• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.124-132
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• 2019

BACKGROUND: Silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis) No. 1 was developed for production of bio-ethanol, and for the purpose the silver grass growing sector was established in Geumgang basin, Iksan, Jeonbuk, in 2011. However, the other application potentials except for using as the bio-energy resources should be considered because of the drop in international oil prices. Therefore, there is the necessity of a scientific basis to use the silver grass instead of rice straw as the organic matter source that is used for improvement of soil quality in the plastic film house. METHODS AND RESULTS: The silver grass was applied at 5, 10, 15 and 20 Mg/ha and tilled before the watermelon was planted in the plastic film-house. The control plot was treated with 10 Mg/ha with rice straw, and watermelons have been cultivated for 3 years(2017~2019). Soil aggregation, soil chemistry, and the growth characteristics were investigated, when the watermelon was harvested every year. Soil aggregation levels at the 2nd and 3rd year of watermelon harvest were similar from the plot applied with the silver grass at 5 Mg/ha and the control plot, and increased in the silver grass treated plots with more than 10 Mg/ha. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the plots. The nitrogen mineralization of silver grass in the control plot tended to be similar to the 5 Mg/ha plot, but the silver grass treated plots with over 10 Mg/ha showed low nitrogen mineralization. Soil EC on harvest stage was proportional to the applied mass of the silver grass, but pH was in inverse with the applied mass. Soil organic matter content, available phosphate, and exchangeable cations increased with the continued use of silver grass. Watermelon weight found to be the best on more than 15 Mg/ha of silver grass, and the sugar content was highest when 10 Mg/ha was treated. CONCLUSION: The use of the silver grass at 10 Mg/ha annually as the organic source was effective in replacing rice straw while growing fruits and vegetables on the plastic film house.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.305-316
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• 2022

Domestic construction companies have difficulty in establishing strategies when entering overseas markets because they do not have an overseas construction economic sentiment index to refer to for data on overseas construction prospects. Considering that the fluctuation of overseas construction orders over the past decade has been substantial and large companies and SMEs are actively advancing overseas, this study developed an evaluation model for an overseas construction business sentiment index to grasp the economic experience of overseas construction companies. In 2021 Korean companies earned 30.6 billion in overseas construction contracts, 87% the level of the previous year, despite difficulties such as COVID-19 and low oil prices, thanks to efforts by construction companies to strengthen their strategies for entry, such as regional diversification, and government support for winning orders. Since the overseas construction industry fluctuates greatly due to changes in the international environment, it is necessary to investigate and analyze the economic sentiment index of overseas construction companies. In particular, despite the increase in overseas expansion of small and medium-sized construction companies and engineering companies, the provision of information on the overseas construction market sentiment index is insufficient, limiting the establishment of strategies for overseas construction expansion. Therefore, this study intends to develop an overseas construction market sentiment index model that can understand the economic sentiment of overseas construction companies, provide a forecast for overseas construction, and use it to establish overseas construction strategies and policies.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.29-51
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• 2022

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) designated the Emission Control Area (ECA) in Northern Europe to reduce the NOx and SOx emissions from ships in the coastal areas. This study used Network slack-based measure (SBM) Data Envelopment Model (DEM) and Bootstrop Truncated Regression (BTR) model to analyze the ECA's impact on ferry companies' financial performances based on the financial data from eight ferry carriers in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean and North America from 2004 to 2017. To alleviate the problem of arbitrary variable selection in DEA, the variable selection criteria proposed by Dyson et al. (2001) were applied; the size of the company was considered through the Network SBM DEA model; and the company's profit-generating process was divided into stages to measure financial performance in more detail. In addition, the BTR model was applied to derive results that minimize the bias of the data. The study found that ECA regulations did not always negatively affect the shipping companies' financial performance. Rather, a steady increase in efficiency was observed for Northern European ferry companies which were subject to the strongest regulations. For North American ferry companies, government subsidies were found to have a significant impact on efficiency, and relatively small impact on efficiency due to the ECA and oil prices. For the Mediterranean ferry companies, efficiency values have decreased since the implementation of ECA regulation despite the lowest level of regulation in the region.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.372-379
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• 2023

International oil prices are expected to increase from $85 a barrel this year to up to $100 a barrel in the second half of the year; this is likely to increase orders for offshore plants in the global market. One main characteristic of offshore plants is that a large helideck is located on the top side, and aluminum alloys are used as the basic material of the structure for weight reduction and corrosion resistance. Shipowners are increasing the size of helicopters to quickly evacuate lives in the event of an emergency, and the safety use load of devices that can stably secure helicopters to the deck is also required to increase. Owing to the nature of the aluminum material, the structural strength caused by welding is greatly reduced; therefore, the fixing device must be designed by embedding it in the deck and fixing it with bolts. In this study, a model applying aluminum alloy 6082-T6 was developed to develop a helicopter fastening device that can be used for large helidecks (diameter = 28 m). The developed item was verified through nonlinear structural strength calculation to satisfy the load used for the actual fastening condition. The load condition with a 45° showed a lower ultimate strength than the 90° case owing to local plastic collapse. The nonlinear structural collapse behavior showed a result similar to that of the experimental test. The main contents derived from this study are considered to be reference materials when evaluating the structural strength of similar aluminum equipment.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.62-77
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• 2024

In the maritime shipping industry, imbalance between supply and demand has persistently increased, leading to the utilization of blank sailings by major shipping companies worldwide as a key means of flexibly adjusting vessel capacity in response to shipping market conditions. Traditionally, blank sailings have been frequently implemented around the Chinese New Year period. However, due to unique circumstances such as the global pandemic starting in 2020 and trade tensions between the United States and China, shipping companies have recently conducted larger-scale blank sailings compared to the past. As blank sailings directly impact freight transport delays, they can have negative repercussions from perspectives of both businesses and consumers. Therefore, this study employed Poisson regression models and negative binomial regression models to analyze the influence of maritime freight rate determinants on shipping companies' decisions regarding blank sailings, aiming to proactively address potential consequences. Results of the analysis indicated that, in Poisson regression analysis for 2M, significant variables included global container shipping volume, container vessel capacity, container ship scrapping volume, container ship newbuilding index, and OECD inflation. In negative binomial regression analysis, ocean alliance showed significance with global container shipping volume and container ship order volume, the alliance with container ship capacity and interest rates, non-alliance with international oil prices, global supply chain pressure index, container ship capacity, OECD inflation, and total alliance with container ship capacity and interest rates.

• 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.