• Title/Summary/Keyword: exchange of information

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Multilateral Approach to forming Air Logistics Hub on North East Asia Region (동북아 항공물류허브을 구축하기 위한 다자적 접근방안)

  • Hong, Seock-Jin
    • The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.97-136
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    • 2004
  • The Northeast Asian air cargo market has expanded tremendously as a result of the opening up of the Chinese market. The importance of the Asia-Pacific region in the global air transport has also increased. The exchange of human and material resources, services, and information in Northeast Asia, which is expected to increase in the near future, requires that the airlines operating within this region adopt a more liberalized approach. This paper introduced alternatives which can be applied to the Northeast Asian airlines industry so as to bring about the integration of regional air transport: First, this paper found a need for individual Northeast Asian nations to alter their policies towards the airlines industry. Second, each country should further liberalize their respective domestic air transport. Third, there is a need for freer air service agreements to be signed between the nations of Northeast Asia. Fourth, the strategic alliances between the airlines operating in Northeast Asia should be further strengthened. Fifth, this liberalization process should be carried out in an incremental manner, beginning with more competitive airports and routes, or with less-in-demand routes. Sixth, there is a need for a shuttle system to be put into place between the main airports in China, Korea, and Japan. Seventh, these three nations jointly develop aviation safety and security systems that are in accordance with international standards. Eighth, the liberalization process of the aviation industry should be undertaken in conjunction with other related fields. Ninth, organizations linking together civil aviation organization in the Asia-Pacific area should be formed, as should each government linking together. By doing so, these countries will be able to establish regular venues through which to exchange opinions on the integration and liberalization of the air cargo market so as to induce the gradual liberalization of the actual market. The liberalization of the air transport in Northeast Asia will prove to be a daunting task in the short term. However, if the Chinese airlines continue to exhibit continuous growth and Japanese airlines are able to complete their move towards a low-cost structure, this process could be completed earlier than expected. Over the last twenty five years the air transport has undergone tremendous changes. The most important factor behind these changes has been the increased liberalization of the market. As a result, rates have decreased while demand has increased. This has resulted in turning the air transport industry, which was long perceived as an industry in decline, into a high-growth industry. The only method of increasing regional exchanges in the air transport is to pursue further liberalization. The country which implements this liberalization process at the earliest date may very well emerge as a leading force within the air transport industry.

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The Strategic Approach to FTA Governmental Negotiation Method between China (중국과의 FTA 협상방식을 위한 전략적 접근)

  • Na, Seung-Hwa
    • The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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    • v.1 no.1
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    • pp.13-21
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    • 2010
  • Since Korea establish diplomatic ties with China in 1992, korea and China have had rapid progress in most of field as politic, economy, society and culture through basing on cultural commonality and geographical adjacency. Especially, China is the biggest trading partner to korea, and also Korea is third-biggest trading country to China. They become strategic cooperating relation in 2008. Currently, in terms of international trade relation, WTO/DDA negotiation is proceeding in difficulty, but FTA has been growing and extending in the world, and the two country, china and korea, have been competitively trying wide and active FTA negotiation promotion. After Financial crisis in 1997, according to the requirement of local economic cooperation, China has shown the interest to several countries since the conclusion of FTA treaty with ASEAN in 2005. China also makes the active afford to conclude FTA with Korea. Last May 28th, this was mentioned in the meeting between president Lee and Premier Wen Jiabao, so it is anticipated that the negotiation for FTA will be started in the near future. There are many political suggestions and concerns in terms of way of negotiation korea would choose. Some economist said that "'Continuous FTA aimed at long-term protocol should be promoted between korea and China and negotiated includingly'" However, this research claims that commodity exchange, service, and investment areas should be included and it has to be comprehensive package settlement style in negotiation. This research has found out the characteristics of China's negotiation and implications through the China's existed FTA negotiation examples. Currently, China has taken Continuous or a phase-negotiation method to ASEAN, Pakistan, Chile and some other developing country and to advanced countries like New Zealand or Singapore, comprehensive package settlement method is used in FTA negotiation. In consider of the FTA negotiation between Korea and China, Korea has some problems in the commodity change area in agriculture maket's opening. While, for china, the issues would happen in service trade area, especially when encountering finance and communication industries are opened, China's economy could be exposed to some risk. In result, Korea should expand its negotiation range from commodity trade to service trade, in order to exchange both issues, then the negotiation will be concluded more easily. In other word, for FTA, korea should follow comprehensive package settlement way that is similar to New zealand and Singapore case. Through this kind of method, Korea can expect effect of creating trade, conversion of it and preoccupancy of service field in china's market against the advanced countries like Usa, Europe and Japan. Also, to have a successful FTA negotiation, korea should find out china's policy for FTA negotiation. With this information, korea will be able to suggest the way to make a profit. Systematic analysis and comparison about previous negotiation cases of china are needed before the negotiation begin.

