In this paper we study the access network design problem in Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems (UMTS) networks. Given the location of radio base stations (node-Bs), their traffic demands, and the candidate facility centers for locating radio network controllers (RNCs), the problem is to determine the configuration of access network, including the number and location of facility centers, the number of RNCs in each facility center, and the links between RNCs and node-Bs, with the objective being to design such a network at the minimum cost. We provide a mathematical formulation of the problem with constraints on RNC and node-B capacities, along with a lower bounding method. We develop a heuristic algorithm with two different initial solution methods designed to strengthen the solution quality. The computational efficacy of their procedures is then demonstrated on a number of test problems.

We consider a reverse logistics network design problem for recycling. The problem consists of three stages of transportation. In the first stage products are transported from retrieval centers to disassembly centers. In the second stage disassembled modules are transported from disassembly centers to processing centers. Finally, in the third stage modules are transported from either processing centers or a supplier to a manufacturer, a recycling site, or a disposal site. The objective is to design a network which minimizes the total transportation cost. We design a cooperative coevolutionary algorithm to solve the problem. First, the problem is decomposed into three subproblems each of which corresponds to a stage of transportation. For subproblems 1 and 2, a population of chromosomes is constructed. Each chromosome in the population is coded as a permutation of integers and an algorithm which decodes a chromosome is suggested. For subproblem 3, an heuristic algorithm is utilized. Then, a performance evaluation procedure is suggested which combines the chromosomes from each of two populations and the heuristic algorithm for subproblem 3. An experiment was carried out using test problems. The experiments showed that the cooperative coevolutionary algorithm generally tends to show better performances than the previous genetic algorithm as the problem size gets larger.

A lot of researches find negative volatility risk premium in options market. We can make a trading profit by exploiting the negative volatility premium. This study proposes negative volatility risk premium hypotheses in the KOSPI 200 stock price index options market and empirically test the proposed hypotheses with intra-day short straddle strategy. This strategy sells both at-the-money call option and at-the-money put option at market open and exits the position at market close. Using MySQL 5.1, we create our database with 1 minute option price data of the KOSPI 200 index options from 2004 to 2009. Empirical results show that negative volatility risk premium exists in the KOSPI 200 stock price index options market. Furthermore, intra-day short straddle strategy consistently produces annual profits except one year.

Influences of convergent services on the overall industry has become noticeable. Various services are becoming to converge into a single platform because of ever-hanging needs of digital service users. However, few studies have investigated how users' perception of convergent services as well as the quality of experience that service users have while using the convergent services. Therefore, this study aims at identifying perceived patterns of convergent services by IPTV users, which is one of the representative convergent-ervice platforms. It also aims at identifying the impact of perceived convergence pattern on the relationship between goal congruency among individual services and the quality of user experience. Two empirical studies were conducted to accomplish the research goals. We have constructed two prototypes of convergent digital services in the IPTV environment and conducted controlled experiments to verify the research hypotheses. The results indicate that design similarities of two services substantially influence the perceived patterns of convergent services. It was also found that the perceived convergent patterns have significant moderating effects on the impact of perceived goal congruence upon the quality of user experience. This paper ends with limitations as well as implications of the study results.

The purpose of this research is to identify the factors of self-determination theory (e.g., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) affecting flow, satisfaction, and loyalty. This research uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to confirm the validity and analyzes the causal relationship of the suggested model. The results indicate that competence and relatedness positively influence flow and that autonomy positively influences satisfaction. First, autonomy is significantly shown to influences satisfaction and does not significantly influence flow. Second, that competence significantly influenced flow and indirectly influenced satisfaction. Third, relatedness significantly influenced flow and indirectly influenced satisfaction. Finally, flow influenced satisfaction, and flow and satisfaction directly and indirectly influenced loyalty.

In this paper, we drew upon IMP group's Interaction model to investigate the contributing impact of Inter-organizational system (IOS) on performance through enhancing inter-organizational relationship. While most extant literature studied the contribution of IOS from transaction efficiency perspective, the relational aspect of IOS contribution on the supply chain was addressed only by a few researches. As such, we intended to fill this gap of the IOS research stream. The conceptual model was developed, with reference to process theory, to analyze how the relational perspective could be applicable to IOS impact on performance. With the 129 sample data collected at the firm level,structural equation model using the LISREL was employed to validate the proposed research model. The empirical results supported the hypotheses such as the extent of IOS usage positively influences the interaction between the firms, which thereby enhances the extent of inter-firm partnership and performance. The results help better understanding the strategic use of IOS from relationship perspective.

