• pp.9-16
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• 2018

Purpose : Brain Stereotactic Radiosurgery can treat non-invasive diseases with high rates of complications due to surgical operations. However, brain stereotactic radiosurgery may be accompanied by radiation induced side effects such as fractionation radiation therapy because it uses radiation. The effects of Coplanar Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy(C-VMAT) and Non-Coplanar Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy(NC-VMAT) on surrounding normal tissues were analyzed in order to reduce the side effects caused fractionation radiation therapy such as head and neck. But, brain stereotactic radiosurgery these contents were not analyzed. In this study, we evaluated the usefulness of NC-VMAT by comparing and analyzing C-VMAT and NC-VMAT in patients who underwent brain stereotactic radiosurgery. Methods and materials : With C-VMAT and NC-VMAT, 13 treatment plans for brain stereotactic radiosurgery were established. The Planning Target Volume ranged from a minimum of 0.78 cc to a maximum of 12.26 cc, Prescription doses were prescribed between 15 and 24 Gy. Treatment machine was TrueBeam STx (Varian Medical Systems, USA). The energy used in the treatment plan was 6 MV Flattening Filter Free (6FFF) X-ray. The C-VMAT treatment plan used a half 2 arc or full 2 arc treatment plan, and the NC-VMAT treatment plan used 3 to 7 Arc 40 to 190 degrees. The angle of the couch was planned to be 3-7 angles. Results : The mean value of the maximum dose was $105.1{\pm}1.37%$ in C-VMAT and $105.8{\pm}1.71%$ in NC-VMAT. Conformity index of C-VMAT was $1.08{\pm}0.08$ and homogeneity index was $1.03{\pm}0.01$. Conformity index of NC-VMAT was $1.17{\pm}0.1$ and homogeneity index was $1.04{\pm}0.01$. $V_2$, $V_8$, $V_{12}$, $V_{18}$, $V_{24}$ of the brain were $176{\pm}149.36cc$, $31.50{\pm}25.03cc$, $16.53{\pm}12.63cc$, $8.60{\pm}6.87cc$ and $4.03{\pm}3.43cc$ in the C-VMAT and $135.55{\pm}115.93cc$, $24.34{\pm}17.68cc$, $14.74{\pm}10.97cc$, $8.55{\pm}6.79cc$, $4.23{\pm}3.48cc$. Conclusions : The maximum dose, conformity index, and homogeneity index showed no significant difference between C-VMAT and NC-VMAT. $V_2$ to $V_{18}$ of the brain showed a difference of at least 0.5 % to 48 %. $V_{19}$ to $V_{24}$ of the brain showed a difference of at least 0.4 % to 4.8 %. When we compare the mean value of $V_{12}$ that Radione-crosis begins to generate, NC-VMAT has about 12.2 % less amount than C-VMAT. These results suggest that if NC-VMAT is used, the volume of $V_2$ to $V_{18}$ can be reduced, which can reduce Radionecrosis.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.250-262
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• 2008

In order to assess the feasibility of the dipole-dipole electric method to the investigation of metallic ore deposit, both field data simulation and inversion are carried out for several simplified ore deposit models. Our interest is in a vein-type model, because most of the ore deposits (more than 70%) exist in a vein type in Korea. Based on the fact that the width of the vein-type ore deposits ranges from tens of centimeters to 2m, we change the width and the material property of the vein, and we use 40m-electrode spacing for our test. For the vein-type model with too small width, the low resistivity zone is not detected, even though the resistivity of the vein amounts to 1/300 of that of the surrounding rock. Considering a wide electrode interval and cell size used in the inversion, it is natural that the size of the low resistivity zone is overestimated. We also perform field data simulation and inversion for a vein-type model with surrounding hydrothermal alteration zones, which is a typical structure in an epithermal ore deposits. In the model, the material properties are assumed on the basis of resistivity values directly observed in a mine originated from an epithermal ore deposits. From this simulation, we can also note that the high resistivity value of the vein does not affect the results when the width of the vein is narrow. This indicates that our main target should be surrounding hydrothermal alteration zones rather than veins in field survey. From these results, we can summarize that when the vein is placed at the deep part and the difference of resistivity values between the vein and the surrounding rock is not large enough, we cannot detect low resistivity zone and interpret the subsurface structures incorrectly using the electric method performed at the surface. Although this work is a little simple, it can be used as references for field survey design and field data Interpretation. If we perform field data simulation and inversion for a number of models and provide some references, they will be helpful in real field survey and interpretation.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.69-76
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• 2015

