Improvement of Oxygen Isotope Analysis in Seawater samples with Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometer (질량분석기를 이용한 해수 중 산소안정동위원소 분석법의 개선)
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- The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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- v.13 no.4
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- pp.348-353
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- 2008
Oxygen isotope has not been used actively in water mass studies because of difficulties on the analysis though it has advantages as a water mass tracer. The most popular method to analysis the oxygen isotope ratio in water samples is equilibration method: isotopic equilibrium of water with
We conclude the following with air pollution data measured from city measurement net administered and managed in Gwangju for the last 7 years from January in 2001 to December in 2007. In addition, some major statistics governed by Gwangju city and data administered by Gwangju as national official statistics obtained by estimating the amount of national air pollutant emission from National Institute of Environmental Research were used. The results are as follows ; 1. The distribution by main managements of air emission factory is the following ; Gwangju City Hall(67.8%) > Gwangsan District Office(13.6%) > Buk District Office(9.8%) > Seo District Office(5.5%) > Nam District Office(3.0%) > Dong District Office(0.3%) and the distribution by districts of air emission factory ; Buk District(32.8%) > Gwangsan District(22.4%) > Seo District(21.8%) > Nam District(14.9%) > Dong District(8.1%). That by types(Year 2004~2007 average) is also following ; Type 5(45.2%) > Type 4(40.7%) > Type 3(8.6%) > Type 2(3.2%) > Type 1(2.2%) and the most of them are small size of factory, Type 4 and 5. 2. The distribution by districts of the number of car registrations is the following ; Buk District(32.8%) > Gwangsan District(22.4%) > Seo District(21.8%) > Nam District(14.9%) > Dong District(8.1%) and the distribution by use of car fuel in 2001 ; Gasoline(56.3%) > Diesel(30.3%) > LPG(13.4%) > etc.(0.2%). In 2007, there was no ranking change ; Gasoline(47.8%) > Diesel(35.6%) > LPG(16.2%) >etc.(0.4%). The number of gasoline cars increased slightly, but that of diesel and LPG cars increased remarkably. 3. The distribution by items of the amount of air pollutant emission in Gwangju is the following; CO(36.7%) > NOx(32.7%) > VOC(26.7%) > SOx(2.3%) > PM-10(1.5%). The amount of CO and NOx, which are generally generated from cars, is very large percentage among them. 4. The distribution by mean of air pollutant emission(SOx, NOx, CO, VOC, PM-10) of each county for 5 years(2001~2005) is the following ; Buk District(31.0%) > Gwangsan District(28.2%) > Seo District(20.4%) > Nam District(12.5%) > Dong District(7.9%). The amount of air pollutant emission in Buk District, which has the most population, car registrations, and air pollutant emission businesses, was the highest. On the other hand, that of air pollutant emission in Dong District, which has the least population, car registrations, and air pollutant emission businesses, was the least. 5. The average rates of SOx for 5 years(2001~2005) in Gwangju is the following ; Non industrial combustion(59.5%) > Combustion in manufacturing industry(20.4%) > Road transportation(11.4%) > Non-road transportation(3.8%) > Waste disposal(3.7%) > Production process(1.1%). And the distribution of average amount of SOx emission of each county is shown as Gwangsan District(33.3%) > Buk District(28.0%) > Seo District(19.3%) > Nam District(10.2%) > Dong District(9.1%). 6. The distribution of the amount of NOx emission in Gwangju is shown as Road transportation(59.1%) > Non-road transportation(18.9%) > Non industrial combustion(13.3%) > Combustion in manufacturing industry(6.9%) > Waste disposal(1.6%) > Production process(0.1%). And the distribution of the amount of NOx emission from each county is the following ; Buk District(30.7%) > Gwangsan District(28.8%) > Seo District(20.5%) > Nam District(12.2%) > Dong District(7.8%). 7. The distribution of the amount of carbon monoxide emission in Gwangju is shown as Road transportation(82.0%) > Non industrial combustion(10.6%) > Non-road transportation(5.4%) > Combustion in manufacturing industry(1.7%) > Waste disposal(0.3%). And the distribution of the amount of carbon monoxide emission from each county is the following ; Buk District(33.0%) > Seo District(22.3%) > Gwangsan District(21.3%) > Nam District(14.3%) > Dong District(9.1%). 8. The distribution of the amount of Volatile Organic Compound emission in Gwangju is shown as Solvent utilization(69.5%) > Road transportation(19.8%) > Energy storage & transport(4.4%) > Non-road transportation(2.8%) > Waste disposal(2.4%) > Non industrial combustion(0.5%) > Production process(0.4%) > Combustion in manufacturing industry(0.3%). And the distribution of the amount of Volatile Organic Compound emission from each county is the following ; Gwangsan District(36.8%) > Buk District(28.7%) > Seo District(17.8%) > Nam District(10.4%) > Dong District(6.3%). 