The Republic of Korea (ROK), as a member state of the IAEA, is operating the State’s System of Accounting for and Control (SSAC) and conducting independent national inspections. Furthermore, an evaluation methodology for the material unaccounted for (MUF) is being developed in ROK to enhance capabilities of national inspection. Generally, physical and chemical changes of nuclear material are unavoidable due to the operating system and structure of facilities, an accumulation of material unaccounted for (MUF) has been issued. IAEA developed statistical MUF evaluation method that can be applied to all facilities around the world and it mainly focuses on the diversion detection of nuclear materials in facilities. However, in terms of the national safeguard inspection, an evaluation of accountancy in facilities is additionally needed. Therefore, in this research, a new approach to MUF evaluation is suggested, based on the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM) that an evaluation of measurement uncertainty factors is straightforward. A hypothetical list of inventory items (LII) which has 6,118 items at the beginning and end of the material balance period, along with 360 inflow and outflow nuclear material items at a virtual fuel fabrication plant was employed for both the conventional IAEA MUF evaluation method and the proposed GUM-based method. To calculate the measurement uncertainty, it was assumed that an electronic balance, gravimetry, and a thermal ionization mass spectrometer were used for a measurement of the mass, concentration, and enrichment of 235U, respectively. Additionally, it was considered that independent and correlated uncertainty factors were defined as random factors and systematic factors for the ease of uncertainty propagation by the GUM. The total MUF uncertainties of IAEA (σMUF) and GUM (uMUF) method were 37.951 and 36.692 kg, respectively, under the aforementioned assumptions. The difference is low, it was demonstrated that the GUM method is applicable to the MUF evaluation. The IAEA method demonstrated its applicability to all nuclear facilities, but its calculated errors exhibited low traceability due to its simplification. In contrast, the calculated uncertainty based on the GUM method exhibited high reliability and traceability, as it allows for individual management of measurement uncertainty based on the facility’s accounting information. Consequently, the application of the GUM approach could offer more benefits than the conventional IAEA method in cases of national safeguard inspections where factor analysis is required for MUF assessment.

Coupled thermo-hydraulic-mechanical (THM) processes are essential for the long-term performance of deep geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste. In this study, a numerical sensitivity analysis was performed to analyze the effect of rock properties on THM responses after the execution of the heater test at the Kamaishi mine in Japan. The TOUGHFLAC simulator was applied for the numerical simulation assuming a continuum model for coupled THM analysis. The rock properties included in the sensitivity study were the Young’s modulus, permeability, thermal conductivity, and thermal expansion coefficients of crystalline rock, rock salt, and clay. The responses, i.e., temperature, water content, displacement, and stress, were measured at monitoring points in the buffer and near-field rock mass during the simulations. The thermal conductivity had an overarching impact on THM responses. The influence of Young’s modulus was evident in the mechanical behavior, whereas that of permeability was noticed through the change in the temperature and water content. The difference in the THM responses of the three rock type models implies the importance of the appropriate characterization of rock mass properties with regard to the performance assessment of the deep geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste.

The seaport system is one of the complex systems which involves many stakeholders; i.e. seaport cluster; seaport authority, seaport operator, government, shipping agent, forwarding agent etc. Due to this concern, the aims of this research is revealed the relationship between the three elements of seaport quality towards the seaport competitiveness. Subsequently, the scope of this research identified three elements of seaport quality (seaport effectiveness; seaport reliability; seaport governance) and seaport competitiveness as the influential elements from the Malaysian Seaport perspective. Then, the methodology of this research used quantitative method analysis and questionnaire as the instrument for the Malaysian seaport cluster stakeholders. Multiple regressions and the reliability test were employed for the data analysis. The 143 out of 180 respondents had approved after data screening. Consequently, the finding was the 8 influential elements of seaport quality onto seaport competitiveness; (i) highly stability on strong cooperation about ship and cargoes, (ii) systematic arrangement of facilities and equipment, (iii) demonstrates good understanding of client requirement, (iv) reliability on the ability of equipment and facilities, (v) easy understanding towards the implementation of the guidelines of process involves, (vi) highly attending by customer on the cooperation through community, (vii) highly understanding and knowledge to the security compliance and (viii) minimizing the ship turnaround time, and those were statistically significant under the Malaysian seaport quality perspectives. As conclusion, the element of seaport quality would contribute as the benchmark to improvise the Malaysian seaport competitiveness. The contribution from this research is foreseen under the developing the guidelines through the seaport quality while enhancing the seaport operation efficiency and the strategies development in determining the continuous sustainability of seaport industry.

