• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.1-36
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• 2020

While the policy intervention of each country for the promotion of renewable energy is strengthened, Korea introduced Feed-in Tariff (FIT) in 2002 to directly support the development of renewable energy. But in 2012, the shift of policy instrument that from FIT to Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is occurred. This is a unique background that is currently found only in Korea, and new answers that focus on the outcomes of the shift of policy instruments are needed in addition to the existing discussion of comparison of FIT and RPS. Therefore, this study analyzed the change of policy efficiency after the shift to RPS using Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) and Malmquist Index. In the result of analysis, a difference in the improvement of policy efficiency after in shift to RPS is found among each renewable energy source. This result is because renewable energy companies voluntarily entered the market only for energy sources that have secured technology or price competitiveness, and this indicates that the performance of renewable energy after the RPS shift has been concentrated on specific energy sources. As a result of this study, considering that the goal of renewable energy policy is to expand distribution and to drive growth engines, multi-faceted analysis is required in consideration of technology and market in selecting policy instruments.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.159-171
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• 2016

Purpose: This study investigated medical accessibility on optical stores and ophthalmic clinics of Seoul Special City and six other metropolitan cities. Methods: By using a number of households, population, optician stores, ophthalmic hospitals, and real estate (apartments) standard market price of Seoul Special City and six other metropolitan cities provided by the Commercial District Information System (2016.6) of Small Enterprise & Market Authority, we analyzed the level of healthcare accessibility and business area zones, Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 18.0. Results: Inchon (household 2,227/population 5,723) had the highest household and population rate per optical store, and Gwangju (1,146/2,979) had the lowest. Gwangju (24,612/63,987) had the highest household and population rate per optical store, and Seoul (10,021/24,432) had the lowest. From the consumer and patient's point of view, lower household rate per optical store is a city with good accessibility to healthcare, but from an optical store and ophthalmic clinic's view, it will have great difficulty due to issues of competition. Conclusions: Consumers and patients should be the center of healthcare. A healthcare system that can provide smooth service anywhere anytime should be constructed. However, most metropolitan cities, including Seoul, have optical stores and ophthalmic clinics densely populated where profitability and liquidity are ensured and causing unbalanced distribution of healthcare. To solve such problems, we need proper distribution of optician stores according to the population proportion and industrial-educational research to find balance point of local healthcare.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2010

Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.175-209
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• 2019

The bundled discounting which the dominant undertakings engage in is problematic in terms of competition restraint. Bundled discounts generally benefit not only buyers but also sellers. Specifically, bundled discounts usually costs a firm less to sell multiple products. In addition, Bundled discounts always provide some immediate consumer benefit in the form of lower prices. Therefore, competition authorities and courts should not be too quick to condemn bundled discounts and apply the neutral and objective standard in bundled discounting cases. Cascade Health v. Peacehealth decision starts ruling from this prerequisite. This decision pointed out that the dominant undertaking can exclude rivals through bundled discounting without pricing its products below its cost when rivals do not sell as great a number of product lines. So bundled discounting may have the anticompetitive impact by excluding less diversified but more efficient producers. This decision did not adopt Lepage case's standard which does not require the court to consider whether the competitor was at least as efficient of a producer as the bundled discounter. Instead of that, based on cost based approach, this decision said that the exclusionary element can not be satisfied unless the discounts result in prices that are below an appropriate measures of the defendant's costs. By adopting a discount attribution standard, this decision said that the full amount of the discounts should be allocated to the competitive products. As the seller can easily ascertain its own prices and costs of production and calculate whether its discounting practices exclude competitors, not the competitor's costs but the dominant undertaking's costs should be considered in applying discount attribution standard. This case deals with bundled discounting practice of multiple healthcare services by the dominant undertaking in healthcare market. Under the Korean healthcare system and public health insurance system, the price competition primarily exists in non-medical care benefits because public healthcare insurance in Korea is in combination with the compulsory medical care institution system. The cases that Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Law deals with, such as cartel and the abuse of monopoly power, also mainly exist in non-medical care benefits. The dominant undertaking's exclusionary bundled discounting in Korean healthcare markets may be practiced in the contracts between the dominant undertaking and private insurance companies with regards to non-medical care benefits.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.95-101
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• 2015

