• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.490-495
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• 2005

Since there are very limited numbers of thermophilic anaerobic digesters being operated, it is often difficult to start up a new one using sludge from an existing reactor as a seed. However, for obvious reasons it seems few attempts have been made to compare the start-up performance of thermophilic anaerobic digestion using different sources of seed sludges. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the start-up performance of anaerobic digestion using aerobic Waste Activated Sludge (WAS) from a plant and mesophilic Anaerobic Digested Sludge (ADS) as the seed source at both mesophilic ($35^{\circ}C$) and thermophilic ($55^{\circ}C$) temperatures. In this study, two experiments were conducted. First, thermophilic anaerobic reactors were seeded with WAS (VSS = 4,400 mg/L) and ADS (VSS = 14,500 mg/L) to investigate start-up performance with a feed of acetate as well as propionate. The results show that WAS started to produce $CH_4$ soon after acetate feeding without a lag time, while ADS had a lag time of 10 days. When the feed was changed to propionate, WAS removed propionate down to below the detection limit of 10 mg/L, while ADS removed little propionate and produced little $CH_4$. Second, in order to further compare the methanogenic activity of WAS and ADS, both mesophilic and thermophilic reactors were operated. WAS acclimated to anaerobic conditions shortly and after acclimating it produced more $CH_4$ than ADS. WAS at mesophilic temperature biodegraded acetate at the same rate as for thermophilic. However WAS at mesophilic temperature biodegraded propionate at a much faster rate than at thermophilic. WAS as the seed source of anaerobic digestion resulted in much better performance than ADS at both mesophilic and thermophilic temperatures for both acetate and propionate metabolism.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2021

The purpose of this research is to improve the investment success rate for startups in the water industry for the development of the entrepreneurial environment of the Korean water industry. In this research, we identified investment determinants through prior research and stratified them, and then surveyed the investor group at the beginning of the start-up using the FGI method, and determined the order of the investment determinants of investors. At the same time, we classified 41 start-ups related to the water industry into two groups: the group that received investment and the group that did not in the early stages of the start-up. Then we investigated the understanding of the investor's investment determinants, ranked them, and compared them by using the AHP technique. Through this, this research proposes five implications. First, it is important for start-ups in the early stages to receive seed investment to revitalize investment for startups in the water industry. For this, startups need to understand investors and prepare to attract investment with the perspective of angel investors rather than the perspective of VC investors. Second, Start-ups in the water sector should consider that the characteristics of the founder are important in order to receive seed investment, and also need to define their business at the industry and market level, and provide relevant rationale to meet the expectations of investors who value industry expertise and experience, and to increase the possibility of seed investment, which is important in the early stages of a startup. Third, institutions, such as K-water(Korea Water Resources Corporation), that support water industry startups need to conduct open innovation business opportunities discovery programs linked to startups so that startups currently participating in the startup support program could have business opportunities from the business infrastructure of platform-forming companies in the water industry. In particular, such institutions should help founders develop their industrial expertise and careers by supporting this type of start-up preparation process through the participation of in-house venture founders. Fourth, when K-water uses the government start-up support fund to discover and foster founders, it should increase initial contact with seed investors, conduct more thorough verification of business plans, and develop programs that use government start-up support funds to prepare a business suitable for seed angel investors. Fifth, K-water should support seed by connecting funds for initial investment among funds operated by itself. It is also necessary to develop a program that links the company receiving the seed investment with VC investment, not angel investment in cooperation with the VC fund operation entity participating as an LP so that companies that have attracted seed investment could attract follow-up VC investment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.41-58
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• 2023

This study identifies the commercialization success factors that can be an important indicator for the transfer and commercialization of national R&D results in the agricultural sector. Unlike other industries, the agricultural sector has a non-systematically scaled and processed industrial structure, and R&D is led by government rather than the private sector. Although the quantitative performance of national agricultural R&D, especially the number of patents and publications, has increased rapidly with the quantitative expansion of the government R&D budget, the technology commercialization of the results of agricultural R&D has been accompanied by difficulties for SMEs. Therefore, this study summarized the success factors for commercialization of state-owned technologies presented in previous studies, and based on them, analysed the success factors for commercialization specific to the agricultural sector. It also conducted a questionnaire survey using Delphi and focus group interviews (FGI) with experts from academia, research and industry, and a survey of agricultural companies to derive success factors for commercialization in the agricultural sector using logistic regression analysis. As a result, five indicators with positive correlation and three indicators with negative correlation within technology characteristics, suppliers, adopters, policy and market factors were finally derived as key factors for agricultural commercialization. In the future, it is expected that independent factor analysis of the food and seed sectors, which have independent industry characteristics from the agricultural sector, will be needed.

