• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
• /
• v.38 no.2
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2010

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the influence of landscaping pavements on WBGT(Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature) of outdoor spaces that lack ventilation and shade at summer midday. The relative humidity(RH), dry-bulb temperature(DT) and globe temperature(GT) were recorded every minute from June to October 2009 at a height of 1.2m above ten experimental beds with different pavements, by a measuring system consisting of an electric humidity sensor(GHM-15), resistance temperature detector(RTD, Pt-100), standard black globe(${\phi} 150mm$) and data acquisition systems(National Instrument's Labview and Compact FieldPoint). Additionally, the surface dry-bulb temperatures also were recorded and compared. The area of each experimental bed was 1.5m(W)${\times}$2.0m(L) and ten different kinds of pavement were used including grass, grass+cubic stone, grass+porous brick, brick, stone panels, cubic stone, interlocking blocks, clay brick, naked soil, gravel and concrete. To prevent interference from ventilation, a 1.5m height cubic steel frame was established around each bed and each vertical side of the frame was covered with transparent polyethylene film. Based on the records of the hottest period from noon to 3 PM on 26 days with a peak dry-bulb temperature over $30^{\circ}C$ at natural condition, the wet-bulb temperature(WT) and WBGT were calculated and compared. The major findings were as follows: 1. The average surface DT was $40.1^{\circ}C$, which is $9^{\circ}C$ higher than that of the natural condition. The surface DT of the pavements with grass were higher than those of concrete and interlocking block. The peak DT of the surface almost every pavement rose to above $50^{\circ}C$ during the hottest time. 2. The averages of DT, WT and GT were $40.1^{\circ}C$, $27.5^{\circ}C$ and $49.1^{\circ}C$, and the peak values rose to $48.1^{\circ}C$, $45.8^{\circ}C$ and $59.5^{\circ}C$, respectively. In spite of slight differences that resulted according to pavements, no coherent differentiating factor could be found. 3. The average WBGT of grass was the highest at $34.3^{\circ}C$ while the others were similar in the range of around $33{\pm}1^{\circ}C$. Meanwhile, the peak WBGT was highest with stone panel at $47.9^{\circ}C$. Though there were some differences according to pavements, and while grass seemed to be worst in terms of WBGT, it seems difficult to say ablolutely that grass was the worst because the measurement was conducted without ventilation and shade during summer daytime hours only, which had temperatures that rose to a dangerous degree(above $45^{\circ}C$ WBGT), withering the grass during the hottest period. The average WBGT resulted also showed that the thermal environment of the pavement without ventilation and shade were at an intolerable level for humans regardless of the pavement type. In summary, the results of this study show that ventilation and shade are more important factor than pavement type in terms of outdoor thermal comfort in summer daylight hours.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.31-54
• /
• 2007

The exchange between buyers and sellers in the industrial market is changing from short-term to long-term relationships. Long-term relationships are governed mainly by formal contracts or informal agreements, but many scholars are now asserting that controlling relationship by using formal contracts under environmental dynamism is inappropriate. In this case, partners will depend on each other's flexibility or interdependence. The former, flexibility, provides a general frame of reference, order, and standards against which to guide and assess appropriate behavior in dynamic and ambiguous situations, thus motivating the value-oriented performance goals shared between partners. It is based on social sacrifices, which can potentially minimize any opportunistic behaviors. The later, interdependence, means that each firm possesses a high level of dependence in an dynamic channel relationship. When interdependence is high in magnitude and symmetric, each firm enjoys a high level of power and the bonds between the firms should be reasonably strong. Strong shared power is likely to promote commitment because of the common interests, attention, and support found in such channel relationships. This study deals with environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Firms in the high-tech industry regard it as a key success factor to successfully cope with environmental changes. However, due to the lack of studies dealing with environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry, it is very difficult to find effective strategies to cope with them. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry. We examined the effects of consumer, competitor, and technological dynamism on supply chain commitment. Additionally, we examined the moderating effects of flexibility and dependence of supply chains. This study was confined to the type of high-tech industry which has the characteristics of rapid technology change and short product lifecycle. Flexibility among the firms of this industry, having the characteristic of hard and fast growth, is more important here than among any other industry. Thus, a variety of environmental dynamism can affect a supply chain relationship. The industries targeted industries were electronic parts, metal product, computer, electric machine, automobile, and medical precision manufacturing industries. Data was collected as follows. During the survey, the researchers managed to obtain the list of parts suppliers of 2 companies, N and L, with an international competitiveness in the mobile phone manufacturing industry; and of the suppliers in a business relationship with S company, a semiconductor manufacturing company. They were asked to respond to the survey via telephone and e-mail. During the two month period of February-April 2006, we were able to collect data from 44 companies. The respondents were restricted to direct dealing authorities and subcontractor company (the supplier) staff with at least three months of dealing experience with a manufacture (an industrial material buyer). The measurement validation procedures included scale reliability; discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.70. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. A series of chi-square difference tests were conducted so that the discriminant validity could be ensured. For each pair, we estimated two models-an unconstrained model and a constrained model-and compared the two model fits. All these tests supported discriminant validity. Also, all items loaded significantly on their respective constructs, providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than.70. The AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the multiple regression analysis, customer dynamism had a negative effect and competitor dynamism had a positive effect on a supplier's commitment. In addition, flexibility and dependence had significant moderating effects on customer and competitor dynamism. On the other hand, all hypotheses about technological dynamism had no significant effects on commitment. In other words, technological dynamism had no direct effect on supplier's commitment and was not moderated by the flexibility and dependence of the supply chain. This study makes its contribution in the point of view that this is a rare study on environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the field of high-tech industry. Especially, this study verified the effects of three sectors of environmental dynamism on supplier's commitment. Also, it empirically tested how the effects were moderated by flexibility and dependence. The results showed that flexibility and interdependence had a role to strengthen supplier's commitment under environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Thus relationship managers in high-tech industry should make supply chain relationship flexible and interdependent. The limitations of the study are as follows; First, about the research setting, the study was conducted with high-tech industry, in which the direction of the change in the power balance of supply chain dyads is usually determined by manufacturers. So we have a difficulty with generalization. We need to control the power structure between partners in a future study. Secondly, about flexibility, we treated it throughout the paper as positive, but it can also be negative, i.e. violating an agreement or moving, but in the wrong direction, etc. Therefore we need to investigate the multi-dimensionality of flexibility in future research.