• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2010.09a
• /
• pp.825-839
• /
• 2010

The global and domestic market for offshore wind farm is expected to grow fast, and the design and installation of substructure and foundation is getting more important. As for the offshore wind farms located in the shallow(depth < 20m) water, the construction and installation of the substructure and foundation makes up about 1/4 ~1/3 of the offshore wind farm construction cost, and the portion is expected to increase because the turbine capacity is increasing from 2 ~ 3MW to 5MW or larger and the water depth of wind farms is also increasing over 30m. As a foundation for offshore wind turbine, the suction caisson foundation is being considered to be a highly competitive alternative to the conventional monopile or gravity based structure, because it has features suitable for the offshore construction such as quick installation, no heavy equipment for penetration and no hammering noise for driving. In order to study the installation behaviour of the suction caisson, laboratory tests were performed with sand. The pore water pressure and displacement were measured to analyze the suction pressure during penetration, the penetration speed and the amount of heaving.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.87-97
• /
• 2020

Purpose: The aim of this study is to understand the internal and external responses that consumers experience when they are exposed to an innovative system in retail stores. This study considered the SST(Self-Service Technology) system in a retail setting as a type of functional environmental stimuli and selected a smart shopping cart as an example of SST system. The influences of functional environmental stimuli on consumers' emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses were examined by applying S-O-R model. In addition, this study attempted to extend the traditional S-O-R model by (a) incorporating personal characteristics variables such as time pressure and perceived crowding and (b) considering not only emotional but also cognitive aspects of consumers' internal responses. Research Design, Data, and Methodology: This study used a video-scenario technique. Participants watched a video about grocery shopping situations using a smart shopping cart and responded to their emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses. An online survey was conducted using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 185). All participants were US consumers over 20 years old and had been shopping at the grocery store in the last month. Data were analyzed through structural equations modeling with AMOS 20. Results: Test results showed that consumers who perceived higher levels of time pressure and perceived crowding in usual shopping situations were more likely to evaluate the SST system favorably. The results showed that personal characteristics have a significant impact on consumers' evaluation of functional environmental stimuli in retail setting. As consumers evaluated the SST system favorably, they experienced more positive affect and less negative affect during their shopping behaviors. Positive affect led to good service quality inference, which further increased patronize intention. However, negative affect did not show a significant impact on service quality inference, but only on patronize intention. Conclusions: This study attempted to investigate the influence of SST system by extending the traditional S-O-R model. This study classified the SST system as functional environmental stimulus of retail stores and analyzed the effect of stimulus on consumers' internal and external responses. The results of this study showed that the introduction of innovative SST can serve as an effective store differentiation strategy in an increasingly competitive retail environment.

• Proceedings of the Ginseng society Conference
• /
• 1993.09a
• /
• pp.40-48
• /
• 1993

Intravenous administration of saponin extracted from the root of Panax ginseng lowered the blood pressure dose-dependently (10-200 mg/kg, B.W) in anesthetized rats. Therefore, experiments were designed to study the hypothesis that the lowering of blood pressure is associated with the release of endothelium-derived relaxing factor and the accumulation of guanosine 3, 5-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP). Rings of thoracic aorta with and without endothelium were suspended for the measurement of isometric tension in organ chamber and the tissue content of cGMP was measured by radioimmunoassay. All experiments were performed in the presence of $indomethacin(10^{-5}M).$ Ginseng saponin $(10^{-5}-3{\times}10^{-6}g/ml)$ relaxed contractions induced by phenylephrine $10^{-6}M)$ in the aorta with endothelium but not in that without endothelium. Treatment of aortic rings with $N^G$ monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA, $10^{-4}M$ for 30 min), a competitive inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, and methylene blue $(MB,\;3{\times}10^{-7}M$ for 30 min). an inhibitor of soluble guanylate cyclase, diminished the relaxation induced by Ginseng saponin. Ginseng saponin $10^{-4}g/ml$ for 2 min) increased the accumulation of cGMP in rings with endothelium. L-NMMA and MB inhibited the accumulation of cGMP induced by Ginseng saponin. These data suggest that vascular relaxations induced by Ginseng saponin are mediated by release of endothelium-derived relaxing factor and the accumulation of cGMP. The effect of Ginseng saponin on endothelial function in hypercholesterolemic rabbits was examined. In hypercholesterolemic rabbits fed with $2\%$ cholesterol for 8 weeks, relaxation of aortic rings to acetylcholine was impaired. The impaired relaxations of aortic rings in hypercholesterolemic rabbits were improved by dietary supplementation of Ginseng saponin, probably because of an improved release of endothelium - derived relaxing factor.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.52 no.1
• /
• pp.106-112
• /
• 2014

