Human Error Management Paying Emphasis on Decision Making and Social Intelligence -Beyond the Framework of Man-Machine Interface Design-

How latent error or violation induces a serious accident has been reviewed and a proper addressing measure of this has been proposed in the framework of decision making, emotional intelligence (EI) and social intelligence (SI) of organization and its members. It has been clarified that EI and SI play an important role in decision making. Violations frequently occur all over the world, although we definitely understand that we should not commit violations, and a secret to prevent this might exist in the enhancement of both social intelligence and reliability. The construction of social structure or system that supports organizational efforts to enhance both social intelligence and reliability would be essential. Traditional safety education emphasizes that it is possible to change attitudes or mind toward safety by means of education. In spite of this，accidents or scandals frequently occur and never decrease. These problems must be approached on the basis of the full understanding of social intelligence and limited reasonability in decision making. Social dilemma (We do not necessarily cooperate in spite of understanding its importance, and we sometimes make decision not to select cooperative behavior. Non-cooperation gives rise to a desirable result for an individual. However, if all take non-cooperative actions, undesirable results are finally induced to all.) must be solved in some ways and the transition from relief (closed) society to global (reliability) society must be realized as a whole. New social system, where cooperative relation can be easily and reliably obtained, must be constructed to support such an approach and prevent violation-based accidents

Development of the evaluation system for automobile remanufacturing

By 2015, the EU directives required the automobile manufacturers to produce a vehicle that contains reusable and / or recoverable parts at least 95% of total weight. In the developed countries, the legislative issue the take – back policy which requires the manufacturers to consider the end – of – life (EOL) of their products at early design stage. The goal of this paper is to propose a framework of development methodology that focuses on integrated design for remanufacturing evaluation system. This system supports the automobile product design and development at the early design phase. The proposed method is divided into two phases. The first phase aims to identify the suitable EOL process. The second phase aims to verify the most economical EOL process. The proposed method incorporates the Case base Reasoning [CBR] into the remanufacturing techniques. It is expected that the proposed method can provide the EOL with decision support during designing the automobile parts at the early design stage

Implications for Risk Taking Behavior Leading to Crashes or Disasters-Effects of Perceived Risk on Risk Taking Decision

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the outcome in a risk averse sure option and the perceived risk of the worst outcome on risk taking behaviors and to get insights into prevention of disasters or crashes caused by risk taking. Because of cognitive biases to optimistically underestimate a risk, it is generally difficult to recognize rationally a risk and its consequence leading to a disaster or crash. Therefore, the recognition of the gap between the perceive risk and the real risk is a very important issue, because such a gap might cause risk taking behaviors or decisions, leading to a disaster or crash. Using three decision-making situations with different scenarios, we measured the perceived risk at which the decision changed from a risk averse alternative to a risk taking one as a function of the outcome in a sure risk averse alternative and the frame (positive or negative frame in a scenario of decision making). The perceived risk at which the decision shifted from a risk averse alternative to a risk taking one decreased with the increase of the outcome in a risk averse alternative. The perceived risk was lower when the decision-making scenario was positively framed. Irrespective of the difference of decision-making scenarios, there existed a self-reported risk (probability) that changed a decision from a risk averse alternative to a risk taking one. Applying the framework of decision making of this study to a few cases of crashes or disasters, some implications for preventing disasters or crashes were given

Prevention of drowsy driving by means of warning sound

Traffic accidents occur due to inattentive driving such as drowsy driving. A variety of support systems that make an attempt to prevent inattentive driving are under development. The development of a system to prevent drowsy driving using auditory or tactile alarm system is undertaken. It is essential to detect the low arousal state and warn drivers of such a state so that drowsy can be prevented. EEG (Electroencephalography) was used to evaluate how an arousal level degraded with time for eight participants under a low arousal level. Mean power frequency (MPF) was calculated to evaluate an arousal level. The value of MPF was compared between high and low arousal levels. The difference of arousal effect among four warning sounds was examined. As a result, there was no significant difference of arousal effect among four alarm sounds. The alarm sound was found to temporarily heighten participants' arousal level

A PERISHABLE INVENTORY MODEL WITH UNKNOWN TIME HORIZON

Traditionally, the time (planning) horizon over which the inventory for a particular item will be controlled is often assumed to be known (finite or infinite) and the total inventory cost is usually obtained by summing up the cost over the entire time horizon. However, in some inventory situations the period over which the inventory will be controlled are difficult to predict with certainty, as the inventory problems may not live up to or live beyond the assumed planning horizon, thereby affecting the optimality of the model. This paper presents a deterministic perishable inventory model for items with linear trend in demand and constant deterioration when time horizon is unknown, unspecified or unbounded. The heuristic model obtains replenishment policy by determining the ordering schedule to minimize the total cost per unit time over the duration of each schedule. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis are given to illustrate the model