BACKGROUND: Contamination of soils by heavy metals is the serious environmental problem. In particular, industrial processing is one of the main sources of heavy metal contamination. The objective of this study was to investigate the distribution characteristics of heavy metals in soils collected from industrial complex. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this study, the soil contamination and enrichment factor (EF) of heavy metals were investigated in three national industrial complexes such as Yeosu, Ulsan and Sihwa Banwal industrial complexes. The target heavy metals includes Cd, Cu, As, Hg, Pb, Cr, Zn, and Ni. The results showed that the contents of Cd, Hg, Pb, Zn and Ni in Yeosu and the contents of Cu, As and Cr in Sihwa Banwal were higher than in any other industrial complex. The results of principal component analysis(PCA) in Yeosu, Ulsan and Sihwa Banwal complex could be explained up to approximately 81.4, 69.1 and 70.9% by two factor, respectively. Enrichment factors of Cd, Pb and Zn in all the investigated industrial complexes were above 1.0 that was the value judged to be a high contamination. And EF of Cr was above 1.0 in Sihwa Banwal complex. EF of Zn in all sites was generally high from the other heavy metals. CONCLUSION: Therefore, soils maybe significantly affected by heavy metals (especially, Cd, Pb and Zn) present in the emissions from industrial complexes.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.343-349
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• 2013

Environment-friendly agro-materials tend to be preferred to chemical insecticides recently. For this reason, many studies are conducted to develop environment-friendly insecticides containing natural materials. The purpose of this study was to assess ecotoxicity for pepper extract and cassia oil (11.5+46%, A), pepper extract and cassia oil (23+34%, B), and pepper extract and lavender oil (40+10%, C). They are expected to prevent from pests especially diamondback moth, and can be used for agro-materials. Their formulation was emusifiable concentration (EC). Target species used to assess acute toxicity were aquatic invertebrate (Daphina magna), fish (Cyprinus carpio), honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) and earthworm (Eisenia fetida). The $EC_{50}$ value of A, B, and C to aquatic invertebrate were 0.46, 1.9, 0.25 mg $L^{-1}$ respectively and these values were moderately toxic according to standard of USEPA. In case of acute toxicity test to fish, the $LC_{50}$ of A, B, and C were 1.9, 2.9, 3.8 mg $L^{-1}$ respectively. A was category II in acute toxicity of fish and not acceptable to evaluation criteria of environment-friendly agro-materials. B and C were category III and acceptable. Acute contact and oral toxicity test to honeybee were conducted and the $LD_{50}$ of A, B, and C were > 100 ${\mu}g$ a.i. $bee^{-1}$ in both of tests. It indicated they were low toxic to honeybee. In case of acute toxicity test to earthworm, $LC_{50}$ of A, B, and C were 695, 988, and 564 mg $kg^{-1}$. In conclusion, pepper extract+cassia oil 57% EC and pepper extract+lavender oil 50% EC were expected to be used for environment-friendly insecticide materials with low risk against ecosystem and contribute to developing environment-friendly agro-materials.

• The korean journal of orthodontics
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• v.30 no.5 s.82
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• pp.509-519
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• 2000

Enlow's counterpart analysis explains the complex with anatomic and developmental characteristics where craniofacial aspect of individuals has been developed. The analysis does not compare individual measurement with the normal value from the average of majority but analyzes by comparison of values that each individual has. This study was to clarify the Korean craniofacial skeletal pattern using Enlow's counterpart analysis considering the fact that the craniofacial skeletal pattern has racial and regional variations. This research will be helpful in the future for growth research and research of the orthognathic surgery. For this study, the samples were consisted of 100 Korean adult subjects(50 males and 50 females) who had normal occlusion and pleasing face. Measurement points and lines were established using Enlow's counterpart analysis and they were statistically evaluated. The results indicated that : 1. The average angle between PCF and PMV was $38.54^{\circ}$ in males and $38.43^{\circ}$ in females, and the average Wits' appraisal was -2.51 in males and -2.3 in females. The ramus alignment(R4) was 1.89 in males and 2.36 in females. 2. It shows that females have a longer ramus than the PCF compared to the males, because there was a significant difference in Ramus/PCF horizontal dimensions (Skeletal A3-B3) between female and male subjects 3. It shows that males have a longer mandibular corpus than the maxilla compared to the females, because there was a significant difference in Maxillary/Mandibular arches(Skeletal A4-B4) between male and female subjects 4. In cranial floor+maxilla/ramus+corpus at A and B points(Al-Bl), which represents difference in total horizontal length between the maxilla and mandible, there was no significant difference between males and females. In conclusions, compared to Caucasian, Korean have more depressed midface, prognathic mandible, and ramus that rotates inferioposterior. Also, we observe that Korean women have target ramus posterior cranial base, as compared with Korean men. Consequently, the total length of maxilla and mandible does not show any difference, because man's mandible is longer than maxilla in comparison with woman's one.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.113-127
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• 2016

