• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2008

This study is to evaluate, to the extent to, which advanced currency futures and emerging currency futures markets can predict accurately the future spot rate. To this end, Johansen's the maximum-likelihood cointegration method(1988, 1991) is adopted to test the unbiasedness and efficiency hypothesis. Also, this study is to estimate and compare a quantitative measure of relative efficiency as a ratio of the forecast error variance from the best-fitting quasi-error correction model to the forecast error variance of the futures price as predictor of the spot price in advanced currency futures with in emerging currency futures market. Advanced currency futures is British pound and Japan yen. Emerging currency futures includes Korea won, Mexico peso, and Brazil real. The empirical results are summarized as follows : First, the unbiasedness hypothesis is not rejected for Korea won and Japan yen futures exchange rates. This indicates that the emerging currency Korea won and the advanced currency Japan yen futures exchange rates are likely to predict accurately realized spot exchange rate at a maturity date without the trader having to pay a risk premium for the privilege of trading the contract. Second, in emerging currency futures markets, the unbiasedness hypothesis is not rejected for Korea won futures market apart from Mexico peso and Brazil real futures markets. This indicates that in emerging currency futures markets, Korea won futures market is more efficient than Mexico peso and Brazil real futures markets and is likely to predict accurately realized spot exchange rate at a maturity date without risk premium. Third, this findings show that the results of unbiasedness hypothesis tests can provide conflicting finding. according to currency futures class and forecasts horizon period, Fourth, from the best-fitting quasi-error correction model with forecast horizons of 14 days, the findings suggest the Japan yen futures market is 27.06% efficient, the British pound futures market is 26.87% efficient, the Korea won futures market is 20.77% efficient, the Mexico peso futures market is 11.55%, and the Brazil real futures market is 4.45% efficient in the usual order. This indicates that the Korea won-dollar futures market is more efficient than Mexico peso, and Brazil real futures market. It is therefore possible to concludes that the Korea won-dollar currency futures market has relatively high efficiency comparing with Mexico peso and Brazil real futures markets of emerging currency futures markets.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.207-228
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• 2007

Measuring Information Technology(IT) organizations' activities have been limited to mainly measure financial indicators for a long time. However, according to the multifarious functions of Information System, a number of researches have been done for the new trends on measurement methodologies that come with financial measurement as well as new measurement methods. Especially, the researches on IT Balanced Scorecard(BSC), concept from BSC measuring IT activities have been done as well in recent years. BSC provides more advantages than only integration of non-financial measures in a performance measurement system. The core of BSC rests on the cause-and-effect relationships between measures to allow prediction of value chain performance measures to allow prediction of value chain performance measures, communication, and realization of the corporate strategy and incentive controlled actions. More recently, BSC proponents have focused on the need to tie measures together into a causal chain of performance, and to test the validity of these hypothesized effects to guide the development of strategy. Kaplan and Norton[2001] argue that one of the primary benefits of the balanced scorecard is its use in gauging the success of strategy. Norreklit[2000] insist that the cause-and-effect chain is central to the balanced scorecard. The cause-and-effect chain is also central to the IT BSC. However, prior researches on relationship between information system and enterprise strategies as well as connection between various IT performance measurement indicators are not so much studied. Ittner et al.[2003] report that 77% of all surveyed companies with an implemented BSC place no or only little interest on soundly modeled cause-and-effect relationships despite of the importance of cause-and-effect chains as an integral part of BSC. This shortcoming can be explained with one theoretical and one practical reason[Blumenberg and Hinz, 2006]. From a theoretical point of view, causalities within the BSC method and their application are only vaguely described by Kaplan and Norton. From a practical consideration, modeling corporate causalities is a complex task due to tedious data acquisition and following reliability maintenance. However, cause-and effect relationships are an essential part of BSCs because they differentiate performance measurement systems like BSCs from simple key performance indicator(KPI) lists. KPI lists present an ad-hoc collection of measures to managers but do not allow for a comprehensive view on corporate performance. Instead, performance measurement system like BSCs tries to model the relationships of the underlying value chain in cause-and-effect relationships. Therefore, to overcome the deficiencies of causal modeling in IT BSC, sound and robust causal modeling approaches are required in theory as well as in practice for offering a solution. The propose of this study is to suggest critical success factors(CSFs) and KPIs for measuring performance for IT organizations and empirically validate the casual relationships between those CSFs. For this purpose, we define four perspectives of BSC for IT organizations according to Van Grembergen's study[2000] as follows. The Future Orientation perspective represents the human and technology resources needed by IT to deliver its services. The Operational Excellence perspective represents the IT processes employed to develop and deliver the applications. The User Orientation perspective represents the user evaluation of IT. The Business Contribution perspective captures the business value of the IT investments. Each of these perspectives has to be translated into corresponding metrics and measures that assess the current situations. This study suggests 12 CSFs for IT BSC based on the previous IT BSC's studies and COBIT 4.1. These CSFs consist of 51 KPIs. We defines the cause-and-effect relationships among BSC CSFs for IT Organizations as follows. The Future Orientation perspective will have positive effects on the Operational Excellence perspective. Then the Operational Excellence perspective will have positive effects on the User Orientation perspective. Finally, the User Orientation perspective will have positive effects on the Business Contribution perspective. This research tests the validity of these hypothesized casual effects and the sub-hypothesized causal relationships. For the purpose, we used the Partial Least Squares approach to Structural Equation Modeling(or PLS Path Modeling) for analyzing multiple IT BSC CSFs. The PLS path modeling has special abilities that make it more appropriate than other techniques, such as multiple regression and LISREL, when analyzing small sample sizes. Recently the use of PLS path modeling has been gaining interests and use among IS researchers in recent years because of its ability to model latent constructs under conditions of nonormality and with small to medium sample sizes(Chin et al., 2003). The empirical results of our study using PLS path modeling show that the casual effects in IT BSC significantly exist partially in our hypotheses.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.510-518
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• 2002

