• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.221-230
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• 2023

Under increased complexity and uncertainty of overseas construction projects, it is important for construction companies to improve their own project risk management capabilities instead of risk-taking strategies to secure competitiveness in the overseas construction market. Although most of the risks occur in project execution stage, many previous studies focused on planning stage including risk identification and analysis among PRM process. Therefore, this study aims to verify the effectiveness of whole PRM process during project execution stage through empirical study on participants of overseas construction projects. As the result it was found that first, the factor directly affects the project success is the execution process of PRM. It implies that appropriate actions such as appointing charged manager for risks, timely implementation of responding plan, continuous risk monitoring and updating established plan are the key for contribution to the project success. Second, the importance of communication in PRM is also found, which is not conducted at a specific but throughout the entire PRM process and need to be managed as essential factor for successful PRM..

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.117-139
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• 2020

In case of international long-term transactions, there are various risks of economic change of circumstances including skyrocketing price increase and shortage of raw material, as well as force majeure in a general sense. Nevertheless, pretty many of international long-term commercial contracts do not include the provisions of renegotiation and adaptation of the contract. In this case, possibility of renegotiation and adaptation depends mainly on the applicable law. Namely, it may be possible or not, according to choice of law. The reason is that national laws have nuances each other, and most of national courts are traditionally reluctant to accept hardship. and also, provisions of international uniform law (CISG) has ambiguity and inflexibility in relation to the problems of change of circumstances. Accordingly, this paper analyzes comparatively the doctrines and provisions related to renegotiation and adaptation of contracts of the most representative countries such as England, U.S.A., France, Germany as well as provisions CISG and soft law such as PICC. By doing so, the author makes clear which laws of instruments is more flexible or acceptable in allowing renegotiation and adaptation of long-term commercial contracts, and emphasizes on the importance of inclusion of express terms by using other alternative supplementing clauses, as a best solution for settling the problems of legal uncertainty of contract in relation to renegotiation and adaptation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.74-91
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• 2023

This study provides an in-depth comparison and analysis of various risk assessment models widely used in modern industries, and proposes the most suitable model for risk assessment of offshore wind power in Korea. The assessment models were selected by considering various factors such as the purpose of risk assessment, stakeholder requirements, and characteristics of offshore wind power. We also emphasized the importance of using different risk assessment models in combination in situations of high uncertainty. To systematize the combination of risk assessment models, we used systems engineering which is effective to develop a new system. Systems engineering was used to define the complete, traceable functions from site requirements, and model-based systems engineering was used to manage the design information from requirements to detailed functions in a single model. The developed risk assessment module provide automatic conversion between risk assessment models to enable risk assessment suitable for offshore wind power. The functionality and usability of the offshore wind risk assessment module were verified by the evaluation of three wind power experts.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.145-174
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• 2024

Addressing climate change necessitates evidence-based policies grounded in science. The use of forest biomass for energy production is based on a broad scientific consensus at the international level. However, some environmental groups in South Korea are opposing this system of energy production. Through this study, the authors aim to reduce unnecessary confusion and foster an atmosphere conducive to meaningful evidence-based policies. We have classified the issue into eight categories: biological carbon cycle, carbon debt, nature-based solutions, air emissions, cascading principles and sustainability certification, forest environmental impacts, climate change litigation, and the behavior of environmental groups and public perception. Consequently, the following key points were derived: (1) the actions of some environmental groups seem to follow a similar pattern to denialist behavior that denies climate change and climate science; (2) the quality of evidence for campaigns that oppose the use of forest biomass for energy production is low, with a tendency to overgeneralize information, high uncertainty, and difficulty in finding new claims.; (3) most of the public believes that forest biomass energy is necessary, and the governments of major countries are aware of its importance. Significantly, Forest biomass for energy is based on an overwhelming level of scientific consensus recognized internationally.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.2266-2273
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• 2024

