• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.37-52
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• 2023

Purpose: This study is to investigate the causal relationship between franchise headquarters' franchise cost and franchise satisfaction and management performance, and to verify the structural relationship between franchise cost and corporate permanence. Research design, data and methodology: The data were collected from 200 medium-sized franchisees in Seoul and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the validity of the measurement model and the structural equation model (SEM) to identify the impact of franchise costs on corporate performance with the Amos 28.0 program. Result: Franchise costs were found to have a negative effect on franchise satisfaction and corporate permanence. It was confirmed that franchise satisfaction had a significant positive effect on management performance and corporate permanence. Franchise costs had a sequential mediating effect on franchise satisfaction and management performance, which had a significant impact on corporate permanence. Conclusions: This study expanded the theoretical scope by applying the expectation confirmation theory to corporate transactions. In addition, the franchise headquarters proposes ways to create a culture of franchise business with trust by presenting appropriate franchise costs to improve management performance and corporate permanence through franchise satisfaction.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.1
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• pp.93-102
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• 2022

The optimum design of reinforced concrete cantilever retaining walls subjected to seismic loads is an extremely important challenge in structural and geotechnical engineering, especially in seismic zones. This study proposes an adaptive sperm swarm optimization algorithm (ASSO) for economic design of retaining structure under static and seismic loading. The proposed ASSO algorithm utilizes a time-varying velocity damping factor to provide a fine balance between the explorative and exploitative behavior of the original method. In addition, the new method considers a reasonable velocity limitation to avoid the divergence of the sperm movement. The proposed algorithm is benchmarked with a set of test functions and the results are compared with the standard sperm swarm optimization (SSO) and some other robust metaheuristic from the literature. For seismic optimization of retaining structures, Mononobe-Okabe method is employed for dynamic loading conditions and total construction cost of the structure is considered as the single objective function. The optimization constraints include both geotechnical and structural restrictions and the design variables are the geometrical dimensions of the wall and the amount of steel reinforcement. Finally, optimization of two benchmark retaining structures under static and seismic loads using the ASSO algorithm is presented. According to the numerical results, the ASSO may provide better optimal solutions, and the designs obtained by ASSO have a lower cost by up to 20% compared with some other methods from the literature.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.521-525
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• 2011

Although the Korean construction industry has risen rapidly, the quality of the buildings is not met with the industry standard compared to the potential of the technology development and the cost of maintenance has been increased. The user's request for quality have been increased, but in the current building construction, the contractors only follow the specifications of design, material and technology, and their main concern is whether they are in right track with the specification or not. Thus, the necessity of developing technology has been ignored and sufficient opportunities for the development have not been provided as well. In the developed countries, in contrast, the quality assurance and the payment regulation system has been utilized for the active response to the changes of users' request. As a result of this, the maintenance cost has been decreased and the development of construction technology has been improved. Therefore the pay adjustment system is needed to create the improvement of the quality of the buildings by the contractors' earnest building construction. In order to introduce the pay adjustment system suitable to the Korean construction industry, this study presented the logical method of adjusting the construction cost and making payment with the pay adjustment index that is created based on the result of the performance test, after making a set of the indicators of the building performance standard and applied them to the targeted building.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.132-141
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• 2011

Australia has joined many governments to adopt public-private partnership (PPP) as a major strategy for procuring infrastructure for decades. However, failures have occurred although the market has been considered to be a mature and sophisticated one. Failures have typically been traced back to inappropriate economic evaluation and a lack of value-for-money. In particular, a literature review has identified that there was no holistic consideration on the evaluation of procurement transactions of PPP projects. The transaction costs of PPPs were not handled properly. In this paper, theories of transaction cost economics are proposed for the purpose of such a holistic institutional economic evaluation. These theories are analysed in order to identify potential critical success factors for a strategic infrastructure procurement framework. The potential critical success factors are identified and grouped into a number of categories that match the theories of transaction cost economics. These categories include (1) Asset Specificity, (2) Organizational Capability, (3) Transaction Frequency, (4) Behavioural Uncertainty, and (5) Environmental Uncertainty. These potential critical success factors may be subject to an empirical test in the future. The proposed framework will offer decision makers with an insight into project life cycle economic outcomes needed to successfully deliver PPPs.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.320-349
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• 2018

