This study addresses how agency costs influence the sustainability of different types of corporate governance. The luxury fashion brand could spend large sums of money on maintenance of magnificent brand image, thereby increasing the agency cost. On the contrary, the brand may hold down wasteful spending to report a gaudily financial achievement. Agency costs are defined either to vertical costs arising from the relationship between stockholders and managers, or to horizontal costs associated with the potential conflicts between majority and minority stockholders. Agency costs are measured by the value of the principal component. The study conducted regression analysis of each agency cost index, luxury fashion brand dummy and a set of control variables. The findings show that the agency costs of the firms with luxury fashion brand exceed those of control group.

Motivated by the recent cases of negligent social responsibility as manifested by foreign luxury fashion brands in Korea, this study investigates whether agency costs depend on the sustainability of different types of corporate governance. Agency costs refer either to vertical costs arising from the relationship between stockholders and managers, or to horizontal costs associated with the potential conflicts between majority and minority stockholders. The firms with luxury fashion brand could spend large sums of money on maintenance of magnificent brand image, thereby increasing the agency cost. On the contrary, the firms may hold down wasteful spending to report a gaudily financial achievement. This results in mitigation of the agency cost.

Thermoelectric-thick films were fabricated by using a screen printing process of n and p-type bismuth-telluride-based pastes. The screen-printed thick films have approximately 30 in thickness and show rough surfaces yielding an empty gap between an electrode and the thick film. The gap might result in an increase of an electrical resistivity of the fabricated thick-film-type thermoelectric module. In this study, we suggest a conductive metal coating onto the surfaces of the screen-printed paste in order to reduce the contact resistance in the module. As a result, the electrical resistivity of the thermoelectric module having a gold coating layer was significantly reduced up to 30% compared to that of a module without any metal coating. This result indicates that an introduction of conductive metal layers is effective to decrease the contact resistivity of a thick-film-typed thermoelectric module processed by screen printing.

The present study focused on the synthesis of Bi-Sb-Te-based thermoelectric powder by an oxidereduction process. The phase structure, particle size of the synthesized powders were analyzed using XRD and SEM. The synthesized powder was sintered by the spark plasma sintering method. The thermoelectric property of the sintered body was evaluated by measuring the Seebeck coefficient and specific electric resistivity. The powder had been synthesized by a combination of mechanical milling, calcination and reduction processes using mixture of , and powders. The sintered body of the powder synthesized by an oxide-reduction process showed p-type thermoelectric characteristics, even though it had lower thermoelectric properties than the sintered body of the thermoelectric powder synthesized by the conventional melting-crushing method.

Bismuth-telluride based thermoelectric powders were fabricated by two-step planetary milling process which produces bimodal size distribution ranging . The powders were reduced in hydrogen atmosphere to minimize oxygen contents which cause degradation of thermoelectric performance by decreasing electrical conductivity. Oxygen contents were decreased from 0.48% to 0.25% by the reduction process. In this study, both the as-synthesized and the reduced powders were consolidated by the spark plasma sintering process at for 10 min at the heating rate of and then their thermoelectric properties were investigated. The sintered samples using the reduced p-type thermoelectric powders show 15% lower specific electrical resistivity () than those of the as-synthesized powders while Seebeck coefficient and thermal conductivity do not change a lot. The results confirmed that ZT value of thermoelectric performance at room temperature was improved by 15% due to high electric conductivity caused by the controlled oxygen contents present at bismuth telluride materials.

Carbon-nanotube-embedded bismuth telluride (CNT/) matrix composites were fabricated by a powder metallurgy process. Composite powders, whereby 5 vol.% of functionalized CNTs were homogeneously mixed with alloying powders, were successfully synthesized by using high-energy ball milling process. The powders were consolidated into bulk CNT/ composites by spark plasma sintering process at for 10 min. The fabricated composites showed the uniform mixing and homogeneous dispersion of CNTs in the matrix. Seebeck coefficient of CNT/ composites reveals that the composite has n-type semiconducting characteristics with values ranging to with increasing temperature. Furthermore, the significant reduction in thermal conductivity has been clearly observed in the composites. The results showed that CNT addition to thermoelectric materials could be useful method to obtain high thermoelectric performance.

에너지원으로서 수소를 생산하기 위하여 하니컴 구조를 갖는 모노리스에 10 wt% Ni/CeO2-ZrO2 촉매를 담지한 후 메탄의 수증기 개질 실험을 수행하였다. 다른 CeO2/ZrO2 몰비를 갖는 촉매들 중에서, Ni/CeO2-ZrO2(CeO2/ZrO2=4/1)촉매가 700-800℃에서 높은 메탄의 전환율을 보여 주었다. 10wt% Ni/CeO2-ZrO2 촉매가 담지된 금속 모노리스 촉매체는 높은 열전도도와 비표면적들로 인하여 좋은 촉매 특성을 보여줌을 확인할 수 있었다. 또한, 금속모노리스 촉매체는 반응물에서 과다의 수증기에 의한 수소 수율에서 크게 영향을 받지 않음을 알 수 있었다. GHSV=30,000h-1, 반응물 비(H2O/CH4=3.0) 반응온도 800℃에서 금속모노리스 촉매체는 98%이상의 메탄의 전환율을 보여주었다. 생성물 가스에서 CO2/CO의 비는 수증기/메탄의 반응물비가 증가할수록 수성가스화 반응에 의하여 증가됨을 알 수 있었다.