• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.48 no.10
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• pp.37-49
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to identify preteen girls and their mothers' apparel image preference and apparel purchase behavior. This study was particularly interested in verifying the influencing factors of plus size preteen girls' apparel choice by investigating the correlations between preteens' physical characteristic and their apparel related variables. Data were obtained from the questionnaire by 190 preteen girls and 120 mothers. The influential power of preteens on apparel purchase decision was greater than that of their mothers, and their preferred apparel images were comfortable/neat, cute/girlish, and mature/chic. Comparing to preteen girls, their mothers preferred comfortable/neat and cute/girlish images to mature/chic apparel image. Their physical maturity levels were significantly correlated with apparel image preference. Moreover, plus size preteen girls' interests in appearance and clothing was higher than that of normal weight preteen girls, this implied potentiality in apparel market for plus size preteen.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.275-302
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• 2013

The Unites States has been plagued with soaring health care costs and an alarmingly large number of uninsured population. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 ushered in the most sweeping health care reform in the United States since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 to address these issues. The law's requirement for individuals to purchase health insurance (the so-called "individual mandate"), however, not only caused a political stir but also prompted constitutional challenges. Some questioned whether the federal government, lacking general police power, could require its citizens to buy unwanted insurance based on its enumerated powers under the U.S. Constitution. This paper summarizes the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of individual mandate, and explores how the decision relates to Korea's own universal health care.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.574-590
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• 2017

The purpose of this paper is the provision of a decision-making tool for developers to identify the project risks for under-consideration overseas independent power projects (IPPs), and to analyze the priority and importance weights of the risks through the employment of a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach. A fuzzy MCDM is the calculation method for which the imprecision of each respondent's unique opinion is considered. Through the extensive literature surveys that were conducted for this paper, eight major project finance (PF) risks have been derived credit risk, completion risk, market risk, fuel risk, operating risk, financial risk, environmental risk, and force majeure. The empirical results show that the market risk is the most important risk factor in terms of overseas IPPs, thereby confirming that the long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) guarantee of the host country is one of the most important corresponding factors for the PF.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2012.11a
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• pp.229-231
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• 2012

The supply chain in plant construction project can be defined as a network combined between elements which is engineering, procurement, construction, start-up. For successfully leading construction project, close relation and mutual cooperation should be preceded and Supply Chain Management(SCM) system is needed to improve the relation. In particular, because safety is a top priority for the companies work in the construction of Nuclear Power Plant(NPP), it is necessary to control all parties realated with NPP construction systematically. In this situation, it is important to purchase high-quality equipment in timely manner by developing Integrated cooperative systems. Therefore, this study aimed to propose developing solutions of SCM such as JIT and Envelop Design system, which can reduces difficulties of decision making between the parties involved in the project and will increase the efficiency of the engineering process in NPP.

• The Korean Fashion and Textile Research Journal
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.971-976
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• 2013

This study provides insight into current social media influences and purchasing power of the young generation in that the size of both of these demographic groups will impact the apparel companies and retail market for the predictable future Denim apparel companies are aware of the discretionary spending power of the Y and Z Generations. The characteristics of current teens are so similar to college-age individuals in that they have grown up with digital technology and they prefer to communicate via social networking sites. Retailers have utilized these social media platforms in order to capture the attention of the generations. Traditionally marketing campaigns have differentiated between teens and the college-age population. However, the teens actually have larger spending power and more discretionary income. A survey consisted of 32 questions pertaining to Internet media influences, influence of people, and decision factors on decisionmaking related to purchasing selection. A random sampling of 163 females responded to a set of questionnaires. Teens, like college students desire to make their own decisions when they select and purchase denim jeans. Overall 40% of them wanted to make their own decisions when purchasing their jeans, however, a significant number are influenced by their friend's opinions (34%) and the opinions of family members (15%). However, celebrities (10%) had the least influence on their decisions. Teens, like colleges students make decisions based on the same decision factors: fit (63%), cost (23%), brand (10%) and color (2%). The most important factor in determining preference was "fit".

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.37-42
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• 2001

Optical design highly influer.ces consumer purchase and is a major factor of price decision in the optical industry. The price is varied based on designs. Eyewear design produces more added value than other products. Design and brand name are the foundation of rapid growth. while technology and quality control are basics of competitive optical design. Currently, China, Hongkong and other Asian countries are closely following Korea in the optical industry. There should be problem solving methods based on design and brand competition and export growth probability will be improved when continue various efforts emphasizing design.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.23-33
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• 2013

Purpose - Numerous studies have tried to assess the role of a warranty as an explanatory instrument for product quality. While one study argued that manufacturers signal their superior quality to consumers by extending the duration of a warranty, quality is not necessarily related to warranty and a warranty for a short duration is a sign of high product quality. However, there are limitations to measuring product quality in terms of a single variable such as a warranty. Some other studies have evaluated the influence of brand power or value and price on the supposed quality of a product while the influence of warranty was found to be insignificant. Research design, data, methodology - The study analyzes the influence of brand power and the country of origin effect on consumers' perception of product quality in line with warranty and establishes a priority strategy. Especially, consumer experience has a significant influence on state of the art technology products like applied home electronics as these goods are generally quite expensive and consumers expend significant energy in purchasing them, so the associated warranty and brand can have a critical role in the decision making process. The price of the product was excluded in this discussion as it continually varies with the market share of the product. Results - The results of the analysis are as follows: First, each of the factors such as the standard of the warranty, brand power, and country of origin effect influences the degree of satisfaction of an individual. Second, the factors brand power and quality of the warranty interact both complementarily and synergistically at a time, depending on the brand power. As brand power is more significant, the degree of satisfaction is greater in case of products with low quality warranty compared to those with high quality warranty. Third, the brand power and country of origin effect present a complementary interaction. Fourth, the country of origin effect and quality of a warranty interact synergistically. Conclusions - Thus, the higher the quality of warranty, greater is the increment in the degree of satisfaction. The comprehensive study on the effect of the country of origin on the purchase decision process and the degree of satisfaction compared to the other elements shows that in case of Japanese and Korean markets the brand power of a company is desirable in sustaining the quality of warranty to the industrial average. Also, there is no significant improvement in the perceived quality of the product when the quality of the warranty is lowered. Therefore, the warranty effect diminishes when the value of the brand is known, while it perishes when both the brand power and the country of origin effect are strong enough.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.530-537
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• 2010

