• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2010

Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.155-175
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• 2017

As social data become into the spotlight, mainstream web search engines provide data indicate how many people searched specific keyword: Web Search Traffic data. Web search traffic information is collection of each crowd that search for specific keyword. In a various area, web search traffic can be used as one of useful variables that represent the attention of common users on specific interests. A lot of studies uses web search traffic data to nowcast or forecast social phenomenon such as epidemic prediction, consumer pattern analysis, product life cycle, financial invest modeling and so on. Also web search traffic data have begun to be applied to predict tourist inbound. Proper demand prediction is needed because tourism is high value-added industry as increasing employment and foreign exchange. Among those tourists, especially Chinese tourists: Youke is continuously growing nowadays, Youke has been largest tourist inbound of Korea tourism for many years and tourism profits per one Youke as well. It is important that research into proper demand prediction approaches of Youke in both public and private sector. Accurate tourism demands prediction is important to efficient decision making in a limited resource. This study suggests improved model that reflects latest issue of society by presented the attention from group of individual. Trip abroad is generally high-involvement activity so that potential tourists likely deep into searching for information about their own trip. Web search traffic data presents tourists' attention in the process of preparation their journey instantaneous and dynamic way. So that this study attempted select key words that potential Chinese tourists likely searched out internet. Baidu-Chinese biggest web search engine that share over 80%- provides users with accessing to web search traffic data. Qualitative interview with potential tourists helps us to understand the information search behavior before a trip and identify the keywords for this study. Selected key words of web search traffic are categorized by how much directly related to "Korean Tourism" in a three levels. Classifying categories helps to find out which keyword can explain Youke inbound demands from close one to far one as distance of category. Web search traffic data of each key words gathered by web crawler developed to crawling web search data onto Baidu Index. Using automatically gathered variable data, linear model is designed by multiple regression analysis for suitable for operational application of decision and policy making because of easiness to explanation about variables' effective relationship. After regression linear models have composed, comparing with model composed traditional variables and model additional input web search traffic data variables to traditional model has conducted by significance and R squared. after comparing performance of models, final model is composed. Final regression model has improved explanation and advantage of real-time immediacy and convenience than traditional model. Furthermore, this study demonstrates system intuitively visualized to general use -Youke Mining solution has several functions of tourist decision making including embed final regression model. Youke Mining solution has algorithm based on data science and well-designed simple interface. In the end this research suggests three significant meanings on theoretical, practical and political aspects. Theoretically, Youke Mining system and the model in this research are the first step on the Youke inbound prediction using interactive and instant variable: web search traffic information represents tourists' attention while prepare their trip. Baidu web search traffic data has more than 80% of web search engine market. Practically, Baidu data could represent attention of the potential tourists who prepare their own tour as real-time. Finally, in political way, designed Chinese tourist demands prediction model based on web search traffic can be used to tourism decision making for efficient managing of resource and optimizing opportunity for successful policy.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.83-98
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• 2012

In a market where new and used cars are competing with each other, we would run the risk of obtaining biased estimates of cross elasticity between them if we focus on only new cars or on only used cars. Unfortunately, most of previous studies on the automobile industry have focused on only new car models without taking into account the effect of used cars' pricing policy on new cars' market shares and vice versa, resulting in inadequate prediction of reactive pricing in response to competitors' rebate or price discount. However, there are some exceptions. Purohit (1992) and Sullivan (1990) looked into both new and used car markets at the same time to examine the effect of new car model launching on the used car prices. But their studies have some limitations in that they employed the average used car prices reported in NADA Used Car Guide instead of actual transaction