Background : Bronchial anthracofibrosis (BAF) is a dark black or brown pigmentation of multiple large bronchi associated with a fibrotic stenosis or obliteration that is incidentally found during a diagnostic bronchoscopy some reporters have suggested endobronchial tuberculosis or tuberculous lymphadenitis as a possible cause of BAF. However, some BAF patients do not have any medical history of tuberculosis. The aim of this study was to elucidate the clinical features of simple BAF patients, which were not associated with tuberculosis. Methods : We reviewed the patients' charts retrospectiely and interviewed all BAF patients who were followed up for 1 year or more. Among the 114 BAF patients, 43 patents (38 %) had no associated tuberculosis, cancer and pneumoconiosis. The clinical characteristics, radiological findings and associated pulmonary diseases of these patients were evaluated. Results : Most patients were non-smokers, old aged, housewifes who resided in a farming village. The common respiratory symptoms were dyspnea, cough and hemoptysis. The predominant X-ray findings were a multiple bronchial wall thickening(89%), bronchial narrowing or atelectasis (76%) and a mediastinal lymph node enlargement with/without calcification (78%). Pulmonary function test usually showed mild obstructive ventilatory abnormalities but no patient showed a restrictive ventilatory pattern and the patients were frequently affected with chronic bronchitis(51%), post-obstructive pneumonia(40%) and chronic asthma(4%). Conclusion : Because BAF is frequently associated with chronic bronchitis and obstructive pneumonia as well as tuberculosis, a careful clinical evaluation and accurate differential diagnosis is more essential than empirical anti-tuberculous medication.

• Archives of design research
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• v.18 no.2 s.60
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• pp.155-164
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• 2005

Home-service robots need to have sufficient spatial information about the surroundings for interacting with human intelligently and performing services efficiently. It is very important to investigate the efficient interaction style that supports map building task through human-robot collaboration. We first analyzed map building task with a cleaning robot and drew 4 design factors and tentative solutions, including map building procedure (task-preferred procedure/space- preferred procedure), LCD display installation (robot/robot+remote control), navigation method (push type/pull type), feedback modality(GUI/GUI+TTS). The design factors and tentative solutions were defined as independent variables and levels. This research investigated how those variables affect to the human task performance and behavior in map building tast. 8 kinds of experiment prototypes were built and usability test among 16 house wives was conducted for acquiring empirical data. As the experiment result, in terms of map building procedure, space-preferred procedure indicated better task performance than task-proffered procedure as we expected. For the LCD display installation factor, remote control with LCD display indicated higher task performance and subjective satisfaction. In robot navigation method, it was very difficult to find a significant difference between push type and pull type which contrary to our expectation. In fact, push type indicated higher subjective satisfaction. Also in feedback modality, we have acquired negative feedback an additional TTS operation guidance. It seems that robot's autonomy before achieving spatial information is rudiment condition which means users are just interacting with a mobile appliance. Thus they prefer remote-control-based interaction style in robot map building process as they used in traditional appliance control.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.543-560
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• 2018

