• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.39-46
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• 2015

Purpose - In Korea, there has been a recent trend that shows housing prices have risen rapidly following the International Monetary Fund crisis. The rapid rise in housing prices is spreading recognition of this as a factor in housing price volatility. In addition, this raises the expectations of housing prices in the future. These expectations are based on the assumption that a relationship exists between the current housing prices and expected housing prices in the real estate industry. By performing an empirical analysis on the validity of the claim that an increase in current housing prices can be correlated with expected housing prices, this study examines whether a long-term equilibrium relationship exists between expected housing prices and existing housing prices. If such a relationship exists, the recovery of equilibrium from disequilibrium is analyzed to derive related implications. Research design, data, and methodology - The relationship between current housing prices and expected housing prices was analyzed empirically using the Vector Error Correction Model. This model was applied to the co-integration test, the long-term equilibrium equation among variables, and the causality test. The housing prices used in the analysis were based on the National Housing Price Trend Survey released by Kookmin Bank. Additionally, the Index of Industrial Product and the Consumer Price Index were also used and were obtained from the Bank of Korea ECOS. The monthly data analyzed were from January 1987 to May 2015. Results - First, a long-term equilibrium relationship was established as one co-integration between current housing price distribution and expected housing prices. Second, the sign of the long-term equilibrium relationship variable was consistent with the theoretical sign, with the elasticity of housing price distribution to expected housing price, the industrial production, and the consumer price volatility revealed as 1.600, 0.104,and 0.092, respectively. This implies that the long-term effect of expected housing price volatility on housing price distribution is more significant than that of the industrial production and consumer price volatility. Third, the sign of the coefficient of the error correction term coincided with the theoretical sign. The absolute value of the coefficient of the correction term in the industrial production equation was 0.006, significantly larger than the coefficients for the expected housing price and the consumer price equation. In case of divergence from the long-term equilibrium relationship, the state of equilibrium will be restored through changes in the interest rate. Fourth, housing-price volatility was found to be causal to expected housing price, and was shown to be bi-directionally causal to industrial production. Conclusions - Based on the finding of this study, it is required to relieve the association between current housing price distribution and expected housing price by using property taxes and the loan-to-value policy to stabilize the housing market. Further, the relationship between housing price distribution and expected housing price can be examined and tested using a sophisticated methodology and policy variables.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.7-16
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• 2014

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to target Chinese consumers of Korean agri-food through the analysis of agri-food brand identity images to set future directions for proposed agri-food exports to China. Since negotiations began for a free trade agreement (FTA) between Korea and China, some Koreans have worried about the Korean agriculture sector. The world trading system has undergone many changes in recent years. Since the start of FTA negotiations on agriculture, China and Korea have faced a heightened sense of crisis. China is trying to export agricultural products so actively that its agricultural exports could increase by more than 7% annually. China exported about one-tenth of its agricultural products to Korea in the period 2002-2010. Recently, the importance of brand identity has tended to increase, as the world becomes one unified market. In this situation, we should try to promote agri-food exports to China. It is very important to understand consumers' recognition of Korean food and the image of the Korean agri-food industry, to establish an export strategy. Research design, data, and methodology - This study targeted 2,800 adult men and women aged 25-59 years living in four major cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Qingdao) with a household income within the top 10% level in the China, using the one-to-one interview survey method. In addition, four groups by region (eight people per group) for a total of 32 groups were surveyed by using the focus group interview (FGI) research method, and impressions of imported agri-food were surveyed using 17 questions about fresh agri-food and 22 questions on processed agri-food. Factor analysis, brand positioning, biplot analysis, and so on, were carried out based on the results of these surveys. This research presents the brand identity of Korean food; according to the analyses, the brand identity is based on trust, safety, and attractiveness. Result - Factor analysis results showed that Chinese consumers expect four major qualities in imported fresh agri-food: freshness/safety, attractive appearance, premium branding, and excellent taste/quality. In the case of processed agri-food, it turned out that Chinese consumers are focused on safety/hygiene/freshness, health, and taste. In addition, in the fresh agri-food analysis by country, American foods had the upper hand; the image of American foods was also recognized as the most positive for processed agri-food. Meanwhile, according to the biplot analysis, Korean agri-food is strongly preferred for its appearance, but no country is strongly preferred as regards the level of freshness/safety that is expected by Chinese consumers. Conclusions - In this study, we analyzed the image of imported agri-food expected by Chinese consumers by reconstructing agri-food characteristics from the brand perspective. The research result shows that a Korean brand identity must be the ultimate goal for activities undertaken to enhance the image of Korean agri-food in the future. Additional research is needed because brand image can be formed through various channels.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.97-104
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• 2015