9. The distribution of the amount of minute dust emission in Gwangju is shown as Road transportation(76.7%) > Non-road transportation(16.3%) > Non industrial combustion(6.1%) > Combustion in manufacturing industry(0.7%) > Waste disposal(0.2%) > Production process(0.1%). And the distribution of the amount of minute dust emission from each county is the following ; Buk District(32.8%) > Gwangsan District(26.0%) > Seo District(19.5%) > Nam District(13.2%) > Dong District(8.5%). 10. According to the major source of emission of each items, that of oxides of sulfur is Non industrial combustion, heating of residence, business and agriculture and stockbreeding. And that of NOx, carbon monoxide, minute dust is Road transportation, emission of cars and two-wheeled vehicles. Also, that of VOC is Solvent utilization emission facilities due to Solvent utilization. 11. The concentration of sulfurous acid gas has been 0.004ppm since 2001 and there has not been no concentration change year by year. It is considered that the use of sulfurous acid gas is now reaching to the stabilization stage. This is found by the facts that the use of fuel is steadily changing from solid or liquid fuel to low sulfur liquid fuel containing very little amount of sulfur element or gas, so that nearly no change in concentration has been shown regularly. 12. Concerning changes of the concentration of throughout time, the concentration of NO has been shown relatively higher than that of
Corporate credit rating assessment consists of complicated processes in which various factors describing a company are taken into consideration. Such assessment is known to be very expensive since domain experts should be employed to assess the ratings. As a result, the data-driven corporate credit rating prediction using statistical and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. In particular, statistical methods such as multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) and multinomial logistic regression analysis (MLOGIT), and AI methods including case-based reasoning (CBR), artificial neural network (ANN), and multiclass support vector machine (MSVM) have been applied to corporate credit rating.2) Among them, MSVM has recently become popular because of its robustness and high prediction accuracy. In this study, we propose a novel optimized MSVM model, and appy it to corporate credit rating prediction in order to enhance the accuracy. Our model, named 'GAMSVM (Genetic Algorithm-optimized Multiclass Support Vector Machine),' is designed to simultaneously optimize the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection. Prior studies like Lorena and de Carvalho (2008), and Chatterjee (2013) show that proper kernel parameters may improve the performance of MSVMs. Also, the results from the studies such as Shieh and Yang (2008) and Chatterjee (2013) imply that appropriate feature selection may lead to higher prediction accuracy. Based on these prior studies, we propose to apply GAMSVM to corporate credit rating prediction. As a tool for optimizing the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection, we suggest genetic algorithm (GA). GA is known as an efficient and effective search method that attempts to simulate the biological evolution phenomenon. By applying genetic operations such as selection, crossover, and mutation, it is designed to gradually improve the search results. Especially, mutation operator prevents GA from falling into the local optima, thus we can find the globally optimal or near-optimal solution using it. GA has popularly been applied to search optimal parameters or feature subset selections of AI techniques including MSVM. With these reasons, we also adopt GA as an optimization tool. To empirically validate the usefulness of GAMSVM, we applied it to a real-world case of credit rating in Korea. Our application is in bond rating, which is the most frequently studied area of credit rating for specific debt issues or other financial obligations. The experimental dataset was collected from a large credit rating company in South Korea. It contained 39 financial ratios of 1,295 companies in the manufacturing industry, and their credit ratings. Using various statistical methods including the one-way ANOVA and the stepwise MDA, we selected 14 financial ratios as the candidate independent variables. The dependent variable, i.e. credit rating, was labeled as four classes: 1(A1); 2(A2); 3(A3); 4(B and C). 