With the increased development in downtown underground space facilities that vertically cross under a railway at a shallow depth, the demand for non-open cut method is increasing. However, most construction sites still adopt the pipe roof method, where medium and large diameter steel pipes are pressed in to form a roof, enabling excavation of the inside space. Among the many factors that influence the loosening region and loads that occur while pressing in steel pipes, the size of the pipe has the largest impact, and this factor may correspond to the magnitude of load applied to the underground structure inside the steel pipe roof. The super equilibrium method (SEM) has been developed to minimize ground disturbance and loosening load, and uses small diameter pipes of approximately 114 mm instead of conventional medium and large diameter pipes. This small diameter steel pipe is called an SEM pile. After SEM piles are pressed in and the grouting reinforcement is constructed, a crossing structure is pressed in by using a hydraulic jack without ground subsidence or heaving. The SEM pile, which plays the role of timbering, is a fore-poling pile of approximately 5 m length that prevents ground collapse and supports surface load during excavation of toe part. The loosening region should be adequately calculated to estimate the spacing and construction length of the piles and stiffness of members. In this paper, we conducted a comparative analysis of calculations of loosening load that occurs during the press-in of SEM pile to obtain an optimal design of SEM. We analyzed the influence of factors in main theoretical and empirical formulas applied for calculating loosening regions, and carried out FEM analysis to see an appropriate loosening load to the SEM pile. In order to estimate the soil loosening caused by actual SEM-pile indentation and excavation, a steel pipe indentation reduction model test was conducted. Soil subsidence and soil loosening were investigated quantitatively according to soil/steel pipe (H/D).

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.104-120
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• 1979

I. Title of the Study Studies on the Development of Improved Subsurface Drainage Methods. -Drainage Performance of Various Subsurface Drain Materials- II. Object of the Study Studies were carried out to select the drain material having the highest performance of drainage; And to develop the water budget model which is necessary for the planning of the drainage project and the establishment of water management standards in the water-logged paddy field. III. Content and Scope of the Study 1. The experiment was carried out in the laboratory by using a sand tank model. The drainage performance of various drain materials was compared evaluated. 2. A water budget model was established. Various parameters necessary for the model were investigated by analyzing existing data and measured data from the experimental field. The adaptability of the model was evaluated by comparing the estimated values to the field data. IV. Results and Recommendations 1. A corrugated tube enveloped with gravel or mat showed the highest drainage performance among the eight materials submmitted for the experiment. 2. The drainage performance of the long cement tile(50 cm long) was higher than that of the short cement tile(25 cm long). 3. Rice bran was superior to gravel in its' drain performance. 4. No difference was shown between a grave envelope and a P.V.C. wool mat in their performance of drainage. Continues investigation is needed to clarify the envelope performance. 5. All the results described above were obtained from the laboratory tests. A field test is recommended to confirm the results obtained. 6. As a water balance model of a given soil profile, the soil moisture depletion D, could be represented as follows; $$D=\Sigma\limit_{t=1}^{n}(Et-R_{\ell}-I+W_d)..........(17)$$ 7. Among the various empirical formulae for potential evapotranspiration, Penman's formular was best fit to the data observed with the evaporation pans in Jinju area. High degree of positive correlation between Penman;s predicted data and observed data was confirmed. The regression equation was Y=1.4X-22.86, where Y represents evaporation rate from small pan, in mm/100 days, and X represents potential evapotranspiration rate estimated by Penman's formular. The coefficient of correlation was r=0.94.** 8. To estimate evapotranspiration in the field, the consumptive use coefficient, Kc, was introduced. Kc was defined by the function of the characteristics of the crop soil as follows; $Kc=Kco{\cdot}Ka+Ks..........(20)$ where, Kco, Ka ans Ks represents the crop coefficient, the soil moisture coefficient, and the correction coefficient, respectively. The value of Kco and Ka was obtained from the Fig.16 and the Fig.17, respectively. And, if $Kco{\cdot}Ka{\geq}1.0,$ then Ks=0, otherwise, Ks value was estimated by using the relation; $Ks=1-Kco{\cdot}Ka$. 9. Into type formular, $r_t=\frac{R_{24}}{24}(\frac{b}{\sqrt{t}+a})$, was the best fit one to estimate the probable rainfall intensity when daily rainfall and rainfall durations are given as input data, The coefficient a and b are shown on the Table 16. 10. Japanese type formular, $I_t=\frac{b}{\sqrt{t}+a}$, was the best fit one to estimate the probable rainfall intensity when the rainfall duration only was given. The coefficient a and b are shown on the Table 17. 11. Effective rainfall, Re, was estimated by using following relationships; Re=D, if $R-D\geq}0$, otherwise, Re=R. 12. The difference of rainfall amount from soil moisture depletion was considered as the amount of drainage required. In this case, when Wd=O, Equation 24 was used, otherwise two to three days of lag time was considered and correction was made by use of storage coefficient. 13. To evaluate the model, measured data and estimated data was compared, and relative error was computed. 5.5 percent The relative error was 5.5 percent. 14. By considering the water budget in Jinju area, it was shown that the evaporation amount was greater than the rainfall during period of October to March in next year. This was the behind reasonning that the improvement of surface drainage system is needed in Jinju area.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-33
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• 2008