Purpose - The distribution of agricultural products is changing due to recent shifts in environmental free trade. Specifically, the competitiveness of domestic agricultural products has weakened as a result of the Korea-China Financial Trade Agreement. Agricultural producers are faced with increasing difficulties and organized production centers are growing in importance daily. To overcome this crisis, agricultural producer organizations are vying for environment-friendly agricultural certifications, Good Agriculture Practices (GAP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP). In particular, as consumer demand for higher safety grows, farmers are increasing their certification rates. Therefore, this certification system is expected to help strengthen the competitiveness of agricultural producer organizations. Research design/data/methodology - Organized production centers are classified by certification. A survey was conducted with 91 organizations using factor analysis and logistic regression analysis for the examination. The factor analysis results are as follows. Raw material procurement, education·specialization, marketing, joint business, organizing ability, business management, effectiveness, certification, and larger organizations were classified as the nine types of factors. These factors affect the organized production centers and are used in the logistic regression analysis. The purpose of such research and analysis is to suggest a direction for future production center policies. Results - The basic statistical results are as follows: analysis of the producer organizations of 91 sites, average number of members per site of 1,624, and average sales of 25,961 million won. Additionally, the average income per farmer is 175 million won, and the pooling system rate is 53.5%. The factor analysis results are as follows. Factor 1 consists of contract cultivation, ongoing shipment, selection subdivision, traceability, and major retailer management. Factor 2 consists of manual cultivation, specialty selection, education program, and R&D. Factor 3 consists of advertising, various dealers, various sales strategies, and a unified sales counter. Factor 4 consists of agricultural materials co-purchase, policy support, co-shipment, and incentives. Factor 5 consists of the co-selection and pooling system. Factor 6 consists of co-branding and operating by the organization's article. Factor 7 consists of the buy-sell ratio and rate of operation of the agriculture promotion center. Factor 8 consists of bargaining power in volume and participation rate of farmer certification. Factor 9 consists of increasing new subscribers. The logistic regression analysis results are as follows. Considering the results by type of certification, the environment-friendly agricultural certification type and the GAP certification type have a (+) influence. GAP and HACCP certification types affecting the education·specialization factor have a (+) influence. Considering the results for each type of certification, the environment-friendly agricultural certification types on the effectiveness factor have (-) influence; the HACCP certification types on the organizing ability and effectiveness factor have a (-) influence. Conclusions - Agricultural producer organizations should develop plans as follows: The organizations need to secure education for agricultural production; increase the pooling system ratio for sustainable organizational development; and, finally, expand the number of agricultural producer organizations.

• Review of Korean Society for Internet Information
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.78-85
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• 2013

