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In this paper, we theoretically examine the optimal hedge strategy for a natural gas company. The use of natural gas derivatives to minimize consumers' per unit cost of natural gas consumed, or to minimize the upside risk associated with extreme bills would be the strategy being considered by local distribution companies (LDCs) and regulators. The objective is, therefore, to stabilize the summer and the winter months' natural gas prices as well as to improve the level of customers' welfare. In general, during the summer injection period, April through October, utility companies purchase a certain amount of natural gas and keep in storage facilities and, hence, during the winter withdrawal months, November through March, utility companies supply natural gas at a predetermined minimal fuel cost rate to residential and commercial customers. Therefore, to manage these conflicts of interests efficiently should natural gas companies be supported by accurate forecast of the natural gas price for the winter months. Otherwise, natural gas companies will trade natural gas derivatives in order to reduce costs charged to customers. The results show that customers benefit from the use of natural gas derivatives. If the natural gas market is deregulated, the typical risk-return trade off shows that natural gas derivatives would provide the most efficient tools for utility companies to minimize the natural gas price volatilities.

Although Korean sociology of sport is relatively unknown to the international community of scholars, it is a mature field in Korea. Sociology of sport was first introduced in Korea in the mid-1960s when the field first evolved in North America and Europe. However, the development of the field shows different aspects from its Western counterpart due to unique cultural and environmental factors both in academia and in society. There are three major research trends that form Korean sociology of sport. First, there is the research focus on the benefit of sport and physical activity by examining empirical data using quantitative methodologies. The second group of researchers pays attention to individual experience in diverse sport fields and utilize qualitative methodologies to investigate empirical or secondary data. The third and most recent trend is a critical approach that theoretically analyzes ideologies, power relations, and identity politics in sport and society. When looking at the future, there are problems and limitations within the field in Korea. These include lack of continuity in terms of conference sub-themes, over-production of doctoral degree graduates, conservatism rooted in the field, and a danger of regarding sport policy research as an exit for sport sociologists. However, there are also possibilities and reasons for optimism. The biggest possibility for Korean sociology of sport is globalization of the field. Another significant possibility is the need for sport sociologists in planning, developing, and evaluating sport policy. Finally, diversification of the field gives ample opportunities for future research.

The purpose of this study is to investigate Koreans' preferences for FCDM versus SDM and explored the influence of Asian cultural values on decision-making in the context of managing chronic illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Shared decision-making (SDM) emphasizes collaboration between providers and service recipients to decide on the best treatment options. However, it may not fully account for the role of families in managing chronic illness, particularly for people from Eastern cultural backgrounds who value active participation from their families in decisions. In response, family-centered decision-making (FCDM) has been proposed as an alternative approach. Using a vignette experiment design, data (n = 316) were collected from Koreans in the US and in Korea who were randomly presented with either SDM or FCDM processes for reaching T2DM treatment decisions. In addition to demographic information, participants reported on three dimensions of their decision-making experience: satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and perspective-taking. They also rated their Asian cultural values and familiarity with T2DM. Results show better satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and perspective taking for FCDM compared to SDM when examined in context of treatment types and perceived illness severity. Moderation effects were found for familiarity of illness, with familiarity effects varying by perceived severity. Study findings provided some evidence in favor of FCDM in Asian communities addressing the disabilities and chronic illness of a family member. Although the current study investigated treatment decisions for T2DM during doctor's visits, FCDM has shown potential to be applied in other service settings.

The focus in ICT development has shifted from performance to maximization of tangibility. In particular, the interests in emotion-based services increase and more attention is paid to improving the quality of service and maximizing tangibility. Hence, it is necessary to model human emotions and utilize inferred emotions for services in order to enhance the quality of emotion-based personalized services. To this end, this study aims to model personalized emotional space by means of V-A emotion model and to suggest a fuzzy-based emotion inference method.

This study takes advantage of V-A emotion model, AHP and fuzzy integral technique to implement an emotion inference based on the quantitative evaluation and systematic expression of human emotions. By means of AHP, the personalized V-A emotion model was established. Fuzzy measure and Choquet integral methods were applied for emotion inference based on the inputs of valence and arousal (V-A) values, with the results evaluated in an experiment.

Thayer's emotion model structures 12 human emotions in reference to V-A values. This structure, however, may differ depending on individuals, and thus a method to measure and express it appropriately is necessary. This study evaluates the relative weight of 12 emotions based on AHP and regularizes them to compose the personalized V-A emotional space by drafting the V-A model. In addition, fuzzy integral-based emotion inference has been tested in reference to the V-A values on the established V-A emotion space.

Fuzzy integral-based emotion inference has been tested in reference to the V-A values on the established personalized emotion space.

As intangible cultural heritage, traditional performing arts depend on transmission by individuals and collectives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how traditional performers practice their arts in South Korea. The analysis focuses on the transformations of performance conventions and contexts, as well as on new genres that developed in response to heritage legislation and social change during the last 200 years.

Drawing on a wide array of existing ethnographic research, the paper compares processes of transmission and transformation of three different genres: the solo singing-storytelling genre pansori, the ensemble percussion-dance genre pungmul and the various regional forms of mask dance drama subsumed under the label talnori. The paper argues that the artists, who perform these genres, while not unaffected by the expectations of their audiences, have the power to transcend traditional boundaries.

Due to early professionalization in the nineteenth century, pansori performers could adapt to the changing contexts of market-oriented modernity and survive until governmental intervention in 1962. Pre-modern pungmul and talnori was performed primarily by and for rural communities, resulting in an interruption of transmission when these contexts disappeared and partial re-invention in the wake of official preservation legislation.

