Earticle

This study theoretically explores the impact of the modularity and virtualization of IT architecture on a firm's ability to learn through exploration and exploitation. Drawing on prior research on modularity, virtualization, organizational learning, and IT governance, we develop a theoretical framework that suggests the modularity and virtualization of IT architecture fosters explorative and exploitative learning. We further propose that the effects of modularity and virtualization are moderated by IT governance factors such as the locus of IT control and the ownership of IT resources.

This study focuses on the development of a modular robotic arm system, with particular emphasis on the design of the robotic arm and grippers, as well as AI-based control. The research aims to automate crop harvesting tasks by developing a robotic arm and gripper system designed with a modular structure to adapt to various operational environments and targets. The robotic arm is designed to be compatible with different platforms, and the end-effectors (grippers) are replaceable depending on the task requirements. To this end, three types of grippers were developed: a mechanical (claw-type) gripper, a spiral continuum gripper, and an electromagnetic gripper. The motion characteristics and structural features of each gripper were analyzed using ADAMS software to evaluate their feasibility in performing actual harvesting tasks and their structural responses. The proposed system is applicable in a modular form to various platforms, including drones. It is expected to serve as foundational research for the development of robotic systems capable of performing diverse functions in agricultural automation beyond harvesting.

모듈디자인의 표준화는 제품의 부품수를 줄이고 가공시간을 줄일 수 있다. 생산하고 있는 제품의 공용화와 표준화를 통하여 생산성을 크게 높이고 원가를 크게 절감시킬 수 있다. 스마트 공장을 구축하기 전에 모듈설계를 통한 제품의 표준화 방안을 먼저 수립해야 할 것이다. 모듈설계를 통한 방법과 적용할 수 있는 제품에 대한 방안을 검토하고 제시하고자 한다.

본 연구는 모듈 부품이 아웃소싱 되어 외부 기업에서 생산되고 공급되는 추세에 따라 공급사슬 관점에서 제품 및 프로세스 모듈화가 신제품 개발 유연성 및 고객만족성과에 미치는 영향을 실증적으로 검증하기 위하여 진행하였다. 이를 위하여 각 변수들 사이의 관계에 대한 연구모형을 수립하고, 이에 대한 가설을 실증적으로 검증하였다. 본 연구는 모듈화 제품 및 부품을 생산하여 공급하고 있는 제조기업 203개를 대상으로 설문 조사 방법으로 자료를 수집하고, 변수 사이의 관계를 실증적으로 검증하였다. 결과적으로 제품 및 프로세스 모듈화는 신제품 개발 유연성에 유의한 영향을 미쳤으나, 고객만족성과에는 일부 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났고, 신제품 개발 유연성은 고객만족 성과에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 파악되었다. 또한 신제품 개발 유연성은 모듈화와 고객만족 성과 사이의 관계에서 매개 효과가 있는 것으로 나타났다. 이상의 실증 결과를 바탕으로 본 연구는 다음과 같은 시사점을 제시할 수 있다. 첫째, 공급사슬 관점에서 모듈을 제공하 는 기업의 제품 및 프로세스 모듈화와 신제품 개발 유연성 및 고객만족 성과 사이의 구조적 관계를 제시하였다. 둘째, 기존 연구와 차별화하여 신제품 개발 유연성의 매개 효과를 제시하였다. 마지막으로 제품 및 프로세스 모듈화가 신제품 개발 유연성에 미치는 유의한 효과를 실증적으로 검증함으로써 유연생산 시스템 구축 방안과 관련한 시사점을 제시하고 있다.

We empirically show that the effects of product and process modularity on new product development flexibility and customer satisfaction performance. For this study, an empirical test was performed for a path model using with SEM on samples of 203 manufacturing firms from various industries in South Korea. This find that, for the overall sample, there are positive relationships among product and process modularity, new product development flexibility, and customer satisfaction performance except one. Findings of this study have several theoretical and practical implications as follows; First, we suggest a structured relationships among product modularity, process modularity, new product development flexibility and customer satisfaction performance. Second, we suggest the mediating effects of new product development flexibility by differentiating from existing research. Lastly, we suggest the implication of establishing a flexible production system by the demonstrating the significances and effects of modularity on new product development flexibility.