The revelations made possible by Edward Snowden, a contractor of the US intelligence service NSA, are a sobering reminder that the Internet is not an 'anonymous' means of communication. In fact, the Internet has never been conceived with anonymity in mind. If anything, the Internet and networking technologies provide far more detailed and traceable information about where, when, with whom we communicate. The content of the communication can also be made available to third parties who obtain encryption keys or have the means of exploiting vulnerabilities (either by design or by oversight) of encryption software. Irrebuttable evidence has emerged that the US and the UK intelligence services have had an indiscriminate access to the meta-data of communications and, in some cases, the content of the communications in the name of security and protection of the public. The conventional means of judicial scrutiny of such an access turned out to be ineffectual. The most alarming attitude of the public and some politicians is "If you have nothing to hide, you need not be concerned." Where individuals have nothing to hide, intelligence services have no business in the first place to have a peek. If the public espouses the groundless assumption that State organs are benevolent "( they will have a look only to find out whether there are probable grounds to form a reasonable suspicion"), then the achievements of several hundred years of struggle to have the constitutional guarantees against invasion into privacy and liberty will quickly evaporate. This is an opportune moment to review some of the basic points about the protection of privacy and freedom of individuals. First, if one should hold a view that security can override liberty, one is most likely to lose both liberty and security. Civilized societies have developed the rule of law as the least damaging and most practicable arrangement to strike a balance between security and liberty. Whether we wish to give up the rule of law in the name of security requires a thorough scrutiny and an informed decision of the body politic. It is not a decision which can secretly be made in a closed chamber. Second, protection of privacy has always depended on human being's compliance with the rules rather than technical guarantees or robustness of technical means. It is easy to tear apart an envelope and have a look inside. It was, and still is, the normative prohibition (and our compliance) which provided us with protection of privacy. The same applies to electronic communications. With sufficient resources, surreptitiously undermining technical means of protecting privacy (such as encryption) is certainly 'possible'. But that does not mean that it is permissible. Third, although the Internet is clearly not an 'anonymous' means of communication, many users have a 'false sense of anonymity' which make them more vulnerable to prying eyes. More effort should be made to educate the general public about the technical nature of the Internet and encourage them to adopt user behaviour which is mindful of the possibilities of unwanted surveillance. Fourth, the US and the UK intelligence services have demonstrated that an international cooperation is possible and worked well in running the mechanism of massive surveillance and infiltration into data which travels globally. If that is possible, it should equally be possible to put in place a global mechanism of judicial scrutiny over a global attempt at surveillance.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.639-648
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• 2016

Purpose: Existing precedent studies include success factors of individual management innovation activities constantly. However, those studies have limitations about the common key success factors of individual management innovation activities. Methods: For this study, we investigate the key success factors using literature research of the most typical management innovation activities adopted and implemented by many companies in Korea, such as 6sigma, TQM, Lean 6sigma, ERP, TPM, BPR, Project Management, System Engineering. Factors emerging repeatedly was combined into common factors and inherent factors that are necessary for the success of individual management innovation activities are designated to essential factors. Results: 'Essential factors for Six Sigma' consist of 5 items. Black belt operating system, personnel management system linkage, the correct management of the data, perform improvement projects associated with financial performance financial result, linked to financial performance improvement project, project progress management. 'Essential factors of TQM' are arranged 4 items. Quality team's independence and role, goal-setting, Quality Information System, corporate's philosophy of quality first. 'Essential factors of Lean Six Sigma' are the selection of value stream which is based on the customer needs and the value creation and identify the project based on the selected value in the company. 'Essential factors of ERP' are investigated 6 items. Ongoing system maintenance and upgrades, the measurement and support of user satisfaction, the operating systems and the policies for the maintenance, IT infrastructure, change adaption condition monitoring, focusing on improving business performance. 'Essential factors for TPM' are arranged 4 items. Motivated and energetic Bottom-Up, CEO's recognition of the importance facility management, long-term perspective of necessity and ongoing patience. 'Essential factors for BPR' are the pursuit of change process and the staff's sense of crisis management. 'Essential factors for Project Management' are the strategy that reduce the risk management skills through risk management and the understanding and organized management for the project participant's needs. 'Essential factors for System Engineering' consist of 2 items. The first is the design for the best balanced system with pre-analysis about the compromise the cost, schedule and the performance. The second is the analysis of large problem into small problems which can solved. We have found the solution considering components of the interface through the systematic perspective. Conclusion: Common factors and essential factors presented in this study will properly help to introduce the individual management innovation activities for the each business sector and implement management innovation. After this study, new literature research that reflect new studies should accomplish steadily.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.59-65
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• 2014