Purpose: The application of IoT is finding continuous acceptance in our daily lives, particularly, smart speakers are making life easier and convenient for consumers. This research aims to develop and test an integrated model of factors influencing consumer's adoption of voice-enabled IoT devices. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the VAM, an integrated voice-enabled IoT device adoption model is proposed. Gender differences on five constructs relating with perceived value (perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, perceived security risk, perceived technicality and perceived cost) was also examined through PLS-MGA technique. The usage experience of consumers was also controlled in the integrated VAM. Findings: Result shows that Perceived-Usefulness, Perceived-Enjoyment and Perceived-Cost have a strong effect on Perceived-Value. However, Perceived-Technicality and Perceived-Security-Risk are non-influential and have no significant effect on PV. Additionally, Perceived-Value and Social-Influence plays a significant role in predicting adoption intention. Gender differences also exist in consumers perception of usefulness, enjoyment and cost. In comparison to the basic value-based adoption model, the integrated model provides more insight on consumers adoption of voice-enabled IoT devices. Originality/value: Using an integrated model, this study is one of the first scholarly attempt at modelling the influential factors for adopting smart speakers i.e., voice-enabled IoT devices, with implications for improved adoption.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.87-96
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• 2024

Smart materials, such as magnetorheological (MR) fluid, have received considerable research attention in recent years due to their unique capabilities. MR fluid, which possesses a magnetic field controllable viscosity, has been extensively studied for vehicular applications with the aim of synthesizing optimal MR fluids, designing optimal MR dampers, and developing control strategies. However, a comprehensive study that primarily focuses on developing a cost-effective semi-active suspension system for a commercial vehicle in a developing nation is still lacking. This study addresses this gap by synthesizing an in-house MR fluid and studying its rheological properties. Subsequently, a novel single-sensor-based controller is developed and closed-loop simulations are conducted on a quarter-car semi-active model. Finally, the overall semi-active quarter-car suspension system is experimentally tested using a suspension test rig. The performance of the proposed system in terms of ride comfort and road holding is evaluated and is compared with simple control strategies. The dynamic range of the developed semi-active MR damper is found to be around 2.3, indicating a significant MR effect. The results suggest an intermediate response using the proposed acceleration-driven controller (ADV) at lower frequencies and similar performance to that of the skyhook controller at higher frequencies. The cost-effective methodology proposed in this study is effective and can be adapted for other semi-active engineering applications.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.337-342
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• 2011

A roller rig has been widely used in the study about dynamic stability and railway safety. However, the cost for constructing the roller rig and the difficulty in adjusting the design parameters for vehicle systems lead to the development of a small scale simulator which is cheaper than the large scale test systems and easy to control the parameters affecting dynamic characteristics of the railway vehicle. For the operation of the small scale test system called a small scale simulator, it is required to investigate the performance and characteristics of the system. This could be achieved by a comparative study between an analysis and an experiment. This paper presented the analytical model which could be used for verifying of the test results and understanding of the physical behavior of the dynamic system comprising the small scale bogie and the simulator.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.381-384
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• 2002

This study aims to propose the new strength equation of concrete by penetration test. There are not only few estimate strength equation of concrete, but also many problems to apply them to the real structure because of speed, cost, easiness, structual damage, reliability and so on. For this study, there performed a series of test and proposed a strength equation as follows ; fc = 5661 - 219.5d ＋ $2.17d^2 (단, R^2 = 98.6%$) fc : estimated compressive strength of concrete by kgf/$cm^2$ d: penetrated depth of concrete by mm.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.303-308
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• 2017

In this study, finite element modeling and material property tests are performed for the finite element analysis of rubber isolator parts which support the engine and isolate the vibration. As a result of the P direction analysis of the rubber isolator parts, the static stiffness in the P direction was 44.2 kg/mm, which is well within the error of 5% as compared with the test result of 46.1 kg/mm. The static stiffness of the rubber isolator parts in the Q direction was calculated to be 7.9 kg/mm, which is comparable to the test result of 8.6 kg/mm, with an error of less than 8%. As a result of the analysis on the Z direction, the static stiffness was calculated as 57.7 kg/mm, and the test results were not available. Through this study, it is expected that the time and cost for prototype development can be reduced through nonlinear finite element analysis for rubber isolator parts.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.1-7
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• 2018

Previous test equipment was bulky, took a long time to check, and was somewhat less economical. Since most of the checks were about analog signals, we preferred to check them using reference equipments. In this paper, a digital circuit design based on AITS is used to implement signals that can not utilize commercial measurement resources, and also designed and manufactured equipment that can inspect SRU. These test equipments were tested and evaluated by development, operation, and field evaluation, and they were installed to the Korean Field Force. This contributed to the improvement of operability by shortening the inspection time from 83.2 minutes to 7.8 minutes on average In addition, it did not utilize the reference equipment, so it could play a big role in lowering the mass production cost.