Among the techniques for recommendation, collaborative filtering (CF) is commonly recognized to be the most effective for implementing recommender systems. Until now, CF has been popularly studied and adopted in both academic and real-world applications. The basic idea of CF is to create recommendation results by finding correlations between users of a recommendation system. CF system compares users based on how similar they are, and recommend products to users by using other like-minded people's results of evaluation for each product. Thus, it is very important to compute evaluation similarities among users in CF because the recommendation quality depends on it. Typical CF uses user's explicit numeric ratings of items (i.e. quantitative information) when computing the similarities among users in CF. In other words, user's numeric ratings have been a sole source of user preference information in traditional CF. However, user ratings are unable to fully reflect user's actual preferences from time to time. According to several studies, users may more actively accommodate recommendation of reliable others when purchasing goods. Thus, trust relationship can be regarded as the informative source for identifying user's preference with accuracy. Under this background, we propose a new hybrid recommender system that fuses CF and social network analysis (SNA). The proposed system adopts the recommendation algorithm that additionally reflect the result analyzed by SNA. In detail, our proposed system is based on conventional memory-based CF, but it is designed to use both user's numeric ratings and trust relationship information between users when calculating user similarities. For this, our system creates and uses not only user-item rating matrix, but also user-to-user trust network. As the methods for calculating user similarity between users, we proposed two alternatives - one is algorithm calculating the degree of similarity between users by utilizing in-degree and out-degree centrality, which are the indices representing the central location in the social network. We named these approaches as 'Trust CF - All' and 'Trust CF - Conditional'. The other alternative is the algorithm reflecting a neighbor's score higher when a target user trusts the neighbor directly or indirectly. The direct or indirect trust relationship can be identified by searching trust network of users. In this study, we call this approach 'Trust CF - Search'. To validate the applicability of the proposed system, we used experimental data provided by LibRec that crawled from the entire FilmTrust website. It consists of ratings of movies and trust relationship network indicating who to trust between users. The experimental system was implemented using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and UCINET 6. To examine the effectiveness of the proposed system, we compared the performance of our proposed method with one of conventional CF system. The performances of recommender system were evaluated by using average MAE (mean absolute error). The analysis results confirmed that in case of applying without conditions the in-degree centrality index of trusted network of users(i.e. Trust CF - All), the accuracy (MAE = 0.565134) was lower than conventional CF (MAE = 0.564966). And, in case of applying the in-degree centrality index only to the users with the out-degree centrality above a certain threshold value(i.e. Trust CF - Conditional), the proposed system improved the accuracy a little (MAE = 0.564909) compared to traditional CF. However, the algorithm searching based on the trusted network of users (i.e. Trust CF - Search) was found to show the best performance (MAE = 0.564846). And the result from paired samples t-test presented that Trust CF - Search outperformed conventional CF with 10% statistical significance level. Our study sheds a light on the application of user's trust relationship network information for facilitating electronic commerce by recommending proper items to users.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.479-495
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• 2018

This study was carried out to research the multimedia fate modeling, concentration distribution and impact assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) emitted from automobiles, which are known as carcinogenic and mutation chemicals. The amount of emissions of PAHs was determined based on the census data of automobiles at a target S-city and emission factors of PAHs, where multimedia fugacity modeling was conducted by the restriction of PAHs transfer between air-soil at the impervious area. PAHs' Concentrations and their distributions at several environmental media were predicted by multimedia fugacity model (level III). The residual amounts and the distributions of PAHs through mass transfer of PAHs between environment media were used to assess the health risk of PAHs at unsteady state (level IV), where the sensitivity analyses of the model parameter of each variable were conducted based on Monte Carlo simulation. The experimental result at S-city showed that Fluoranthene among PAHs substances are the highest residual concentrations (60%, 53%, 32% and 34%) at all mediums (atmospheric, water, soil, sediment), respectively, where most of the PAHs were highly accumulated in the sediment media (more than 80%). A result of PAHs concentration changes in S-city over the past 34 years identified that PAHs emissions from all environmental media increased from 1983 to 2005 and decreased until 2016, where the emission of heavy-duty vehicle including truck revealed the largest contribution to the automotive emissions of PAHs at all environment media. The PAHs concentrations in soil and water for the last 34 years showed the less value than the legal standards of PAHs, but the PAHs in air exceeded the air quality standards from 1996 to 2016. The result of this study is expected to contribute the effective management and monitoring of toxic chemicals of PAHs at various environment media of Metropolitan city.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.305-313
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• 2015

After Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, study and maintenance of monitoring systems have been made at home and abroad. As concerns about radioactive contamination of water have increased in Korea, update of maintenance of managing radioactive materials in water is being made mainly by Ministry of Environment. In this study, we analysed current state of monitoring system modification in Japan, the country directly involved and neighboring country. According to the result, Japan modified the legislations first. Then Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) provides theoretical background of radiological monitoring. And Ministry of the Environment actually watches state of water pollution in public waters and underground water. Finally related agencies like local government are monitoring current state of radioactive contamination in water environment. By region, local monitoring stations share the investigation of the whole country. Also, additional monitoring is running around nuclear facilities. After Fukushima disaster, monitoring for area near Fukushima is added. Among the reference levels, management target value of drinking water and tap water is 10 Bq/kg, and those of public water and underground water are 1 Bq/L. Measuring intervals varied from every hour to once a year, regularly or irregularly depending on the investigation. The main measuring items are air dose rate, gross ${\alpha}$, gross ${\beta}$, ${\gamma}$ radionuclide, Cs-134, Cs-137, Sr-89, Sr-90, I-131, and so on. In comparison, regulations about general public water in Korea need to be modified, while those about area near nuclear facility and drinking water are organized well. In future, therefore, domestic system would be expected to be modified with making reference to the guidelines like WHO's one. As good case of applying international guideline to domestic environment, Japanese system could be a reference when general standard of radioactivity in public water is made in Korea.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.47-58
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• 2009

The marketing environment has become competitive to an extent that requires firms to target their products at markets that span national boundaries. However, competitive clout cannot be achieved in global consumer markets unless firms thoroughly understand and adequately respond to the core values and needs of those consumers. Brand equity is one of the most important assets to a company. Especially in sportswear markets, brand equity is the crucial value added to a product by its brand name. Factors such as country of origin also influence customer's attitude towards brand equity. Therefore, this paper discusses the relationship between country of origin effect and brand equity, and how they influence consumers' loyalty for respective brands. This paper focused on the sports shoes market, because it is an increasing area of opportunity for world manufacturers. The objectives of this study were the following. (1) Test the effect of country of origin on brand equity. (2) Test how brand equity influences consumers' brand loyalty. (3) Find whether there are differences in the effects of country of origin and brand equity among the three countries. (4) Find whether there are differences in the effects of country of origin and brand equity among the different lifestyles. Based on the review of literature results, the hypotheses are concluded as the following: H1-a: Country image has positive influence on country of origin. H1-b: Product perception has positive influence on country of origin. H2-a: Perceived quality has positive effect on brand equity. H2-b: Perceived price has positive effect on brand equity. H3: Country of origin has positive effect on brand equity. H4: Brand equity has a positive impact on brand loyalty. Research model was constructed (see Fig. 1). After data analysis, the following results were concluded: sports shoes purchase behavior showed significant differences among Korean, Chinese, and American consumers for favorite brand, purchased brand, purchased place, information usage, and favorite sports games. The results of this study also extend the research of the relationship among country of origin, brand equity and brand loyalty to the sports shoes market. Brand equity was proven to have a significant relationship with brand loyalty for all countries. The factors which can influence brand equity are different for different countries. The third finding of this paper is that we identified different three lifestyles, adventurer, follower, and laggard, for Korean, Chinese and American consumers. Without the nationality boundary, seeing the emergence of a new group of consumers who have similar preferences and buy similar brands is more important. All of the consumers consider brand equity to keep their brand loyalty. Perceived price is the only factor which can influence brand equity for adventurers; brand is more important for them. The laggards were not influenced by any factor. All of the factors expect perceived price are important for the followers. Marketing managers should consider brand equity when introducing their brand into a new market. Also localization is the basic strategy that all the sports shoes companies should understand. But as a global brand, understanding the same characteristics for each country is more important to build global strategy.