Research in the Servitization of Manufacturing has become focused more on cases than concepts over the past decade. This is because governments have emphasized some practical research with policies to support their industries. Manufacturers need differentiated strategies to gain competitiveness by servitization in the global market. They should examine how common servitization has become in the same industries and markets. They should also make sure how it works and for what purpose it is done since it is necessary to make the best decision to be able to distribute the limited resources most effectively to defeat the global competitors. South Korea has the sixth largest trade volume in the world, but Korean SMEs’ marketing capabilities fall short compared to that of major global companies. This paper seeks to develop the proper model and its application for the servitization with global cases which are recommended for Korean SMEs. They need to check the urgency in servitization according to their products, industries and target markets. In addition, factors such as purposes, time and types of the servitization are examined to see how they are related each other. The most significant implication of this study is that the processes for early-stage companies in servitazation are modeled to help them make the best choices.

Since aged water treatment facilities could threaten the sustainable water supply, asset management system has been adopted for their systematic management. Level of Service(LoS) is one of critical components of asset management and could be quantified through benchmark index(BMI). Water supplier could estimate consumer’s satisfaction and their performance through BMI to improve the LoS. We developed BMI for water treatment facilities from customer’s satisfaction survey. BMI, represented with the Total Service Score(TSS), was assessed with water quality, water pressure, taste and odor, water rate, and service quality with weighing factors. BMI could, further, be used to assist the analysis of the life cycle cost to increase the unit of LoS.

Introduction In 2011, consumers spent $ 6.6 billion on certified fair-trade products, for a 12% increase worldwide (Thompson, 2012). Fair-trade is a social movement aiming to set fair prices for products, alleviate poverty, and assist producers and workers marginalized by the traditional economic model. Online stores have emerged as an effective marketing channel for fair trade products due to their ability to inform and reach a broad range of customers for very low cost. And this trend piques our interest in examining fair trade online stores. How do online fair trade retail stores rate in terms of usability? This is important because usability constitutes a key factor of online store quality. Usability refers to the perceived ease of navigating and/or making purchases through the retail website (Flavian et al., 2006). Previous studies find evidence that the richness of information related to products, culture, and artisans are criteria for success in fair-trade business (Lee & Littrell, 2005). Incorrect and/or low quality information undermine consumer interest in ethical products and subsequently, reduce credibility of fair trade retailers and their products (Carrigan & Attalla, 2001; Maignan & Ferrell, 2004). Usability is a way to ensure information is presented in a manner that will engender the trust of consumers. Trust is defined as the willingness of a consumer to be vulnerable to the actions of a retailer based on the expectation that the retailer will perform a particular action (cf. Mayer et al., 1995). Trust is known to be an antecedent in building relationships (Rotter, 1971). Fair trade retailers operating online stores must consider two types of trust. One type is customers’ trust toward fair trade retailers. To create such trust, fair trade retailers must convey that the marginal price differences between fair trade products and commercial products will be used to help producers (Castaldo et al, 2009), and must be transparent in communicating the operational processes underlying fair trade retailing. The other type of trust is related to the website and reflects skepticism about completing transactions online (Gefen & Straub, 2003). Compared to a brick-and-mortar store, online customer’s trust is critical since a customer’s perceived risk in purchasing goods online can be reduced by trust (Ha & Stoel, 2008; Pavlou, 2003). Lack of social presence for an online store impedes development of a customer’s trust toward the retailer (Gefen & Straub, 2003). Building upon the existing literature, we posit that a low level of usability, due to its role in developing online interactivity and engagement, will lead to lack of trust building, which is critical in promoting the sale of fair trade products. The purposes of this study are (1) to propose how usability, interactivity, and