The Perceptual Gaps Between Companies’ and University Students’ Views on Fundamental Competencies

This study examines the gap between the competencies that companies expect of university students and those that university students believe companies are seeking. We find that a gap exists between companies’ and students’ evaluations of the competencies required in the workplace. Surprisingly, companies’ and students’ priorities related to competencies are different. Our results show that both companies and students highly value versatile personal competencies as essential skills for employees. Teamwork skills are not a top priority for companies although students value them highest of the various attributes. Gaps also exist between the two groups regarding their evaluation of personality traits. These findings contribute to the development of appropriate curricula for universities and career education.     

A Statistical Analysis Between Consumer Behavior and a Social Network Service: A Case Study of Used-Car Demand Following the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011

When a large-scale disaster hits a community, especially a water-related disaster, there is a scarcity of automobiles and a sudden increase in the demand for used cars in the damaged areas. This paper conducts a case study of a recent massive natural disaster, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 to understand those car scarcities and demand in the aftermath of the catastrophe. We analyze the reasons for the increase in demand for used cars and how social media can predict people’s demand for used automobiles. In other words, this paper explores whether social media data can be used as a sensor of socio-economic recovery status in damaged areas during large-scale water-related disaster-recovery phases. For this purpose, we use social media communication as a proxy for estimating indicators of people’s activities in the real world. This study conducts both qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. For the qualitative research, we carry out semi-structured interviews with used-car dealers in the tsunami-stricken area and unveil why people in the area demanded used cars. For the quantitative analysis, we collected Facebook page communication data and used-car market data before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011. By combining and analyzing these two types of data, we find that social media communication correlates with people’s activities in the real world. Furthermore, this study suggests that different types of communication on social media have different types of correlations with people’s activities. More precisely, we find that social media communication related to people’s activities for rebuilding and for emotional support is positively correlated with the demand for used cars after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. On the other hand, communication about anxiety and information seeking correlates negatively with the demand for used cars.     

Facebook Content Strategies and Citizens’ Online Engagement: The Case of Greek Local Governments

This paper analyzes the communication strategies used by Greek local governments through the utilization of Web 2.0 technologies, specifically Facebook, and the effectiveness of these strategies in relation to citizens’ online engagement. More specifically, it examines Facebook communication strategies and levels of citizens’ engagement. For this purpose, we conducted a content analysis on the active and official Facebook pages of local municipalities in Greece from January 2017 until the end of September 2017. Our results suggest a rise in the percentage of active Facebook pages maintained by local governments in comparison to our 2014 study. Our results also show that local governments in Greece are using Facebook in a predominantly top-down manner to promote events organized by the municipality and to push one-way information to citizens about their services and actions. Local authorities have, however, made significant progress in relation to posts that support transparency and accountability and that enhance or mobilize citizens’ participation. Our evaluation of local government Facebook strategies indicates that marketing the municipality to external public, such as tourists, and providing information about services are effective strategies that drive citizens’ online attitude expression (liking), engagement (commenting), and advocacy behavior (sharing). According to our analysis, local governments in Greece prefer the strategies that we found to be the least engaging. In addition, our study provides interesting details of how specific characteristics and modes of Facebook messages (photos, videos, URLs, hashtags, and mentions) impact on citizens’ engagement. Finally, our results provide valuable insights for social media managers in local government who aim to increase the impact of their municipal Facebook pages.     

Investment Literacy and Individual Investor Biases: Survey Evidence in the Japanese Stock Market

In this paper, we analyzed the results of our survey on Japanese stock investor’s asset risk management and empirically examined the effect of their investment literacy on their decision-making biases. This paper revealed that the higher the investors’ investment literacy, the lower their overconfidence bias. This suggests that high investment literacy can prevent investors from being influenced by an overconfidence bias and consequently making biased decisions in investment. Therefore, efforts to improve investors’ investment literacy by enhancing social systems such as investment education could be beneficial in guiding investors to make unbiased investment decisions.     

