Long-Term Effects of Group Decision Support Systems on Group Commitment: A Theoretical Model

Human knowledge is one of the scarce resources and strategic assets of organization. Turnover in organization has long been one of the major problems that most organizations are facing. Commitment is found to be a critical factor to sustain organizations\u27 competitive advantages. The organizational commitment is derived from group commitment within a particular organization. This paper introduces long-term variable (group commitment) of using GDSS and proposes a long-term effect of GDSS on group commitment. Socialization theory and team theory are used to explain the theoretical background underlying the model

Constrained Classification and Policy Learning

Modern machine learning approaches to classification, including AdaBoost, support vector machines, and deep neural networks, utilize surrogate loss techniques to circumvent the computational complexity of minimizing empirical classification risk. These techniques are also useful for causal policy learning problems, since estimation of individualized treatment rules can be cast as a weighted (cost-sensitive) classification problem. Consistency of the surrogate loss approaches studied in Zhang (2004) and Bartlett et al. (2006) crucially relies on the assumption of correct specification, meaning that the specified set of classifiers is rich enough to contain a first-best classifier. This assumption is, however, less credible when the set of classifiers is constrained by interpretability or fairness, leaving the applicability of surrogate loss based algorithms unknown in such second-best scenarios. This paper studies consistency of surrogate loss procedures under a constrained set of classifiers without assuming correct specification. We show that in the setting where the constraint restricts the classifier's prediction set only, hinge losses (i.e., $\ell_1$-support vector machines) are the only surrogate losses that preserve consistency in second-best scenarios. If the constraint additionally restricts the functional form of the classifier, consistency of a surrogate loss approach is not guaranteed even with hinge loss. We therefore characterize conditions for the constrained set of classifiers that can guarantee consistency of hinge risk minimizing classifiers. Exploiting our theoretical results, we develop robust and computationally attractive hinge loss based procedures for a monotone classification problem

Consumer-Oriented Electronic Commerce on the World Wide Web: A Comparison of the U.S. and Japanese Practices

Internet’s World Wide Web (WWW) is viewed as a strategic information technology with the potential to change the rules by which organizations conduct business as it provides new means of advertisement, sales, customer services, logistics, and business communications. Another important network application phenomenon is electronic commerce (EC). Although WWW is a worldwide application by definition, little is known about the profiles of EC activities on the WWW around the world. In this environment, this study attempts to shed light on understanding EC and the WWW and conducts research, as an example of phenomena surrounding them, on consumer-oriented EC on the WWW comparing the U.S. and Japanese practices

A homosexual japanese man with acute hepatitis due to hepatitis B virus genotype ae, concurrent with amebic colitis

We report herein a case with acute hepatitis due to hepatitis B virus genotype Ae, concurrent with amebic colitis. A 39-year-old homosexual Japanese man was admitted to our hospital with jaundice. Laboratory tests showed an elevation of transaminase and positivity for hepatitis B surface antigen and IgM-type antibody to hepatitis B core antigen. The hepatitis B virus genotype was determined to be Ae. Furthermore, a mud-like stool with blood and mucous had sometimes been noted during the past 3 years, and amebic colitis was shown by colonofi berscopy during hospitalization. The patient was diagnosed with acute hepatitis B, concurrent with amebic colitis, and was successfully treated with lamivudine and metronidazole. In Japanese patients with acute hepatitis B virus genotype A infection, homosexual activity tends to be high. Furthermore, in Japanese homosexual men, amebiasis has been increasing. Thus, in Japanese patients with acute hepatitis B, a determination of genotype should be performed in order to investigate the route of transmission of hepatitis B virus, and a search for amebiasis should be performed in patients with acute hepatitis due to hepatitis B virus genotype A. Furthermore, education of homosexual men regarding hepatitis B virus, hepatitis B virus vaccination, and amebiasis is urgently required

APPLICABILITY OF MINIATURE C(T) SPECIMEN TO EVALUATION OF FRACTURE TOUGHNESS FOR REACTOR PRESSURE VESSEL STEEL

ABSTRACT Irradiation embrittlement of Japanese reactor pressure vessels (RPV) is usually monitored by conducting tests on irradiated RPV material according to surveillance test program. Although fracture toughness specimens are contained in Japanese PWR surveillance capsule, the number of specimens is limited due to capacity of capsule. In order to evaluate lower bound of fracture toughness considering its scatter with higher reliability, it is expected to obtain additional fracture toughness data using remaining broken specimens of irradiated materials. One of solutions to this problem is specimen reconstitution technique. However, it is difficult to make numbers of specimens by reconstitution because of need for specific equipments and time-consuming machining operations. As an alternative method, fracture toughness test using miniature C(T) specimens with dimension of 4×10×10mm, which can be taken from broken halves of Charpy specimen, is proposed and the studies to verify the reliability and robustness of evaluation method have been conducted in the Japanese round robin program since 2010. In this study, fracture toughness tests were performed on Japanese SA 533 Gr.B Cl.1 steel using miniature C(T) specimens and the effect of specimen size on reference temperature T 0 was studied by the Master Curve approach. In addition, the issues related to application to irradiated materials were discussed