• Journal of East Asia Management
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.29-49
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• 2020

In an intensively competitive global market, small-and medium-sized firms are puzzled about how to develop sustainable competitive advantages against global rivalries, thus leading satisfactory economic performance. However, despite the roles and contributions of such small-and medium-sized firms in the local community and national economies in Japan, little guidance has been offered to the practical issues related to their strategic behaviors toward global management. To fill this notable knowledge gap, this study aims to investigate the conditions in which how Japanese small-and medium-sized could dominates global market, which is one of key challenges in the literature of small business and entrepreneurship. To obtain better insights to this research area, this study undertakes an in-depth interview survey with I.S.T (Industrial Summit Technology) Corporation that shows off the highest global market share (40 per cent) with seamless polyimide tube product widely used in office automation equipment (e.g., copiers and printers). This method of survey is designed to deeply understand historical considerations about how I.S.T Corporation could dominate in the global market of such seamless polyimide tube product. Based on findings drawn from an interview, this study identifies five major factors enabling I.S.T Corporation to be a competitive global hidden company: vision sharing through founder's entrepreneurship, core competence, strategic network, risk management, and employee engagement. Specifically, to become a global hidden champion, sharing the vision motivating employees to partake in shaping company's future will be the first step on the road to global success through founder's entrepreneurship. However, in order to achieve such a vision, the importance of company's core competence cannot be overemphasized, which differentiates your customer solution with those of competitors. As such, a group of experts will be naturally formed and demonstrates your expertise in the global market, thereby building sustainable competitiveness. On the other hand, to maintain sustainable competitiveness, it is necessary to make up for the weaknesses small-and medium-sized firms suffer from competitive resources while strengthening their own strengths through strategic networks with external organizations. Here, every company has to understand the critical role of risk management, which is essential in this process of being global company so as not to lose your own strengths. Last but not least, do not forget the significant effects of employee engagement in firm performance. To enhance employees' engagement, a company has to create an ideal organization culture which fits into company's history and personality. In doing so, such organization culture can allow the vision and strategy to be implemented into detailed business tactics while facilitating employees to challenge the status quo by experimenting with creative ideas.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.241-277
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to compare technical efficiencies and productivities without and with environmental constraints, and shadow prices of $SO_x$ in Korean and Chinese industries. The technical efficiencies without and with environment in Chinese manufacturing industries are higher than those in Korean manufacturing industries for 2000-2004. Most of individual Chinese manufacturing dominate those of Korean manufacturing in levels of technical efficiency. In terms of productivity changes excluding environmental constraints, the rates of annual growth in Korean and Chinese industries show 1.13 percent and 2.73 percent respectively. But Korean industry in productivity changes considering $SO_x$ reduction shows 2.41 percent, higher rate of growth than 1.58 percent of Chinese industry. In the shadow prices of $SO_x$, the reduction of an additional unit of $SO_x$ in the Korean manufacturing needs a decrease of 1.473 unit of output, while the shadow price of $SO_x$ in Chinese manufacturing is 0.0049, close to zero. Korean manufacturing should be specialized in higher sectors of technical efficiency and productivity and be also kept efficient in pollution abatement cost.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.61-72
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• 2013

Purpose - It is widely accepted that the process of developing marketing strategy is composed of three steps: market segmentation, target market selection and positioning. However, mass marketing strategy based on cost reduction through economies of scale and standardized products, can be also an effective strategic option. Many marketing scholars including Theodore Levitt emphasize the importance of applying the mass production concept to various industries including service industries. Especially, in times of economic downturn, the capability of providing consumers with low-priced, value products can be an important source of competitive advantage, as well as the ability of providing high-priced premium products. Marketers should decide whether they will implement mass marketing strategy or target marketing strategy. The present study theoretically shows that firms should understand the target customers' price elasticity as well as the firm's cost structure in order to make such a strategic decision. Research design, data, and methodology - Instead of implementing an empirical study, this study provides a theoretical(mathematical) investigation on the effect of consumers' price elasticity on a firm's optimal price level, profit, sales volume, revenue, and cost. The results are mostly deduced from derivative calculations and several graphs are utilized to represent the results on the relationships between the variables under study. Results - The analytical results suggest that it is more profitable for a firm to adopt the segment/target marketing strategy (more specifically the differentiation strategy) when the degree of consumers' heterogeneity is high and the proportion of the fixed cost in the total cost is low. On the other hand, if the degree of consumers' heterogeneity is low and the fixed cost is high, it is better to adopt the mass marketing strategy or the cost leadership strategy. The strategy of concentrating on a single target market will be effective when consumers' needs are highly heterogeneous but the fixed cost is high. Any of the three types of generic strategies proposed my Porter(1980, 1985) can be applied when both the consumers' heterogeneity and the fixed cost are low. This study also proposes the contribution-margin-based method for developing the optimal pricing strategy. Conclusions - One of the primary roles of marketers is to find a proper compromise between the two conflicting goals of maximizing customer satisfaction and minimizing cost. In order to do so, he or she should understand the characteristics of the target customers as well as the cost structure of the firm. In addition to the theoretical analyses, this study discusses several business cases and explains how superior companies find the optimal compromise position between these two goals and dominate the market. One of the radical changes recently taking place in business arena is the reduction of production and distribution costs of both physical goods and information due to the advancement and the wide diffusion of information technology. The cost reduction combined with lowered priced elasticity incurred by customized products and services, will enable many firms to adopt the mass customization strategy.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.37 no.12
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• pp.657-667
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• 2015

