Probabilistic models based on experimental observations using sparse bayes methodology

The quality of people’s lives depends on safe and reliable infrastructure. However, there exist various types of uncertainties that may influence performance of structures, which could cause unexpected failures. Therefore, it is important to quantify the risk of such failures through systematic treatment of uncertainties and make a risk-informed decision. As an effort to predict uncertain performance of structural elements based on experimental observations, the principle of Bayesian inference has been often used. In this study, the recently proposed Sparse Bayes method is reviewed and tested by use of an experimental database of the shear strengths of reinforced concrete beams without stirrups. The performance of the Sparse Bayes method is demonstrated through comparison with existing methods such as least-square method and penalized least-square method. The Sparse Bayes method is further developed to identify a few representative points in the parameter space by grouping the relevant vectors identified by the method using the k-means clustering algorithm. The study confirms that the Sparse Bayes method has wide applicability, ability to achieve an optimal fitting, and efficiency. Therefore, the method can potentially provide a useful tool to develop powerful probabilistic models for various problems based on experimental observations

DIFFERENCE IN PERCEPTION OF URBAN GREEN SPACES BETWEEN DANCHI AND APARTMENT RESIDENTS IN TOKIWADAIRA, MATSUDO CITY, JAPAN (Perbedaan dalam Persepsi Ruang Hijau Perkotaan di antara Penghuni Kompleks Rumah Susun dan Apartemen di Tokiwadaira, Kota Matsudo, Jepang)

AbstractIn Japan, where most of the population now comprises elderly people, various social problems have emerged, including lack of workers, inadequate care for elderly people, lower birthrate, the abandonment of local areas, and lack of community. In highly populated urban areas, city planners propose sustainable landscape planning but sometimes ignore the public, eliminating their sense of place. This study aimed to clarify the differences in green space perception between residents of danchi and apartments in Tokiwadaira, Matsudo, to learn what residents’ attributes may influence their perceptions, and to formulate factors of recognition and awareness of urban green spaces. The research was conducted in three stages: a recognition and awareness survey, analysis, and interpretation. A Mann-Whitney U test and Welch’s t test were applied to examine significant differences in perception level; a Chi-square test was applied to examine the relationship between residents’ attributes and volunteering activity; finally, factor analysis was applied to characterize residents’ recognition and awareness of nature and green spaces. The results demonstrated three significant differences regarding the benefits of green spaces between danchi and apartment residents, and five significant differences in their interest in green spaces. The attributes influencing danchi residents’ perceptions were gender and age, while those influencing apartment residents were age, existence of children, employment status, length of stay, and existence of green spaces. The three factors accounting for residents’ interest in green spaces and nature were: high recognition and awareness, moderate recognition and awareness, and low recognition and awareness. The results may prove useful as guidance for specific local governments in relation to urban green space planning and design. AbstrakDi Jepang di mana sebagian besar penduduknya terdiri atas orang lanjut usia, berbagai masalah sosial telah terjadi, seperti kurangnya tenaga kerja, perawatan bagi orang lanjut usia yang rendah, kelahiran anak-anak yang rendah, terabaikannya daerah setempat, dan kurangnya komunitas. Di daerah perkotaan yang berpenduduk padat, perencana kota mengusulkan perencanaan lanskap berkelanjutan, tetapi terkadang mengabaikan publik dan menghilangkan makna tempat mereka. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memperjelas perbedaan persepsi ruang hijau antara penghuni di kompleks rumah susun semi publik dan apartemen di Tokiwadaira, Matsudo, untuk mengetahui atribut penghuni yang dapat mempengaruhi persepsi mereka, dan untuk merumuskan faktor-faktor pengenalan dan kesadaran akan ruang hijau perkotaan. Penelitian ini dilakukan dalam tiga tahap: survei kesadaran dan pengenalan, analisis, dan interpretasi. Uji Mann-Whitney U dan Welch's t digunakan untuk menguji perbedaan level persepsi yang signifikan antara penghuni danchi dan apartemen. Uji Chi-square digunakan untuk menguji hubungan antara atribut penghuni dan kegiatan sukarela, terakhir analisis faktor digunakan untuk mengkarakterisasi pengenalan dan kesadaran penghuni terhadap alam dan ruang hijau. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat tiga perbedaan signifikan mengenai manfaat ruang hijau di antara penghuni danchi dan apartemen, dan lima perbedaan signifikan terhadap minat ruang hijau. Atribut yang mempengaruhi persepsi penduduk danchi adalah gender dan usia, sedangkan hal-hal yang mempengaruhi penghuni apartemen adalah usia, keberadaan anak, status pekerjaan, lama tinggal, dan keberadaan ruang hijau. Tiga faktor yang menentukan minat penghuni terhadap alam dan ruang hijau di antaranya: pengenalan dan kesadaran yang tinggi, pengenalan dan kesadaran yang sedang, serta pengenalan dan kesadaran yang rendah. Hasil penelitian ini dapat berguna sebagai panduan perencanaan dan desain ruang hijau kota untuk pemerintah lokal