prices. Some of the conflicting results may be due to this problem in the data. Park (1998) recognized this problem and used the actual prices in his study. His work is notable in that he investigated the qualitative effect of new car model launching on the pricing policy of the used car in terms of reinforcement of brand equity. The current work also used the actual price like Park (1998) but the quantitative aspect of competitive price promotion between new and used cars of the same model was explored. In this study, I develop a model that assumes that the cross elasticity between new and used cars of the same model is higher than those amongst new cars and used cars of the different model. Specifically, I apply the nested logit model that assumes the car model choice at the first stage and the choice between new and used cars at the second stage. This proposed model is compared to the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model that assumes that there is no decision hierarchy but that new and used cars of the different model are all substitutable at the first stage. The data for this study are drawn from Power Information Network (PIN), an affiliate of J.D. Power and Associates. PIN collects sales transaction data from a sample of dealerships in the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. These are retail transactions, i.e., sales or leases to final consumers, excluding fleet sales and including both new car and used car sales. Each observation in the PIN database contains the transaction date, the manufacturer, model year, make, model, trim and other car information, the transaction price, consumer rebates, the interest rate, term, amount financed (when the vehicle is financed or leased), etc. I used data for the compact cars sold during the period January 2009- June 2009. The new and used cars of the top nine selling models are included in the study: Mazda 3, Honda Civic, Chevrolet Cobalt, Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Elantra, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Jetta, Nissan Sentra, and Kia Spectra. These models in the study accounted for 87% of category unit sales. Empirical application of the nested logit model showed that the proposed model outperformed the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model in both calibration and holdout samples. The other comparison model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and car model choice at the second stage turned out to be mis-specfied since the dissimilarity parameter (i.e., inclusive or categroy value parameter) was estimated to be greater than 1. Post hoc analysis based on estimated parameters was conducted employing the modified Lanczo's iterative method. This method is intuitively appealing. For example, suppose a new car offers a certain amount of rebate and gains market share at first. In response to this rebate, a used car of the same model keeps decreasing price until it regains the lost market share to maintain the status quo. The new car settle down to a lowered market share due to the used car's reaction. The method enables us to find the amount of price discount to main the status quo and equilibrium market shares of the new and used cars. In the first simulation, I used Jetta as a focal brand to see how its new and used cars set prices, rebates or APR interactively assuming that reactive cars respond to price promotion to maintain the status quo. The simulation results showed that the IIA model underestimates cross elasticities, resulting in suggesting less aggressive used car price discount in response to new cars' rebate than the proposed nested logit model. In the second simulation, I used Elantra to reconfirm the result for Jetta and came to the same conclusion. In the third simulation, I had Corolla offer $1,000 rebate to see what could be the best response for Elantra's new and used cars. Interestingly, Elantra's used car could maintain the status quo by offering lower price discount ($160) than the new car ($205). In the future research, we might want to explore the plausibility of the alternative nested logit model. For example, the NUB model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and brand choice at the second stage could be a possibility even though it was rejected in the current study because of mis-specification (A dissimilarity parameter turned out to be higher than 1). The NUB model may have been rejected due to true mis-specification or data structure transmitted from a typical car dealership. In a typical car dealership, both new and used cars of the same model are displayed. Because of this fact, the BNU model that assumes brand choice at the first stage and choice between new and used cars at the second stage may have been favored in the current study since customers first choose a dealership (brand) then choose between new and used cars given this market environment. However, suppose there are dealerships that carry both new and used cars of various models, then the NUB model might fit the data as well as the BNU model. Which model is a better description of the data is an empirical question. In addition, it would be interesting to test a probabilistic mixture model of the BNU and NUB on a new data set.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.210-233