80 percent of total data for each class was used for training, and remaining 20 percent was used for validation. And, to overcome small sample size, we applied five-fold cross validation to our dataset. In order to examine the competitiveness of the proposed model, we also experimented several comparative models including MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, ANN and MSVM. In case of MSVM, we adopted One-Against-One (OAO) and DAGSVM (Directed Acyclic Graph SVM) approaches because they are known to be the most accurate approaches among various MSVM approaches. GAMSVM was implemented using LIBSVM-an open-source software, and Evolver 5.5-a commercial software enables GA. Other comparative models were experimented using various statistical and AI packages such as SPSS for Windows, Neuroshell, and Microsoft Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Experimental results showed that the proposed model-GAMSVM-outperformed all the competitive models. In addition, the model was found to use less independent variables, but to show higher accuracy. In our experiments, five variables such as X7 (total debt), X9 (sales per employee), X13 (years after founded), X15 (accumulated earning to total asset), and X39 (the index related to the cash flows from operating activity) were found to be the most important factors in predicting the corporate credit ratings. However, the values of the finally selected kernel parameters were found to be almost same among the data subsets. To examine whether the predictive performance of GAMSVM was significantly greater than those of other models, we used the McNemar test. As a result, we found that GAMSVM was better than MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, and ANN at the 1% significance level, and better than OAO and DAGSVM at the 5% significance level.
As stage equipment export markets along with special lighting service lack the attraction for already globally established businesses, such markets can be viewed as an advantageous opportunity for SMEs as in general. In reality, global businesses tend to focus on large construction projects and this indicates relatively less substantial markets such as stage equipment and special lighting service export are more suitable for SME businesses. However, possible problems may be recognized as following; doubtful capabilities by such businesses to join in the vast and competitive global market and pursue manufacturing and service based export. This point is also supported by the fact that such in general SME businesses have substantially less experience in exporting products and services abroad. Realizing the distinctive features of the Korean economy, it is unarguable that every sector and area of global market must be regarded and monitored closely. Hence, it can be argued that there is an imminent need for establishment of supportive institution to assist export process of combination of stage equipments and special lighting service. This study emphasizes the need to improve export process of stage equipments, special lighting services as well as other related products and services which have been focused in domestic market only until now. Further, it also analyzed the potential prospect of such direction reconciling current crisis our manufacturing industry is facing. Even though it maybe regarded as one of the niche market for export of Korea in the short term view, stage equipment and special lighting service industry may rapidly grow as the global cultural industries have grown along with the increase of national income earnings overall. Due to such advantageous features, it can be expected that such industries will show strong growth in the near future. After analyzing the fact that Korea's plants (eg. powerplants) export sector is at its boom, there is a need to transform stage equipment and special lighting service export market into a primary market from a secondary(niche) market for SMEs. This study is viewed from the Korean economic and export sector aspect in the aim of seeking a solution to conquest our realistic limit in our export sector by developing a suitable export model. There have been cases of very few attempts to expand abroad by SMEs who have failed miserably due to their failure to adapt to foreign culture, practice and languages as well as substantial lack in experience in export marketing. Despite this, neglecting our manufacturing industry as it is which is showing its limit and problems is out of option therefore, it is imminent that we come up with an effective measure to address this problem and service export can be suggested as one of them. This study reveals manufacturing-service export model of stage equipment and special lighting service and its related areas is recognized as a field with a very strong future and furthermore, it is expected to bring synergy effects in manufacturing and services sector as well. Further, the operation strategy contains combination, composition and fusion(convergence) of manufacturing and service sectors which could derive various of export products which displays greater success probability or this export model. The outcome of this research is expected to become a useful source for enterprises related to such industry which are seeking a possible global expansion. Furthermore, it is also expected to become a catalyst which fastens the process of global expansion and not only that, we are firmly assured that this study will become an opportunity to improve our current policies and institutions related to this area's export market.