The role of AMO HR practices and knowledge sharing in developing a learning organizational culture:Evidence from the United Kingdom

Purpose: This study aims to explore how the three types of human resource (HR) practices, encapsulated in the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) model, foster a learning organizational culture (LOC). In doing so, the authors evaluate the centrality of knowledge sharing (KS) in mediating this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative survey is undertaken to collect data from managers working in organizations operating in the UK. The authors use several statistical techniques to assess the psychometric properties of the measures and test the hypotheses using multiple regression executed with Preacher and Hayes’ Process macro. Findings: The findings show that the AMO HR practices significantly facilitate the development of a LOC in the workplace, and KS among organizational members amplifies the effects of these HR practices in the process. Originality/value: A LOC functions as an important source of organizational performance and effectiveness. It enhances the absorptive capacity of the organization to capture, share and transfer knowledge to optimize work. Hence, developing a culture that nurtures organizational learning could be a priority for managing HR. This study, therefore, extends the understanding of the role of AMO HR practices in fostering a learning culture – thus, providing managers with the essential knowledge to improve performance. The study also enriches the literature on HR practices, KS and LOC by integrating these three variables into a unifying framework.</p

Economic Ripple Effect Analysis of New Converging Industry: Focusing on Inter-Industrial Analysis of Fintech Industry in South Korea, China and the United States

116–121The Fintech industry is the convergence of the financial industry and the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) industry. It not only replaces the services provided by traditional financial services such as remittances, settlements, and asset management, but also creates new industries combined with ICT technology such as Cloud funding, P2P, and Internet Professional Bank. Therefore, this research focuses on the economic ripple effect of the Fintech industry on the national economy by inter-industrial analysis. At the same time, in order to learn the different circumstances of Fintech industry worldwide, this study conducted comparative research on Fintech leading countries in the United States and China with South Korea. All the economic ripple effects of South Korea, China, and the United States Fintech industry are relatively low among all industries, and the industrial characteristics are analyzed to be 'intermediate primary production' type industry. This study, as the first attempt, analyzes the current economic impact of Fintech in each country, and inspires future development direction of Fintech industrial policy

Typology and Perception of Informal Green Space in Urban Interstices: A case study of Ichikawa City, Japan

Multitudinous studies about urban green space (UGS) reveal that designed and managed UGS may provide not only social, environmental, and economic benefits for cities, but also mental, physical, and physiological benefits for their residents. However, past studies have focused on widely recognized green spaces in urban areas such as parks, gardens, and forests. Wasteland, wilderness, and unplanned in-between margins, which have been called informal green space (IGS), could provide supplementary green space. This study explores IGS in Ichikawa City, a post-industrial satellite town of Tokyo with scarce UGS, by addressing the following questions: (a) What types of non-standardized and unsystematised green space exist in the target area? (b) How is IGS in the target area perceived? (c) Could IGS be considered supplementary green space for the city? Using a systematic land use survey, we identified nine types of IGS in Ichikawa City that accounted for 6.35% of total land use. A questionnaire survey showed that undergraduate students recognize the existence of IGS in their neighbourhood, perceive multiple benefits and see especially street verges, unimproved land and water verges as potential supplementary green space. We conclude that IGS can serve as a supplementary green space and discuss how IGS might be integrated into green space planning to improve residents’ well-being

Characteristics of Twitter Influencers, Electronic Word of Mouth, and Film Viewership: Focused on the Korean Film Industry