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The Situation of Genetic Exchange in Duroc Breed and Impacts on Genetic Evaluation (국내 듀록의 종돈장간의 교류현황과 유전능력평가에 미치는 효과)

  • Seo, Jae-Ho;Shin, Ji-Seob;Noh, Jae-Kwang;Song, Chi-Eun;Do, Chang-Hee
    • Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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    • v.53 no.5
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    • pp.397-408
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    • 2011
  • The study was carried to identify the impact on nation-wide genetic evaluation and to obtain basic materials for the development of strategies in Swine Improvement Network Project (SINP). Data consisted of pedigree records of 235,511 and performance records of 70,747 for Duroc from 1987 to 2010 were collected by Korea Animal Improvement Association. Performance traits included three point back fat thickness (Shoulder, Belly, Waist), loin area, days to 90 kg and average daily gain. Exchange of genetic resources cross the breeding farms was not high, and furthermore the sizable farms which can accommodate genetic evaluation within the farm were scarce. Three data sets (individual farm evaluation: I, two sub-group evaluation: S, and whole eight farm evaluation: P) were used for genetic analysis. Genetic variances were larger in subordinate farms than in joiners farms for connectedness, and consequently the heritabilities were generally higher in subordinate farms than in joiner farms with I. The standard errors of heritability were small in the order of I, S and P. Estimated average inbreeding coefficients were 1.12%, 0.95% and 1.53% for joiner and subordinate group with S and population with P, respectively. The estimated correlations of breeding values with I and P were lowest. The correlations of breeding values with I and P for traits ranged 0.22 to 0.45 for moved parent animals and 0.24 to 0.72 for all animals. The results in the study suggest that nation-wide evaluation uses more pedigree information and improves accuracy. Furthermore SINP for connectedness could help to improve the accuracy of evaluation.

Difference in Right Ventricular Function between Post-tuberculosis Emphysema and Primary Emphysema (결핵후 폐기종과 원발성 폐기종에서 우심질 기능의 차이)

  • Kim, Myung-A;Kim, Sang-Hyun;Chung, Hee-Soon
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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    • v.51 no.2
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    • pp.97-107
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    • 2001
  • Background : Tuberculosis itself causes not only lung parenchymal destruction but also pulmonary vascular damage. Secondary emphysema also causes pulmonary vascular damage, which can develop as a late sequela of pulmonary tuberculosis. Therefore, pulmonary circulatory impairment tends to be more severe in post-tuberculosis emphysema than in primary emphysema. In post-tuberculosis emphysema, the right ventricular function may play an important role. However, little information regarding the right ventricular function is available. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the right ventricular function between post-tuberculosis emphysema and primary emphysema. Method: Post-tuberculosis emphysema(PTE) or primary emphysema(PE) was diagnosed by history, HRCT finding and pulmonary function. Twenty patients with post-tuberculosis emphysema were matched with 20 patients with primary emphysema according to both $FEV-1$ and FVC. Arterial blood gas analysis and echocardiography were done at rest and immediately after symptom-limited exercise. The right ventricular function was evaluated with the right ventricular ejection fraction using a modification of Simpson's method. Results : There was no significant difference in the demographics and pulmonary function between the two groups. In post-tuberculosis emphysema, the $PaCO_2$ was higher ($42.9{\pm}4.7$ vs $38.8{\pm}3.1\;mmHg$ at rest; $47.9{\pm}7.0$ vs $41.1{\pm}5.9\;mmHg$ after exercise; p<0.01) and the right ventricular ejection fraction was lower ($57.6{\pm}6.5$ vs $61.4{\pm}4.7%$ at rest; $51.1{\pm}10.8$ vs $59.8{\pm}6.6%$ after exercise; p<0.01) both at rest and after exercise. The $PaCO_2$ after exercise was also lower ($65.7{\pm}12.6$ vs $80.2{\pm}14.4\;mmHg$, p<0.01), while the Pa02 at rest tended to be lower($82.9{\pm}12.0$ vs $87.8{\pm}7.5$, p>0.05). In both groups, right ventricular ejection fraction correlated with the $PaCO_2$ after exercise(PTE r=0.536, PE r=0.557), and the $PaCO_2$ at rest(PTE r=-0.576, PE r=-0.588) and after exercise(PTE r=-0.764, PE r=-0.619). Conclusion : Impairment of the right heart function and gas exchange were more serious in post-tuberculosis emphysema than in primary emphysema, and gas exchange may be influenced by the right ventricular function in post-tuberculosis emphysema.