As the interest in the business-to-business(B2B) electronic commerce is increasing, many companies are participating in the B2B e-Marketplaces. The e-Marketplace is defined as the virtual market that many players take part in to transact. The e-Marketplace has an influenced on the manner in which organizational buyers and sellers interact. As a result, it is important to develop an understanding of the behaviors of firms that use these electronic marketplaces. The purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive model for trust and commitment of B2B e-Marketplace and empirically to examine their structural relationships. Drawing from trust and commitment theory in the interorganizational relationship and B2B electronic commerce context, this study identifies network externality, interactivity, justice, quality of information sharing, institutional assurance as the determinants of trust and commitment of e-Marketplace. The proposed model hypothesized that (1) trust is a function of network externality, interactivity, justice, quality of information sharing, institutional assurance, (2) attitudinal and behavioral commitment is a function of trust, (3) behavioral commitment is a function of attitudinal commitment. The proposed model is tested using organizational-level survey data from 187 buying organizations that conduct business in MRO e-Marketplaces. The data were tested by reliability test, correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and covariance structure analysis. The results indicate that (1) trust is influenced by network externality, interactivity, justice, institutional assurance, (2) attitudinal commitment and behavioral commitment is influenced by trust (3) behavioral commitment is influenced by attitudinal commitment. Also, the empirical results confirmed that trust play a strong, central role in determinging e-Marketplace commitment. The key theoretical contribution of this research is that it begins to extend interorganizational information system literature in areas such as B2B Internet e-Marketplace. Managerially, this study contributes tn the understanding of the role of B2B e-Markeplace providers in Internet situation. And Limitations of this study and guidelines for future researches are also discussed.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.98-109
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• 2010