503-508Despite the successive increase sales in Korean film industry, film revenues have been concentrated more in commercial films, not in diversity films. In general, diversity films relatively made with low budgets have trouble marketing with a limited budget. As one of the low-cost marketing strategies, it has been studied that using influencers who spread strong messages to other people for maximizing electronic word of mouth (eWOM) effects. Therefore, it is worth that identifying and characterizing each influencer of successful movies to use influencers as a cost-effective and powerful marketing tool in the film industry. This study intends to identify film influencers on the SNS, Twitter. And comparative analysis of influencers between 4 types of high-ranked films is conducted to characterize of each influencer and their influential power. Four films released in June 2013, each representing a Korean or foreign, commercial or diversity film, are chosen and 753 Twitter data are collected. To identify each influencer, centrality indices from social network analysis are measured using Condor 2.6.6. The findings reveal that influencers which have high centrality indices are classified into five types and these have different characteristics by film types. The results will attribute to select potential influencers for targeting and benchmarking strategies of diversity films

An underwater superoleophobic nanofibrous cellulosic membrane for oil/water separation with high separation flux and high chemical stability

Oil spills and an increasing demand for the treatment of industrial oily wastewater are driving the need for continuous large-scale oil/water separation processes. Herein, we report a nanofibrous cellulosic membrane (NFC membrane) for the continuous high-flux separation of large amounts of oil/water mixtures. The NFC membrane was fabricated using wet electrospinning, a facile yet effective method for stacking nanofibrous membranes with uniform porous structures on a substrate. Owing to its cellulosic nature, the membrane showed excellent underwater superoleophobicity along with robust chemical stability and was able to separate oil/water mixtures at efficiencies exceeding 99%. Repetitive oil/water separations could be performed using a single membrane, during which the oil content in the filtrate remained extremely low (30 kPa) that allowed not only gravity-driven but also pressure-driven separation of oil/water mixtures. The separation flux reached 120 000 L m−2 h−1 during pressure-driven separations, which is a very promising feature for actual applications such as the large-scale treatment of industrial oily wastewater.116Ysciescopu

Impacts of innovation type SME’s R&D capability on patent and new product development

Purpose - This study aims to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of corporate technology innovation activities. Design/methodology/approach - This study empirically analyzes the effects of research and development (R&D) capability on patent and new product development achievements on innovation-type small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by using the “Report on Korean Innovation Survey 2010: Manufacturing Sector” data released by the Science and Technology Policy Institute. Findings - The results of the study indicate that staffing of the concentration of R&D human resource team and efforts toward open innovation are essential factors for the creation of corporate performance.The number of persons of the concentration R&D team in particular makes up essential resources for patent acquisition and new product development. In addition, in case of an SME’s with relatively poor resources, it is necessary to acquire resources, both material and immaterial, learn from the external R&D activities and internalize those into key corporate capabilities rather than step up the R&D activities on their own. Originality/value - The results of this study indicate that innovative small enterprises need to secure the number of R&D human resource members for maintaining sustainable competitiveness and securing market share. Therefore, a strategy is needed that would enable employing and raising excellent human resource in the quantitative and qualitative aspects. However, in the circumstances that small enterprises suffer difficulty in securing professional human resource for R&D compared to large enterprises, as there is a limitation for securing human resource for R&D from only the dimension of enterprises, governmental and political support is thought to be necessary for securing good-quality human resource for R&D. Accordingly, the results of this study provide many implications for the necessity of detailed methodology on how to expand professional human resource for R&D among supporting policies for technical innovative enterprises and to establish innovative strategies of enterprises

Economic Ripple Effect Analysis of New Converging Industry: Focusing on Inter-Industrial Analysis of Fintech Industry in South Korea, China and the United States

The Fintech industry is the convergence of the financial industry and the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) industry. It not only replaces the services provided by traditional financial services such as remittances, settlements, and asset management, but also creates new industries combined with ICT technology such as Cloud funding, P2P, and Internet Professional Bank. Therefore, this research focuses on the economic ripple effect of the Fintech industry on the national economy by inter-industrial analysis. At the same time, in order to learn the different circumstances of Fintech industry worldwide, this study conducted comparative research on Fintech leading countries in the United States and China with South Korea. All the economic ripple effects of South Korea, China, and the United States Fintech industry are relatively low among all industries, and the industrial characteristics are analyzed to be 'intermediate primary production' type industry. This study, as the first attempt, analyzes the current economic impact of Fintech in each country, and inspires future development direction of Fintech industrial policy