engagement can improve trust building, and (2) to provide empirical evidence of the lack of usability, interactivity, and engagement in current fair trade online stores. Website usability allowing consumer interactivity and engagement is an essential website attribute for formulating trust. Thus, the goal of this study is to provide suggestions for competitive e-retailing strategies for fair trade retailers based on results of a benchmarking study comparing websites of commercial and fair trade retailers. Literature Review Website Usability. Usability is created through the use of advanced website attributes that allow greater involvement of customers. Website usability not only influences consumer attitudes but also trust toward the website or company (Childers et al, 2001; Roy et al., 2001). Recently, scholars have suggested usability is related to engagement (Quesenbery, 2003). For instance, insufficient usability may be a factor in failing to engage consumers with the website; conversely, engagement can be sustained when attributes of usability meet user needs (O’Brien & Toms, 2008). Website usability may have a direct impact on enhancing interactivity. Interactivity. Interactivity refers to the extent to which users can participate in communication, user control, and entertainment (cf. McMillan & Hwang, 2002). Based on this notion, two types of interactivity within the e-commerce context are examined: (1) website interactivity concerns the website design and attributes enabling consumer interaction with the site to make decisions and personalize content (Merrilees & Fry, 2003), and (2) social interactivity promotes ‘consumer-to-consumer’ and ‘consumer-to-company’ communicative interactions within virtual social space provided by the retailer (Chan & Li, 2010; Nambisan & Watt, 2011). The outcomes of interactivity are two-fold. First, interactivity promotes customer engagement with brands (Ha & James, 1998). Consumers’ interaction with other consumers and the company (via social interactivity) and navigating and personalizing the website (via website-interactivity) create psychological engagement with the company. Second, interactivity entices consumers to acquire greater amounts of information from the website, which subsequently has a positive impact on trust towards the online retailer (Ballantine, 2005; Chen et al, 2005). Consistent with this view, Merrillees and Fry (2003) claim that the level of perceived interactivity is a predominant determinant in constructing trust in the online domain. Engagement. Consumer engagement behavior refers to the creation of an enduring and meaningful relationship between the company and the consumer (Doorn et al. 2010). Consumer engagement involves a highly interactive and experiential process. Highly engaged consumers integrate product knowledge and exchange information with other consumers (Borle et al. 2007). Engagement behaviors facilitate consumer trust towards products and the company (e.g. Pigg & Crank, 2004). Social engagement, the spontaneous information exchange among users, can justify one’s purchase decision. The consumer-generated content becomes a more trustworthy source of knowledge than the information promoted by the retailer (Chan et al., 2010). The relationship between interactivity and engagement is reciprocal. Consumers highly involved in engaging with others are likely to utilize more website attributes promoting interactivity. Method The data for this study were collected from 28 commercial apparel retailers and 22 fair trade apparel retailers based in the US. The 22 fair trade retailers consisted of 13 for-profits and 9 non-profits. The sample was selected based on previous studies (i.e., Lee, Geistfeld, & Stoel 2007; Halepete & Park, 2006; Park & Stoel, 2002), trade publications, and a Google search. A binary measurement instrument was employed to categorize website content as either ‘available’ or ‘not available’ on both the commercial and fair trade store websites. In order to minimize any bias occurring from subjective evaluation of website content, two graduate students separately coded the data, and compared coding sheets. Differences were discussed until agreement was reached. Frequency counts were used to describe the availability of website and social interactivity related content. Chi-square analysis was used to identify statistically significant differences between commercial and fair trade online retailers. Results To assess website interactivity, we examined six attributes that facilitated convenience for consumers in locating information or customizing website content. They included (1) search engine navigation, (2) picture enlargement, (3) matching item suggestion, (4) log-in to own personal account, (5) styling suggestions by other consumers, and (6) picture rotation function. Analysis (chi-square) confirmed significant differences in