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The Role of Social Capital and Identity in Knowledge Contribution in Virtual Communities: An Empirical Investigation (가상 커뮤니티에서 사회적 자본과 정체성이 지식기여에 미치는 역할: 실증적 분석)

  • Shin, Ho Kyoung;Kim, Kyung Kyu;Lee, Un-Kon
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.22 no.3
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    • pp.53-74
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    • 2012
  • A challenge in fostering virtual communities is the continuous supply of knowledge, namely members' willingness to contribute knowledge to their communities. Previous research argues that giving away knowledge eventually causes the possessors of that knowledge to lose their unique value to others, benefiting all except the contributor. Furthermore, communication within virtual communities involves a large number of participants with different social backgrounds and perspectives. The establishment of mutual understanding to comprehend conversations and foster knowledge contribution in virtual communities is inevitably more difficult than face-to-face communication in a small group. In spite of these arguments, evidence suggests that individuals in virtual communities do engage in social behaviors such as knowledge contribution. It is important to understand why individuals provide their valuable knowledge to other community members without a guarantee of returns. In virtual communities, knowledge is inherently rooted in individual members' experiences and expertise. This personal nature of knowledge requires social interactions between virtual community members for knowledge transfer. This study employs the social capital theory in order to account for interpersonal relationship factors and identity theory for individual and group factors that may affect knowledge contribution. First, social capital is the relationship capital which is embedded within the relationships among the participants in a network and available for use when it is needed. Social capital is a productive resource, facilitating individuals' actions for attainment. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1997) identify three dimensions of social capital and explain theoretically how these dimensions affect the exchange of knowledge. Thus, social capital would be relevant to knowledge contribution in virtual communities. Second, existing research has addressed the importance of identity in facilitating knowledge contribution in a virtual context. Identity in virtual communities has been described as playing a vital role in the establishment of personal reputations and in the recognition of others. For instance, reputation systems that rate participants in terms of the quality of their contributions provide a readily available inventory of experts to knowledge seekers. Despite the growing interest in identities, however, there is little empirical research about how identities in the communities influence knowledge contribution. Therefore, the goal of this study is to better understand knowledge contribution by examining the roles of social capital and identity in virtual communities. Based on a theoretical framework of social capital and identity theory, we develop and test a theoretical model and evaluate our hypotheses. Specifically, we propose three variables such as cohesiveness, reciprocity, and commitment, referring to the social capital theory, as antecedents of knowledge contribution in virtual communities. We further posit that members with a strong identity (self-presentation and group identification) contribute more knowledge to virtual communities. We conducted a field study in order to validate our research model. We collected data from 192 members of virtual communities and used the PLS method to analyse the data. The tests of the measurement model confirm that our data set has appropriate discriminant and convergent validity. The results of testing the structural model show that cohesion, reciprocity, and self-presentation significantly influence knowledge contribution, while commitment and group identification do not significantly influence knowledge contribution. Our findings on cohesion and reciprocity are consistent with the previous literature. Contrary to our expectations, commitment did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This result may be due to the fact that knowledge contribution was voluntary in the virtual communities in our sample. Another plausible explanation for this result may be the self-selection bias for the survey respondents, who are more likely to contribute their knowledge to virtual communities. The relationship between self-presentation and knowledge contribution was found to be significant in virtual communities, supporting the results of prior literature. Group identification did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in this study, inconsistent with the wealth of research that identifies group identification as an important factor for knowledge sharing. This conflicting result calls for future research that examines the role of group identification in knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This study makes a contribution to theory development in the area of knowledge management in general and virtual communities in particular. For practice, the results of this study identify the circumstances under which individual factors would be effective for motivating knowledge contribution to virtual communities.