By development of renewable energy and more efficient facilities in an increasingly deregulated electricity market, the operation cost of distributed generation (DG) is becoming more competitive. International environmental regulations of the leaking carbon become effective to reinforce global efforts for a low-carbon paradigm. Through increased DG, operators of DG are able to supply electric power to customers who are connected directly to DG as well as loads that are connected to entire network. In this situation, a community energy system (CES) with DGs is a new participant in the energy market. DG's purchase price from the market is different from the DG's sales price to the market due to transmission service charges and other costs. Therefore, CES who owns DGs has to control the produced electric power per hourly period in order to maximize profit. Considering the international environment regulations, CE will be an important element to decide the marginal cost of generators as well as the classified fuel unit cost and unit's efficiency. This paper introduces the optimal operation of CES's DG connected to the distribution network considering CE. The purpose of optimization is to maximize the profit of CES. A Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) will be used to solve this complicated problem. The optimal operation of DG represented in this paper would guide CES and system operators in determining the decision making criteria.

• Archives of design research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.299-308
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• 2003

The existing market patterns and social structures have been changed according to the trends of digital and informational society of the 21st century. The characteristics of the consumption market is that the balance of power moves from enterprises to consumers. As consumers’ demands are diversified according to life quality enhancement, many products are based on main aspects of human experiences, emotions and values. Standardized functions and services of products cannot capture consumers to a great extent any more. A notable aspect is that consumers want products or services that can oner movable experiences. Future products must appeal to emotion, not to reason of consumers. Now consumers purchase styles, experiences and stories contained in products, not products themselves. That is, the key to decision to purchase products is the satisfaction of emotional values. Users'emotions diversified due to the development of industrial designs demand the development of new designs that can represent new trends of users. User-centered values imply the change of people's purchasing trends. This indicates that there is a need to change physical aspects such as price or functions into individual emotions and characters. In addition, studies are required on design concepts to pursue new emotional values, apart from functional type designs. It is time for designers to suggest initiative and rational directions for this changing era.

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.25-40
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• 2001

This paper describes the forecast of power plant construction in a competitive korean electricity market. In Korea, KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Corporation, fully controlled by government) was responsible for from the production of the electricity to the sale of electricity to customer. However, the generation part is separated from KEPCO and six generation companies were established for whole sale competition from April 1st, 2001. The generation companies consist of five fossil power companies and one nuclear power company in Korea at present time. Fossil power companies are scheduled to be sold to private companies including foreign investors. Nuclear power company is owned and controlled by government. The competition in generation market will start from 2003. ISO (Independence System Operator will purchase the electricity from the power exchange market. The market price is determined by the SMP(System Marginal Price) which is decided by the balance between demand and supply of electricity in power exchange market. Under this uncertain circumstance, the energy policy planners such as government are interested to the construction of the power plant in the future. These interests are accelerated due to the recent shortage of electricity supply in California. In the competitive market, investors are no longer interested in the investment for the capital intensive, long lead time generating technologies such as nuclear and coal plants. Large unclear and coal plants were no longer the top choices. Instead, investors in the competitive market are interested in smaller, more efficient, cheaper, cleaner technologies such as CCGT(Combined Cycle Gas Turbine). Electricity is treated as commodity in the competitive market. The investors behavior in the commodity market shows that the new investment decision is made when the market price exceeds the sum of capital cost and variable cost of the new facility and the existing facility utilization depends on the marginal cost of the facility. This investors behavior can be applied to the new investments for the power plant. Under these postulations, there is the potential for power plant construction to appear in waves causing alternating periods of over and under supply of electricity like commodity production or real estate production. A computer model was developed to sturdy the possibility that construction will appear in waves of boom and bust in Korean electricity market. This model was constructed using System Dynamics method pioneered by Forrester(MIT, 1961) and explained in recent text by Sternman (Business Dynamics, MIT, 2000) and the recent work by Andrew Ford(Energy Policy, 1999). This model was designed based on the Energy Policy results(Ford, 1999) with parameters for loads and resources in Korea. This Korea Market Model was developed and tested in a small scale project to demonstrate the usefulness of the System Dynamics approach. Korea electricity market is isolated and not allowed to import electricity from outsides. In this model, the base load such as unclear and large coal power plant are assumed to be user specified investment and only CCGT is selected for new investment by investors in the market. This model may be used to learn if government investment in new unclear plants could compensate for the unstable actions of private developers. This model can be used to test the policy focused on the role of unclear investments over time. This model also can be used to test whether the future power plant construction can meet the government targets for the mix of generating resources and to test whether to maintain stable price in the spot market.