Search Results (577)

This study examines how smart city discourse is structurally configured across different contexts from the perspective of policy mobility. To this end, three types of data were analyzed: South Korean policy reports, South Korean academic literature, and global academic literature. Based on these sources, text datasets were constructed and analyzed using text mining-based semantic network analysis to identify key concepts and their relational structures. The results show that while similar keywords appear across datasets, differences are observed in the relative positions and relational patterns of key concepts. In South Korean policy reports, implementation- and operation-related concepts such as “service,” “information,” and “management” exhibit relatively higher centrality. In South Korean academic literature, “planning,” “policy,” “research,” and “technology” appear alongside governance- and actor-related concepts, indicating broader relational configurations. In global academic literature, concepts such as “sustainable,” “social,” “governance,” and “policy” show relatively similar levels of centrality, suggesting the coexistence of multiple dimensions within the discourse. These findings suggest that smart city discourse may be configured differently depending on institutional and discursive contexts, rather than converging into a single uniform structure. However, the observed differences should not be interpreted solely as reflecting national contextual differences, as variations in dataset composition may also have partially influenced the results. By conceptualizing the smart city as a structured policy discourse, this study contributes to understanding how policy-related concepts may be selectively emphasized and reconfigured across contexts. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the applicability of semantic network analysis for examining relational patterns within smart city discourse across different data types and contexts. Full article

The analysis of publicly expressed opinions on social media is crucial for designing effective behavioral public policies. By considering both social-media-based public opinion (operationalized as individual, non-representative expressions) and official governmental positions (formal policy statements), this paper employs a systemic case study to understand the political and social factors that influence decision-making in major international events such as Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic clustering and correlation analysis, this study examines public opinion from five language groups (Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, and Indonesian, each mapped to a primary country or region: China, the US/UK as representative English-speaking countries, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia respectively) regarding Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge, compares governmental attitudes across these five national contexts, and identifies the factors behind their divergence. Public opinion was clustered into six themes; combined with domain expert analysis, they vary significantly across countries that speak different languages in our translated Twitter corpus, though translation artifacts may affect fine-grained comparisons. Public opinion as expressed on Twitter/X is closely associated with a country’s level of international engagement, maritime industry development, and geographic distance from Japan. Furthermore, exploratory analysis of a small set of six countries suggests that governmental positions are influenced more by strategic and economic ties with Japan than by domestic public opinion. Given the small sample size, this finding is preliminary and requires validation in larger-N studies. Public and government opinions on Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge are sharply divided in the English- and Japanese-language corpora (representing the US/UK and Japan), polarized in the Korean-language corpus (South Korea), and relatively aligned in the Chinese- and Indonesian-language corpora (China and Indonesia). These findings regarding the entire international event system suggest that governments should take public opinion into greater account when addressing international public crises and encourage broader public participation through digital platforms to better respond to global challenges. However, due to the inherent limitations of cross-lingual translation, our cross-country comparisons should be interpreted as indicative rather than definitive. Full article

Misinformation has become a persistent feature of contemporary digital information environments. Platform designs and business models often privilege attention, engagement, and repeated exposure over epistemic quality. However, misinformation does not diffuse uniformly across platform structures. This study examines how contested claims in a South Korean social policy controversy circulate on YouTube. The analysis focuses on unfounded allegations regarding permanent employment offers to part-time workers at Incheon International Airport across two analytic levels: (1) a videoclip network, in which video-to-video ties are formed through shared commenters over time, and (2) a channel network, in which channel-to-channel ties are formed through shared commenters over time. Drawing on YouTube Data API records, we employ a mixed computational approach that integrates social network analysis, speech-to-text transcription, natural language processing, semantic network analysis, and automated content classification. Videos are classified as misinformation or non-misinformation based on the presence of demonstrably incorrect claims or corrective content. We compare network structure, diffusion patterns, and engagement dynamics across these two layers. The results reveal pronounced layer-specific differences. Misinformation diffuses more extensively within the channel network, which exhibits higher density and stronger cross-channel interconnectedness, suggesting that creator-level infrastructures function as stabilising conduits for the circulation of false claims. By contrast, diffusion pathways at the videoclip level show comparatively weaker differentiation between misinformation and non-misinformation content. Engagement patterns also diverge misinformation videos attract significantly more likes, while message format and channel attributes are less consistently distinguishing. From a theoretical standpoint, this study advances a multi-layer diffusion perspective on platform-mediated misinformation by demonstrating how platform architectures shape the visibility, persistence, and amplification of false claims. The findings highlight the importance of intervention strategies that move beyond individual content moderation toward creator- and network-level governance mechanisms, with implications for the design of platform features, recommendation systems, and misinformation mitigation tools. Full article