In today’s turbulent business landscape, a firm’s ability to explore new IT capabilities and exploit current ones is essential for enabling organizational agility and achieving high organizational performance. We propose IT exploration and exploitation as two critical organizational learning processes that are essential for gaining and sustaining competitive advantages. However, it remains unclear how the emerging cloud-based IT architecture affects an organization’s ability to explore and exploit its IT capabilities. We conceptualize modularity and virtuality as two critical dimensions of emerging cloud-based IT architecture and investigate how they affect IT exploration and exploitation. We test our hypotheses using data obtained from our field survey of IT managers. We find that modularity is positively associated with both exploration and exploitation whereas virtuality is positively associated with exploration, but not with exploitation. We also find that the effect of modularity on exploitation is stronger than its effect on exploration.

본 연구는 신제품개발 성과를 높이는 한 방법으로서 기업 내부자원을 응용하는 것에 목적 을 두고 있다. 즉, 제품 구조에 모듈성을 부여하는 단계에서 기업 내부에 축적된 기술지식 을 이종 산업에 활용할 수 있는 제품을 개발하는데 응용하여 신제품개발 성과를 높이는 것에 초점을 둔다. 본 연구는 제품 모듈성, 신제품개발 성과 관계에서 기술지식 응용성의 조절효과에 대한 연구모형을 구축하고, 국내 470개 제조업체를 대상으로 설문 자료를 수집하여 계층적 회귀분석방법을 이용해 조절효과를 검정하였다. 가설 검정 결과, 제품 모듈성은 신제품개발 속도, 신제품 적시 출시, 신제품개발 빈도, 신제품 혁신성을 의미하 는 신제품개발 성과에 긍정적 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 그리고 기술지식 응용성은 제품 모듈성 및 신제품개발 성과 관계를 조절하여 모듈화 단계에서 기술지식 응용성을 높일 경우 신제품개발 성과 향상에 긍정적 영향을 미칠 수 있는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구의 학문적 시사점은 기업 내부에 축적된 지식자원(제품 기술, 연구개발 지식, 제품 기능에 관한 지식)을 다른 산업에 사용 가능한 신제품개발에 응용할 수 있다는 점이다. 또한 실무적 시사점은 제품 모듈화가 가능한 단계까지 축적된 기업 내부의 제품 관련 기술지식을 이종 산업에 활용할 수 있는 신제품개발에 투자하는 전략적 의사결정을 통해 자원 배분의 효율성을 높일 수 있다는 점이다.

This study aims to apply firm’s internal resources as a way to develop new products. In other words, the focus is on enhancing the performance of new product development by applying the accumulated technological knowledge within the firm to develop products that can be utilized in heterogeneous industries at the stage of giving modularity to the product structure. In this study, a research model is established for the moderating effect of technological knowledge applicability in relation to product modularity and new product development performance, and data were collected from 470 domestic manufacturing firms to test by hierarchical regression analysis. The finding shows that product modularity is found to have a positive effect on new product development performance. And application of technological knowledge positively moderates product modularity and performance relationship of new product development. The results of this study implies that accumulated knowledge resources inside the firm (e.g. product technology, R&D knowledge, and knowledge of product functions) can be applied to new product development.

The paper proposes a clustering algorithm for wireless sensor network based on hypergraph. Under the hypergraph model, a wireless sensor network is mapped to a hypergraph. Then a hierarchical iterative clustering algorithm is applied to the hypergraph, thus dividing the hypergraph into multiple parts. A cluster head is selected from each part. In order to improve the partitioning process, a new modularity function is proposed. Compared with the classic clustering algorithm LEACH, simulation shows that our algorithm performs better in energy consuming and network lifetime.

A large number of emerging information networks brings new challenges to the community detection. The meaningful community should be topic-oriented. However, the topology-based methods only reflect the strength of connection, and ignore the consistency of the topics; the content-based methods focus on the contents and completely ignore the links. This paper explores a topic oriented community detection method simLPA based on label propagation for information work. The method utilizes Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic model to represent the node content, and calculate the content similarity by the normalized Kullback–Leibler divergence. simLPA extended by LabelRank fuses the links and the contents naturally to detect the topic community. Extensive experiments on nine real-world datasets with varying sizes and characteristics validate the proposed method outperforms other baseline algorithms in quality. Additionally simLPA integrated into the content is equivalent to LabelRank in efficiency, which is easy to handle large-scale information networks.