Here, we demonstrated the optimum design of pillar microstructure for efficient microdroplet merging. The microfluidic device mainly consisted of programmable microvalves and pillar microstructures. Based on the system, aqueous droplets were continuously generated at T-junction using actuating of integrated programmable microvalaves under the immiscible continuous fluid (mineral oil containing 0.5 wt% Span 80). The principle of merging process depended on the competitive correlation of hydraulic pressure of continuous phase and Laplace pressure of the droplet. We found that the design of the micropillars controls above two pressures. Finally, it was demonstrated that the microfluidic system could be able to efficient biochemical reaction. We expect that the microfluidic system is useful analytical or reaction tools in fundamental science, biotechnology, and chemical engineering.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.7 no.10
• /
• pp.989-998
• /
• 2020

Electronic commerce is becoming a significant hub for sourcing products/services which helps organizations to connect with potential customers and gain competitive advantages, though little empirical work focuses on small businesses operating in developing countries to date. Increasingly, companies are looking to utilize social media to connect with stakeholders and pursue several benefits. This study aims to investigate the technological, organizational, and environmental (TOE) factors that influence small- and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) social media (SM) adoption in developing countries. This study used a closed-ended questionnaire to collect data from randomly-selected respondents (owners, executives, and managers) from SMEs in Pakistan. SMART PLS version 3.2.8 was used for path analysis of 316 responses and for structural equation modeling. The research findings include the direct influence of TOE factors (relative advantage, interactivity, visibility, top management support, and institutional pressure) on SMEs' SM adoption, and in turn SM adoption also has a positive influence on SMEs performance. Moreover, the coefficient of determination of the study showed that 77.7% of the variation in SM adoption occurs because of TOE factors and 29.8% variation in SMEs occurred because of SM adoption. This paper has implications for practitioners and scholars interested in exploring the SM adoption and usage by SMEs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.34 no.6
• /
• pp.473-480
• /
• 2020

High-pressure membrane system like nanofiltration(NF) and reverse osmosis(RO) was investigated as a part of water treatment processes to produce high quality potable water with low organic matter concentration through membrane module tests and design simulation. River water and sand filtration permeate in Busan D water treatment plant were selected as feed water, and NE4040-90 and RE4040-Fen(Toray Chemical Korea) were used as NF and RO membranes, respectively. Total organic carbon(TOC) concentrations of NF and RO permeates were mostly below 0.5 mg/l and the average TOC removal rates of NF and RO membranes were 93.99% and 94.28%, respectively, which means NF used in this study is competitive with RO in terms of organic matter removal ability. Different from ions rejection tendency, the TOC removal rate increases at higher recovery rates, which is because the portion of higher molecular weight materials in the concentrated raw water with increasing recovery rate increases. Discharge of NF/RO concentrates to rivers may not be acceptable because the increased TDS concentration of the concentrates can harm the river eco-system. Thus, the idea of using NF/RO concentrate as the raw water for industrial water production was introduced. The design simulation results with feed water and membranes used in this work reveal that the raw water guideline can be satisfied if the recovery rate of NF/RO system is designed below 80%.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
• /
• v.52 no.1
• /
• pp.149-172
• /
• 2024

Purpose: By empirically analyzing factors that affect the intention to introduce RPA, we aim to increase understanding of RPA introduction in small and medium-sized businesses and contribute to establishing an effective introduction strategy. The aim is to improve the company's productivity, reduce costs, and strengthen its competitiveness. It also provides policy recommendations for the introduction of RPA. Methods: A survey was conducted to examine whether the technical, organizational, and environmental factors of the TOE framework had an impact on the intention to adopt RPA. We also used stepwise regression analysis to determine whether firm size moderates this relationship. Results: Technical factors, organizational factors, and environmental factors were all found to have a significant impact on small and medium-sized enterprises' intention to adopt RPA. It was confirmed that company size has a moderating effect affecting the intention to adopt RPA. In particular, customer pressure, relative advantage, competitive pressure, age, government support, and the perceived ease of use of RPA was a key determinant of its adoption by small and medium-sized enterprises. Conclusion: This suggests that small and medium-sized businesses should comprehensively consider technical, organizational, and environmental factors when introducing RPA. It is expected to increase understanding of RPA introduction in small and medium-sized businesses, contribute to establishing effective introduction strategies, and contribute to improving company productivity, reducing costs, and strengthening competitiveness.