availabilities of search engine navigation, picture enlargement, matching item suggestion, and log-in to own personal account. Interestingly, only two commercial retailers and one fair trade company were equipped with a product or styling suggestion technology. The use of 360-degree view of products was not used by any of the sample companies [commercial retailers (n=0); fair trade retailers (n= 0)]. To assess social interactivity, we analyzed attributes that facilitate relationships. The attributes are categorized into the following dimensions: 1) social media utilization, 2) social commerce, and 3) customer engagement. We examined the following five attributes constituting social interactivity: 1) existence of social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, 2) consumer Facebook sharing, 3) link to other retailers’ websites, 4) online chatting, and 5) consumer review section. Analysis showed the differences between commercial and fair trade retailers were all statistically significant. Conclusion & Implications This study examined the differences between commercial and fair trade retailers to evaluate the current status of fair trade retailers in terms of interactivity and engagement in managing their websites. We identified attributes where fair trade retailers lagged and these could hinder trust development with consumers. We address three implications applicable to fair trade retailers, and more broadly, retailers selling ethical products. First, website interactivity attributes that provide effective ways to communicate product, store and fair trade information are critical when the concept of fair trade is still unknown to a large segment of consumers. The focus of fair trade retailers should remain not only in delivering creative and high quality products, but also well-managed websites that can attract, educate, and engage consumers via interesting cultural products (Lee & Littrell, 2006). In doing so, advanced website interactivity attributes that enhance the convenience of online shopping, increase ease of navigation, and ensure competent delivery of information should be incorporated in fair trade company websites. Second, the lack of use of social media by fair trade retailers is concerning. Word-of-mouth (WOM) communication is innate to social media, and encourages spontaneous communications among consumers. Utilizing various social media platforms is an efficient way to generate consumers’ voluntary exposure to fair trade products at a minimal cost. Encouraging customers to share WOM would be a natural path to increase engagement, and spread the concept of fair trade. Moreover, when a consumer spreads fair trade product information on his or her social media networks, the people who will be viewing the information have already established a relationship with him or her, and such messages are perceived to be more credible than information shared by the company or unknown strangers (Chu & Kim, 2011). In addition, virtual space inviting consumer feedback on the company website or social media sites can stimulate interactions with unknown consumers. The third person point of view by unknown consumers compared to fair trade retailers may be perceived to be unbiased, and consequently accepted as more trustworthy. Third, the concept of social commerce, referring to the practice of featuring links of other company websites on one’s own website, is critical to enhance the overall visibility and traffic to fair trade e-commerce sites. The unique feature distinct to fair trade retailers is their shared use of ‘certified fair trade’ labeling. While commercial apparel retailers promote their brand to generate corporate profits, the vision of fair trade retailers is to promote their products to bring social welfare. Thus, the union of fair trade retailers and collective initiatives can create synergy. Integrating the concept of social commerce with collective initiatives is one practical way to achieve this objective. Considering this common denominator across fair trade retailers, the use of fair trade labeling and links to other fair trade retailers on the website will support greater exposure to potential consumers and engagement with diverse fair trade retailers. Two major challenges fair trade retailers face are that: (1) their small size fails to generate economies of scale, and (2) due to the absence of national chains or organizations managing fair trade stores, brick-and-mortar fair trade stores are not evenly distributed geographically. Therefore, an interactive and engaging online presence for fair trade retailers is critical in resolving these limitations. It is a way to reach a large segment of consumers who do not reside around brick-and-mortar fair trade stores. We hope that interactivity and engagement will increase consumer exposure to fair trade retailers and ultimately increase fair trade sales.

