Metrics-Driven Climate and Metrics-Based Activities as an Organizational Processes to Complement MPM system in the Firm

We have learned that the marketing performance measurement (hereinafter MPM) does matter from the growing accumulation of the recent research. Marketing needs an appropriate set of metrics to plan, check and correct their marketing actions. How can then the use of MPM can be radicated in the organization? Although marketing research stream have developed marketing metrics and linked metric use to firm performance, there is little understanding of what promotes the use of marketing metrics in an organization. We observe many cases where the metrics cannot be well rooted in the organization because of the cultural resistance, irrelevance to the actual marketing activities, and the departmental conflict. We search into the organizational factors which help the use of MPM to be rooted in the firm. Our research investigates the factors that promote the use of marketing metrics in an organization. As antecedents of marketing metrics use, we consider two aspects of organization, objective aspect and subjective aspect. As objective organization aspect, comprehensiveness of marketing performance measurement system (hereinafter CMPMS) is thought to be a crucial antecedent of marketing metrics use. We also focus on employees’ subjective environment—the organizational climate, which is defined as employees’ shared perceptions. Our basic hypothesis are as follows: firstly, CMPMS has a positive influence on metrics-based marketing activities; second, a metrics-driven climate has a positive influence on metrics-based marketing activities; third, metrics-based marketing activities have a positive influence on marketing-mix activity performance. Our research used survey data collected from 824 managers with marketing-related responsibilities. The data was analyzed using structural equation modelling to test a conceptual model grounded in the marketing metrics and organizational climate literature. Through its examination of the model, this paper demonstrates that, in addition to the presence of comprehensive marketing performance measures, a metrics-driven organizational climate and metrics-based marketing activities are key mechanisms that accentuate the use of marketing metrics in an organization. Our results demonstrate that a marketing metrics-driven climate is significantly related to metrics-based marketing activities, and that metrics-based marketing activities have a significantly positive influence on marketing mix performance. In contrast, the comprehensiveness of marketing performance measurement exhibits a significantly negative influence on metrics-based marketing activities, but has a direct, positive effect on marketing mix activity performance

Dysfunction from Focusing on Overseas Business

For this study, a questionnaire survey was administered to 824 people who had been posted overseas for at least one year (657 of whom had been involved in a business for the overseas market) in order to explore the factors behind the success of an overseas business. The results made clear, on one hand, that if Japanese companies focus on an overseas business, by, for example, defining the objectives and roles of the business, investing in market research, and posting core personnel abroad, they reach desirable outcomes, but, on the other hand, those outcomes are adversely affected when companies define the objectives and roles prior to conducting market research. A focus on overseas business increases personnel’s organizational identification with his or her headquarters and with the overseas business unit. However, dysfunction occurs when personnel feel high organizational identification with the overseas business unit, and that they are not expected to show customer-oriented behavior. According to our additional analyses, this dysfunction of organizational identification emerges when one perceives a weak identity of one’s organization.

From symplectic cohomology to Lagrangian enumerative geometry

We build a bridge between Floer theory on open symplectic manifolds and the enumerative geometry of holomorphic disks inside their Fano compactifications, by detecting elements in symplectic cohomology which are mirror to Landau-Ginzburg potentials. We also treat the higher Maslov index versions of LG potentials. We discover a relation between higher disk potentials and symplectic cohomology rings of anticanonical divisor complements (themselves related to closed-string Gromov-Witten invariants), and explore several other applications to the geometry of Liouville domains.Comment: 47 pages, 13 figures; v2: reference fixes, minor correction

Quantum Feature Extraction for THz Multi-Layer Imaging

A learning-based THz multi-layer imaging has been recently used for contactless three-dimensional (3D) positioning and encoding. We show a proof-of-concept demonstration of an emerging quantum machine learning (QML) framework to deal with depth variation, shadow effect, and double-sided content recognition, through an experimental validation.Comment: 2 pages, 5 figures, IRMMW-THz202

