• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.823-840
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• 2012

The importance of teaching the nature of science (NOS) has been emphasized in the science curriculum, especially in the science curriculum for science-gifted students. Nevertheless, few studies concerning the structure and formation of students' mental model on NOS have been carried out. This study aimed to explore science-gifted students' understanding of 'fact', 'hypothesis', 'theory', 'law', and 'scientificness' by utilizing semantic network analysis. One hundred ten science-gifted middle school students who were selected by a national university participated in this study. We collected students' written responses of five items and analyzed them by the semantic network analysis(SNA) method. As a result, the core ideas of students' understanding of 'fact' were proof and reality, of 'hypothesis' were tentativeness and uncertainty, of 'theory' was proven hypothesis by experimentation, of 'law' were absoluteness and authority, and of 'scientificness' were factual evidence, verifiability, accurate and logical theoretical framework. The result of integrated semantic network illustrated that the viewpoint of science-gifted students were similar to absolutism and logical positivism (empiricism). Methodologically, this study showed that the semantic network analysis method was an useful tool for visualization of students' mental model of scientific conceptions including NOS.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.143-163
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• 2020

When we assume the transition to a knowledge management society, what factors should be differentially added to the characteristics of CEOs of small enterprises to enhance management performance? This can be done by measuring the core competence of the CEO who is an importance asset of the small firms. This study focuses on the following four inquiries to clarify the relationship among the core competence of the CEO, the knowledge management and the performance of the firms. First, we test the influence of the core competence of CEO on business performance. Second, we explore the effects of CEO characteristics on the knowledge management and the performance of the firm. Third, we test whether knowledge management has a mediating effect in the relationship between the characteristics of CEO which is a parameter, and the business performance of the firm which is a dependent variable. Fourth, for the sake of a deeper understanding of the CEO of the small firms, we conduct t-test or multiple comparison to find out the statistically significant differences among means of the main variables such as demographic characteristics, work experience, and entrepreneurship. The academic contribution of this study is to verify the characteristics of the CEO, which influence the business performance:the global competence, challenge spirit, interpersonal flexibility and stress tolerance, in connection with the knowledge management of small firms. The practical contribution of this study is to test whether CEOs can demonstrate successful business performance through knowledge management rather than measuring business performance after a certain period of time through profit and loss statements in this era of uncertainty.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.26-42
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• 2020

Soils are the basis for plant rooting and ecosystem creation, the site of life for humankind, and require much time for their creation, so there will be no disagreement about the importance and necessity of soil conservation and management. Soil resilience is the ability of soils to maintain their original structure and function (resistance and recovery) from various kinds of disturbances, and is an indispensable field of study that prepares for a future with high uncertainty and unpredictability. Therefore, this study summarizes the concept and necessity of soil resilience, which is not yet widely known in Korea, and the contents of previous studies were reviewed. This study was carried out with the aim of contributing to lowering the threshold for entry into resilience research for domestic and foreign researchers who are new to soil resilience. In the first part of this study, we introduced resilience and soil resilience, and in the second part, we summarized the main causes of stress or disturbance that have been studied by many soil resilience researches. This makes it easy to find the references authors need. It is virtually impossible to find the same soil environment because there is no same area on the earth with all the same rock, climate, human activity, and culture, suggesting that each soil has its own uniqueness. Therefore, the researcher who wants to utilize the results of this study should take into consideration the specificity of the soil and the region to which the soil resilience is introduced, and modify it if necessary. In addition, efforts should be made to strengthen the network of soil resilience researchers to create a basis for sharing and actively utilizing the research results.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.368-375
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• 2013

Failure of small bore piping welds is a recurring problem at nuclear power plants. And the socket weld cracking in small bore piping has caused unplanned plant shutdowns for repair and high economic impact on the plants. Consequently, early crack detection, including the detection of manufacturing defects, is of the utmost importance. Until now, the surface inspection methods has been applied according to ASME Section XI requirements. But the ultrasonic inspection as a volumetric method is also applying to enforce the inspection requirement. However, the conventional manual ultrasonic inspection techniques are used to detect service induced fatigue cracks. And there was uncertainty on manual ultrasonic inspection because of limited access to the welds and difficulties with contact between the ultrasonic probe and the OD(outer diameter) surface of small bore piping. In this study, phased array ultrasonic inspection technique is applied to increase inspection speed and reliability. To achieve this object, the 3.5 MHz phased array ultrasonic transducer are designed and fabricated. The manually encoded scanner was also developed to enhance contact conditions and maintain constant signal quality. Additionally inspection system is configured and inspection procedure is developed.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.17
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• pp.251-293
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• 2002

