How Design Plays Strategic Roles in Internet Service Innovation: Lessons from Korean Companies

In order to survive in the highly competitive internet business, companies have to provide differentiated services that can satisfy the rapidly changing users’ tastes and needs. Designers have been increasingly committed to achieving user satisfaction by generating and visualizing innovative solutions in new internet service development. The roles of internet service design have expanded from a narrow focus on aesthetics into a more strategic aspect. This paper investigates the methods of managing design in order to enhance companies’ competitiveness in internet business. The main research processes are to: (1) explore the current state of internet service design in Korea through in-depth interviews with professional designers and survey questionnaires to 30 digital design agencies and 60 clients; (2) compare how design is managed between in-house design groups and digital design agencies though the case studies of five Korean companies; and (3) develop a taxonomy characterizing four roles of designers in conjunction with the levels of their strategic contributions to internet service innovation: visualist, solution provider, concept generator, and service initiator. In addition, we demonstrate the growing contributions of the strategic use of design for innovating internet services, building robust brand equity, and increasing business performance. Keywords: Design Management; Internet Business; Internet Service Design; Digital Design; Digital Design Agency; In-House Design Group, Case Study</p

Injective colorings of graphs with low average degree

Let \mad(G) denote the maximum average degree (over all subgraphs) of $G$ and let $\chi_i(G)$ denote the injective chromatic number of $G$. We prove that if $\Delta\geq 4$ and \mad(G)<\frac{14}5, then $\chi_i(G)\leq\Delta+2$. When $\Delta=3$, we show that \mad(G)<\frac{36}{13} implies $\chi_i(G)\le 5$. In contrast, we give a graph $G$ with $\Delta=3$, \mad(G)=\frac{36}{13}, and $\chi_i(G)=6$.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Injective colorings of sparse graphs

Let $mad(G)$ denote the maximum average degree (over all subgraphs) of $G$ and let $\chi_i(G)$ denote the injective chromatic number of $G$. We prove that if $mad(G) \leq 5/2$, then $\chi_i(G)\leq\Delta(G) + 1$; and if $mad(G) < 42/19$, then $\chi_i(G)=\Delta(G)$. Suppose that $G$ is a planar graph with girth $g(G)$ and $\Delta(G)\geq 4$. We prove that if $g(G)\geq 9$, then $\chi_i(G)\leq\Delta(G)+1$; similarly, if $g(G)\geq 13$, then $\chi_i(G)=\Delta(G)$.Comment: 10 page

Cross-protection Mechanisms of Influenza Virus Vaccines

Since current influenza vaccine strategy is effective in conferring protection against vaccine strain-matched influenza viruses but not against antigenically different viruses, the development of broad cross-protective vaccines is of a high priority to improve vaccination efficacy and to prevent future pandemic outbreaks. In this study, I investigated the cross-protective efficacy and the immune mechanism of three different target antigens including hemagglutinin (HA) based inactivated virus vaccines, neuraminidase (NA) protein vaccines, and tandem repeat extracellular domains of the ion channel protein M2 (M2e5x) on virus-like particle (M2e5x VLP) vaccines. Anti-NA antibodies could confer better cross-protection against multiple heterologous influenza viruses correlating with NA inhibition activity compared to anti-HA antibodies. Whereas anti-HA antibodies were superior to NA in conferring homologous protection. Anti-NA and M2e antibodies showed comparable survival protection. To better understand cross-protective vaccine efficacy, M2e and HA vaccines were tested in different genetic backgrounds. BALB/c mice showed higher IgG responses and cross-protection than C57BL/6 mice after M2e vaccine immunization. M2e vaccine immune mice after primary challenges developed strong immunity to a secondary heterosubtypic virus as a future pandemic. The classical complement pathway is activated to eliminate antigen-antibody immune complexes, subsequently followed by complement-dependent cytotoxicity in addition to Fc receptor-mediated antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity. However, the role of complement system remains largely unknown in influenza virus M2e-mediated cross protective immunity. This study demonstrated that complement protein C3 is essential in inducing immune responses to influenza M2e5x VLP vaccination and influenza virus infection, which include M2e-specific isotype-switched antibody production and M2e-specific effector CD4 and CD8 T cell responses. C3 deficient (KO) mice showed lower levels of M2e-specific IgG isotype antibodies after M2e5x VLP vaccination, no control of lung viral replication, and severe weight loss upon challenge infection compared to those in wild type (WT) mice. Whereas, C3 KO mice were protected against homologous virus after immunization with hemagglutinin-based virus vaccine despite lower levels of neutralizing antibodies than those in WT mice. In addition, C3 KO mice showed impaired recruitment of macrophages and different subsets of dendritic cells. The findings in this study suggest that C3 is a key regulator in developing protective immunity by non-neutralizing antibody-based vaccination

Topological Quantum Phase Transition in 5dd Transition Metal Oxide Na2_2IrO3_3

We predict a quantum phase transition from normal to topological insulators in the 5$d$ transition metal oxide Na$_2$IrO$_3$, where the transition can be driven by the change of the long-range hopping and trigonal crystal field terms. From the first-principles-derived tight-binding Hamiltonian we determine the phase boundary through the parity analysis. In addition, our first-principles calculations for Na$_2$IrO$_3$ model structures show that the interlayer distance can be an important parameter for the existence of a three-dimensional strong topological insulator phase. Na$_2$IrO$_3$ is suggested to be a candidate material which can have both a nontrivial topology of bands and strong electron correlations

The Effect of Color Design on Fragrance Association

In order to effectively communicate the fragrances of commercial perfumes to consumers, it is important to apply congruent colors to their bottles and packaging. This research investigated the cross-modal associations between colors and fragrances. Through analyzing bottle colors of more than 200 popular perfumes in the market, distinguishable color design patterns were revealed in accordance with their fragrance types. In the color-fragrance matching experiment conducted in a blind setting, three test perfumes had characteristic hues. Their associated hues were similar with the real colors of the perfumes. There were significant variations in tone across fragrance notes, i.e. the top notes, middle notes, and base notes. These results support the existence of robust cross-modal associations between particular colors and fragrances in commercial perfumery by extending the use of color-odor matching task to a test population of Korean participants