Co-Creation Of Value In Business-To-Business Services

Although marketing researchers pay increasing attention to the co-creation of value, switching costs and customer share, not much is known about their interrelationships. This study extracts prior research by developing a conceptual framework linking all of these constructs in the business-to-business (BtoB) service setting, including the detailed examination of the process of co-creation of value. On the basis of the achievements in services marketing and relationship marketing, this study hypothesises that co-creation of value mediates switching costs and that indirect customer values and co-creation of value are positively related to customer share. The author tests the hypotheses on data obtained from corporate managers in charge of their banking relationship. The results of the study support most of the hypotheses and, in particular, confirm the mediating role of co-creation of value in a BtoB context

Anisotropic Dielectric Breakdown Strength of Single Crystal Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Dielectric breakdown has historically been of great interest from the perspectives of fundamental physics and electrical reliability. However, to date, the anisotropy in the dielectric breakdown has not been discussed. Here, we report an anisotropic dielectric breakdown strength (EBD) for h-BN, which is used as an ideal substrate for two-dimensional (2D) material devices. Under a well-controlled relative humidity, EBD values in the directions both normal and parallel to the c axis (EBD+c & EBD//c) were measured to be 3 and 12 MV/cm, respectively. When the crystal structure is changed from sp3 of cubic-BN (c-BN) to sp2 of h-BN, EBD+c for h-BN becomes smaller than that for c-BN, while EBD//c for h-BN drastically increases. Therefore, h-BN can possess a relatively high EBD concentrated only in the direction parallel to the c axis by conceding a weak bonding direction in the highly anisotropic crystal structure. This explains why the EBD//c for h-BN is higher than that for diamond. Moreover, the presented EBD value obtained from the high quality bulk h-BN crystal can be regarded as the standard for qualifying the crystallinity of h-BN layers grown via chemical vapor deposition for future electronic applications

Analysis of the Socioeconomic Difficulties Affecting the Suicide Rate in Japan

This paper focuses on the drastic increase observed in the Japanese male suicide rate in the late 1990s and early 2000s and confirms unemployment and personal bankruptcy to be the associated socioeconomic factors behind the male suicide variation. Personal bankruptcy is also confirmed to be significant in the female suicide variation. The relationship is confirmed through a pooled data analysis by a middle-aged group and by prefecture. Further, the paper focused on the association between the unemployment rate and suicide mortality by incorporating the reasons for unemployment in the monthly regression. Next, we identified a significant association between male suicide variations and changes in some of the reasons for being unemployed. The interpretation of the results implies that the risk of unemployment among men has been mitigated by the unemployment insurance rather than the bias in the reasons reported and/or mental disorder in Japan.

Greater Disruption Due to Failure of Inhibitory Control on an Ambiguous Distractor

Considerable evidence indicates that a stimulus that is subthreshold, and thus consciously invisible, influences brain activity and behavioral performance. However, it is not clear how subthreshold stimuli are processed in the brain. We found that a task-irrelevant subthreshold coherent motion led to a stronger disturbance in task performance than did suprathreshold motion. With the subthreshold motion, activity in the visual cortex measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging was higher, but activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex was lower, than with suprathreshold motion. These results suggest that subthreshold irrelevant signals are not subject to effective inhibitory control

「まどろみ」を巡る共時的世界- よしもとばなな作品にみる青年心理(7) -

This is the seventh in a series that interprets today\u27s adolescent psychology using the novels of Banana Yoshimoto, in this case the story Shirakawa Yofune(which means "asleep.")The interpretation is based on intuition analysis. The main character, Terako, who is constantly drowsy, is having a love affair with a young man whose wife is in a vegetative state due to a traffic accident. Terako has an intimate girl friend Shiori who, as a part part-time job, consoles customers by lying beside them. When alone, however, she kills herself. Terako and her lover, though their relation is physical, mainly console each other at hotels by lying on the bed absorbing each other\u27s minds while sleeping. Their relation, with its sterile mood, continues in this way, and seems synchronized with the wife\u27s vegetative state and also with Shiori\u27s masked sadness. This mood is evoked by its title, Shirakawa Yofune. Intuition analysis enables us to see the author\u27s psyche since the written words in the fiction reflect the author\u27s psyche. Yoshimoto\u27s set-up and plot for this story move toward a satisfying resolution for herself, as is always the case in her works. This sort of resolution is evidence of the author\u27s self-centered characteristics.In Yoshimoto\u27s case the self is a "synchronic self," and this synchronic self spreads toward others as each character\u27s synchronic self does in this story. This self-centeredness implies self-extinction, and this self-extinction leads to the world of synchronicity. We can interpret its ultimate destination as a "new self.

An Estimation of the Inside Bank Premium

This paper is an empirical examination of the existence of the inside bank premium arising from relationship banking, which is predicted in the extant theoretical models. These models predict that the contracted interest rate of a loan extended by an inside bank when there exist asymmetries between the inside bank and outside banks, such as the information advantage of the inside bank or the implicit insurance and other borrower-specific services exclusively provided by the inside bank, is higher than that without such asymmetries. Our statistical estimations are based on the dataset collected through the survey for small and medium-sized firms in Japan, which were designed to contain the questions about a firm's loan application process, and the agreed-upon loan terms that are crucial to our tests. Our estimations show that such an inside bank premium is 30-50 basis points on average for short-term loans. This is economically significant for the median short-term interest rate of 1.9 %. The subsample regressions show that this premium is more likely to come from the implicit insurance and that this premium is more significant for smaller inside banks in more competitive loan markets.

Report on a Fact-Finding Survey of the Credit-Decision System and Loan Pricing in Small Business Financing in Japan

In this paper, we report the findings from an interview survey on the system and process of lending decisions and loan pricing, as well as the information that is used in such processes. The survey targeted 19 regional financial institutions, including regional banks and cooperative institutions in Japan. We found that soft information is used in lending decisions but is rarely used directly in loan pricing, and found that each branch exercises greater discretion in loan pricing. Soft information affects loan pricing indirectly through each bank's internal credit rating process. Loan officers at a bank usually revise the financial statements submitted by client firms using soft information in order to more accurately reflect the actual conditions.

A CASE STUDY OF CAI TO A SPRINT RUNNING CLASS OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN JAPAN

INTRODUCTION: Education using computer has advanced rapidly at schools around the world. In Japanese classroom, there will be one computer for each student. Learning with the computer has spread to many subjects, however, so far, there have been few practical uses for learning with computers in the field of physical education. And also, as one of new mediums computers are gaining recognition in physical education class. The purpose of this study is to determine CAI’s validity of improving “running time “ in physical education class of Junior high school