• Korean small business review
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.173-209
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• 2021

Start-up accelerators are a new type of investor that provide mentoring, education and seed capital to start-ups for a fixed duration and receive a certain stake in them in return. They help start-ups achieve successful commercialization. With increase in performance visibility, the number of private and public sector accelerators rose across domestic and international markets. Private sector accelerators are established and operated by private entities while public sector accelerators are established and operated by the government. Both play complementary roles that are becoming increasingly important to start-ups. Therefore, this study aims to examine the differences in major operational goals and investment determinants between private and public sectors and to understand their implications. The results show that the private sector prioritizes profit generation through the investment, while the public sector aims to contribute to the development of high-growth start-ups, and create region-specific and technology-specific start-up ecosystems. Additionally, both groups consider customer needs the most important determinant. Public groups are more conservative in investments and tend to place importance on objective indicators such as patents, partners, mentors, and co-founders. Conversely, private groups value the capabilities of founders and their ease of collaboration with accelerators. These findings can help start-ups get support from public or private accelerators more easily. It will also help public and private accelerators refine the criteria for selecting start-ups.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.49-65
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• 2018

For a long time the German economy was primarily defined by large corporations and thriving small and medium-sized enterprises. Since about 2005 a second strand has started to emerge and it is one which is becoming increasingly important and is creating jobs - start-ups in the digital sector. This start-up activity is taking an important role in Germany's economic development: Start-up companies spawn innovations and create jobs, thus promoting the concept of competition. In general "start-up" refers to digitally-driven companies that are not more than five years old. Germany's start-up policy consists of three main parts. First of all, Germany has the characteristics of technology-based start-ups. The Hartz reform since 2002 has shown its focus on technology-based start-ups. In particular, it is the most appropriate for a start-up company to take the role of a new technology company to respond to changes in the global industrial structure. Second, it is approaching from a long-term perspective. In this regard, the small business policy, including Germany's new business policy, is seen as a tradition that can be consistent and can make policy decisions based on the basics rather than following the times. Third, the government is implementing policies centered on demand. Germany's start-up policy is summarized as a technology-based policy and new job creation. The policy response is that the government seeks the best combination of policies by adapting them to the times from the broad trend of employment market policies. What is important here is that policies are made based on consumers, not suppliers, in the process of policy making and implementation. With the Digital Agenda 2020 the Federal government has likewise committed itself to preparing the digital economy for international competition and making Germany the "No. 1 digital growth country in Europe". Ever since 1998 the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) has awarded the "EXIST" start-up scholarship to students and graduates. The Ministry also invests in the High Tech start-up fund. Together with Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and 18 other investors from the world of business the seed investor promotes young technology companies. Germany offers start-ups a good infrastructure and lots of funding opportunities. Berlin is regarded as Europe's start-up capital and also attracts lots of international young entrepreneurs.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.1-20
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• 2023

This study conducted an empirical analysis of whether the accelerator incubation program (mentoring, seed investment) and entrepreneur self-efficacy affect competitive advantage performance for start-up representatives who have experienced the accelerator incubation program. At this time, the mediating effect of innovation capability was also examined. As for sample collection, 334 samples collected from representatives of start-ups nurtured by national accelerators and regional centers for creative economy and innovation in Korea were tested using the Smart PLS 4.0 program, and the analysis results are as follows. First, mentoring has no significant effect on competitive advantage performance, whereas seed investment and entrepreneur self-efficacy have a positive (+) effect on competitive advantage performance. Second, mentoring, seed investment, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy have a positive (+) effect on innovation capability. Third, innovation capability has a positive (+) effect on competitive advantage performance. And fourth, it was confirmed that innovation competency has a positive (+) effect between mentoring, seed investment, entrepreneurship self-efficacy and competitive advantage, and has a mediating effect. As a result, while mentoring did not have a direct significant effect on competitive advantage performance, it was confirmed that there was a significant effect mediated by innovation capability. Seed investment, entrepreneur self-efficacy, and innovation capability directly helped competitive advantage performance, and it was confirmed that innovation capability has an effect on the competitive advantage performance as a mediating effect. It is expected that this study will be able to suggest a direction that can help start-ups improve their competitive advantage performance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.63-73
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• 2016