The first and the second "Discussion Contest of Scientific Investigation" was evaluated in this study. This contest was a part of 'Korean Youth Science Festival' held in 1993 and 1994. The evaluation was based on the data collected from the middle school students of final teams, their teachers, a large number of middle school students and college students who were audience of the final competition. Questionnaires, interviews, reports of final teams, and video tape of final competition were used to collect data. The study focussed on three research questions. The first was about the preparation and the research process of students of final teams. The second was about the format and the proceeding of the Contest. The third was whether participating the Contest was useful experience for the students and the teachers of the final teams. The first area, the preparation and the research process of students, were investigated in three aspects. One was the level of cooperation, participation, support and the role of teachers. The second was the information search and experiment, and the third was the report writing. The students of the final teams from both years, had positive opinion about the cooperation, students' active involvement, and support from family and school. Students considered their teachers to be a guide or a counsellor, showing their level of active participation. On the other hand, the interview of 1993 participants showed that there were times that teachers took strong leading role. Therefore one can conclude that students took active roles most of the time while the room for improvement still exists. To search the information they need during the period of the preparation, student visited various places such as libraries, bookstores, universities, and research institutes. Their search was not limited to reading the books, although the books were primary source of information. Students also learned how to organize the information they found and considered leaning of organizing skill useful and fun. Variety of experiments was an important part of preparation and students had positive opinion about it. Understanding related theory was considered most difficult and important, while designing and building proper equipments was considered difficult but not important. This reflects the students' school experience where the equipments were all set in advance and students were asked to confirm the theories presented in the previous class hours. About the reports recording the research process, students recognize the importance and the necessity of the report but had difficulty in writing it. Their reports showed tendency to list everything they did without clear connection to the problem to be solved. Most of the reports did not record the references and some of them confused report writing with story telling. Therefore most of them need training in writing the reports. It is also desirable to describe the process of student learning when theory or mathematics that are beyond the level of middle school curriculum were used because it is part of their investigation. The second area of evaluation was about the format and the proceeding of the Contest, the problems given to students, and the process of student discussion. The format of the Contests, which consisted of four parts, presentation, refutation, debate and review, received good evaluation from students because it made students think more and gave more difficult time but was meaningful and helped to remember longer time according to students. On the other hand, students said the time given to each part of the contest was too short. The problems given to students were short and open ended to stimulate students' imagination and to offer various possible routes to the solution. This type of problem was very unfamiliar and gave a lot of difficulty to students. Student had positive opinion about the research process they experienced but did not recognize the fact that such a process was possible because of the oneness of the task. The level of the problems was rated as too difficult by teachers and college students but as appropriate by the middle school students in audience and participating students. This suggests that it is possible for student to convert the problems to be challengeable and intellectually satisfactory appropriate for their level of understanding even when the problems were difficult for middle school students. During the process of student discussion, a few problems were observed. Some problems were related to the technics of the discussion, such as inappropriate behavior for the role he/she was taking, mismatching answers to the questions. Some problems were related to thinking. For example, students thinking was off balanced toward deductive reasoning, and reasoning based on experimental data was weak. The last area of evaluation was the effect of the Contest. It was measured through the change of the attitude toward science and science classes, and willingness to attend the next Contest. According to the result of the questionnaire, no meaningful change in attitude was observed. However, through the interview several students were observed to have significant positive change in attitude while no student with negative change was observed. Most of the students participated in Contest said they would participate again or recommend their friend to participate. Most of the teachers agreed that the Contest should continue and they would recommend their colleagues or students to participate. As described above, the "Discussion Contest of Scientific Investigation", which was developed and tried as a new science contest, had positive response from participating students and teachers, and the audience. Two among the list of results especially demonstrated that the goal of the Contest, "active and cooperative science learning experience", was reached. One is the fact that students recognized the experience of cooperation, discussion, information search, variety of experiments to be fun and valuable. The other is the fact that the students recognized the format of the contest consisting of presentation, refutation, discussion and review, required more thinking and was challenging, but was more meaningful. Despite a few problems such as, unfamiliarity with the technics of discussion, weakness in inductive and/or experiment based reasoning, and difficulty in report writing, The Contest demonstrated the possibility of new science learning environment and science contest by offering the chance to challenge open tasks by utilizing student science knowledge and ability to inquire and to discuss rationally and critically with other students.