The Effectiveness of Social Media for Business Activities in Japanese Firms

A large number of firms use social media for various business activities. This paper clarifies how social media has become effective to sales in Japanese firms. To this purpose, the following are addressed: (i) whether social media is useful for company activities, (ii) what kinds of business activities are affected using social media, and (iii) how social media improves the final outcomes of sales for firms. This study uses data of business activities and social media conducted in 2014. Probit analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) are employed. Probit analysis clarifies the relationships between the effects of social media and its use in sales. The SEM model clarifies the relationships among the effects of social media use in business. In the SEM, a model is examined by taking sales caused by use of social media as an explained variable, while the explanatory variables are the first and intermediate effects of social media. The results indicate that social media is effective for business activities such as promoting sales. This study may help to promote social media in Japanese firms.     

吉姆·布雷耶：创造投资Facebook神话的人

2005年,风险投资公司AccelPartners合伙人吉姆·布雷耶决定投资1270万美元给一个由辍学大学生创建的网站。7年之后,这家叫做Facebook的网站已经上市,布雷耶当年的投资换来近800倍的回报。当布雷耶现在坐在Accel的硅谷总部办公室回忆往事时,他已是全球风投最炙手可热的投资人。作为专注于电脑科技领域的风投专家,布雷耶眼光神准。     

黄劲：安博的成长逻辑

安博通过在经济发达地区建立实训基地,提升大学生职业技能,为其进入职场搭建了坚固的桥梁。这种人才培养模式,已逐渐被当地政府和企业认可,成为国内区域教育模式热点之一。     

Research Note: Analysis of the Characteristics of Victims in Information Security Incident Damages: The Case of Japanese Internet Users

In this article, the authors investigate the attributes of victims in information security incident damages for the purpose of reducing the damages. The Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan, in 2010, conducted an Internet survey targeted to Japanese Internet home users entitled, “Survey of awareness toward information security incidents” that is used in this article. Using micro data collected from this survey, they employed multinomial logit regression analysis to show factors affecting the user’s experience of the incidents of damage through particular incidents. They concluded that the overconfidence regarding information security knowledge increased the probability for phishing and spoofing.     

重点高校农村生源比例 折射教育资源分配不公

不管是在名额投放上有意无意轻农村重城市,还是招生制度让高校无从选择．客观上各佼中城市学生数量远大于农村学生应该是无可争议的现实。这也折射出教育资源分配的严重不公平、不均等。     

A Practical Teacher–Robot Collaboration Lesson Application Based on PRINTEPS

To support elementary school teachers in teaching by encouraging active learning while maintaining the interest of pupils, this study focuses on supporting teaching, learning, and monitoring the progress of students through a Teacher–Robot collaboration lesson application using not only laptops and tablets, but also robots and sensors. Since developing a lesson application is time consuming for teachers, we have developed an integrated intelligent application development platform named PRactical INTElligent aPplicationS (PRINTEPS) to aid Teacher–Robot collaboration. However, several functions and interfaces for education are missing. Therefore, in this study, we extend several functions for education to PRINTEPS. In addition, since it is necessary in learning and monitoring the progress of students to present learning content suitable to each pupil’s level of understanding, we also have provided support through the use of a tablet quiz system based on ontologies and rule bases. In the case study, we developed a Teacher–Robot collaboration lesson application and conducted lessons for sixth-grade pupils at an elementary school. From the case study, we have confirmed the effectiveness of our platform and the application.     

“投票”退学是民主与教育的双重悲剧

7月2日．网友“蝈蝈”发帖称，河南省洛阳市第12中学一位学生在同班同学全体参与的“民主投票”中被强迫退学，此帖很快引起网友关注。洛阳市教育局回应称，投票是学生发起的，对于退学，其解释称，实际情况是因为学生“不适应寄宿生活”。而被家长自愿接走。（7月5日《南方都市报》）     

从海淀文联换届选举看中国艺术的文化力量——记海淀区文学艺术界联合会第三次代表大会

在推动文化大繁荣大发展的时代背景下．海淀区文学艺术界联合会召开了第三次代表大会。会议审议通过了海淀文联工作报告．修订了《海淀区文学艺术界联合会章程》,选举产生了新一届领导机构。从一个区域的活动,我们看到了中国艺术的文化力量。     

Facebook Explore Feed: Perception and Consequences of the Experiment

The Review of Socionetwork Strategies - Facebook is the most used social network in the world. It dedicates a lot of energy and resources to developing and fine-tuning its algorithms, thus enabling...     