This study presents a structural integrity evaluation of a 5000 m³ IMO Type C independent tank designed for storing liquefied carbon dioxide (LCO₂) at −35 °C and 15 barg, based on the IMO IGC Code and Korean Register (KR) rules. A finite element model was developed to assess structural responses under representative load cases considering thermal contraction, internal pressure, and ship-induced accelerations. The results show that structural design is predominantly governed by the internal pressure associated with liquefaction conditions and boil-off gas (BOG) accumulation, rather than the minimum design pressure specified by classification rules or liquid head pressure. As a result, the required tank thickness approaches the upper practical limit (approximately 50 mm), leading to inherently sufficient buckling resistance without additional design constraints. These findings indicate that, under medium-pressure LCO₂ storage conditions, Type C tank design is primarily pressure-driven, and structural stability can be effectively ensured through thickness design. The study provides practical insights into governing design factors for rule-based tank design and highlights key considerations for LCO₂ storage applications. Full article

Large language model (LLM)-based document translation systems typically treat each segment independently, discarding terminology decisions, human corrections, and discourse cues after each generation step. This stateless approach causes terminology inconsistency across segments, failure to propagate approved post-edits downstream, and redundant prompt-token consumption. Existing solutions—document-level MT, retrieval-augmented generation, and computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools as a general category—address individual aspects but lack a unified, state-aware architecture with provenance, update rules, and rollback semantics. We propose Language Twin, a shared-state architecture that organizes translation projects into seven versioned layers (L0–L6), supporting selective context loading, scoped human-edit propagation, and reversible updates. A pilot study translated three curated English-to-Korean document bundles (17 segments) using GPT-4o with a temperature of 0.3. The Language Twin condition (P1) achieved numerically higher preferred-term accuracy than the strongest baseline (17/21 vs. 14/21; not statistically significant at this sample size) and showed no repeated downstream errors in the monitored set (0/5 vs. 5/5 against the propagation-disabled ablation; Fisher’s exact test: p = 0.008), while reducing prompt tokens by 39.2% relative to full-context loading (A4). In blinded human evaluation (quadratic-weighted κ = 0.71–0.78), P1 achieved the highest terminology rating (4.38/5 vs. 3.97/5) and lowest post-editing time (16.9 s vs. 19.1 s per segment). These pilot-scale results indicate that governed shared state can improve terminology consistency and editing efficiency. Full article

This study examines how institutional investors adopt and utilize Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) information by integrating the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with expert-based pairwise comparisons from 20 senior investment professionals at major South Korean financial institutions, we identify and weight key determinants influencing ESG information use among South Korean institutional investors. The results show that performance expectancy emerged as the most influential determinant (33.7%), followed by facilitating conditions (24.6%), social influence (22.8%), and effort expectancy (18.9%). At the sub-criterion level, usefulness for investment decision-making (11.2%), institutional encouragement (10.2%), and utilization of ESG information as a fiduciary duty (9.4%) recorded the highest global weights, whereas psychological comfort in utilizing ESG information (2.0%) and practical guidelines and training programs (3.7%) exhibited the lowest. These findings suggest that ESG adoption has evolved beyond early legitimacy-seeking behavior toward substantive and performance-driven integration, consistent with UTAUT predictions that performance expectancy and facilitating conditions gain salience in mature adoption phases, while effort expectancy and social influence diminish. This weight distribution indicates that ESG has been internalized as core analytical infrastructure informing investment decision-making and risk management, rather than functioning as a peripheral compliance tool. By empirically mapping ESG adoption determinants into a hierarchical structure, this study contributes to the literature on ESG diffusion, institutional investor behavior, and adoption theory, offering practical implications for regulators and financial institutions seeking to deepen substantive ESG integration. Full article