To divide by the concept of Cheon (天) before and after the period of Song Dynasty: before Song Dynasty; according to the ancient Book of Odes (Sigyeong-詩經), "Cheon (天) gives birth to a large number of people", and, Confucius(孔子) say "Cheon(天) gave me Virtue(德)." Mencius(孟子) say "The person done with all his heart knows Seong(性, personality), so if he knows such Seong(性, personality), then he knows Cheon(天)." In Doctrine of the Mean(中庸), it says "Cheon(天) ordered it to be called - Seong(性, personality)." So, Cheon(天) had a religious meaning, such as Sangje(上帝) - Supreme Ruler. During the Song period, Cheon(天), the source of its existence, had construed as Mugeuk i Taegeuk Non(無極而太極論 - Theory of Supreme Ultimate while being Indeterminate) and Theory of li and ki (iginon-理氣論). Juja (朱子, a honorary name of Juhui, 朱熹) had said a reasonable Cheon(天), that is, Heavenly Principle (天理 - Cheolli) by interpreting Cheon(天) as Taegeuk(太極 - Supreme Polarity) and li(理) of Muwi(無爲 - uncontrived action). That's why Juja had lost the religiosity because of his reasonable frame. The purpose of this dissertation is to identify of the quality of being religious of li(理) on the basis of attribute of Cheon(天) argued by Toegye and Juja. In the text of Seomyeong(西銘 - Western Inscription), we can see their interpretation of the content that Toegye as "西銘考證講義"(Lecture on Historical Research of Western Inscription), and Juja as "西銘解"(Commentary on the Western Inscription). Seomyeong(西銘 - Western Inscription) was expounded as a logic of 'iil bunsu' (理一分殊 - coherence is one and distinguished into many). '理一分殊' means to live in as meaningful as possible according to the human nature that has been bestowed upon thyself. Juja and Toegye both said that in the aspect of 'iil'(理一 - coherence is one), Reverence(事天) ought to be done, but to look into the aspect of 'bunsu'(分殊-distinguished into many), Juja argued that people should follow the order of Heavenly Principle(天理 - Cheolli), and Toegye argued that people should have to perform the filial piety(孝). There are differences in methods of Toegye and Juja on account of distinction between attributes of Cheon(天). Such a distinction affects the attribute of li(理). Juja said divisively that Soiyeon(所以然-why its principle is so) is li(理), and Sodangyeon(所當然-what should be so) is Sa(事-divine project). Toegye argued that Sodangyeon(所當然-what should be so) is indeed li(理). It is the position of Toegye that to know Seong(性-the personality) of Sodangyeon(所當然-what should be so) is the first, rather than to know Cheon(天) of Soiyeon(所以然-why its principle is so) that is out of reach in a faraway place. Seong(性-the personality) is li(理) that bestowed by Cheon(天). In view of discussion about the essence and existence, for Toegye, the existence is the first, rather than the essence. The issues of existence is now enabled to talk about amid the discussion of metaphysics, namely li(理). Different from Juja, a theory noticed in Toegye is the theory of 'Lijado'(理自到). 'Lijado'(理自到) denotes 'Li(理) leads on their own.' It tells that separate from thing-in-itself, there is an energy that moves and oversees the thing. This is an issue of response between "I" as the principal agent and other people. If "I" as the principal agent is sincere to others, the others will come to me insomuch as they will be revealed through me. Here, a problem between the host and guest arises. Toegye perceived this problem that do not see me and others as same, and also do not see me and others as two. This is the logic of 'ilii iiil'(一而二 二而一 - looks like one but two, looks like two but one) of '理一分殊' (coherence is one and distinguished into many). The first thing to do between these two processes is to recognize the existence of 'iil'(理一). Toegye strongly displays a religious attitude identifying Cheon(天)=Li (理)=Sangje(上帝- Supreme Ruler) in the same light.
The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.