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• 1993

The herbicide has become indispensable as much as nitrogen fertilizer in Korean agriculture from 1970 onwards. It is estimated that in 1991 more than 40 herbicides were registered for rice crop and treated to an area 1.41 times the rice acreage ; more than 30 herbicides were registered for field crops and treated to 89% of the crop area ; the treatment acreage of 3 non-selective foliar-applied herbicides reached 2,555 thousand hectares. During the last 25 years herbicides have benefited the Korean farmers substantially in labor, cost and time of farming. Any herbicide which causes crop injury in ordinary uses is not allowed to register in most country. Herbicides, however, can cause crop injury more or less when they are misused, abused or used under adverse environments. The herbicide use more than 100% of crop acreage means an increased probability of which herbicides are used wrong or under adverse situation. This is true as evidenced by that about 25% of farmers have experienced the herbicide caused crop injury more than once during last 10 years on authors' nationwide surveys in 1992 and 1993 ; one-half of the injury incidences were with crop yield loss greater than 10%. Crop injury caused by herbicide had not occurred to a serious extent in the 1960s when the herbicides fewer than 5 were used by farmers to the field less than 12% of total acreage. Farmers ascribed about 53% of the herbicidal injury incidences at their fields to their misuses such as overdose, careless or improper application, off-time application or wrong choice of the herbicide, etc. While 47% of the incidences were mainly due to adverse natural conditions. Such misuses can be reduced to a minimum through enhanced education/extension services for right uses and, although undesirable, increased farmers' experiences of phytotoxicity. The most difficult primary problem arises from lack of countermeasures for farmers to cope with various adverse environmental conditions. At present almost all the herbicides have"Do not use!" instructions on label to avoid crop injury under adverse environments. These "Do not use!" situations Include sandy, highly percolating, or infertile soils, cool water gushing paddy, poorly draining paddy, terraced paddy, too wet or dry soils, days of abnormally cool or high air temperature, etc. Meanwhile, the cultivated lands are under poor conditions : the average organic matter content ranges 2.5 to 2.8% in paddy soil and 2.0 to 2.6% in upland soil ; the canon exchange capacity ranges 8 to 12 m.e. ; approximately 43% of paddy and 56% of upland are of sandy to sandy gravel soil ; only 42% of paddy and 16% of upland fields are on flat land. The present situation would mean that about 40 to 50% of soil applied herbicides are used on the field where the label instructs "Do not use!". Yet no positive effort has been made for 25 years long by government or companies to develop countermeasures. It is a really sophisticated social problem. In the 1960s and 1970s a subside program to incoporate hillside red clayish soil into sandy paddy as well as campaign for increased application of compost to the field had been operating. Yet majority of the sandy soils remains sandy and the program and campaign had been stopped. With regard to this sandy soil problem the authors have developed a method of "split application of a herbicide onto sandy soil field". A model case study has been carried out with success and is introduced with key procedure in this paper. Climate is variable in its nature. Among the climatic components sudden fall or rise in temperature is hardly avoidable for a crop plant. Our spring air temperature fluctuates so much ; for example, the daily mean air temperature of Inchon city varied from 6.31 to $16.81^{\circ}C$ on April 20, early seeding time of crops, within${\times}$2Sd range of 30 year records. Seeding early in season means an increased liability to phytotoxicity, and this will be more evident in direct water-seeding of rice. About 20% of farmers depend on the cold underground-water pumped for rice irrigation. If the well is deep over 70m, the fresh water may be about $10^{\circ}C$ cold. The water should be warmed to about $20^{\circ}C$ before irrigation. This is not so practiced well by farmers. In addition to the forementioned adverse conditions there exist many other aspects to be amended. Among them the worst for liquid spray type herbicides is almost total lacking in proper knowledge of nozzle types and concern with even spray by the administrative, rural extension officers, company and farmers. Even not available in the market are the nozzles and sprayers appropriate for herbicides spray. Most people perceive all the pesticide sprayers same and concern much with the speed and easiness of spray, not with correct spray. There exist many points to be improved to minimize herbicidal phytotoxicity in Korea and many ways to achieve the goal. First of all it is suggested that 1) the present evaluation of a new herbicide at standard and double doses in registration trials is to be an evaluation for standard, double and triple doses to exploit the response slope in making decision for approval and recommendation of different dose for different situation on label, 2) the government is to recognize the facts and nature of the present problem to correct the present misperceptions and to develop an appropriate national program for improvement of soil conditions, spray equipment, extention manpower and services, 3) the researchers are to enhance researches on the countermeasures and 4) the herbicide makers/dealers are to correct their misperceptions and policy for sales, to develop database on the detailed use conditions of consumer one by one and to serve the consumers with direct counsel based on the database.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.31-46