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The Relationship between Internet Search Volumes and Stock Price Changes: An Empirical Study on KOSDAQ Market (개별 기업에 대한 인터넷 검색량과 주가변동성의 관계: 국내 코스닥시장에서의 산업별 실증분석)

  • Jeon, Saemi;Chung, Yeojin;Lee, Dongyoup
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.22 no.2
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    • pp.81-96
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    • 2016
  • As the internet has become widespread and easy to access everywhere, it is common for people to search information via online search engines such as Google and Naver in everyday life. Recent studies have used online search volume of specific keyword as a measure of the internet users' attention in order to predict disease outbreaks such as flu and cancer, an unemployment rate, and an index of a nation's economic condition, and etc. For stock traders, web search is also one of major information resources to obtain data about individual stock items. Therefore, search volume of a stock item can reflect the amount of investors' attention on it. The investor attention has been regarded as a crucial factor influencing on stock price but it has been measured by indirect proxies such as market capitalization, trading volume, advertising expense, and etc. It has been theoretically and empirically proved that an increase of investors' attention on a stock item brings temporary increase of the stock price and the price recovers in the long run. Recent development of internet environment enables to measure the investor attention directly by the internet search volume of individual stock item, which has been used to show the attention-induced price pressure. Previous studies focus mainly on Dow Jones and NASDAQ market in the United States. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the individual investors' attention measured by the internet search volumes and stock price changes of individual stock items in the KOSDAQ market in Korea, where the proportion of the trades by individual investors are about 90% of the total. In addition, we examine the difference between industries in the influence of investors' attention on stock return. The internet search volume of stocks were gathered from "Naver Trend" service weekly between January 2007 and June 2015. The regression model with the error term with AR(1) covariance structure is used to analyze the data since the weekly prices in a stock item are systematically correlated. The market capitalization, trading volume, the increment of trading volume, and the month in which each trade occurs are included in the model as control variables. The fitted model shows that an abnormal increase of search volume of a stock item has a positive influence on the stock return and the amount of the influence varies among the industry. The stock items in IT software, construction, and distribution industries have shown to be more influenced by the abnormally large internet search volume than the average across the industries. On the other hand, the stock items in IT hardware, manufacturing, entertainment, finance, and communication industries are less influenced by the abnormal search volume than the average. In order to verify price pressure caused by investors' attention in KOSDAQ, the stock return of the current week is modelled using the abnormal search volume observed one to four weeks ahead. On average, the abnormally large increment of the search volume increased the stock return of the current week and one week later, and it decreased the stock return in two and three weeks later. There is no significant relationship with the stock return after 4 weeks. This relationship differs among the industries. An abnormal search volume brings particularly severe price reversal on the stocks in the IT software industry, which are often to be targets of irrational investments by individual investors. An abnormal search volume caused less severe price reversal on the stocks in the manufacturing and IT hardware industries than on average across the industries. The price reversal was not observed in the communication, finance, entertainment, and transportation industries, which are known to be influenced largely by macro-economic factors such as oil price and currency exchange rate. The result of this study can be utilized to construct an intelligent trading system based on the big data gathered from web search engines, social network services, and internet communities. Particularly, the difference of price reversal effect between industries may provide useful information to make a portfolio and build an investment strategy.

Managing Duplicate Memberships of Websites : An Approach of Social Network Analysis (웹사이트 중복회원 관리 : 소셜 네트워크 분석 접근)

  • Kang, Eun-Young;Kwahk, Kee-Young
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.153-169
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    • 2011
  • Today using Internet environment is considered absolutely essential for establishing corporate marketing strategy. Companies have promoted their products and services through various ways of on-line marketing activities such as providing gifts and points to customers in exchange for participating in events, which is based on customers' membership data. Since companies can use these membership data to enhance their marketing efforts through various data analysis, appropriate website membership management may play an important role in increasing the effectiveness of on-line marketing campaign. Despite the growing interests in proper membership management, however, there have been difficulties in identifying inappropriate members who can weaken on-line marketing effectiveness. In on-line environment, customers tend to not reveal themselves clearly compared to off-line market. Customers who have malicious intent are able to create duplicate IDs by using others' names illegally or faking login information during joining membership. Since the duplicate members are likely to intercept gifts and points that should be sent to appropriate customers who deserve them, this can result in ineffective marketing efforts. Considering that the number of website members and its related marketing costs are significantly increasing, it is necessary for companies to find efficient ways to screen and exclude unfavorable troublemakers who are duplicate members. With this motivation, this study proposes an approach for managing duplicate membership based on the social network analysis and verifies its effectiveness using membership data gathered from real websites. A social network is a social structure made up of actors called nodes, which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency. Social networks represent the relationship between the nodes and show the direction and strength of the relationship. Various analytical techniques have been proposed based on the social relationships, such as centrality analysis, structural holes analysis, structural equivalents analysis, and so on. Component analysis, one of the social network analysis techniques, deals with the sub-networks that form meaningful information in the group connection. We propose a method for managing duplicate memberships using component analysis. The procedure is as follows. First step is to identify membership attributes that will be used for analyzing relationship patterns among memberships. Membership attributes include ID, telephone number, address, posting time, IP address, and so on. Second step is to compose social matrices based on the identified membership attributes and aggregate the values of each social matrix into a combined social matrix. The combined social matrix represents how strong pairs of nodes are connected together. When a pair of nodes is strongly connected, we expect that those nodes are likely to be duplicate memberships. The combined social matrix is transformed into a binary matrix with '0' or '1' of cell values using a relationship criterion that determines whether the membership is duplicate or not. Third step is to conduct a component analysis for the combined social matrix in order to identify component nodes and isolated nodes. Fourth, identify the number of real memberships and calculate the reliability of website membership based on the component analysis results. The proposed procedure was applied to three real websites operated by a pharmaceutical company. The empirical results showed that the proposed method was superior to the traditional database approach using simple address comparison. In conclusion, this study is expected to shed some light on how social network analysis can enhance a reliable on-line marketing performance by efficiently and effectively identifying duplicate memberships of websites.