In these days startup became one of the most hot issue in business world. The problem is many startup couldn't overcome the valley of death. For this reason many startup want to funded by venture capital. However startup's business is trade secret itself, so they have to make strategic approach to venture capital. The purpose of study is to find the way to make strategic decision for startup. By analyzing the relation between startup's characteristic and venture capital's investment portfolio. Four famous venture capital(Sequoia capital, Lightspeed venture, Firstround and Khosla venture) and their seed invested startup Dropbox, Airbnb, Snapchat, Uber and Instacart was selected for this study. As a result, each venture capital has their own invest category characteristic and their seed funding belong to their category. Moreover, between seed funded startup and 36,4% of 244 past invented company shown vertical relationship, beside 0.5% of past 244 invested company shown horizontal relationship. This result shown the importance of the relation between startup's characteristic and venture capital's portfolio. Startup have to check the venture capital's portfolio for the strategic approach for funding and venture capital have to make mutual positive portfolio for decreasing the risk.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.64-67
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• 1980

Field experiments were conducted to determine the optimum harvesting time and to evaluate the effect of Diquat spray in late seeded sesame, cultivar 'Suweon 9'. Sesame seed yield reached a plateau from Sept. 18 harvest when seed number was maximum. Thousand seed wt. increased to Sept. 29 harvest. As harvesting was delayed moisture content of capsule decreased and capsule dehiscence increased. Capsule dehiscence did not start until its moisture content dropped below 70%. Optimum harvesting might begin from the time which moisture content of capsule dropped below 70%, leaf senescence reached upper node, and 50% of capsules lost green. About 5% increase in seed weight after defoliation was estimated to be translocation from capsule wall. Diquat spray with 0.3% and 0.5% (v/v) solution of commercial Reglone (20%in A.I.) decreased rapidly capsule moisture content and promoted seed shattering. Dehiscence in 90% capsules was noted at seven days after Diquat spray. Diquat spray as a harvest aid could accelerate sesame desiccation up to 2 wks from normal field condition.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.13-28
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• 2022

Korean Government Budget Supports for startups have been spiked and resulted in increasing the number and scaling up Startup Accelerating managers. It have skyrocketed the strong demand for their qualified roles. However, unclear role description and gap between required role and their capability have discouraged startup manager's self-efficacy resulted in declining their full commitment and causing poor role performance. The focus of this research falls on empirical analysis to the effect of startup accelerating manager's capability characteristics on their full commitment and performance to start-up support groups. This research is expected to deliver diverse policy alternatives to build up manager's core competencies to accelerate their self-efficacy leading their full role commitments and finally pushing up policy performance. In addition, this research will found more strong literature review for the following researches in this emerging fields. This research is brought four highlighting results with respect to four research problems. First, it propose proper concept of startup accelerating manager based upon its legal entitlement. Second, it drive required core competencies of manager for successful their accountability. Third, it analyze the unique features of startup accelerating manger's capabilities against business incubation manger. Fourth, it empirically analyze in coming with government startup funding, the effect of self-efficacy including employment status, job environment, etc. on their organizational commitment and job performance. This research reveal the required unique core competencies of manger into founder sourcing ability, project managing ability, startup proving and pivoting ability, consulting ability for successful investment raising. As of this empirical research results, First, manager's ability have positively effect on their job performance, full commitment, and self-efficacy. Second, self-efficacy have a mediating effect on manager's ability, job performance, full commitment. This research derive key policy implication of requiring to build up more accelerating ability, of manager from the basics to advance level by customized and algorithm based traing program. This accelerating ability buildup program will not only surge self-efficacy of manger resulting in making full commitment and better job performance, but also devote to categorizing the unique new feature and position of manger as seed investment and supporter.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.199-204
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• 2006

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the development of the anammox process by the use of granular sludge selected from a digestion reactor as a potential seed source in a lab-scale UASB (upflow anaerobic sludge blanket) reactor system. The reactor was operated for approximately 11 months and was fed by synthetic wastewater. After 200 days of feeding with $NH_4^+\;and\;NO_2^-$ as the main substrates, the biomass showed steady signs of ammonium consumption, resulting in over 60% of ammonium nitrogen removal. This report aims to present the results and to more closely examine what occurs after the onset of anammox activity, while the previous work described the start-up experiment and the presence of anammox bacteria in the enriched community using the fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique. By the last month of operation, the consumed $NO_2^--N/NH_4^+-N$ ratio in the UASB reactor was close to 1.32, the stoichiometric ratio of the anammox reaction. The obtained results from the influent-shutdown test suggested that nitrite concentration would be one key parameter that promotes the anammox reaction during the start-up enrichment of anammox bacteria from granular sludge. During the study period, the sludge color gradually changed from black to red-brownish.