Naturally existing functional modules are considered as building blocks for complex structures, and novel functions result from the assembly of different combinations of these building blocks. The identification and characterization of these functional building blocks is relevant to the elucidation of questions regarding protein evolution, folding, and protein engineering for tailored functions. In this study two pyridoxal-5’-phosphate enzymes, Damino acid aminotransferase (D-AAT) and β-tyrosinase (TPL), were characterized about the functional modality after engineered for the higher activity and stability. In D-AAT, a recruitment of the catalytic loop structure (LRcD) from a highly active homolog distinctively changed a weakly active Geobacilli D-AAT: a 68% increase in catalytic activity. Homology modeling suggested that the two tyrosine residues in the EYcY sequence from the Geobacillus enzyme had a π/π-interaction that was replaceable with the salt-bridge interaction between the arginine and aspartate residues in the LRcD sequence. TPL catalyzes α,β-elimination and β-replacement of L-tyrosine and its related amino acids, with pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) as the cofactor. Random mutagenesis of the TPL gene resulted in the generation of mutations on the N-terminal arms, which exhibited a higher stability and activity towards L-DOPA as the substrate. The N-terminal arm of the TPL structure was intertwined and comprised an H-bond network in proximity to the hydrophobic core between the catalytic dimers. When considering the common structural features of α-family PLP enzymes, the N-terminal arm may have increased the rigidity of the cofactor binding architecture of C. freundii TPL through adjusting the quaternary interfaces. Therefore, an enzyme with improved N-terminal arm could be used for the development of a new bioconversion strategy for the efficient production of L-DOPA at high temperatures, where it can catalyze the reaction more actively. Ideally, the ultimate goal of protein engineering is to create an enzyme for any given chemical reaction. However, our current knowledge of proteins is far from ideal for de novo design of protein function. To overcome this obstacle, two alternate solutions have been extensively pursued: directed evolution based on high throughput screening of mutant library and rational design based on molecular modeling of protein structure. Although evolutionary technologies have accomplished fabulous contribution in biocatalyst developments, it has been compromised by the limited coverage of genetic diversity. Thus, finding the modularity in proteins and limiting the genetic diversity on a particular module could reliably help to combine these two strategies to be most successful and provide further guidance for the improvement of biocatalyst function.

본 연구는 불확실성 하에서 제품과 공정에 모듈성을 부여하는 것이 조직혁신성에 미치는 영향에 관해 분석하였다. 국내 소재 제조기업들을 대상으로 설문조사 방법으 로 자료를 수집하였으며, 470개 표본을 활용하여 불확실성의 조절효과를 분석하기 위 해 계층적 회귀모형으로 연구모형을 설계하였다. 분석 결과 제품모듈성과 공정모듈성 은 조직혁신성에 유의한 정의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났으며, 불확실성의 조절효 과는 제품모듈성에서 유의한 것으로 나타났으나 공정모듈성에서는 유의성을 확인하기 어려웠다. 본 연구의 학문적 시사점은 제품과 공정에 모듈성을 도입하는 것과 조직혁 신성의 관계를 불확실성 하에서 분석하였다는 점이다. 실무적 시사점은 조직혁신성을 강화하기 위해 제품 또는 공정에 모듈성을 적용하려는 노력이 전략적 대안이 될 수 있다는 점이다.

This study analyzed the impact of modularization of products and processes on a manufactoring firms' innovativeness under uncertainty. Data were collected through a survey method targeting domestic manufacturing firms, and a research model was designed using a hierarchical regression model to analyze moderating effect of uncertainty using 470 samples. As a result of the analysis, it was found that product and process modularity had a significant positive impact on organizational innovativeness, and the moderating effect of uncertainty was found to be significant in product modularity, but it was difficult to confirm significance in process modularity. The academic implication of this study is that the introduction of modularity into products and processes and the relationship between organizational innovativeness were analyzed under uncertainty. The practical implication is that efforts to apply modularity to products or processes to enhance organizational innovativeness can be a strategic alternative.

Let C(τ) be the Ramanujan's cubic continued fraction. We prove that under some condition on integers a and b ≠ 0, there are only finitely many functions of the form C(τ)^aC(2τ)^b that generate the field of all modular functions on the congruence subgroup Γ₀(12), partially extending the result of Park. We also establish certain modular and arithmetic properties of the function t(τ) = C(τ)^-2C(2τ). Our proofs employ the methods of Park and Gee, as well as some properties of 𝜂-quotients.