Cyanobacteria frequently dominate the freshwater phytoplankton community in eutrophic waters. Cyanotoxins can be classified according to toxicity as neurotoxin (Anatoxin-a, Anatoxin-a(s), Saxitoxins) or hepatotoxin (microcystins, nodularin, cylindrospermopsin). Microcystins are present within cyanobacterial cells generally, and they are extracted by the damage of cell membrane. It has been reported that cyanotoxins caused adverse effects and they are acculmulated in aquatic oganisms of lake, river and ocean. In natural, microcystins are removed by biodegradation of microorganisms and/or feeding of predators. However, in process of water treatment, the use of copper sulfate to remove algal cells caused extraction of a mess of microcystins. Microcysitns are removed by physical, chemical and biological methods according to reports. The reduction of nutrients (N and P) inflow is basic method of prevention of cyanobacteria bloom formation. However, it is less effective than investigation because nutrients already present in the eutrophic lake. In natural lake, cyanobacteria bloom are not formed because macrophytes invade from coastal lake by eutrophication. Therefore, a coastal lake has to recover to prevent of cyanobacteria bloom formation.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.215-228
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• 2004

Rock mass contains discontinuities such as faults and joints, and their mechanical properties and spatial distribution dominate the stability of rock mass. Because the deformation of rock mass occurs discontinuities in many cases. However in the case of poor quality rock mass under high stresses, the deformation along intact rock can also influence the structure's stability. In this study, two dimensional finite element program was developed with a rheological model to analyze the stability of the structure excavated in jointed rock mass. The “equivalent material” approach was used assuming intact rock, joints and rock bolts as visco-plastic materials. The program was verified by analysing an intact rock model, a jointed rock mass model and a reinforced jointed rock mass model. The displacement was examined in each model with changing the intact rock behaviour as elastic and visco-plastic. In the case of poor quality rock mass under high stresses, e assumption of visco-plastic behaviour of intact rock resulted in larger displacement than when assuming elastic behaviour for intact rock. Therefore it is recommended to add intact rock's visco-plastic behaviour to the existing model, which only assumes visco-plastic behaviour of joints and rock bolts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.17-18
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• 2011

Plasma in liquid phase has attracted great attention in the last few years by the wide domain of applications in material processing, decomposition of organic and inorganic chemical compounds and sterilization of water. The plasma in liquid is characterized by three main regions which interact each - other during the plasma operation: the liquid phase, which supply the plasma gas phase with various chemical compounds and ions, the plasma in the gas phase at atmospheric pressure and the interface between these two regions. The most complex region, but extremely interesting from the fundamental, chemical and physical processes which occur here, is the boundary between the liquid phase and the plasma gas phase. In our laboratory, plasma in liquid which behaves as a glow discharge type, is generated by using a bipolar pulsed power supply, with variable pulse width, in the range of 0.5~10 ${\mu}s$ and 10 to 30 kHz repetition rate. Plasma in water and other different solutions was characterized by electrical and optical measurements. Strong emissions of OH and H radicals dominate the optical spectra. Generally water with 500 ${\mu}S/cm$ conductivity has a breakdown voltage around 2 kV, depending on the pulse width and the repetition rate of the power supply. The characteristics of the plasma initiated in ultrapure water between pairs of different materials used for electrodes (W and Ta) were investigated by the time-resolved optical emission and the broad-band absorption spectroscopy. The deexcitation processes of the reactive species formed in the water plasma depend on the electrode material, but have been independent on the polarity of the applied voltage pulses. Recently, Coherent anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy method was employed to investigate the chemistry in the liquid phase and at the interface between the gas and the liquid phases of the solution plasma system. The use of the solution plasma allows rapid fabrication of the metal nanoparticles without being necessary the addition of different reducing agents, because plasma in the liquid phase provides a reaction field with a highly excited energy radicals. We successfully synthesized gold nanoparticles using a glow discharge in aqueous solution. Nanoparticles with an average size of less than 10 nm were obtained using chlorauric acid solutions as the metal source. Carbon/Pt hybrid nanostructures have been obtained by treating carbon balls, synthesized in a CVD chamber, with hexachloro- platinum acid in a solution plasma system. The solution plasma was successfully used to remove the template remained after the mesoporous silica synthesis. Surface functionalization of the carbon structures and the silica surface with different chemical groups and nanoparticles, was also performed by processing these materials in the liquid plasma.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.67-74
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• 2013

