• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.261-286
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• 2018

This paper evaluated the economic feasibility of the life extension of Kori unit 1 and Wolsong unit 1 according to the types of the nuclear power plants (NPPs) and the life extension period comparing to the levelized costs of energy (LCOE) of the new NPPs, coal-fired plants (CFPs), and combined cycle gas turbine (CCGTs) which proposed in the $7^{th}$ Basic Plan for Electricity Supply and Demand. The economic feasibility of the life extension of NPPs using LCOE method is affected by the types of NPPs, lifetime extension periods, discount rate, and capacity factor. According to the analysis results, the pressurized light water reactor (PWR) is more economical than the pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR). Comparing the economical efficiency between the life extension of NPPs and other alternatives, the operation of the PWR for 20 years is more economical than the one of new NPPs and CFPs. However, 20 years of life extension of PHWR is more economical than the CCGTs, but less economical than new NPPs and CFPs. In summary, the 20 years of life extension of the NPPs seems to be more, especially for the PWR, which is more cost effective than other generation alternatives. Therefore, the government policy of the life extension of NPPs need to be a selective approach that simultaneously considers both safety and economics rather than closing all NPPs.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.28-36
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• 2018

Islands are supplied with power from diesel generation or from photovoltaic power generation, and problems with offshore environmental impacts (age deterioration, salt pollution), environmental pollution (exhaust gas, noise, dust) and power generation costs (installation, maintenance) have increasingly emerged. In 2016, the cost recovery rate was only 27%, and deficits reached 73% on 65 islands managed by KEPCO. In terms of deficits, the costs incurred in the power generation sector accounted for 91%, with the ratio of fixed costs at about 60%. Analysis suggests that operating costs can be reduced with an optimal power supply system that improves power generation efficiency and makes operating systems more efficient. Therefore, it is possible to simplify fuel transportation and facility maintenance, because one island integrates the power plants of remote islands, and offshore cable is used to supply power to the other islands. From the economic evaluations in this paper, an algorithm deciding offshore cable layout validity for an integrated power supply between adjacent islands is presented. Simulation results based on the proposed algorithm confirmed that an integrated power supply is economical for existing stand-alone operations on islands having diesel generation, low peak power, and near distances.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.75-84
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• 2018

Increasing the operation rate of components and stabilizing the operation through timely management of the core parts are crucial for improving the efficiency of the railroad maintenance industry. The demand for diagnosis technology to assess the condition of rolling stock components, which employs history management and automated big data analysis, has increased to satisfy both aspects of increasing reliability and reducing the maintenance cost of the core components to cope with the trend of rapid maintenance. This study developed a big data platform-based system to manage the rolling stock component condition to acquire, process, and analyze the big data generated at onboard and wayside devices of railroad cars in real time. The system can monitor the conditions of the railroad car component and system resources in real time. The study also proposed a machine learning technique that enabled the distributed and parallel processing of the acquired big data and automatic component fault diagnosis. The test, which used the virtual instance generation system of the Amazon Web Service, proved that the algorithm applying the distributed and parallel technology decreased the runtime and confirmed the fault diagnosis model utilizing the random forest machine learning for predicting the condition of the bearing and wheel parts with 83% accuracy.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2013

The purpose of this paper is to estimate economic benefits for the investment of railway transshipment system with non-powered turntable. The freight transport by railway can have decided advantages over trucks in terms of energy efficiency, emissions and cost for certain freight movements, just as transportation in the metropolitan region can have great advantages over driving truck. But the freight transport by truck should gain significant mobility benefits from a freight railway system. Thus, the railway transshipment system with non-powered turntable which is coupled railway transport advantages with load transport advantages has been developed and used in the european countries. This research has conducted the empirical analysis, by calculating the investment of railway transshipment system with non-powered turntable. The key factor for the economic benefits for the non-powered turntable is the utilizing throughputs. This demand is influenced by the throughput in the railway transshipment system. The main results of this paper are as follows: railway transshipment system with non-powered turntable does not have economic benefit for investment. We recommend that the plan for investment has to be considered the modification.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.33-75
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• 2011

The ownership structure of a franchise system is determined by the franchisor's strategic choice. A close look at the extant theories and perspectives in economics and management such as resource scarcity theory, agency theory, transaction cost analysis, and mixed ownership theory reveals that firms choose their ownership structure for the sake of economic efficiency, profit potentials, the chance of survival, and other strategic concerns. The present study, on the basis of strategic choice perspective, reviews the divergent theories of a franchise system's ownership structure and its determinants, thus providing a theoretical framework for comparing the contradictory arguments along the several critical dimensions. We also developed and tested the conflicting hypotheses regarding key determinants of ownership structure including firm's age, size, transaction-specific investments, uncertainty, and risk-sharing propensity. Using a FDD (Franchise Disclosure Document) data set of 543 Korean franchisors, we found that the years in business, the total number of employees, days of training, the inverse of the years of franchising, and the requirement of royalty payment have positive relationships with the proportion of company-owned outlets to total number of outlets. On the other hand, the proportion of company-owned outlets was found to have negative relationships with the total number of outlets and the extent of geographic dispersion of outlets, but to have no significant relationships with the initial investment required and the inverse of contract length. Based on the findings, we provide several theoretical and managerial implications for studying ownership structure of franchise systems.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.23-33
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• 2015