We classified quality management practices of manufacturing companies into 'Infra' factor and 'Process' factor which were introduced based on existing literatures and previous studies related to quality management. It was our first objective to confirm its conformance in Korean manufacturing industry, and to examine the two factors effect positively on production performance. Moreover, we tried to examine whether JIT and workforce management have an moderate effect on 'Infra and Process factors-performance' relationship, using moderate regression. As the result of empirical study on nationwide manufacturing companies, we had the results that the classification between Infra factor and Process factor in quality management practices was valid in Korean manufacturing companies, and that the two factors gave performances positive effect. Moreover, our secondary analysis showed that JIT had an positive moderate effect on the Infra factor while workforce management on the Process factor. With these results, we have an interpretation that manufacturing companies which aim to enhance short term performances have to concentrate their effort and investment on Process factor and, on the other hand, ones which aims to improve long term performances on Infra factor.

The purpose of this study is to segment the mobile phone users based on the flow types and to understand the differences in mobile phone usage behavior between the segmented groups. The 'flow' construct, which was introduced first in marketing by Hoffman and Novak[44], has been used as an important keyword for understanding consumer behavior on the World Wide Web. In this paper, we will try to use the flow aspect for the mobile market segmentation, which is one of the most fundamental tools for developing a successful marketing strategy on the mobile phone service market. We collected survey data from consumers and analyzed the data with the SPSS 12.0 package where we did ${\chi}^2$-test, factor analysis, one-way ANOVA and cluster analysis. Main results of this study are as follow. First, the flow types of the mobile phone users were classified into five types, which are named as the 'Flow' type, 'Apathy' type, 'Anxiety' type, 'Boredom' type, 'Control' type. Second, most of the results related to the usage of mobile phone service showed statistically significant differences between flow types. These findings suggest that the mobile phone service marketers should consider the various flow types of users and work out effective market segmentation strategies based on these consumer flow types.

Real-time supply chain environments based on RFID will be an important topic in future society; Nevertheless, adopting RFID in real industry SCM is still in its infancy. The aim of this paper is to develop the physical framework of a fully adopting RFID system from manufacturing to recycle phase and measure the effect. So, we built a simulation station with fully appling RFID and analyzed benefits with mathematic model. Then, specifying the advantages and improvement scheme for real industry limitations were suggested. This work concluded that fully appling RFID in SCM gives improvement of quality and service to both production and consumer.

This paper focuses on frequent flyer programs (FFPs), which have long been used by most airlines as a powerful marketing tool. Since the preference for FFPs reward services and the customer perceived values of mileage points differ among FFPs members, airlines should design a customer-oriented reward service based on customer preference to motivate the use of mileage points. The intention for using mileage points is affected by various kinds of attributes such as reword items, consuming mileage points for rewards and time of usage. In this paper, we focus on evaluating customer perceived values of attributes of FFPs reward services. A conjoint analysis model is applied to get the preference value of each attribute. Some empirical experiments are conducted in relation to Korean customers. From the empirical survey, the preference values of attributes are evaluated for different scenarios with respect to the number of mileage points. With the preference values of attributes, we can find several implications for airlines regarding the development of various FFPs strategies.

This paper empirically investigates the impact of winning a service quality award on the market value in Korea. We estimates the mean "abnormal" change in the stock prices of sample firms when information of winning a service quality award was publicly announced. To access the validity of the research question, this paper employed collected 47 firms data that received the Korean Service Quality Awards so far. Event study methodology was used to analyze the effect of Korean service quality awards. The findings are as follows; The average abnormal returns on the event date are not significant at the 0.05 level which means that the receiving Korean Service Quality Awards has no influence on the firms' market value. On the other hand successive awarded firms have an increasing effect on the market value and it is significant at the 0.05 level. Furthermore, the results show that the factors of firm size such as firm's total assets are critical to vary the firms' abnormal returns. There might be some limitations in this study. The most obvious problem is the limitation of sample size. Although 518 sample cases were found during the period from 2000 to 2008, most of the cases were deleted according to the sample criteria. We are expecting the future research with more data and more precise results. Furthermore, our research consider the only two service award institutions even though there are several different service award authorities in Korea. It is needed to expand the research scope and range to adopt the various service award institutions for the future work.

This research applies Blattberg's CE (customer equity) model to B2B business context. Through the model we estimate customer lifetime value of a Korean semiconductor manufacturer. The results show that Blattberg model has limiting applicability to B2B business context. To overcome the limits, several suggestions were made. The main suggestion was predicting maintenance costs for different customers groups and including decision variables regarding marketing costs that would help building a differentiated CE model for the B2B business context.