I report on the case of a polyglot ‘savant’ (C), who is mildly autistic, severely apraxic, and of limited intellectual ability; yet who can read, write, speak and understand about twenty languages. I outline his abilities, both verbal and non-verbal, noting the asymmetry between his linguistic ability and his general intellectual inability and, within the former, between his unlimited morphological and lexical prowess as opposed to his limited syntax. I then spell out the implications of these findings for modularity. C's unique profile suggested a further project in which we taught him British Sign Language. I report on this work, paying particular attention to the learning and use of classifiers, and discuss its relevance to the issue of modality: whether the human language faculty is preferentially tied to the oral domain, or is ‘modality-neutral’ as between the spoken and the visual modes.

In [9], we computed shadows of the second order mock theta functions and showed that they are essentially same with the shadow of a mock theta function related to the Mathieu moonshine phenomenon. In this paper, we further survey the second order mock theta functions on their quantum modularity and their behavior in the lower half plane.

Modular furniture's colors, materials, finishing materials and quantities are determined by users' tastes and it's diverse functions, shapes and sizes are determined by the spaces of users. That is, modules satisfy the diversity of consumers, meet differentiated individuals' tastes and enable communications with consumers rather than delivering one-way messages of designers. The contemporary spaces of the 21st century have been gradually shifting from uniform spaces attaching weight on individuals' individuality and tastes and along with it, the consumption of expensive custom-made furniture and foreign branded furniture is increasing to satisfy those small numbers of consumers who want to express diversified individuality. The modular furniture as a concept which is the most suitable to Mass Customization can be produced in large quantities while considering the diverse needs and tastes of individuals and it does not have absolute shapes or sizes. The concept of modular furniture shows similarities to the creation of fractals that forms shapes by self similarities, repeats and similar transformations which is in the same context as the characteristics of a modular design that presents diversity with scales, materials and jointing points. Fractals will be combined with the digital media of today to present great plasticity and influence designers more heavily. Pursuit of new modeling is a requisite for the creation of future spaces and it will require continuous creativity and the transformable modular furniture will contribute to the satisfaction of diverse consumers' needs. This study is to propose the modular furniture that considers the diversity of the public in the 21st century and their individuality and that will enable interactions between designers and consumers.

In this paper, we investigate whether mentally retarded (=MR) Korean children’s production of conjugated predicates follows the same generalization that has been reported for normal children’s language performance. For this, we elicited narratives from 15 MR children, and analyzed their production of conjugated predicates. We cross-classified the conjugation patterns in terms of four categorical variables:morphological class, (morpho-)syntactic conjugation, semantic class, and age. Results from the log-linear regression analysis show that MR children’s use of predicate conjugation is constrained by the same generalization that determines the distribution of normal children’s conjugation patterns. That is, both MR and normal children’s production of conjugated predicates is nicely predicted by the interaction between the morphological and semantic classes of each predicate, and by the main effect of conjugation type. The overall finding supports the modularity view of language in terms of morphosyntax; i.e. the language capacity is dissociated from the general cognition.

This paper discusses the issues of modularity, Universal Grammar (UG), and transferability in children’s mother tongue (L1) acquisition and second language (L2) learning. In doing so, this paper discusses nativisms’ modularity hypothesis and its three major characteristics; further, this paper introduces controversies on modularity from sociocultural perspectives and connectionism. By comparing and critically analyzing the different approaches to modularity, UG, and transferability of L1 knowledge to L2 acquisition, this paper emphasizes overcoming the modular account of human language and expanding understanding on L1/L2 acquisition or learning. Finally, this paper discusses the pedagogic implications of language modularity, especially the role of L1 on L2 learning in classroom settings.

The aim of the current study is to look at a new dimension of structural features at the firm level instead of the level of the individual project. The present study focuses on structural dimensions when firms rapidly increase product variety while achieving stable quality across various products. Based on a cross-industry sample of 103 Korean manufacturers, this study examines the role of organizational modularity, which is a new structural feature whereby present-day organizations are able to successfully develop various products. The product variety has a significant and positive effect on all the NPD performance indicators both before and after the inclusion of the control variables. The results show the mediating effect of organizational modularity on the relationship between product variety and ‘NPD operational performance’(or profitability).