Research on the construction, measurement, and management of brand equity has been extensive since David A. Aaker(1991) and Kevin Lane Keller(1993) first advanced the concept. Recently, much attention has been devoted to the components of brand equity: brand awareness, perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty. This study explores the relationships among these components, focusing particularly on the moderating role of product type (utilitarian vs. hedonic) in their causal relationships. A model to study the relationship among components of brand equity, particularly the moderating role of product type, is featured in Figure 1. The hypotheses of the study are proposed as follows: that consumers' brand awareness has a positive influence on brand loyalty and brand image; that consumers' perceived quality has a positive influence on brand loyalty and brand image; that consumers' brand image influences brand loyalty positively; and that relationships among components of brand equity will be moderated by product type. That is, in the case of utilitarian products, the impact of perceived quality on brand loyalty will be relatively stronger, whereas with hedonic products the impact of brand image on brand loyalty will be relatively stronger. To determine the products for the study, a pre-test of 58 college students in the Seoul metropolitan area was conducted based on the product type scale. As a result, computers were selected as the utilitarian product and blue jeans became the hedonic product. For each product type, two brands were selected: Samsung and HP for computers, and Levis and Nix for blue jeans. In the main study, 237 college students in the metropolitan area were surveyed to measure their brand awareness, perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty toward the selected two brands of each product type. The subjects were divided into two groups: one group (121 subjects) for computers, the other (116 subjects) for blue jeans. The survey questionnaires for the study included four parts: five questions on brand awareness and four questions each on perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty. All questions were to be answered using 7-point Likert scales. The data collected by the survey were processed to assess reliability and validity, and the causal relationships were analyzed to verify the hypotheses using the AMOS 7 program, a tool for analyzing structural equation modeling. A confirmatory factor analysis assessed the appropriateness of the measurement model, and the fit indices denoted that the model was satisfactory. The relationships among the components of brand equity were also analyzed using AMOS 7. The fit indices of the structural model denoted that it was also satisfactory. The paths in the structural model as will be seen in Figure 2 show that perceived quality affects brand image positively, but that brand awareness does not affect brand image. Moreover, it shows that brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand image are positively related with brand loyalty, and that this relationship is moderated by product type. In the case of utilitarian products, perceived quality has relatively more influence on brand loyalty. Conversely, in the case of hedonic products, brand image has relatively more influence on brand loyalty. The results of this empirical study contribute toward the advancement of our understanding of the relationships among the components of brand equity and expand the theoretical underpinnings for brand equity measurement. It also helps further our understanding of the effect of product type on customer-based brand equity. In a marketing management practice perspective, these results may provide managerial implications for building and maintaining brand equity effectively.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.1-25
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• 2010

This study attempted to empirically test the determinants of stock returns in Korean stock market applying multi-factor model proposed by Haugen and Baker(1996). Regression models were developed using 16 variables related to liquidity, risk, historical price, price level, and profitability as independent variables and 690 stock monthly returns as dependent variable. For the statistical analysis, the data were collected from the Kis Value database and the tests of forecasting power in this study minimized various possible bias discussed in the literature as possible. The statistical results indicated that: 1) Liquidity, one-month excess return, three-month excess return, PER, ROE, and volatility of total return affect stock returns simultaneously. 2) Liquidity, one-month excess return, three-month excess return, six-month excess return, PSR, PBR, ROE, and EPS have an antecedent influence on stock returns. Meanwhile, realized returns of decile portfolios increase in proportion to predicted returns. This results supported previous study by Haugen and Baker(1996) and indicated that firm-characteristic model can better predict stock returns than CAPM. 3) The firm-characteristic model has better predictive power than Fama-French three-factor model, which indicates that a portfolio constructed based on this model can achieve excess return. This study found that expected return factor models are accurate, which is consistent with other countries' results. There exists a surprising degree of commonality in the factors that are most important in determining the expected returns among different stocks.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.117-127
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• 2017

In recent times the size of the world IPO in general has skyrocketed. Specifically, China's financial market development is becoming important as both the size of China's capital market and the number of companies going public are gradually increasing. This has led to a rapid development of venture vapital(VC) institutions in China for the past couple of decades. This study focuses on one of the three markets of China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange-the Growth Enterprise Board((GEB) hereafter, ChiNext). The ChiNext is established in October, 2009 to enable hi-tech or high growth potential technology companies that find it relatively difficult to fulfil the listing requirements of either the Shenzhen Main Board or Small and Medium Size Enterprise Board(SMEB) to go public. This study covers a three-year period(2012/01/-2015/01) and analyze first day initial return of 83 venture capital-backed companies and 53 non-venture capital-backed companies using T-test. Regression analysis is used as to examine the variables affecting IPO's first-day return. The empirical results are four-fold. First, the level of first day return of venture-backed is significantly lower than non venture capital backed support in the Chinese venture capital market. Second, the level of first-day return of listed companies supported by foreign venture capital is significantly higher than that of companies receiving domestic venture capital support. Third, the firms that have a large number of venture capital firms showed a low level of first-day return. Fourth, regression result for the IPO first-day return which is as dependent variable indicates that the venture capital support(VCAP), number of venture capital(VCNum), offering size(Lnsize) and PER all affect have negative effect on the first day initial return. Also, the venture capital type(VCType), turnover ratio and the the firm type(Tech-firms) statistically affect IPO first day return positively. Finally, by shedding more light on the IPO first-day return, this paper provides meaningful information to investors about the Chinese IPO market.