Purpose - This study provides evidence of the impact of the mandatory adoption of Korean equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS) on accounting quality. K-IFRS uses fair value as a basis of measurement and is characterized by principle-based standards. These characteristics can lead to a decrease in conservatism. Therefore, this study aims to examine whether or not there is a change in the level of conservatism before and after the enforcement of K-IFRS (2007~2014). By comparing 2007 through 2008 and 2013 through 2014 (excluding 2009 to 2012), we test "the temporary adjustment phenomenon" and document an overall decline in the degree of conservatism after the adoption of K-IFRS. Research design, data, and methodology - Our sample is comprised of data of all listed Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) manufacturing distribution companies in Korea from 2007 to 2014, which yields the pooled sample of 4,412 (panel A) and 1,915 (panel B) firm-year observations for hypotheses 1 and 2. In line with recent literature, we adopt the Givoly and Hayn (2000) model, which recomputes the non-operating accruals, excluding two components that are most likely to capture the effect of restructuring activities: special items and gains or losses from discontinued operations. In addition, we also use these variables: SIZE, LEV, INV_CYCLE, ROA, OWN, and FOR. Results - Our sample period spans 2007 to 2014. This offers evidence on the effect of the mandatory adoption of IFRS on conservatism. Our findings can be summarized as follows. First, in panel A, for mandatory K-IFRS adoption (2011), we do not find any significant evidence of conservatism. We can guess that the "temporary adjustment phenomenon" is the reason that we do not find significant evidence of conservatism. Second, we investigate panel B from 2009 to 2012. We document an overall decline in the degree of conservatism after the adoption of K-IFRS. We can assume that these results are due to "the temporary adjustment phenomenon." Conclusions - This study finds that conservatism significantly decreased after IFRS adoption. In particular, this study makes the initial effort to elucidate "the temporary adjustment phenomenon" to analyze the effect of K-IFRS on conservative accounting. We argue that K-IFRS are conceptually conservative but that inappropriate application of the conservatism principles is likely to prevent financial reporting from reaching the level of conservatism targeted by the IASB. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature on IFRS and can be useful to capital market supervisors who are monitoring the trends of the firms implementing K-IFRS. Additionally, our results inform stakeholders of the potentially negative effect of the greater flexibility permitted by IFRS and/or lack of appropriate enforcement on key dimensions of accounting quality. This has important implications for Korean regulators and standard setters as they review the cost and benefits of IFRS. Our study also sheds light on the importance of the institutional environment in achieving the targeted objectives for improving financial reporting quality.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.20-30
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• 2003

This study was carried out to examine the e-Business status of Korea Forest Product Industries and to propose the development. The use level of e-Business in korea forest product industries have stayed in internal company information network integration stages. But lots of companies located in the insufficient of e-Business models, the lack of qualified staffs, and the shortage of e-Business operating technology and implementation. As the result of this study, the followings must be considered; 1. For the promotion of e-Business use, it is needed to maintain price competitiveness, quality competitiveness, and market correspondence capacity. 2. For the settlement of e-Business models, it is important to connect information network among cooperation companies as like forest products standardize, common database, and standard electronic catalogue. Also, it needed developing program to strengthen the competitiveness of forest product industries, expanding to outsourcing and affiliated companies.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.12
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• pp.117-147
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• 2006

This study aims to propose efficient way to operate the security guarding system from the perspective of administration, policy, law, institution and operation as to the private security guarding system as the Korean security guarding system needs multifaced analysis and measure to ensure efficient operation. The growth strategy has to be restructured and segmentation market needs to be driven in order to cope with the changing conditions of company from the perspective of administration. And private security guarding service companies must refrain from excessive competition while improving the contracting method such as minimum price bidding, etc. From the perspective of policy, the functions of relevant organizations such as the National Police Agency, security association, etc, and mutual cooperation must expand. Also, the profit generation event needs to be privatized and the more positive perception toward the private security guarding service is necessary. In addition, security exhibition and seminar can be expanded to lay the groundwork for the advancement of private security system. From the legal and institutional perspective, the security guarding service related law must be revised and the certification system must b introduced to cope with the changing requirement. The security guarding instructor system must be strengthened to ensure a faithful and earnest implementation of duty to instruct, supervise and educate security guarding personnel. From the perspective of security guarding system's operation, professional security technique must be introduced and applied, and the volunteer application system must be established. In addition, standard 'security guarding manual' must be crafted, and the equipment for security guarding must be modernized to ensure an efficient operation of private security guarding services.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.452-460
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• 2019