Subcontracting Structure and Productivity in the Japanese Software Industry

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the factors determining the productivity of the software industry in Japan, using individual data from the Survey of the State of the Information Service Industry conducted in August 2006 by IPA (Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan). This paper focuses on the relationship between the subcontracting structure and productivity in the Japanese software industry. Software enterprises are classified as prime contractors, intermediate subcontractors, end-contractors, and independent enterprise. A comparison of their productivity levels reveals that intermediate subcontractors are the least productive. However, it is observed that the intermediate subcontractors possessing a high quality of human resources measured the proportion of employees passing the Information Technology Engineers Examination (ITEE), or the intermediate subcontractors adopting the IT skill standard which defines the skills for IT human resources clearly and systematically, has a high productivity level. It can raise the productivity in software industry as a whole.     

Are Depositors Aware of the Governance of their Banks?1

In the discussion of corporate governance from the standpoint of economists, it is common for economists to pay more attention to the stockholders of a corporation (as stakeholders) than to the creditors. However, the behaviors of depositors as creditors should not be neglected in the management of banking institutions. The purpose of this paper is to analyze statistically the decision factors of depositors in opening an account at a particular bank with respect to corporate governance variables. My result shows that depositors with risk aversion consider banks well managed based on the following: a lower rate of external auditors, a longer time of service by the bank’s president, and the existence of a simultaneous promotion system of the bank’s president and chairperson.     

洋高考触动了谁的神经？

洋高考在为学生们提供了更多机会的同时,其注重学生综合能力的考试模式也打破了国内素质教育实质让位于应试教育的尴尬僵局,更引发人们对中国教育如何融入全球格局这一重大命题的深刻思考。     

Evaluation of a Multi-robot Cafe Based on Service Quality Dimensions

While AI applications are popular in many domains, they should work harmoniously with domain exerts and end users. Furthermore, to develop such harmonious AI applications, we need agile AI platforms for not only developers, but also domain experts. Currently, we have developed PRactical INTElligent aPplicationS (PRINTEPS), which is a user-centric platform to develop integrated intelligent applications. This paper reports on a multi-robot cafe as a practical application of PRINTEPS and evaluates its service quality at a university festival. It is not clear if robotic services are perceived as attractive and/or valuable, and how the concept of robotic services could lead to customer satisfaction. Therefore, the evaluation of the quality of such services is necessary to identify the key factors that could contribute to improving customer satisfaction. The purpose of this research is to identify key factors in improving customer satisfaction in robotic services by evaluating the service quality of the multi-robot cafe. We designed questionnaire items based on SERVQUAL which is one of the service quality evaluation measurement methods and conducted a questionnaire survey at a multi-robot cafe held at a university festival. From the collected data, we modeled and evaluated the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction to identify key factors in robotic services using a Bayesian network. In addition, the experiment confirms the usefulness of PRINTEPS.     

A Conjoint Analysis of Demand for the Japanese Mobile Phone Market

The Japanese mobile phone market is 55.8% of the total market in the telecommunications industry. This paper is a conjoint analysis on Japanese consumer preferences for Japanese mobile phones. The analysis in this paper is presented after a questionnaire survey was given to 3,412 Japanese mobile phone users over 15 years old. The results of this analysis show that a decline in the price of mobile phone sets, an increase in transmission speed, the application of family discounts, and the continuation of contracts with the same telecommunication companies, all raise demand for mobile networks. In addition, the author found that user groups of NTT DOCOMO, au (KDDI), Softbank, and MVNO have different utility functions. According to the estimation of Mean Willingness to Pay (MWTP) in this paper, suppliers of mobile phone networks may be able to optimize and maximize demand by adjusting attributions and their levels.     

Resolving service quality uncertainty through word-of-mouth communication

People use various information sources to resolve service quality uncertainty. This paper focuses on word-of-mouth communication among mothers. We conduct a survey of mothers with children in kindergarten to determine whether they use information from their friends on the choice of kindergartens and children’s clinics. We identify the factors that influence mothers’ word-of-mouth communication. We find that younger and wealthier mothers use information from friends more frequently for the choice of children’s clinics. We also examine whether the behavior of mothers is influenced by the communication skills of other mothers in the classroom. We do not find network externalities in mothers’ word-of-mouth communication.