Emerging work practices of ICT-enabled mobile professionals

Currently, mobility is a significantly pervasive term; the concept is being widely used in multiple discussions including social, economic, political, and technological debates. However, the theoretical grounding of the concept is surprising unstable. This thesis aims to offer a theoretical foundation for the concept of mobility, particularly in contemporary work contexts. With support of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in general and mobile technology in particular, contemporary work activities are increasingly distributed and dynamically conducted in various locations. In such an emerging work environment, maintaining a highly level of 'mobility' is becoming critical for contemporary workers, particularly for mobile professionals. Based on the theoretical considerations on the concept of mobility, this thesis empirically explores the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of mobile professionals' work practices. In order to appreciate and explain the nature of mobility in contemporary work, this thesis specifically addresses the emerging work practices of mobile professionals. the data collection consisting of in-depth interviews and ad-hoc observations of sixty0two professional workers was conducted in Tokyo, Japan during the summer of 2002. Informed by the results of this qualitative field study, the thesis discusses a distinct mode of mobility in mobile professional work. The mode of mobility is characterised not only by extensive geographical movement but also by operational flexibility and intense interaction in mobile professional's dynamic work activities. Based on these theoretical and empirical discussions, this thesis aims: 1) to theoretically underpin our understanding of mobility in contemporary work contexts; 2) to offer empirically grounded implications for the post-bureaucratic, fluid organising of work, organisation, and technology

Understanding Real-Virtual Dynamics of Human Behavior from the Action Stream Perspective

This paper proposes a radical extension of our perspective for analyzing human behavior in the networked age. Online activities should be understood not as being only inside the virtual world but rather as initiated by people with real-world intentions for the purpose of bringing about certain real-world consequences. To grasp the whole stream of human behavior flowing from real-world intentions to virtual-world activity and back to real-world consequences, we propose the ‘action stream’ concept. The paper details the conceptual framework of the action stream and discusses theoretical and practical obstacles affecting its utilization. It also proposes a novel method for analyzing action streams by taking advantage of web search log data and Internet survey infrastructures

Grasping a Global View of Smartphone Diffusion: An Analysis from a Global Smartphone Study

The patterns of smartphone diffusion and usage are not consistent across the world at all. The diffusion of smartphones is influenced by many socio-economic factors in complex and dynamic ways. This paper addresses the current status of smartphone users in the world by analysing quantitative data from a large-scale smartphone user study to highlight particular clusters of country in terms of smartphone diffusion. It then addresses some characteristics of those clusters and sheds a light on some distinctive countries by exploring some cultural dispositions for smartphone adoption in those societies. Keywords: Diffusion of technology, Technology adoption, Smartphone, Surve

Snort: A combinatorial game

This paper focuses on the game Snort, which is a combinatorial game on graphs. This paper will explore the characteristics of opposability through examples. More fully, we obtain some neccessary conditions for a graph to be opposable. Since an opposable graph guarantees a second player win, we examine graphs that result in a first player win

Adolescents\u27 Perceptions and Interpretations of Parental Control: Differentiated by Domain and Type of Control

In this study, early to middle adolescents’ perceptions and interpretations of psychological control and behavioral control were examined using quasi-experimental methods. A total of sixty-seven adolescents (M—14.25 years, SD = 1.66), consisting of 32 7th/8th graders (M= 12.69 years, SD = .69) and 35 10th/11th graders (M = 15.69 years, SD= .72) responded to hypothetical vignettes depicting everyday interactions between parents and an adolescent involving psychological versus behavioral control, manipulating the levels of control and authority domains. The adolescents were asked to indicate the degree to which the control depicted in the vignettes would indicate parental intrusiveness, their mattering to parents, and their competence. Results showed that adolescents’ perceptions and interpretations of parental control differed as a function of control type, level, and domain. High levels of behavioral and psychological control were construed as equally negative (e.g., meaning they mattered less to their parents), in contrast to perceptions of moderate levels of control. It was also found that parental control exercised in the personal domain was seen as less indicative of mattering to parents than control exerted in the prudential domain. These differences were particularly pronounced for psychological control. Furthermore, these relationships were also moderated by adolescents’ grade and gender. In comparison to younger adolescents, older adolescents were more likely to view both types of parental control as intrusive when exerted at high levels. Gender differences emerged strongly in the prudential domain, where boys were somewhat more negatively affected by high levels of psychological control than by high levels of behavioral control. In contrast, girls were more likely than boys to interpret moderate levels of behavioral control in a positive light. The discussion focused on the importance of assessing adolescents’ perceptions and interpretations of parental control and the ways in which these perceptions might mediate the relationships between parental control and adolescents’ development

Dynamic Revenue Model Design in the Online Services Business: Two Cases in Japan

This paper addresses the dynamic nature of business model design in the online services business. It particularly focuses on revenue models as a critical driver for mobilizing the dynamics of business models in high-velocity market environments. It argues that a dynamic revenue model design should be a fundamental strategic practice especially for online services that face significant market and technological uncertainties. To discuss implications of dynamic revenue model design in real business contexts, we examine two Japanese online service businesses: Yahoo! JAPAN and GREE. We found that the framework of dynamic revenue model design offers both researchers and practitioners ean adaptable business perspective on turbulent online service businesses

Safety Education in School Science: The Development of Materials Designed for Children to Foresee Possible Dangers and to Avert the Accidents

これまでの研究では、理科の学習における事故の発生状況の調査と分析、学習指導要領及び教科書における安全学習に関する記述の抽出と分析を行った。本研究では、現代分析を通して小学校理科における安全学習の現状と問題点を把握するとともに、安全学習の今後の在り方について考察した。また、安全学習においる支援の一例として、子どもの危険予測、回避の力を育てる教材(デジタルコンテンツ)の開発を試みた

Relationship between Exchangeable Acidity and Persistence of Orchardgrass (\u3ci\u3eDactylis glomerata\u3c/i\u3e) in Temperate Pastures under Different Management

Orchardgrass is a high productive, highly nutritive grass, but its persistence is low under acid soil condition. Therefore, to obtain the information on the effect of soil acidity on the persistence of orchardgrass in acid soil grasslands, we investigated the relationship between exchangeable acidity (y1) and orchardgrass in sown pastures. Eight temperate pastures (four cutting meadows [CMs] and four cattle grazing pastures [GPs]) were used for vegetation survey and soil samplings. Six or three line transects (50 m each) were fixed in each meadow or pasture, and measurement location (three quadrats 20 cm×20 cm in size and 50 cm apart from each other) was set along the transect at a 10 m interval. The most dominant plant species was recorded after first cut of the meadows in 2018. Soil samples were collected in the area around quadrats, at depth of 0–5 cm for measurement of y1 and other chemical properties. Orchardgrass was dominated in 78% and 37% of CM and GP, respectively. Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) was also dominated in 2% and 22% of CM and GP, respectively. In CM, the locations with higher y1 showed a tendency of higher frequency of orchardgrass (P\u3c 0.1) and significantly low frequency of tall fescue (P\u3c 0.05). In contrast in GP, soil y1 did not show significant relationship to the frequency of orchardgrass and tall fescue. Soil chemical properties such as pH, NO3-N, K2O, CaO and MgO show negative relationship to y1 (P\u3c 0.05) in CM or GP, although they did not show significant relationship to the frequency of orchardgrass. These results suggest that survival rate of orchardgrass increases with increase of y1, through preventing establishment of other plant species such as tall fescue under cutting condition, while this trend is not clear under grazing