The study is a comparative and analytical study which comprises of the analysis of the rules of the buyer's right to withhold performance where the seller delivers defective goods or documents of three legal systems; the CISG, English law and Korean law. The purposes underlying this study are twofold. The first is to clarify the current position as to the right of withholding performance in the event of the seller's tender of defective goods or documents in Korean law, CISG and English law so that it may assist the parties in drafting the buyer's right to withhold performance in their own contract. The second is to compare the rules of one jurisdiction with those of other jurisdictions and to evaluate the rules in light of the practical functions and benefits of the right to withhold performance and the discipline of comparative law the basic question of which is whether a solution from one jurisdiction may facilitate the systematic development and reform of another jurisdiction. It shows that each jurisdiction does not have any provision or case law specifically dealing with the buyer's right to withhold performance where the seller delivers the goods which are defective in terms of quality or quantity. The absence of such provision or case in each jurisdiction has resulted in either disputes or uncertainty. However, the study executed in light of the primary functions and benefits of the right in practice and the discipline of comparative law reveals that, first, the view in English law which is against recognizing the right may not be justified when one considers the practical importance of having the right and the position taken by the CISG as a well developed and modernized law, second, the view in Korean law which argues that the principle of specific goods dogma on which it is based is extended even to substitutable or repairable goods cannot be also justified on the ground of one's ordinary expectation and the position under the CISG and English law which imposes a contractual duty to deliver non-defective goods on the seller insofar as the buyer's payment is deemed to be made in exchange for the seller's delivery of non-defective goods and they are substitutable or repairable. Regarding the right to withhold performance in the event of the seller's tender of defective documents, the study shows that the relatively detailed rules in English law may be utilized as a guideline to fill the gap in the CISG and Korean law in terms of the practicability and appropriateness to govern documentary sales. Furthermore, it is found that the position in English law which confers on the buyer the right to withhold performance for a trivial defect in documents may be unreasonable in terms of one's need to enable justice to be done in individual cases.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.64-71
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• 2018

Project Management Institute of America separates the types of risk with external risks and internal risks. The external risk is an uncontrollable risk in projects such as changes of policy and related systems, climate, natural disasters, exchange rates and so on. The internal risk is an existing risk in the project itself that is controllable items in the project. Technical risks in project management are cost, quality, time, safety and environment. Therefore, both the external and internal risks should be managed to perform the construction project successfully. In particular, we can secure the quality and safety of facilities through the technical risk management. The importance of potential risk management has been emerging as a major interest and the lack of risk management delays projects and increases construction costs with negative effects of the building safety since the complex building, which is composed of a great number of facilities, consists of many project units and there are conflicts between various participants and stake-holders. This study presents the ways of establishing risk management processes to ensure the safety of the complex building. To that end, establishing procedure of risk management processes is presented and types of risk and factors in construction projects and counter strategies are presented as available risk information on the stages.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.101-123
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• 2015