The integration of AI into journalism has intensified debates about the future of news production, yet existing scholarship has focused predominantly on AI’s capabilities rather than on irreplaceable human competencies. This study shifts analytical focus from replacement to complementarity, investigating the boundaries of AI through the perspectives of both journalists and AI developers. Ten participants—including field reporters, news anchors, broadcast journalists, and AI developers—were interviewed through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis revealed three core dimensions of irreplaceable human competency: embodied presence and rapport-building, contextual judgment and meaning-making, and investigative initiative requiring moral agency. Practitioners and developers converged on AI’s persistent limitations in factual reliability, emotional authenticity, and ethical accountability. Based on these findings, a three-tier human–AI collaborative model is proposed, allocating computational tasks to AI while preserving human authority over editorial judgment, source relationships, and ethical decisions. These findings contribute to human–machine communication theory, extend algorithmic journalism literature beyond capability assessments, and offer practical implications for newsroom workflow design, journalism education, and AI governance. Findings are situated within the Korean media context and should be interpreted accordingly, with implications that may extend to other broadcasting-oriented journalism cultures. Full article

This article examines planetary health in the Anthropocene through a relational ontology that recognizes nonhuman agency and conceptualizes ecological spirituality as a relational and practice-oriented mode of ethical responsiveness within planetary entanglements. Although recent ecological discourses increasingly acknowledge the agency of nonhuman beings, planetary health debates have developed sophisticated scientific and policy-oriented frameworks, yet often remain oriented toward material causality or technocratic governance, while comparatively underarticulating relational, more-than-human, and practice-oriented ethical and spiritual dimensions. This study argues that an adequate response to the planetary crisis requires clarifying how nonhuman agency becomes perceptible and actionable within everyday ethical practice. Methodologically, the article adopts a comparative theoretical approach. First, it engages Jane Bennett’s concept of “thing-power” to reinterpret spirituality as an immanent sensitivity arising from material vitality. Second, drawing on Catherine Keller’s theology of planetary entanglement, it reframes planetary ethics as “response-ability” grounded in interdependence rather than mastery. Third, it examines the Donghak’s practice of gyeongmul (revering all beings) as a non-Western model of embodied ethical reverence. By placing new materialism, ecological theology, and Korean indigenous thought in dialogue, the article reconceptualizes ecological spirituality as a relational mode of responsiveness. It concludes by reinterpreting planetary health as a relational and practice-oriented condition that gestures toward a broader horizon of planetary well-being, rather than environmental stability alone. Full article

Sustainability meanings in platform-mediated food tourism circulate through digital infrastructure, yet how they stabilize when sensory experience contradicts hedonic expectations remains theoretically underspecified. Expectation Disconfirmation Theory (EDT) predicts dissatisfaction when performance falls short of expectations, but this logic does not account for sustainability-driven consumption, where restraint is ethically valorized rather than treated as deficient. This study introduces the Ethical–Visual Feedback Loop (EVFL) as a process-level extension of EDT, explaining how ethical priming modifies satisfaction formation under conditions of sensory disconfirmation. Drawing on 900 multilingual reviews, 300 user-generated images, and expert interviews with institutional practitioners of Korean Buddhist Temple Food across Western, Korean, and Chinese visitor markets, the study integrates visual semiotic analysis, reflexive thematic analysis, and institutional triangulation. The findings reveal that sustainability meanings are mobile yet fragile: portable across platforms through visual aesthetics but culturally contingent at ethical appraisal. Western reviewers stabilize satisfaction through secular environmental narratives, Korean reviewers through somatic trust and sincerity, and Chinese reviewers through disciplined participation in moral economies. By specifying how ethical appraisal resolves disconfirmation across cultural contexts, the EVFL extends EDT’s appraisal logic into sustainability-oriented consumption and offers governance implications for sustaining ethical legitimacy and sufficiency-oriented tourism practices in platform-mediated heritage tourism. Full article