본 논문에서는 스마트 면진장치를 효과적으로 제어하기 위하여 퍼지관리제어기를 개발하였고 그 효율성을 검토하였다. 이를 위하여 1세대 스마트 면진 벤치마크 건물을 이용하여 수치해석을 수행하였다. 대상 벤치마크 구조물은 부정형의 평면을 가지고 있는 8층 건물이고 탄성베어링과 MR 감쇠기로 이루어진 스마트 면진장치가 설치되어 있다. 본 논문에서는 다목적 유전자 알고리즘을 이용하여 원거리 지진과 근거리 지진에 대하여 각각 면진구조물을 효과적으로 제어할 수 있는 하위 퍼지제어기를 개발한다. 최적화과정에서는 구조물의 최대 및 RMS 가속도와 면진층 변위의 저감이 목적으로 사용된다. 벤지마크 건물에 지진하중이 가해지면 두 개의 하위 퍼지제어기에서는 각각 다른 명령전압이 제공되는데 이 명령전압들은 퍼지관리제어기의 추론과정에 기반하여 실시간으로 참여율이 조절되어 하나의 명령전압으로 조합된다. 수치해석을 통하여 제안된 퍼지관리제어기법을 사용함으로써 상부구조물의 응답과 면진층의 변위를 효과적으로 줄일 수 있음을 확인할 수 있다

본 논문에서는 지진하중을 받는 사장교의 진동제어 기법 개발을 위해 제공된 벤치마크 사장교에 복합제어 기법을 적용하였다. 이 벤치마크 문제는 2003년 완공 예정으로 미국 Missouri 주에 건설중인 Cape Girardeau 교를 대상 구조물로 고려하였다. Cape Girardeau 교는 New Madrid 지진구역에 위치하고 Mississippi 강을 횡단하는 주요 교량이라는 점 때문에 설계 단계에서부터 내진 문제를 중요하게 고려하였다. 벤치마크 문제에는 사장교의 상세한 설계도면에 기초해 교량의 복잡한 거동을 나타낼 수 있는 3자원 선형모델과 각 제어기법의 성능을 평가하기 위한 18개의 평가기준이 제시되어 있다. 본 연구에서 적용한 복합제어 기법은 지진하중으로 인해 구조물에 발생되는 하중을 줄이기 위한 수동제어 기법과 상판변위와 같은 구조물의 응답을 추가적으로 제어하기 위한 능동제어 기법이 결합된 제어 방법이다. 수동제어 장지로는 납고무받침을 사용하였고 Bouc-Wen 모델을 사용하여 비선형 거동을 고려 할 수 있도륵 모델링 하였다. 능동제어 장치로는 이상적인 hydraulic actuators 가 사용되었으며 제어 알고리듬은 H_2/LQG 를 적용하였다. 수치해석 결과 제안방법의 성능은 수동제어 방법에 비해 매우 효과적이며, 능동제어 방법에 비해서는 약간 좋은 제어성능을 나타내었다. 복합제어 방법은 수동제어 부분 때문에 능동제어 방법에 비해 보다 신뢰할 수 있는 제어 방법이다. 따라서 제안된 제어방법은 지진하중을 받는 사장교의 제어를 위해 효과적으로 사용될 수 있다.

This paper presents a new benchmark system for visual odometry (VO) and monocular depth estimation (MDE). As deep learning has become a key technology in computer vision, many researchers are trying to apply deep learning to VO and MDE. Just a couple of years ago, they were independently studied in a supervised way, but now they are coupled and trained together in an unsupervised way. However, before designing fancy models and losses, we have to customize datasets to use them for training and testing. After training, the model has to be compared with the existing models, which is also a huge burden. The benchmark provides input dataset ready-to-use for VO and MDE research in ‘tfrecords’ format and output dataset that includes model checkpoints and inference results of the existing models. It also provides various tools for data formatting, training, and evaluation. In the experiments, the exsiting models were evaluated to verify their performances presented in the corresponding papers and we found that the evaluation result is inferior to the presented performances.