Purpose - The competitiveness of logistics in the 21st century rests on ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of its local hub. While considering entry into a niche market in local logistics, it is pertinent to note that Budapest is emerging as a hub in EU enlargement in Eastern Europe. Big, small, and medium-sized businesses in Korea entered Hungary in the early 1990s since then, there has been a significant increase in Korean presence, of approximately 130 times. This study aimed to identify the key distribution issues that have emerged in relation to Eastern Europe. Research design, data, and methodology - This study indicates that 33 major Korean companies were located in Hungary, which serves as an out post to enter the European marketplace. However, Korea's exports to Hungary have declined (-32.0% in 2012) because of a loss of competitiveness against multinational corporations, due to factors such as the rise in current local distribution costs and wages. Hungary, on the other hand, through diversification and expansion of foreign trade with the non-EU markets, including Korea, is increasing its exports. Strategies of emerging countries are compared and reviewed in this study, by examining the vicissitudes of Hungary's distribution methods. Results - There are issues regarding Hungary's innovative ability. Hungary has a history of low wages and high skilled labor. However, the outflow of high-quality human resources for high-wages has become more extensive, and this underlines concerns that the CEE's trade hub is moving to neighboring countries. After the European financial crisis in 2010, the Hungarian economy is now developing, because of the IMF's measures, and it is being transformed into a trade surplus nation, while regaining distribution volumes rapidly. However, if there is continued lack of investment, the supply chain is weakened and exports decline amidst competition with TNCs or with China's distribution networks. Conclusions - It is necessary to create a new logistics approach for increasing trade between Korea and Hungary. First, Korean small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should build trust by working with advanced Hungarian talent, and they should expand into state-of-the-art fields instead of being confined to traditional sectors. Second, this study focuses on limiting and lowering their high expectations for success according to foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and the role in the CEE distribution hub Korea should try to strengthen the distribution hub with its centralized population, using better, more highly educated human resources, thereby sustaining more innovative ability. Further, the positive effects of these measures are manifested in enhanced business on both sides of Hungary, namely, the EU and non-EU nations such as Turkey and emerging markets around Europe, and a better engagement in the core placement of culture and industry. For this, Korea can contribute to, and benefit from, a Hungarian logistics center, for adopting the high-tech cluster systems and commercializing distribution technology such as RFID·USN.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.1 no.2 s.2
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• pp.371-398
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• 2001

Sciences and technologies are the sources which have formed presently highly developed civilizations and cultures and have enhanced the quality of human lives. But we see the dark sides of them as well as the bright sides, and we have the consciousness of environmental crisis and destruction of lives caused by them. Thus were are criticisms against human-tropism or technology-tropism from nature-tropism or deep ecology. However, if people would continue to have the desire of enjoying the present quality of their lives, they should try to develop and improve pro-environmental technologies. In this vein, we have the necessity of making environmental decisions and solving environmental problems by information technologies. Since the second half of the last century, 'environment' is the key word because we have the consciousness of environment strongly. As we solve human problems by making decisions of actions, we must face with environmental decisions in order to solve our environmental problems. If we have the better understanding of the nature of information and the role of information technology, and the relation of information technology and decision-making, we are able to design environmental systems and implement their optimal interfaces of environmental components. For this purpose, we are obliged to combine several useful technologies including GIS, DSS, Knowledge-based system and artificial neural networks. Therefore the developments and cooperations of these fields in environmental decision making enables us to live in the better and comfortable surrounding in the near future.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2018