Evaluation of Drowsiness by HRV Measures - Basic Study for Drowsy Driver Detection -

The aim of this study was to identify a useful measure to estimate an arousal level of drivers, to apply the result to develop ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) that can warn drivers of their low arousal state and to prevent driving under low arousal level from occurring and contribute to the reduction of traffic accidents. The EEG (electroencephalography) and ECG(electrocardiography) during a monotonous task was measured, and it was investigated how these measures change under the low arousal (drowsy) state. The time series of mean power frequency of EEG was plotted on X-bar control chart. Heart rate variability (HRV) measures RRV3 and RRV8-3 were derived on the basis of R-R intervals (interbeat intervals) obtained from ECG. Under the low arousal state (drowsy state), the mean power frequency tended to be lower than central line (CL) and range between CL and lower control limit (LCL). In accordance with this, RRV3 and RRV8-3 tended to increase under the low arousal (drowsy) state, which means that the parasympathetic nervous system became dominant under drowsy states

Effectiveness of Instruction using Electronic Circuit Simulation Software

Traditional teaching (lecturing) method on the design of electronic circuit provides learners with little satisfaction, because they cannot check and confirm the validity of electronic circuit they have designed. A better way to acquire design skills is to actually make the designed electronic circuit and test the validity of design. In spite of the usefulness of such a practical approach, it has a disadvantage that there is only limited time for teaching (lecturing) and it is difficult to fabricate electronic circuit, perform electronic measurement, and test the validity of design in the limited lecture period. An alternative to overcome these disadvantages is to use simulation software that enables learners (students) to operate functionally the designed electronic circuit and verify the appropriateness of design. The aim of this study was to examine the usefulness of simulation approach and clarify some problems related to such an approach

Web Design that is Friendly to Older Adults – Effects of Perceptual, Cognitive and Motor Functions and Display Information on Web Navigation Time –

Older internet users are increasing more and more world widely. The information accessibility standard for Web contents (JIS X 8341-3) had been established. Although many researchers are pursuing the usability of Web site, we cannot design a usable Web site only by improving Web pages. One of the reasons is inferred that we didn’t consider perceptual, cognitive, and motor functions especially of older adults in the design of Web pages. The aim of this study was to propose a method to evaluate perceptual, cognitive, and motor ability and to explore the effect of perceptual, cognitive and motor abilities, and display information on Web navigation. We proposed a method to calculate display information on the basis of number of links. It was explored how display information, age, and the test score of perceptual, cognitive, and motor abilities influenced Web navigation time. This effect was examined using a multiple regression analysis. Display information influenced Web navigation performance for both young and older adults. The more the quantity of display information was, the longer the Web navigation time was. In addition to this tendency, the depth of display layer was found to affect the Web navigation time especially for older adults. We found that the perceptual, cognitive, and motor abilities of older adults, in particular, the spatial memory, spatial rotation ability, and mouse operation ability, led to longer Web navigation time. These results implies the necessity of designing Web site for older adults that considers the decline of perceptual, cognitive, and motor ability

The Development of the Computer Aided Remanufacturing System (CARES) Part I: Software Development (Phase I) and a Simulation Study

The environment bills that passed by the legislators triggered a new dimension towards the manufacturers to consider producing eco – friendly product. This paper presents the developed software of the remanufacturing evaluation system so-called "Computer – Aided Remanufacturing Evaluation System (CARES)". The software is developed by integrating an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with case based reasoning (AHP – CBR) approach. The result of the simulation study showed that the maximum similarity between the input case and the retrieve case is 80%. The evaluation system recommended that mirror cover, mirror base and mirror holder should be remanufactured

A Proposal for Town Development in Aged Society

According to the Aged day commemorative report issued in September of 2007 from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the population of over sixty five years old attained the historical record high of 27.44 million or 21.5% of total population. On the other hand, the many of shopping malls with large parking have been located in suburbs with expanding of suburban residential area and the effect of motorization. In addition, the growth of remote shopping such as internet and catalog one, helps accelerate the decline of old shopping malls. However, these malls give the only one life-line to the elder and disabled population. In this paper, we discuss on the way of maintaining this life-line for elder and disabled one from the study of questionnaire surveys for visitors of two shopping mall in Wakamatsu-ward and Tobata-ward, Kitakyushu, the gate way city to Kitakyushu in Fukuoka Prefecture. Some of methodology is proposed to facilitate revitalization of local areas as the result of this study