Background: Monitoring and control of PM_2.5 are being recognized as key to address health issues attributed to PM_2.5. Availability of low-cost PM_2.5 sensors made it possible to introduce a number of portable PM_2.5 monitors based on light scattering to the consumer market at an affordable price. Accuracy of light scatteringe-based PM_2.5 monitors significantly depends on the method of calibration. Static calibration curve is used as the most popular calibration method for low-cost PM_2.5 sensors particularly because of ease of application. Drawback in this approach is, however, the lack of accuracy. Methods: This study discussed the calibration of a low-cost PM_2.5-monitoring device (PMD) to improve the accuracy and reliability for practical use. The proposed method is based on construction of the PM_2.5 sensor network using Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol and web query of reference measurement data available at government-authorized PM monitoring station (GAMS) in the republic of Korea. Four machine learning (ML) algorithms such as support vector machine, k-nearest neighbors, random forest, and extreme gradient boosting were used as regression models to calibrate the PMD measurements of PM_2.5. Performance of each ML algorithm was evaluated using stratified K-fold cross-validation, and a linear regression model was used as a reference. Results: Based on the performance of ML algorithms used, regression of the output of the PMD to PM_2.5 concentrations data available from the GAMS through web query was effective. The extreme gradient boosting algorithm showed the best performance with a mean coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.78 and standard error of 5.0 ㎍/㎥, corresponding to 8% increase in R² and 12% decrease in root mean square error in comparison with the linear regression model. Minimum 100 hours of calibration period was found required to calibrate the PMD to its full capacity. Calibration method proposed poses a limitation on the location of the PMD being in the vicinity of the GAMS. As the number of the PMD participating in the sensor network increases, however, calibrated PMDs can be used as reference devices to nearby PMDs that require calibration, forming a calibration chain through MQTT protocol. Conclusions: Calibration of a low-cost PMD, which is based on construction of PM_2.5 sensor network using MQTT protocol and web query of reference measurement data available at a GAMS, significantly improves the accuracy and reliability of a PMD, thereby making practical use of the low-cost PMD possible.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.117-124
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• 2017

A Smart Grid is a system that can efficiently use energy by exchanging real-time information in both directions between a consumer and a power supplier using ICT technology on an existing power network. DR(Demand response) is an arrangement in which electricity users can sell the electricity they save to the electricity market when the price of electricity is high or the power system is crisis. In this study, we developed a power meter data transmission device and power IT system that measure the demand information in real-time using a smart meter and transmit it to a cloud server. The power meter data transmission device developed in this study uses alight sensor connected to a Raspberry Pi 3 to measure the number of blinking lamps on the KEPCO meter per unit of power, in order to provide reliable data without any measurement errors with respect to the KEPCO power data. The power measurement data transmission device uses the standard communication protocol, OpenADR 2.0b. The measured data is transmitted to the power IT system, which consists of the VEN, VTN, and calculation program, via the LTE WiFi communication network and stored in its MySQL DB. The developed power measurement data transmission device issues a power supply instruction and performs a peak reduction DR when a power system crisis occurs. The developed power meter data transmission device has the advantage of allowing the user to adjust it every 1 minute, where as the existing smart metering time is fixed at once every 15 minutes.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.107-118
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• 2016

Purpose - Over 90% of Domestic logistics industry is small enterprise and they are experiencing growth stagnation due to price-based competition structure rather than constructing logistics service of high added value. In order to get over this situation and pursue the development of logistics industry, strengthening its competitiveness, through inter-enterprise cooperative network build-up, would be a key alternative. Therefore, in this study, an index for measuring inter-enterprise cooperation level of Joint logistics business will be developed as a typical collaborative business model in logistics industry. Moreover, a strengthening competitiveness method suggests a developmental step and a key management index to mature in logistics industry. Research Design, Data, Methodology - This study is an index development research for measuring inter-enterprise cooperation level of logistics industry. Such a level was measured by performing a survey by targeting enterprises that participated in Joint logistics business. The targeting enterprises are typical cooperative models in logistics industry. Measurement items were developed which were based on the presented items in existing research. Question items were composed of selection type questions as answering Yes/No. They measures implementation status of corporate activity and detailed activity items measuring qualitative level. Total samples were based on 116 enterprise samples including 90 logistics enterprises and 26 shippers. In addition, by evaluating the importance for Joint logistics business recognition with personnel working level, the weight of measuring variable was extracted. This study has built an assessment tools (LPCI) on Joint logistics business cooperation level in a situation where there are no previous studies on joint logistics business, this study is meaningful for other studies. Results - As a result of analyzing LPCI presented in this study, the score of logistics enterprise was represented as 59.9 points based on full score of 100 points and that of shippers as 47.2 points and cooperation level among enterprises participated in Joint logistics business was revealed to be very low. In particular, as a result of measuring the importance between logistics enterprise and shippers, the difference by each measurement standard was represented among those enterprises. This difference is considered to be a key factor that cooperative operational conformity between logistics enterprises and shippers is represented to be low. Conclusions - As most joint logistics business, being promoted at present, is sharing facility and information with joint logistics business, it is hard to find such a joint logistics business in reality based on cooperative business model in main cooperation agents. Therefore, competitiveness of logistics industry could be strengthened by promoting joint logistics business based on their mutual cooperation among enterprises. In other words, it is to secure sustainable competitiveness of joint logistics business together with creation of new market by inter-enterprise cooperation based on integration of basic logistics business.