A machine learning platform is proposed for the diagnosis of a severe accident progression in a nuclear power plant. To predict the key parameters for accident management including lost signals, a long short term memory (LSTM) network is proposed, where multiple accident scenarios are used for training. Training and test data were produced by MELCOR simulation of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident at unit 3. Feature variables were selected among plant parameters, where the importance ranking was determined by a recursive feature elimination technique using RandomForestRegressor. To answer the question of whether a reduced order ML model could predict the complex transient response, we performed a systematic sensitivity study for the choices of target variables, the combination of training and test data, the number of feature variables, and the number of neurons to evaluate the performance of the proposed ML platform. The number of sensitivity cases was chosen to guarantee a 95 % tolerance limit with a 95 % confidence level based on Wilks' formula to quantify the uncertainty of predictions. The results of investigations indicate that the proposed ML platform consistently predicts the target variable. The median and mean predictions were close to the true value.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.177-191
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• 2024

Purpose: In this study, the Drenzer facility, which is a facility installed to prevent the spread of fire caused by fire in adjacent buildings in the fire prevention zone, was analyzed legally and technically. We confirmed the uncertainty of the Building Act and the Fire Protection Act, and suggested the revision of the necessary standards. Method: Although the Drenzer facility is a building facility, it is actually applied in the field of firefighting, so the Delphi analysis was conducted on a panel composed of architectural experts and firefighting experts in the first, second, and third rounds to find the issuses and important facility component elements. Finally, the IPA(Importance-Performance Analysis) analysis was conducted to identify the importance of the elements that need to be revised. Result: Delphi analysis was carried out for experts on various components of Drenzer equipment in the first, second, and third rounds, and it was found that the survey items of the head, detector, and other facilities of the Drenzer equipment are valid items to identify problems. The IPA analysis indicated that the revision of the standards for Drencher head was necessary as a priority. Conclusion: In this study, it was possible to confirm the opinions of experts through Delphi analysis on the legal and technical problems of Drencher facilities, and it was confirmed that among the components of the Drencher facility, the revision of the head-related regulations is required as a priority.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.49-84
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• 2016

The importance of technological innovation orientation, which denotes the firm's general direction of thought toward steadily pursuing and promoting technological innovation in the long run for its viability and competitiveness, is on the rise. Although the technological innovation orientation has conceptually and practically important implications for securing the firm's sustainable competitive advantage, to date there has been limited research systematically analyzing the role of the technological innovation orientation for the firm's successful technological innovation and performance. Recognizing such deficiency in previous research regarding technological innovation orientation, this study selected internal and external critical factors which might affect the technological innovation orientation, and proposed and empirically examined a research model and hypotheses demonstrating the contingency relationships among the antecedent factors, technological innovation orientation and technological innovation performance. In the proposed research model, the selected antecedents of technological innovation orientation included two internal factors of CEO's technical-function experience and cross-functional integration and two external factors of environmental uncertainty and intensity of competition, and eventually it was suggested that these antecedent factors affected the firm's technological innovation performance via the technological innovation orientation. In addition, the research model suggested that the two environmental factors of environmental uncertainty and intensity of competition had a positive moderation effect on the relationship between technological innovation orientation and technological innovation performance. Analysis of data on sample of 86 Korean IT SMEs showed that CEO's technical-function experience, cross-functional integration and environmental uncertainty had a positive impact on the firm's technological innovation orientation and that the technological innovation orientation positively influenced the firm's technological innovation performance. The results also revealed that environmental uncertainty positively moderated the relationship between the firm's technological innovation orientation and technological innovation performance. The theoretical and practical implications for the results of this study were discussed.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.70-79
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• 2015

With the rise of the interest in a renewable system, the importance of the Life Cycle Cost Analysis(LCCA), an economic evaluation tool, has been increasing. However, there is an inevitable gap between a real cost and an estimation from LCCA because of the uncertainty of the external environment in real world. As the input variables in an analysis, such as a real discount rate and an energy cost, ares subject to change as time goes by, strategic decision on the current operating system is made depending on the real cost. Current economic evaluation approaches have treated only the fluctuation of input variables without consideration of the flexibility in operation, which has consequently led to the impairment on the reliability of LCCA. Therefore, new approach needs to be proposed to consider both the uncertainty of input variables and operational flexibility. To address this issue, the application of the Real Option to LCCA is presented in this study. Through a case analysis of LCCA of a solar heating system, the limits and current status of LCCA are identified. As a result, quantitative presentation of strategic decisions has been added in the new approach to implement the traditional approach.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.405-412
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• 2014

