A Dictionary of Japanese Management and Business Culture

TARTU ÜLIKOOL TÕLKEKESKUS Kätlin Põldma A Dictionary of Japanese Management and Business Culture. Jaapani ärijuhtimise ja -kultuuri seletav sõnastik. (magistritöö) 2014 Lehekülgede arv: 137 The dictionary compiled in the framework of this MA project introduces 319 terms used in English texts in connection with Japanese management and business culture. As Japanese business culture has characteristic features and cultural nuances that need to be understood by those coming into contact with Japanese companies in the business context, this dictionary aims at explaining the cultural and linguistic aspects of relevant terms, with particular emphasis placed on the use of Japanese terms in English. The MA project comprises and introductory part, in which the main characteristics of Japanese management and business culture, the role of the Japanese language in English, the compilation process and principles of the dictionary and the problems encountered are outlined. This is followed by the dictionary, in which the terms are provided with definitions in English, example sentences and, in the case of Japanese terms, with the headword in Japanese script and an explanation of its literal meaning and structure, where relevant. The dictionary is based on various books and articles on Japanese business, glossaries found online as well as some corpora

A survey on wireless body area networks for eHealthcare systems in residential environments

The progress in wearable and implanted health monitoring technologies has strong potential to alter the future of healthcare services by enabling ubiquitous monitoring of patients. A typical health monitoring system consists of a network of wearable or implanted sensors that constantly monitor physiological parameters. Collected data are relayed using existing wireless communication protocols to the base station for additional processing. This article provides researchers with information to compare the existing low-power communication technologies that can potentially support the rapid development and deployment of WBAN systems, and mainly focuses on remote monitoring of elderly or chronically ill patients in residential environments

Rethinking the risk matrix

So far risk has been mostly defined as the expected value of a loss, mathematically PL (being P the probability of an adverse event and L the loss incurred as a consequence of the adverse event). The so called risk matrix follows from such definition. This definition of risk is justified in a long term “managerial” perspective, in which it is conceivable to distribute the effects of an adverse event on a large number of subjects or a large number of recurrences. In other words, this definition is mostly justified on frequentist terms. Moreover, according to this definition, in two extreme situations (high-probability/low-consequence and low-probability/high-consequence), the estimated risk is low. This logic is against the principles of sustainability and continuous improvement, which should impose instead both a continuous search for lower probabilities of adverse events (higher and higher reliability) and a continuous search for lower impact of adverse events (in accordance with the fail-safe principle). In this work a different definition of risk is proposed, which stems from the idea of safeguard: (1Risk)=(1P)(1L). According to this definition, the risk levels can be considered low only when both the probability of the adverse event and the loss are small. Such perspective, in which the calculation of safeguard is privileged to the calculation of risk, would possibly avoid exposing the Society to catastrophic consequences, sometimes due to wrong or oversimplified use of probabilistic models. Therefore, it can be seen as the citizen’s perspective to the definition of risk

The socio-technical dynamics of ICT innovation: a social shaping analysis of portals

This PhD thesis presents a longitudinal study of the dynamics of the innovation process of a standardised technology. The study addresses the factors that shape technology decision-making along the entire technology life cycle - from design to implementation - within the context of a complex socio-technical setting. The development of the Internet led to acceleration in the diffusion of Inter-Organisational Networks and Systems (IONS), particularly of portals. Portals are defined as linked electronic platforms with a single point-of-entry, independent of time and space, and that enable collaboration through access to multiple sources from different organisational information systems. Organisations develop and implement portals to respond to market pressures, for example in order to rationalise procurement.The thesis attempts to expand the understanding of the socio-technical dynamics patterning both the decision-making process and the outcomes of complex ICT innovation projects. The thesis seeks to overcome the shortcomings of existing social and economic research on inter-organisational standardisation by redressing the limitations in terms of empirical scope and analytical frameworks of, on the one hand, studies of standard setting processes which neglect the wider and subsequent context of implementation and, on the other hand, of 'diffusion of standards' studies which ignore the way in which standards evolve in their implementation. This study specifically answers theoretical and practical questions of ICT innovation dynamics in a complex multi-spaced setting, combining economic, technical and sociological theories. The research draws on the Social Shaping of Technology (SST) perspective by explaining ICT innovations as historical and contexted actor-focussed technological change processes. The thesis develops a Multi-level Space of Innovation Dynamics (MSID) framework to capture the dynamics of standardised portal technology development and its outcomes on two levels: at a micro level, focusing on individuals and groups in the adopting organisation (zoom in), and at the meso level, addressing the effects that the dynamics have in the broader context of the sector (zoom out). Jorgensen's concept of 'arena' is used to analyse the way in which the actors involved at the company and the industry level are configured together. The turbulent dynamics are analysed as the outcome of complex processes of change involving the configuration and re-configuration of the various arenas and networks in which the array of involved organisational actors are embedded.The contribution to existing knowledge is based on the development of the MSID framework and its application to a complex multi-layered and longitudinal case study based in the automotive industry. The researcher's unique extensive access as a participant and analyst to the complex setting of the portal development was essential to develop the framework and to illustrate the ways in which theoretical concepts can be grounded in real empirical cases. The research finds that ICT innovations are shaped by history and context of the adopting organisation and the actors involved. The extremely complex organisational politics of decision-making processes were patterned by the configuration of the project and the management of expertise. Interactions and realignments amongst this complex set of socio-technical factors led to a drift in the subsequent outcomes. This study supports the socio-technical analysis of supply chains as mutually shaped by technology and the adopting user organisation. Finally, the study also provides organisations with rich sociological insights that could translate into the planning of similar technology-driven projects