• Membrane Journal
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.257-266
• /
• 2013

The main purpose of this study is to develop a commercial scale of pervaporative process equipped with hollow fiber membrane modules, being able to effectually purify organic solvent at high temperature well over its boiling point under high vapor pressure. Three constituent technologies have been developed; 1) to fabricate braid-reinforced hollow fiber membrane stable in high pressure and high temperature application, 2) to design and fabricate a commercial scale of hollow fiber membrane module, and 3) to design and fabricate a pilot scale of pervaporation equipment system. The developed hollow fiber membrane possesses a membrane performance superior to the membrane of Sulzer (Germany) which is the most-well known for pervaporation process, and the membrane module equips hollow fiber membranes of $4.6m^2$ and the pervaporation system can treat organic liquid at 200 L/h, which is based on the dehydration of 95 wt% isopropyl alcohol (IPA). Since the membrane module is designed to flow in and pass through the inside of individual hollow fiber membrane, not to involve both the formation of feed's dead volume observed in flat-sheet membrane module and the channeling of feed occurring inside hollow fiber bundle which lower membrane performance seriously, it showed excellent separation efficiency. In particular, the module is inexpensive and has less heat loss into its surrounding, in compared with flat-sheet membrane module. In addition, permeant can be removed effectively from the outer surface of hollow fiber membrane because the applied vacuum is conveyed uniformly through space between fibers into respective fiber, even into one in the middle of the hollow fiber bundle in which the space between fibers is uniform in distance. Since the hollow fiber membrane pervaporation system is the first one ever developed in the world, our own unique proprietary technology can be secured, preoccupying technical superiority in export competitive challenges.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.7 no.12
• /
• pp.749-759
• /
• 2020

Over the years, numerous Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have been vigorously established across many countries. Even though the Internet of Things (IoT) has enabled companies to anchorage business returns, most Indonesian MSMEs are highly susceptible to failure and one of the main issues is the inability to manage their financials effectively. The literature on accounting points out that the success of MSMEs owing to the usage of cloud-based Accounting Information Systems (AIS) or Cloud Accounting (CA) could reduce the rate of failure by managing multiple accounting information at a low cost. Although many benefits exist, Indonesian MSMEs are not adopting these platforms in their daily business activities. This study investigates the factors that influence Indonesian MSMEs' intention to adopt CA. The study is directed by unstructured in-depth interviews with seven bestseller MSMEs where a thematic analysis technique was employed to identify them. The interview findings and prevailing literature on the influencing factors based on the TOE (technological, organizational, and environmental) framework to adopt CA in Indonesian MSMEs context are perceived benefits outweighing the cost, perceived compatibility, perceived complexity, owner-manager knowledge on accounting, organization size, competitive pressure, and informal network. The conceptual model further includes government intervention as a moderator in the model.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.7 no.6
• /
• pp.495-508
• /
• 2020

Economic integration is an indispensable trend in all countries. However, besides the advantages that economic integration brings, there are also disadvantages, such as competition between businesses among states in export activities. Vietnam is a developing country with many advantages, especially, the seafood exporting industry. However, with competitive pressure as well as strategic constraints, Vietnamese seafood exporters still face many difficulties. Therefore, the case study of the Kien Giang province of Vietnam is used to analyze the factors affecting the competitiveness of seafood exporting enterprises. The study applied quantitative research methods with a survey of 350 seafood exporting enterprises in Kien Giang province to achieve the research objectives. The research results identified eleven key factors affecting the competitiveness of seafood exporting enterprises, including (1) vision and strategy of leader; (2) human resources management capability; (3) organization capability; (4) customer-responsive marketing capability; (5) relationship management capability; (6) technical capability; (7) competitors reaction capability; (8) business environment adoption capability; (9) financial capability; (10) products and services innovation capability; and (11) branding management. The research results provided the basis to propose some managerial implications to improve the competitiveness of exporting enterprises in the context of the global economic integration.