Unbilled Revenue and Analysts' Earnings Forecasts (진행기준 수익인식 방법과 재무분석가 이익예측 - 미청구공사 계정을 중심으로 -)

  • Lee, Bo-Mi;Park, Bo-Young
    • Management & Information Systems Review
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    • v.36 no.3
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    • pp.151-165
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    • 2017
  • This study investigates the effect of revenue recognition by percentage of completion method on financial analysts' earnings forecasting information in order industry. Specifically, we examines how the analysts' earnings forecast errors and biases differ according to whether or not to report the unbilled revenue account balance and the level of unbilled revenue account balance. The sample consists of 453 firm-years listed in Korea Stock Exchange during the period from 2010 to 2014 since the information on unbilled revenue accounts can be obtained after the adoption of K-IFRS. The results are as follows. First, we find that the firms with unbilled revenue account balances have lower analysts' earnings forecast accuracy than the firms who do not report unbilled revue account balances. In addition, we find that the accuracy of analysts' earnings forecasts decreases as the amount of unbilled revenue increases. Unbilled revenue account balances occur when the revenue recognition of the contractor is faster than the client. There is a possibility that managerial discretionary judgment and estimation may intervene when the contractor calculates the progress rate. The difference between the actual progress of the construction and the progress recognized by the company lowers the predictive value of financial statements. Our results suggest that the analysts' earnings forecasts may be more difficult for the firms that report unbilled revenue balances as applying the revenue recognition method based on the progress criteria. Second, we find that the firms reporting unbilled revenue account balances tend to have higher the optimistic biases in analysts' earnings forecast than the firms who do not report unbilled revenue account balances. And we find that the analysts' earnings forecast biases are increases as the amount of unbilled revenue increases. This study suggests an effort to reduce the arbitrary adjustment and estimation in the measurement of the progress as well as the introduction of the progress measurement method which can reflect the actual progress. Investors are encouraged to invest and analyze the characteristics of the order-based industry accounting standards. In addition, the results of this study empower the accounting transparency enhancement plan for order industry proposed by the policy authorities.

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Analysis of Trading Performance on Intelligent Trading System for Directional Trading (방향성매매를 위한 지능형 매매시스템의 투자성과분석)