This study empirically investigates how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) discourses among major Korean Business-to-Business (B2B) corporations (POSCO, LG Chem, and HD Hyundai) were reconfigured in the context of former President Trump’s re-election campaign and the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The observation periods were divided into the Pre-Trump period (1 May 2023 to 30 April 2024) and the Post-Trump period (1 May 2024 to 30 April 2025). External discourses were examined using social media, news, and blog posts, while internal discourses were analyzed through the CEO’s New Year addresses from 2021 to 2025. Keyword frequency analysis and co-occurrence network analysis, conducted via the ‘Sometrend’ platform, were combined to trace structural transitions in corporate discourses. The results show that: (1) the relative share and network centrality of environmental (E) keywords declined in the Post-Trump period, with several environmental terms losing core positions and becoming peripheral or bridging nodes, while policy- and economic-related terms increased; (2) social (S) and governance (G) keywords appeared only sporadically and remained peripheral across periods; (3) temporal concentrations of policy–economic keywords coincided with significant political and market-related events, such as financial volatility in 2023 and the tariff policy announcement in February 2025, indicating temporal alignment rather than deterministic causality; (4) firm-level differences were evident: POSCO exhibited the most pronounced structural shift, LG Chem’s discourses increasingly emphasized supply chain and investment-related terms alongside environmental keywords, and HD Hyundai showed a shift toward more risk- and operation-oriented keywords in the later period; and (5) CEO New Year addresses displayed directionally consistent patterns with external discourse, supporting cross-textual alignment. These findings demonstrate that ESG discourse is not a fixed normative language but a strategically adaptive frame that varies according to political–economic contexts and industrial conditions. The relative weakening of the environmental frame in terms of discourse centrality, alongside the strengthening of the policy–economic frame, differed by industry, reflecting variations in regulatory exposure and operational characteristics. By observing ESG discourses longitudinally and comparatively, this study provides empirical evidence of how political and industrial dynamics reshape corporate discourses and CEO communication. Moreover, keyword frequency and co-occurrence network analysis are validated as effective methods for identifying discourse shifts, offering both academic contributions and practical implications for corporate communication analysis. Full article

Background/Objectives: Lipid metabolism is fundamental to energy homeostasis and cellular structural integrity, and its dysregulation is a hallmark of biological aging. While DNA methylation clocks are well-established, it remains unclear whether epigenetic sites associated with specific lipid markers—High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL), Total Cholesterol (TCH), and Triglycerides (TGY)—are evolutionarily conserved across mammals and how they manifest across different metabolic tissues. Methods: We identified lipid-associated CpG sites in humans using the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES) cohort and projected these sites onto the Mammalian Methylation Consortium (GSE223748) dataset. Using the Hybrid Pi (HyPi) score, we selected robust markers to analyze their evolutionary conservation, tissue specificity, and age-related dynamics across over 300 mammalian species. Specifically, we examined the phylogenetic concordance between blood and three major metabolic organs (Liver, Adipose, Muscle) in five representative species. Results: Lipid-related CpGs were highly conserved across diverse mammals. t-SNE analysis revealed that these epigenetic signatures clustered samples by tissue identity and species. Methylation levels of these CpGs showed significant correlations with maximum lifespan and distinct aging rates across tissues. Notably, phylogenetic tanglegram analysis revealed a high degree of concordance between blood and key metabolic organs, suggesting that blood methylation profiles mirror the evolutionary trajectory of internal metabolic tissues. Furthermore, these patterns were consistent between sexes, indicating a fundamental, non-dimorphic regulation of lipid epigenetics. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that epigenetic mechanisms governing lipid metabolism are deeply conserved to maintain tissue identity and regulate biological aging, with blood serving as a reliable evolutionary proxy for internal metabolic states. Full article

Organizations increasingly rely on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices as a core element of sustainable management, yet little is known about how ESG affects employees during periods of crisis. Despite the growing ESG literature, limited research has examined how firm-level ESG performance influences employee psychological mechanisms and innovative behavior under crisis conditions through multi-level pathways. Drawing on corporate reputation theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examines how corporate ESG performance shapes employee experiences and behaviors under crisis conditions. This study conceptualizes ESG performance as a reputation-based organizational resource that buffers employees against psychological stress, thereby enabling innovative behavior that is critical for business sustainability. In addition, team cohesion as a contextual social resource was proposed to strengthen the stress-buffering effect of ESG. Using multi-level data from 980 employees nested within 51 large Korean firms, combined with objective ESG ratings collected prior to the crisis, this study tests the proposed model through multi-level structural equation modeling. The results show that higher corporate ESG performance is associated with lower employee psychological stress, which in turn promotes innovative behavior. Moreover, team cohesion amplifies the negative relationship between ESG performance and employee stress. By revealing a micro-level pathway through which ESG enhances employee well-being and innovation during crises, this study advances research on the economic and business aspects of sustainability. Full article