In the present study, a ground heat exchanger was installed for each heat source in the system at the site to evaluate ground heat conductivity, constructability, and economic feasibility; the factors considered in the study included ground heat, groundwater, fillers (such as bentonite and pea pebbles) and the shape of the heat exchange pipe (e.g., U and D-U). The aim was to determine the ground heat exchanger appropriate for the geothermal system in the 3rd-phase construction of Incheon International Airport. A comparative cost analysis of the initial costs based on the above information showed that although the initial costs of the regular vertical closed loop-II and modified vertical closed loop were lower than those of the regular vertical closed loop-I, they could not be expected to deliver high economic efficiency from the viewpoint of constructability (filler injection, heat exchange pipe insertion). The initial costs proved to be higher in the case of Geohil.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.69-89
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• 2001

This study is focused that the electronic commerce(EC) on the purchasing section may improve the efficiency and transparency of the hospitals management. After reviewing the purchasing activity of hospitals, I study the introduction, expected effects, and problems of EC. So, I am going to provide basic information for activating EC. The samples are managers of 170 hospitals, which are located on Seoul. As a result of collection this survey, I analyze 79 hospitals. For data analysis, I use $X^2$-test and ANOVA for purchasing management and the relevance of EC according to the level of care. The results of this study are 1. The problems on the management of purchasing section are: firstly, they don't have sufficient time to study market. Secondly, it is difficult to find competitive suppliers. And, lastly, they cannot gather a lot of information about the price of products. 2. There are many answers of the needs on the introduction of B2B. However, some hospitals think they don't need it. But, the most answers are that the EC will be settled within 4 years. So, we can realize that these hospitals are getting interested on the EC. On the other hand, I find that they prefer outside EC companies for the introduction of EC. 3. On the expected effects on EC, first is the effectiveness of the market survey. The next is to collect information of adequate price of products owing to clear transaction, find easier new suppliers and gather useful data. 4. On the external problems of the introduction of EC, there is low credibility related to the security and the weakness of suppliers' information system. Especially, on the Real Transaction Price Payment system, the bigger bed size, the higher understanding on these problems. On the internal problems of the introduction of EC, first is the burden of the introduction of EC and operating cost. Especially, on the burden of the disclosure of revenue source, the smaller bed size, the higher understanding on this problem So, this is a point which deserves my attention statistically. However, this shows relatively little understanding about incomplete the standard of product category and the weak information system of hospital. Through this study, I am going to suggest 3 points for the activation of the introduction of EC on hospitals. 1. The reform of the Real Transaction Price Payment System on medical supplies and materials for medical treatment 2. The establishment of the standard of product category 3. The promotion of information system based on network.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.6 no.4 s.26
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• pp.101-112
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• 2005

Recently, a curtain wall construction is a exterior finishing components which is most used for shortening time in high-rise building as well as the class of key management factors in cost and schedule control. Also, it is recognized that an effective management for curtain wall process is a major subject to accomplish the project successfully. However, as the current management for curtain wall construction is focused on the construction stage, it makes problems such as errors in business performance, rework by mistakes and duplications, errors and omissions by ineffective information management and there has never been any efficient management from a view of the entire Curtain Wall Life-cycle process. Therefore, the aim of this study is to suggest a stage check point for process improvement in the curtain wall Life-cycle process through current curtain wall process analysis, and then to investigate the cause of waste factors using the Muda method from the Toyota Production System and extract the weighted effects of the waste factors using the analytical hierarchy process method. According to the result, Most of the inefficient factors happened in architectural design stage of the entire curtain wall Life-cycle process and my research identified that detail factors of them are a delay of decision making and an approval in changes, a deficit of engineering capacity and a delay of approval in architectural design drawings by owner, etc.

• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.57-74
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• 2016

This paper analyzes the role of strategic fit, cooperation, and performance in small-sized subpart suppliers' interactions with large businesses. For this purpose, this paper analyzes survey data from 90 first-tier suppliers of Samsung Electronics and evaluates how strategic fit and cooperative relationships affect their performance. Empirical analysis suggests that strategic fit positively affects small companies' business and innovation performance. This finding aligns with theories arguing for strategies that accommodate specific business environments. In addition, strategic fit is crucial for innovativeness of SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). With regard to forming relationships with large companies, findings also show that high quality technological and personnel cooperation boosts subpart suppliers' productivity and efficiency as notably reflected in SMEs' business performance. Moreover, such cooperation between small and large companies reinforces the benefits associated with strategic fit and innovation. This means that if the business environment of small-sized subpart suppliers is uncertain, harnessing differentiated strategies and pursuing collaborations with prime companies will produce innovative outcomes (e.g., increased patent publications). On the other hand, when degree of uncertainty is small, pursuing cost leadership strategies and collaborating with prime companies in areas, such as technology and personnel, will help small-sized subpart suppliers produce innovative outcomes. Based on these findings, this paper argues that choosing the right competitive strategy for a specific business context is intrinsically tied to (1) augmenting technological and human collaborations with prime companies, (2) improving the quality of these interactions, and (3) generating competitiveness among small subpart suppliers. Both competition and cooperation are necessary for strengthening the competitiveness of small companies.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.419-429
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• 2016

In a bid to avoid the economic loss resulting from traffic jam in urban area, a deep underground road at 40 m depth has been considered and the first class disaster prevention facilities shall be applied according to domestic guideline. Automatic-monitoring fire extinguishing system designed to use for fire fighting has been widely applied at home and abroad. Recently development and commercialization through theoretical and experimental research to apply to road/railroad sector have been underway. Based on such performance of automatic fire extinguishing system, technical/economic analysis of existing water spray systems was conducted and as a result, it has demonstrated the superiority in terms of fire suppression as well as in cost efficiency. Then to commercialize this system, more diverse studies that will incorporate the characteristics of domestic tunnels are needed and should the system be promoted through institutional improvement, it's expected to become one of the advanced nations with own original technology in a life safety system industry throughout the world.