  • Choi, Heung-Sik;Kim, Sun-Woong;Park, Sung-Cheol
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.187-201
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    • 2011
  • KOSPI200 index is the Korean stock price index consisting of actively traded 200 stocks in the Korean stock market. Its base value of 100 was set on January 3, 1990. The Korea Exchange (KRX) developed derivatives markets on the KOSPI200 index. KOSPI200 index futures market, introduced in 1996, has become one of the most actively traded indexes markets in the world. Traders can make profit by entering a long position on the KOSPI200 index futures contract if the KOSPI200 index will rise in the future. Likewise, they can make profit by entering a short position if the KOSPI200 index will decline in the future. Basically, KOSPI200 index futures trading is a short-term zero-sum game and therefore most futures traders are using technical indicators. Advanced traders make stable profits by using system trading technique, also known as algorithm trading. Algorithm trading uses computer programs for receiving real-time stock market data, analyzing stock price movements with various technical indicators and automatically entering trading orders such as timing, price or quantity of the order without any human intervention. Recent studies have shown the usefulness of artificial intelligent systems in forecasting stock prices or investment risk. KOSPI200 index data is numerical time-series data which is a sequence of data points measured at successive uniform time intervals such as minute, day, week or month. KOSPI200 index futures traders use technical analysis to find out some patterns on the time-series chart. Although there are many technical indicators, their results indicate the market states among bull, bear and flat. Most strategies based on technical analysis are divided into trend following strategy and non-trend following strategy. Both strategies decide the market states based on the patterns of the KOSPI200 index time-series data. This goes well with Markov model (MM). Everybody knows that the next price is upper or lower than the last price or similar to the last price, and knows that the next price is influenced by the last price. However, nobody knows the exact status of the next price whether it goes up or down or flat. So, hidden Markov model (HMM) is better fitted than MM. HMM is divided into discrete HMM (DHMM) and continuous HMM (CHMM). The only difference between DHMM and CHMM is in their representation of state probabilities. DHMM uses discrete probability density function and CHMM uses continuous probability density function such as Gaussian Mixture Model. KOSPI200 index values are real number and these follow a continuous probability density function, so CHMM is proper than DHMM for the KOSPI200 index. In this paper, we present an artificial intelligent trading system based on CHMM for the KOSPI200 index futures system traders. Traders have experienced on technical trading for the KOSPI200 index futures market ever since the introduction of the KOSPI200 index futures market. They have applied many strategies to make profit in trading the KOSPI200 index futures. Some strategies are based on technical indicators such as moving averages or stochastics, and others are based on candlestick patterns such as three outside up, three outside down, harami or doji star. We show a trading system of moving average cross strategy based on CHMM, and we compare it to a traditional algorithmic trading system. We set the parameter values of moving averages at common values used by market practitioners. Empirical results are presented to compare the simulation performance with the traditional algorithmic trading system using long-term daily KOSPI200 index data of more than 20 years. Our suggested trading system shows higher trading performance than naive system trading.

EU's Space Code of Conduct: Right Step Forward (EU의 우주행동강령의 의미와 평가)

  • Park, Won-Hwa
    • The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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    • v.27 no.2
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    • pp.211-241
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    • 2012
  • The Draft International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities officially proposed by the European Union on the occasion of the 55th Session of the United Nations Peaceful Uses of the Outer Space last June 2012 in Vienna, Austria is to fill the lacunae of the relevant norms to be applied to the human activities in the outer space and thus has the merit our attention. The missing elements of the norms span from the prohibition of an arms race, safety and security of the space objects including the measures to reduce the space debris to the exchange of information of space activities among space-faring nations. The EU's initiatives, when implemented, cover or will eventually prepare for the forum to deal with such issues of interests of the international community. The EU's initiatives begun at the end of 2008 included the unofficial contacts with major space powers including in particular the USA of which position is believed to have been reflected in the Draft with the aim to have it adopted in 2013. Although the Code is made up of soft law rather than hard law for the subscribing countries, the USA seems to be afraid of the eventuality whereby its strategic advantages in the outer space will be affected by the prohibiting norms, possibly to be pursued by the Code from its current non-binding character, of placing weapons in the outer space. It is with this trepidation that the USA has been opposing to the adoption of the United Nations Assembly Resolutions on the prevention of an arms race in the outer space (PAROS) and in the same context to the setting-up of a working group on the arms race in the outer space in the frame of the Conference on Disarmament. China and Russia who together put forward a draft Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects (PPWT) in 2008 would not feel comfortable either because the EU initiatives will steal the lime light. Consequently their reactions are understandably passive towards the Draft Code while the reaction of the USA to the PPWT was a clear cut "No". With the above background, the future of the EU Code is uncertain. Nevertheless, the purpose of the Code to reduce the space debris, to allow exchange of the information on the space activities, and to protect the space objects through safety and security, all to maximize the principle of the peaceful use and exploration of the outer space is the laudable efforts on the part of EU. When the detailed negotiations will be held, some problems including the cost to be incurred by setting up an office for the clerical works could be discussed for both efficient and economic mechanism. For example, the new clerical works envisaged in the Draft Code could be discharged by the current UN OOSA (Office for Outer Space Affairs) with minimal additional resources. The EU's initiatives are another meaningful contribution following one due to it in adopting the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 to the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on the Climate Change) and deserve the praise from the thoughtful international community.

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