Under the era of energy crisis, hydrogen energy is considered as one of the most potential alternative energies. Liquid hydrogen has much higher energy density per unit volume than gas hydrogen and is counted as the excellent energy storage method. In this study, Navier-Stokes equations based on 2-phase model were solved by using a computational fluid dynamics program and the liquefaction process of gaseous hydrogen passing through a cryogenic cooling tube was analyzed. The copper with high thermal conductivity was assumed as the material for cryogenic cooling tube. For different inlet velocities of 5 m/s, 10 m/s and 20 m/s for hydrogen gas, the distributions of fluid temperature, axial and radial velocities, and volume fractions of gas and liquid hydrogens were compared. These research results are expected to be used as basic data for the future design and fabrication of cryogenic cooling tube to transform the hydrogen gas into liquid hydrogen.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.147-163
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• 2013

The world faces several issues of energy crisis and environmental deterioration due to over-dependence on single source of which is fossil fuel. Though, fuel is needed as ingredients for industrial development and growth of any country, however the fossil fuel which is a major source of energy for this purpose has always been terrifying thus the need for alternative and renewable energy sources. The search for alternative energy sources resulted into the acceptance of a biofuel as a reliable alternative energy source. This work presents the study of optimization of process of transesterification of vegetable oil to biodiesel using NaOH as catalyst. A $2^4$ factorial design method was employed to investigate the influence of ratio of oil to methanol, temperature, NaOH concentration, and transesterification time on the yield of biodiesel from vegetable oil. Low and high levels of the key factors considered were 4:1 and 6:1 mole ratio, 30 and $60^{\circ}C$ temperatures, 0.5 and 1.0 wt% catalyst concentration, and 30 and 60 min reaction time. Results obtained revealed that oil to methanol molar ratio of 6:1, tranesetrification temperature of $60^{\circ}C$, catalyst concentration of 1.0wt % and reaction time of 30 min are the best operating conditions for the optimum yield of biofuel from vegetable oil, with optimum yield of 95.8%. Results obtained on the characterizzation of the produced biodiesel indicate that the specific gravity, cloud point, flash point, sulphur content, viscosity, diesel index, centane number, acid value, free glycerine, total glycerine and total recovery are 0.8899, 4, 13, 0.0087%, 4.83, 25, 54.6. 0.228mgKOH/g, 0.018, 0.23% and 96% respectively. Results also indicate that the qualities of the biodiesel tested for are in conformity with the set standard. A model equation was developed based on the results obtained using a statistical tool. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of data shows that mole ratio of ground nut oil to methanol and transesterification time have the most pronounced effect on the biodiesel yield with contributions of 55.06% and 9.22% respectively. It can be inferred from the results various conducted that vegetable oil locally produced from groundnut oil can be utilized as a feedstock for biodiesel production.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.201-246
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• 2019

Information technology is sometimes considered as a cause that puts education in a big crisis, or it can be seen as a savior. In 2011, the Korean government announced that it would innovate education and build a talented nation by bringing IT into schools of public education system through the SMART education policy. The policy initiative aimed to establish a standard classroom models that can be diffused all over the country's schools so that teachers and students may become familiar of using devices such as tablet PCs and laptops. This paper analyzes how the smart classrooms caused friction in the actual education practices. To this end, I analyzed the direction and ideals of the SMART education policy by reading government policy document and design guidelines officially published, and visited three elementary schools that are actually building and operating a smart classroom environment to visit the facilities and have in-depth interviews with teachers and technicians. The ideal type of classroom proposed by the smart education policy was a package equipped with various functions at once in a neatly designed space like a "model house", but it was difficult to be used as a normal classroom in everyday life of school. Instead of copying and installing the model, each school decided to get "smart" in its own way, depending on how factors such as size, local characteristics, socioeconomic conditions of students and teachers, teacher experiences, and the level of existing infrastructure were combined. In Elementary School A, the machines tamed specific space of the school to create their own space, while following the rules of the school for being mobile. Although Elementary School B could not construct fully supported environment that encompassed the entire school, the system was organized with the help of well trained teacher's experiences in other schools. In Elementary School C, the machines are concentrated on specific classrooms and they promote teacher's professionalism. The components of the smart classroom were disassembled and recombined in context to make each school's classroom "smart".