Accurate wave prediction in coastal waters is essential for marine safety and engineering, yet it is significantly influenced by uncertainties in wind forcing and dissipation parameterization. This study evaluates the sensitivity of the SWAN model around the Korean Peninsula using 2021 data from 138 observation stations. To address structural biases in wind fields, the Drag Coefficient Scaling Factor (CDFAC) was implemented alongside the Komen and ST6 physics packages. While the Komen scheme provided stable performance under normal conditions, the ST6 + CDFAC configuration exhibited superior physical consistency during extreme events. Notably, applying CDFAC to the ST6 package reduced the high-wave (H_s > 3 m) RMSE by approximately 32.7%, decreasing from 0.52 m to 0.35 m. Bathymetric stratified analysis further confirmed that the ST6 scheme maintains robust performance in offshore and deep-water regions (depth > 50 m), achieving a correlation of 0.94 and an RMSE of 0.20 m. This is attributed to ST6’s frequency-dependent saturation approach, which effectively decouples wind-sea and swell components in environments where whitecapping dissipation is the governing energy sink. In contrast, improvements in coastal waters (depth < 50 m) were moderated by topographical dissipation mechanisms such as bottom friction and depth-induced breaking. These findings demonstrate that integrating wind input bias correction with frequency-dependent dissipation physics is vital for reliable wave forecasting and coastal disaster mitigation. Full article

This study examines how consumers’ perceptions of corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance are statistically associated with sustainable relational outcomes within a structured cognitive and relational framework. Drawing on signaling theory and perceived value theory, we propose and empirically test a sequential mediation model in which perceived ESG performance is positively associated with perceived sustainability awareness (PSA), PSA subsequently is associated with dual-path value perceptions (cognitive and socio-emotional value), and these value perceptions are positively related to long-term trust (LTT) and value co-creation (VCC). In addition, the moderating role of signal credibility on the ESG–PSA relationship is examined. Using survey data from 278 South Korean consumers and structural equation modeling, the results indicate that perceived ESG performance is significantly positively associated with PSA, which in turn is positively associated with both cognitive and socio-emotional value. These value dimensions independently and positively relate to long-term trust, which is in turn associated with value co-creation. Contrary to expectations derived from signaling theory, signal credibility does not significantly moderate the ESG–PSA relationship, suggesting that ESG signals may function as baseline legitimacy cues within the South Korean institutional context, where sustainability norms are relatively institutionalized. Overall, the findings suggest that ESG effectiveness does not operate through direct persuasion but is consistent with a multi-stage cognitive and relational framework. By distinguishing sustainability awareness from ESG perception and decomposing value perceptions into dual paths, this study advances theoretical understanding of how ESG signals may be internalized and statistically linked to sustainable firm–consumer relationships. From a managerial perspective, the results highlight the strategic importance of designing ESG initiatives and communications that enhance sustainability awareness and support long-term trust as foundations for engagement and co-creation. Given the cross-sectional design, the proposed sequential structure should be interpreted as associative rather than definitive causal evidence. Full article

Military–civilian interface zones (MCIZs) adjacent to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) represent complex wildfire environments shaped by restricted access, intensive military activities, and adjacent civilian land use. This study develops a spatially explicit wildfire ignition risk assessment framework for the DMZ and Civilian Control Zone (CCZ) in Paju, South Korea, employing Random Forest (RF), Generalized Additive Models (GAM), and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) in a complementary analytical design. A dataset of 318 wildfire ignition events (2001–2024), including 78 associated with military activities, was analyzed. The RF model achieved high predictive accuracy (AUC = 0.81), identifying proximity to military training zones, relative humidity, wind speed, and proximity to built infrastructure as dominant ignition drivers. GAM revealed narrow nonlinear thresholds—relative humidity at 13.8%–14.0% and wind speed at 13.5–14.0 m/s—corresponding to peak ignition probabilities. GWR demonstrated pronounced spatial heterogeneity, with military proximity exerting a stronger influence in the eastern and northern sectors, while the meteorological effects varied geographically. Based on these outputs, a unified analytical framework was established in which RF-derived ignition probabilities were interpreted alongside GAM- and GWR-based explanatory layers to provide spatially explicit ignition susceptibility assessments without numerical map fusion. The proposed approach provides a scientifically rigorous and operationally applicable method for quantifying ignition risk in politically sensitive, access-restricted landscapes, offering valuable insights for adaptive wildfire prevention and spatially informed governance of transboundary fire risk. Full article