A number of algal bloom models (red-tide models) have been developed and applied to simulate the redtide growth and decline patterns as the interest on the phytoplankton blooms has been continuously increased. The quantitative error analysis of the model is of great importance because the accurate prediction of the red-tide occurrence and transport pattern can be used to setup the effective mitigations and counter-measures on the coastal ecosystem, aquaculture and fisheries damages. The word "red-tide model" is widely used without any clear definitions and references. It makes the comparative evaluation of the ecological models difficult and confusable. It is highly required to do the performance test of the red-tide models based on the suitable classification and appropriate error analysis because model structures are different even though the same/similar words (e.g., red-tide, algal bloom, phytoplankton growth, ecological or ecosystem models) are used. Thus, the references on the model classification are suggested and the advantage and disadvantage of the models are also suggested. The processes and methods on the performance test (quantitative error analysis) are recommend to the practical use of the red-tide model in the coastal seas. It is suggested in each stage of the modeling procedures, such as verification, calibration, validation, and application steps. These suggested references and methods can be attributed to the effective/efficient marine policy decision and the coastal ecosystem management plan setup considering the red-tide and/or ecological models uncertainty.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.93-100
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• 2015

Purpose - The objective of this research is to investigate whether national culture influences consumers' service evaluations. The services industry is receiving increasing attention from academia and practitioners as its position grows in global markets. Standardization or localization is a traditional managerial decision in global business. As the boundaries of services expand across national borders, firms are required to decide whether to standardize services or adjust to local needs. Though it is imperative to reflect global perspectives in marketing theories, these perspectives are mostly based on Western conceptualization of the world. Through a comparison of consumer groups from two culturally remote countries, service quality evaluation mechanisms are examined based on similar stimuli. The study tries to expand service marketing perspectives across national borders. Research design, data, and methodology - Eastern and Western countries are known to be culturally distinct. One Eastern and one Western country were chosen: an Anglo-Saxon country (the U.S., England, and Australia) and South Korea. In Hofstede's cultural dimensions, the differences between the two are pronounced. The Anglo-Saxon based countries share many similarities. Samples of the same sites are targeted. Questionnaires using a service quality scale (SERVQUAL) and a customer satisfaction scale were distributed. Utilizing Hofstede's typology of culture, the service evaluation mechanisms of the respondents from the two groups are evaluated. Three hypotheses are proposed from the review of the literature. These are service evaluation habits, importance of service quality dimensions for the individualistic/collectivistic countries, and strong/weak uncertainty avoidance cultures. Consumers from the individualistic countries are considered to care about themselves and demand a higher level of responsiveness and assurance. On the other hand, consumers from high uncertainty avoidance cultures are assumed to rely more on tangible questions of service quality, as these are the only predictable service quality indicators. A t-test and regression analysis are applied to validate the constructs. Results - The respondents from the Anglo-Saxon countries are more generous on service evaluations than Koreans. Researchers have indicated that Americans tend to give higher service evolution scores than European, Mexican, and Korean counterparts. The tendency is the same here. The sample from Anglo-Saxon countries demonstrated higher service evaluation scores on every dimension of SERVQUAL. For the second hypothesis, the respondents from the collectivistic culture rely less on core service dimensions (assurance and responsiveness) due to their tendency to place more value on group harmony than individual interest. However, the third hypothesis was not validated. Conclusions - The study attempted to expand the scope of service marketing to reflect cross-national perspectives. Service quality is known to have a strong influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty behavior. However, this research demonstrated that individuals from different cultural territories respond heterogeneously to the same stimuli. Scholars argue that national cultures are main factors in such deviated behavior. Scholars and global managers should be aware of differences in consumer value judgment mechanisms such as satisfaction, expectations, and perceptions.