Amidst the growing uncertainty in external environments, securing and retaining superior human resources is becoming emphasized as a key means for organizations to achieve competitive advantages. Particularly, star employees-human resources that are characterized by their ability to create extraordinary performance relative to other peers-are increasingly gaining attention in both academia and industry because of its importance in knowledge-based industries. However, despite the prevailing recognition for star employees, few previous literature have attempted to empirically test the direct relationship between the ratio of star employees in an organization and organizational performance. Considering both the potential for positive and negative influence of star employees on organizations, the relationship between the ratio of star employees and organizational performance can not only be a simple linear relationship but can also exist in a curvilinear form. Building on the existing literature on star employees, this paper establishes competing hypotheses for the two possibilities of curvilinear relationship; as the ratio of star employees increases, marginal effects can either increase (i.e., U-shaped curvilinear relationship) or decrease (i.e., inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship). Employing an unbalanced panel data of 35 Korean brokerage firms between years 2008 and 2013 with 134 observations, the relationship between the ratio of best analysts (i.e. star employees) as selected by Maeil Business Newspaper and financial performance (i.e. organizational performance) of corresponding brokerage firms is examined. Empirical results indicate that while organizational performance increases as the ratio of star employees increases, its positive effect diminishes over time which provides support for the curvilinear relationship with decreasing marginal effects. Our research findings imply that star employees create value in knowledge-based industries; at the same time, implications are given as results calls for caution for excessive dependence on star employees beyond a certain level.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.167-178
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between internal corporate, supplier, and customer integrations for domestic SMEs on non-financial and financial performance through SCM performance such as flexibility and reduction of uncertainties. To this end, data was collected on 286 SMEs in Korea, and the structural relationships between SCM integration level, SCM performances, and management performance were analyzed. As a result of the analysis, first, it was found that the SCM integration level had a significant positive effect on the flexibility and reduction of uncertainties, which are SCM performances. Second, the flexibility and reduction of uncertainties showed significantly positive effects on the non-financial performance of the companies, but did not directly affect the financial performance positively. Third, the non-financial performance was found to have a positive effect on the financial performance. In addition, the SCM integration level did not have a direct effect on the financial and non-financial performance, but it was found that it affected management performance by mediating the flexibility and reduction of uncertainties, which are SCM performances. That is, although the SCM integration level did not directly affect financial and non-financial performance, it was confirmed that it affects management performance by mediating SCM performances, flexibility and uncertainty reduction. In other words, it was confirmed that the SCM integration level directly or indirectly affects SCM performances and overall management performance. These results imply the necessity to focus on competency in the supply chain management area according to the SCM performance expected by SMEs, and the step by step approaches to the expected effects. In a situation where prior SCM related studies have not been able to present SCM performances and management performance of SMEs that are relatively lacking in their capital and SCM construction capabilities, the findings of this study could suggest the importance of SCM integration from the perspective of SMEs. In addition, from the viewpoint of SMEs, this study suggested that a sequential approach for performance measurement is required (SCM performance → management performance) in relation to the performance factors to be established through SCM.

• Clean Technology
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.449-456
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• 2014

There has been increasing concerns for the problems of water security in countries, caused by the frequent occurrence of localized drought due to the climate change and uncertainty of water balance. The importance of fresh water is emphasized as considerable amount of usable fresh water is utilized for power generation sector producing electricity. PV power system, the source of renewable energy, consumes water for the every steps of life cycle: manufacturing, installation, and operation. However, it uses relatively less water than the traditional energy sources such as thermal power and nuclear power sources. In this study, to find out the use of water for the entire process of PV power system from extracting raw materials to operating the system, the footprint of water in the whole process is measured to be analyzed. Measuring the result, the PV water footprint of value chain was $0.989m^3/MWh$ and the water footprint appeared higher specially in poly-Si and solar cell process. The following two reasons explain it: poly-Si process is energy-intensive process and it consumes lots of cooling water. In solar cell process, deionized water is used considerably for washing a high-efficiency crystalline silicon. It is identified that PV system is the source using less water than traditional ones, which has a critical value in saving water. In discussing the future energy policy, it is vital to introduce the concept of water footprint as a supplementary value of renewable energy.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.221-245
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors leading resilience and to investigate the impact of the adaptive performance. The results are as follows: First, Cognitive Flexibility, Self Concept Clarity and Learning Goal Orientation were proved as antecedents predicted to resilience. Second, Cognitive Flexibility had positive effects on all sub variables on adaptive performance and Prove Goal Orientation had positive effects on some sub variables on adaptive performance such as problem solving, cope with uncertainty, cross cultural adaptability. Self Concept Clarity had positive effects on some sub variables on adaptive performance such as problem solving, handle crisis, cross cultural adaptability. Third, Resilience mediated the relationship between Cognitive Flexibility and Adaptive Performance(problem solving, handle crisis, cross cultural adaptability). The hypotheses of the mediation effect of resilience between Goal Orientation, Self Concept Clarity and Adaptive Performance were rejected. Lastly, this study emphasized and verified the importance of resilience in process of adaptive performance. Future studies should be looked for broad variety of resilience factors.