This research was conducted to investigate the competition for survival between the two cricket species: Gryllus bimaculatus (GB) and Teleogryllus emma (TE). The test insects for this research were bred in the greenhouse of the Ecological Entomology Lab, College of Agriculture and Biosciences, Kyungpook National University, Korea. The feeding environment was $28^{\circ}C$ to $30^{\circ}C$, Long-Day condition (16L : 8D) and Relative Humidity: 50%~60%. The changes of the individual number in two species (TE, GB) were checked every day. This research had three experimental conditions which the ratios of individuals (TE : GB) were set at 1 : 2, 1 : 1 and 2 : 1. The survival rate of GB was net better than that of TE in the result of this study. However, due to the absence of the diapauses period in the egg stage, GB would dominate over TE in the field condition. The appropriate legal measure against GB is recommended.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.6 no.1_2
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• pp.37-43
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• 1973

In this paper, non-enzymatic browning reactions as a factor of self stability of boiled and dried anchovy were studied to discuss the effect of water activity to the discoloring reaction and the preservative moisture content. The development of rancidity of the fish meat was also mentioned since the fish is fatty and the lipid oxidation is a functional deteriorative reaction. Fresh anchovies were boiled in $10\%$ salt solution immediately after the catch, sun dried, and stored at room temperature ($20^{\circ}C$) for two months in humidistat chambers maintaining different levels of water activity as described in Table 1. The pigments formed by non-enzymatic browning reations were extracted in two fractions, those were chloroform-methanol soluble and water dialyzed fraction, and analyzed spectrophotometrically at the wavelength of 460 nm. These two fractions were considered, respectively to be the brown pigments formed by lipid oxidation reactions for the formler and for the latter, to be the pigments developed by sugar-amino or Maillard reaction. The oxidation of lipid in anchovy meat during the storage was measured as the changes in Peroxide value and the color development of thiobarbituric acid reaction. It is summarized from the results that the rate of both reactions, lipid oxidation and browning, was affected by water activity levels. In regard to the changes in peroxide and TBA value during the storage, the propagation of lipid oxidation was obviously accelerated at lower humidities whereas the development of browning progressed at the higher. These two reactions occurring simultaneously and contrary in activity resulted in that the rate of deterioration occurring oxidatively or by browning, was the minimum at the water activity of 0.32-0.45 which were $7-9\%$ as moisture content and slightly higher value than that of monolayer (Aw=0.21, $5.11\%$ as moisture content). It is also noted that the lipid oxidative browning was presumed to dominate sugar-amino reactions so that the rate of browning of the meat was ultimately depended on the development of rancidity although sugar-amino reactions initiated earlier than the other at the first ten days of storage, particulary at higher humidity. At the lower humidity sugar-amino reactions were occurred gradually but lower levels in color development in contrast to the consistent increase in lipid oxidative browning.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.3 s.120
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• pp.344-354
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• 2007

Estuarine wetlands for 33 watersheds in the Han River estuary were delineated on topographic maps from the 1910s, 1970s, and 2000s. Then, these data were used to address the issue of spatial distribution and temporal variation. Watershed characteristics such as drainage density, location, watershed size, slope, and elevation were identified for each watershed to determine the relationship between watershed characteristics and spatial distribution of estuarine wetlands. The analysis of estuarine wetlands indicated that wetlands in the estuary had declined gradually between the 1910s and the 1970s, although most wetlands were lost since the 1970s mainly caused by the large development projects related to urban expansion in metropolitan Seoul. The sediment composition and formation processes of the wetlands differed with watershed location; mud flats dominate in the lower part of the estuary, and relatively more sandy and emergent-plant wetlands occur near the main channel and tributaries of the Han River. Relatively more estuary wetlands occur in large watersheds, which have high slopes and low elevations. Estuarine wetlands have been lost dramatically in the densely populated watershed regions (i.e., Han River Seoul, Han River Goyang, West Han River), while relatively more wetlands have remained in undeveloped regions, including the Lower Imjin River and Lower Han River. In particular, anthropogenic disturbance has played an important role in the loss of wetland through the conversion of wetland into agricultural and developed land.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.57
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• pp.250-266
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• 2012

In neo-liberalism, the change-value of the market and of the machandise based on the individual as the consumer dominate the public sphere, and the capital power encroach on it. with the technological revolution. At the same time the public sphere as such represent the media sphere, which is more and more subordinate, and have no choice but to do to the governmental authority having political power privatized. The private usage of reason in the public sphere is carried out at the structual level. How can we call such a space in which the private usage of reason is generalized and dominant as the public sphere? And so now, we sound out the possibility of the public sphere such as a new space of the universality where the public usage of reason can be realized without any limits and with free. So, when we imagine the proletarian public sphere, in which co-exist the divers private interests, as a new public sphere capable to be constructed, we can address a question as follow. What is the caracteristic of the proletarian public sphere in modern society?, Is the public community able to be formed and realized in such space? How would have the proletarian public sphere the carateristics of the publis sphere? What is the attribute of the community that the proletarian public sphere would make, and what is its force of emancipation? The power is no longer stable and static. Rather, it is reconstructed and reorganized in the divers phases of the everyday life. It is the reason why we put on the order of the day the proletarian public sphere as alternative public space, which would be a place of divers hegemonic representation. And now, we are aware of the beginning of thses changes.