Located on the right side of the third floor of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the "Art of Central Asia" exhibition boasts the world's finest collection of artworks and artifacts from the Silk Road. Every item in the collection has been classified by region, and many of them were collected in the early twentieth century through archaeological surveys led by Russia's Pyotr Kozlov, Mikhail Berezovsky, and Sergey Oldenburg. Some of these artifacts have been presented around the world through special exhibitions held in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Korea, Japan, and elsewhere. The fruits of Russia's Silk Road expeditions were also on full display in the 2008 exhibition The Caves of One Thousand Buddhas - Russian Expeditions on the Silk Route on the Occasion of 190 Years of the Asiatic Museum, held at the Hermitage Museum. Published in 2018 by the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House in collaboration with the Hermitage Museum, Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia introduces the Hermitage's collection of artifacts from the Kuche (or Kucha) region. While the book focuses exclusively on artifacts excavated from the Kuche area, it also includes valuable on-site photos and sketches from the Russian expeditions, thus helping to enhance readers' overall understanding of the characteristics of Kuche art within the Buddhist art of Central Asia. The book was compiled by Dr. Kira Samosyuk, senior curator of the Oriental Department of the Hermitage Museum, who also wrote the main article and the artifact descriptions. Dr. Samosyuk is an internationally renowned scholar of Central Asian Buddhist art, with a particular expertise in the art of Khara-Khoto and Xi-yu. In her article "The Art of the Kuche Buddhist Temples," Dr. Samosyuk provides an overview of Russia's Silk Road expeditions, before introducing the historical development of Kuche in the Buddhist era and the aspects of Buddhism transmitted to Kuche. She describes the murals and clay sculptures in the Buddhist grottoes, giving important details on their themes and issues with estimating their dates, and also explains how the temples operated as places of worship. In conclusion, Dr. Samosyuk argues that the Kuche region, while continuously engaging with various peoples in China and the nomadic world, developed its own independent Buddhist culture incorporating elements of Gandara, Hellenistic, Persian, and Chinese art and culture. Finally, she states that the culture of the Kuche region had a profound influence not only on the Tarim Basin, but also on the Buddhist grottoes of Dunhuang and the central region of China. A considerable portion of Dr. Samosyuk's article addresses efforts to estimate the date of the grottoes in the Kuche region. After citing various scholars' views on the dates of the murals, she argues that the Kizil grottoes likely began prior to the fifth century, which is at least 100 years earlier than most current estimates. This conclusion is reached by comparing the iconography of the armor depicted in the murals with related materials excavated from the surrounding area (such as items of Sogdian art). However, efforts to date the Buddhist grottoes of Kuche must take many factors into consideration, such as the geological characteristics of the caves, the themes and styles of the Buddhist paintings, the types of pigments used, and the clothing, hairstyles, and ornamentation of the depicted figures. Moreover, such interdisciplinary data must be studied within the context of Kuche's relations with nearby cultures. Scientific methods such as radiocarbon dating could also be applied for supplementary materials. The preface of Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia reveals that the catalog is the first volume covering the Hermitage Museum's collection of Kuche art, and that the next volume in the series will cover a large collection of mural fragments that were taken from Berlin during World War II. For many years, the whereabouts of these mural fragments were unknown to both the public and academia, but after restoration, the fragments were recently re-introduced to the public as part of the museum's permanent exhibition. We look forward to the next publication that focuses on these mural fragments, and also to future catalogs introducing the artifacts of Turpan and Khotan. Currently, fragments of the murals from the Kuche grottoes are scattered among various countries, including Russia, Germany, and Korea. With the publication of this catalog, it seems like an opportune time to publish a comprehensive catalog on the murals of the Kuche region, which represent a compelling mixture of East-West culture that reflects the overall characteristics of the region. A catalog that includes both the remaining murals of the Kizil grottoes and the fragments from different parts of the world could greatly enhance our understanding of the murals' original state. Such a book would hopefully include a more detailed and interdisciplinary discussion of the artifacts and murals, including scientific analyses of the pigments and other materials from the perspective of conservation science. With the ongoing rapid development in western China, the grotto murals are facing a serious crisis related to climate change and overcrowding in the oasis city of Xinjiang. To overcome this challenge, the cultural communities of China and other countries that possess advanced technology for conservation and restoration must begin working together to protect and restore the murals of the Silk Road grottoes. Moreover, centers for conservation science should be established to foster human resources and collect information. Compiling the data of Russian expeditions related to the grottoes of Kuche (among the results of Western archaeological surveys of the Silk Road in the early twentieth century), Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia represents an important contribution to research on Kuche's Buddhist art and the Silk Road, which will only be enhanced by a future volume introducing the mural fragments from Germany. As the new authoritative source for academic research on the artworks and artifacts of the Kuche region, the book also lays the groundwork for new directions for future studies on the Silk Road. Finally, the book is also quite significant for employing a new editing system that improves its academic clarity and convenience. In conclusion, Dr. Kira Samosyuk, who planned the publication, deserves tremendous praise for taking the research of Silk Road art to new heights.