Vection induced by low-level motion extracted from complex animation films

This study examined the contributions of low-, mid- and high-level visual motion information to vection. We compared the vection experiences induced by hand-drawn and computer-generated animation clips to those induced by versions of these movies that contained only their pure optic flow. While the original movies were found to induce longer and stronger vection experiences than the pure optic flow, vection onsets were not significantly altered by removing the mid- and high-level information. We conclude that low-level visual motion information appears to be important for vection induction, whereas mid- and higher-level display information appears to be important for sustaining and strengthening this vection after its initial induction

コクサイ ケイジ サイバンショ キテイ シンリャク ハンザイ ノ ジンテキ ショバツ ハンイ センゴ グンジサイバン トノ ヒカク ニ オイテ 1

The provision of the Crime of Aggression was adopted at the Kampala Review Conference of the International Criminal Court on June 1st, 2010. It is a milestone for the international community in the global effort to bring those most responsible for such crimes to justice. However, these provisions have an ambiguous part, such as the scope of individual criminal liability. It is necessary to defi ne who will be punished by the crime. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the scope of the perpetrator for the crime of Aggression, namely the leadership requirement, by comparing with International Military Tribunals after World War II

Evaluation of heterogeneity dose distributions for Stereotactic Radiotherapy (SRT): comparison of commercially available Monte Carlo dose calculation with other algorithms

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The purpose of this study was to compare dose distributions from three different algorithms with the x-ray Voxel Monte Carlo (XVMC) calculations, in actual computed tomography (CT) scans for use in stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) of small lung cancers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Slow CT scan of 20 patients was performed and the internal target volume (ITV) was delineated on Pinnacle³. All plans were first calculated with a scatter homogeneous mode (SHM) which is compatible with Clarkson algorithm using Pinnacle³treatment planning system (TPS). The planned dose was 48 Gy in 4 fractions. In a second step, the CT images, structures and beam data were exported to other treatment planning systems (TPSs). Collapsed cone convolution (CCC) from Pinnacle³, superposition (SP) from XiO, and XVMC from Monaco were used for recalculating. The dose distributions and the Dose Volume Histograms (DVHs) were compared with each other.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The phantom test revealed that all algorithms could reproduce the measured data within 1% except for the SHM with inhomogeneous phantom. For the patient study, the SHM greatly overestimated the isocenter (IC) doses and the minimal dose received by 95% of the PTV (PTV95) compared to XVMC. The differences in mean doses were 2.96 Gy (6.17%) for IC and 5.02 Gy (11.18%) for PTV95. The DVH's and dose distributions with CCC and SP were in agreement with those obtained by XVMC. The average differences in IC doses between CCC and XVMC, and SP and XVMC were -1.14% (p = 0.17), and -2.67% (p = 0.0036), respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our work clearly confirms that the actual practice of relying solely on a Clarkson algorithm may be inappropriate for SRT planning. Meanwhile, CCC and SP were close to XVMC simulations and actual dose distributions obtained in lung SRT.</p

Acceptable fetal dose using flattening filter-free volumetric arc therapy (FFF VMAT) in postoperative chemoradiotherapy of tongue cancer during pregnancy

Optimizing irradiation protocols for pregnant women is challenging, because there are few cases and a dearth of fetal dosimetry data. We cared for a 36-year-old pregnant woman with tongue cancer. Prior to treatment, we compared three intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) techniques, including helical tomotherapy, volumetric arc therapy (VMAT), and flattening-filter free VMAT (FFF-VMAT) using treatment planning software. FFF-VMAT achieved the minimum fetal exposure and was selected as the optimal modality. We prescribed 66 Gy to the involved nodes, 60 Gy to the tumor bed and ipsilateral neck, and 54 Gy to the contralateral neck over 33 fractions. To confirm the out-of-field exposure per fraction, surface doses and the rectal dose were measured during FFF-VMAT delivery. Postoperative chemoradiotherapy was delivered using IMRT and a cisplatin regimen. Without any shielding, the total fetal dose was 0.03 Gy, within the limits established by the ICRP. A healthy girl was born vaginally at 37 weeks’ gestation