The need for repeated performance in historically varying contexts makes the analysis of performing arts particular fruitful for understanding how practitioners of tradition (have to) adapt to change. A historical-comparative perspective provides concise insights into the dynamics of development that informs tradition today. The inclusion of offspring genres (changgeuk, madang-geuk, samulnori) furthermore shows the potential of heritage development beyond the official system of preservation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ideological foundation of open innovation strategies and the open business model, which are appearing as new industrial paradigms based on information technology (IT).

First, this paper examined the ideological foundation of Deleuze, Whitehead, and Popper. Next, Taoism was scrutinized to discover concrete bases for open innovation.

Here, it was found that Taoism completely coincides with the logical basis of open innovation. The theory “the supreme good is like water” of Taoism means to vacate oneself and fill the space with others to create paradoxes, thereby filling oneself with a more creative method.

Taoism provides a way to present paradoxes through the idea of vacating and opening to reach a creative stage of leaving nature as it is.

Brand pages are a very popular tool for companies to communicate with consumers in SNSs. Although brand pages could be considered virtual brand communities, they differ in several aspects. Thus, this chapter reviews the literature on brand pages attending to the main differences with other virtual communities, the motivations to join brand pages and its consequences for consumers and brands.

The studies reviewed have allowed us to identify the main characteristics of brand pages as a communication tool, as well as the definition of an important research agenda for this topic.

We have identified the main unique aspects that characterize brand pages as a virtual brand community. The motivations to become members of brand pages are analyzed as well as the positive consequences of these pages on the marketing variables. We also identified the research needs on brand pages.

This chapter can be useful to both, marketers, by showing them how brand pages work and what motivate consumers to join it; and researchers, by showing them the main gaps on brand pages that should be addressed in future studies.

This chapter highlights the role of brand pages as a communication tool. It constitutes an attempt to review the literature and organize knowledge on brand pages. The characteristics of brand pages and virtual brand communities, the motivations to participate, the consequences for the brand and an important research agenda are developed.

The weapon system of The Navy is the small quantity producing system on multiple kinds. It is consisted of various equipment and the subordinate parts of those which can repair the damaged part. The operating procedure concerning warship's repair parts managed under these systems is as follows. Firstly, if demand of repair parts occurs from warship which is the operating unit of weapon, then the Fleet(the repair & supply support battalion) is in charge of dealing with these requests. If certain request from warship is beyond the battalion's capability, it is delivered directly to the Logistic Command. In short, the repair and supply support system of repair parts can be described as the multi-level support system. The various theoretical researches on inventory management of Navy's repair parts and simulation study that reflects reality in detail have been carried out simultaneously. However, the majority of existing research has been conducted on aircraft and tank's repairable items, in that, the studies is woefully deficient in the area concerning Navy's inventory management. For that reason, this paper firstly constructs the model of consumable items that is frequently damaged reflecting characteristics of navy's repair parts inventory management using ARENA simulation. After that, this paper is trying to propose methodology to analyze optimal inventory level of each supply unit through OptQuest, the optimization program of ARENA simulation.

We discuss workforce management, related to those aged 50+ , in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea. With international competitiveness becoming increasingly crucial, retaining the ‘right’ mix of employees to achieve strategic organisational goals is likely to determine organisational success. However, we argue that workforce management is not only influenced by organisational-level strategy but also by national institutional and sectoral policies. Decisions on whether and how to retain older workers are therefore (co-)determined by institutional incentives and barriers to doing so.

We find that British and Korean governments have legislated in favour of extended working lives and, hence, the retention of ageing workforces. In the United Kingdom, pension eligibility ages are being increased and in Korea mandatory retirement age has been raised to age 60. While changes to the UK pension systems leave individuals with the (financial) risks associated with extended working lives, the Korean government tries to protect individuals from financial hardship by enabling them to remain longer in their primary career. However, whether and how government regulation plays out depends on how organisations react to it. The Korean discussion, in fact, shows that there might be leeway: organisations might continue to externalise their employees early framed as honourable, or voluntary, early retirement, which might not be in the interest of the individual but very much in the interest of the organisation. It therefore appears as if the retention of ageing staff is not (yet) considered to be of strategic importance by many organisations in these countries.

The study seeks to identify the impact of variables in a deep learning-based bankruptcy prediction model, which has achieved superior performance to other prediction models but cannot easily interpret hidden processes.

This study developed three LSTM-RNN–based models that predicted the probability of bankruptcy before 1, 2 and 3 years using financial, the construction market and macroeconomic variables as input variables. Then, the impacts of the input variables that affected prediction accuracy in each model were identified by using Shapley value and compared among the three models. This study also investigated the prediction accuracy using variants of input variables grouped sequentially by high-impact ranking.

The results showed that the prediction accuracies were largely impacted by “housing starts” in all models. As the prediction period increased, the effects of macroeconomic variables on prediction accuracy increased, whereas the impact of “return on assets” on prediction accuracy decreased. It also found that the “current ratio” and “debt ratio” significantly influenced the prediction accuracies in all models. Also, the results revealed that similar prediction accuracies could be achieved using only 8, 10, and 10 variables out of a total of 18 variables for the 1-, 2-, and 3-year prediction models, respectively.

This study provides a Shapley value-based approach to identify how each input variable in a deep-learning bankruptcy prediction model. The findings of this study can not only assist in obtaining better insights into the underlying concept of bankruptcy but also use to select variables by removing those identified as less significant.