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• 1977

The study was made to give some helpful information for policy-making on ornamental tree cultivation by doing a survey on general situations, management analysis, and future prospects of the ornamental tree growing. The study was carried out through literature studies related to the subject, questionaire surveys, and on-the-spot investigation. The questionaire surveys could be divided into two parts: pre-questionaire survey and main-questionaire survey. In the pre-questionaire survey, the researchers intended to identify the total number of ornamental tree growers, cultivation areas in size and their locations. The questionaires were sent to each town and county administration authorities, forest cooperatives, and related organizations through-out the nation. The main-questionaires were prepared for detailed study and the questionaires were sent to 200 tree growers selected by option by taking considerations of the number of tree growers and the size of cultivating areas in regions. The main findings and some information obtained in the survey were as follows: 1. The total land for ornamental tree growing was amounted to 1,873.02 hectares and the number of cultivators was totaled to 2,717. 2. The main occupations of the ornamental tree growers were found in horticulture (41.9%), agronomy (25.9%), officialdom (11.3%), animal husbandry (6.5%), business circle(4.8%), and forestry (3.2%) in sequence. 3. The ornamental trees were cultivated mostly upperland (54.8), forest land (19.4%), rice paddy (11.3%) and others. 4. The educational training of the tree growers seemed quite high. The results of the survey indicated that a large number of tree growers was occupied by college graduates (38.7%), and then high school graduates (34.7%), middle school graduates (12.9%) in order. 5. The tree farming was undertaken as a side-job (41.9%) rather than main-job (23.4%), but a few of respondents rated as subsidiary-job (18.6%). 6. The management status classified by the rate of hired labors used was likely to belong to three categories: independant enterprise management (41.9%); half independant management (31.5%); and self-management (32.4%). 7. The majority of the tree growers sold their products to the consumers through middle-man channel (48.4%), or directly to the house-holder and detailers (13.7%), but a few of the respondents answered that they disposed of their products by bidding (11.2%) or by direct selling to the contractors (4.8%). 8. The channel cf marketing seemed somewhat complicated. The results of the survey were as: (1) producers ${\rightarrow}$consumers (22.6%) (2) producers ${\rightarrow}$field middle-men${\rightarrow}$consumers (33.1%) (3) producers ${\rightarrow}$field middle-men${\rightarrow}$first stage brokers${\rightarrow}$consumers (15.3%) (4) producers ${\rightarrow}$field middle-men${\rightarrow}$second stage middle-men${\rightarrow}$brokers${\rightarrow}$consumers (5.7%) (5) producers${\rightarrow}$field middle-men${\rightarrow}$third stage middle-men${\rightarrow}$second stage middlemen${\rightarrow}$brokers${\rightarrow}$consumers (4.8%) 9. It was responded that the margin for each stage of middle-men or brokers was assumed to be 30-50%(33.1%), 20-30%(32.3%), 50-100%(9.7%), and 100-200%(2.4%) in sequence. 10. The difference between the delivery price of consumers and field selling price of the producers seemed quite large. Majority of producers responded that they received half a price compared to the consumer's prices. 11. About two thirds of the respondents opposed to the measure of "Law on Preservation and Utilization of Agricultural Land" in which says that all the ornamental trees grown on flat agricultural lands less than 8 degrees in slope must be transplanted within three years to other places more than 8 degrees in slope. 12. The tree growers said that they have paid rather high land taxes than they ought to pay (38.7%), but come responded that land tax seemed to be appropriate (15.3%), and half of the respondents answered "not known". 13. The measures for the standardization of ornamental trees by size were backed up by a large number of respondents (57.3%), but one third of the respondents showed negative answer (29.8%). 14. About half of the respondents favored the systematic marketing through organization such as forest cooperatives (54%), but quite a few respondents opposed to organizing the systematic marketing channel (36.3%). 15. The necessary measures for permission in ornamental tree cultivation was rejected by a large number of respondents (49.2%) than those of favored (43.6%).