A usage coverage based approach for assessing product family design

En adoptant un point de vue utilitariste du consommateur sur certains produits orientés service, nous avons d'abord contribué à la proposition d un modèle de contextes d usage que se doit de couvrir au mieux un produit. Le modèle conduit à une meilleure intégration des analyses de marketing et d ingénierie de la conception amenant à une optimisation d'un produit paramétré plus orientée vers les besoins du marché ou à un meilleur étagement d'une famille de produits. Nous proposons une série d'indices qui révèlent l'adéquation entre les usages couverts par un produit de dimensions données ou une famille de produits donnée avec un espace d'usages cible qu il s agit de couvrir dans sa totalité ou en partie mais d'une manière suffisamment dominante par rapport à la concurrence. En premier lieu, l'indice de couverture d usage (UCI) pour un produit unique est introduit par la cartographie du produit relativement à un ensemble d utilisateurs représentatifs définis par des usages attendus. Sur cette base, l'UCI pour une famille de produits est construite pour évaluer la composition de la famille et la redondance des produits qui la composent. Les avantages par rapport à la traditionnelle estimation de la demande en marketing sont de réduire la complexité de l'enquête et de l'analyse des données et de pouvoir estimer le niveau de compétitivité d une offre innovante sans nécessiter de retour d expérience du marché. Nous expérimentons nos propositions sur un problème de reconception d une famille de scies sauteuses. L'approche proposée permet d'évaluer l'adaptabilité, pour une famille de produits de tailles croissantes, à divers scénarios dans le contexte d'usage d'un marché cible. Les concepteurs peuvent s'appuyer sur les résultats pour éliminer les produits redondants au sein d'une famille. Des configurations de produits de tailles croissantes peuvent aussi être rapidement simulées et comparées de manière à aboutir à une famille minimale de produits idéalement étagée.Adopting a utilitarian viewpoint of consumers on some service-oriented goods, we have first contributed to the proposal of a usage contexts model that a product should cover at most. The model leads to a higher integration of design engineering and marketing analyses which results in a more market-oriented optimization of a parameterized product or a better sampling of a product family. We propose a series of usage coverage indices that reveal the adequacy of a dimensioned product or a given product family to a targeted usage space to cover in its whole or for a part but sufficiently in a dominant way compared to competing products. First, the Usage Coverage Index (UCI) for single product is introduced by mapping the given product with a set of representative users defined by expected usages. On that basis, the UCI for a product family is constructed to evaluate the composition and redundancy of the family. The advantage compared to traditional demand estimation in marketing research is to reduce the complexity of survey and data analysis and to assess the competitiveness level of an innovative service offer without needing any return of experience from the market. We experiment our proposals on a jigsaw product family redesign problem. The proposed analysis approach helps to evaluate the adaptability, for a given scale-based product family, to diverse usage context scenarios in a target market. Designers can rely on the results to filter out redundant products within a family. Scale-based configurations of the products can also be rapidly simulated and compared to find out an appropriate sampled series of products.CHATENAY MALABRY-Ecole centrale (920192301) / SudocSudocFranceF

Not All Gestures Are Created Equal: Gesture and Visual Feedback in Interaction Spaces.

As multi-touch mobile computing devices and open-air gesture sensing technology become increasingly commoditized and affordable, they are also becoming more widely adopted. It became necessary to create new interaction design specifically for gesture-based interfaces to meet the growing needs of users. However, a deeper understanding of the interplay between gesture, and visual and sonic output is needed to make meaningful advances in design. This thesis addresses this crucial step in development by investigating the interrelation between gesture-based input, and visual representation and feedback, in gesture-driven creative computing. This thesis underscores the importance that not all gestures are created equal, and there are multiple factors that affect their performance. For example, a drag gesture in visual programming scenario performs differently than in a target acquisition task. The work presented here (i) examines the role of visual representation and mapping in gesture input, (ii) quantifies user performance differences in gesture input to examine the effect of multiple factors on gesture interactions, and (iii) develops tools and platforms for exploring visual representations of gestures. A range of gesture spaces and scenarios, from continuous sound control with open-air gestures to mobile visual programming with discrete gesture-driven commands, was assessed. Findings from this thesis reveals a rich space of complex interrelations between gesture input and visual feedback and representations. The contributions of this thesis also includes the development of an augmented musical keyboard with 3-D continuous gesture input and projected visualization, as well as a touch-driven visual programming environment for interactively constructing dynamic interfaces. These designs were evaluated by a series of user studies in which gesture-to-sound mapping was found to have a significant affect on user performance, along with other factors such as the selection of visual representation and device size. A number of counter-intuitive findings point to the potentially complex interactions between factors such as device size, task and scenarios, which exposes the need for further research. For example, the size of the device was found to have contradictory effects in two different scenarios. Furthermore, this work presents a multi-touch gestural environment to support the prototyping of gesture interactions.PhDComputer Science and EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113456/1/yangqi_1.pd