Integrating Smart Glasses with Question-Answering Module in Assistant Work Environment

Recently, smart glasses have been applied in the field of maintenance, with which a worker goes well during work by contacting a support operator from a remote location. The worker, however, cannot go well if the support operator is not there. To solve the issues, this paper discusses how a work system should be developed by integrating smart glasses with a question-answering module. We design the work knowledge acquired from skilled people and manuals as a workflow for when type of question, rule base for how, goal tree for why, domain ontologies, and its RDF data for what. Workers can receive answers from the question-answering module incorporated with multiple knowledge bases for four types of question. The authors conducted a demonstration experiment and found that workers could perform the work more autonomously by importing the system.     

The effect of match quality and specific experience on career decisions and wage growth

This paper constructs and estimates a career decision model where individuals search for both careers and firms that are a good match for their idiosyncratic skills using the NLSY79. It departs from previous papers in that career mobility decisions and participation decisions are explicitly modeled. I find substantial returns to career-specific experience. However, college graduates' wage grows little through career-match upgrading, which results in a lower incidence of career changes than high school graduates. The finding suggests that college graduates learn about their suitable careers before they enter a labor market.     

Implementing partial tax harmonization in an asymmetric tax competition game with repeated interaction

This paper investigates the conditions under which partial harmonization for capital taxation is sustained in a repeated interactions model of tax competition when there are three countries with heterogenous capital endowments. We show that regardless of the structure of the coalition (i.e., full or partial tax coordination), whether partial tax harmonization is sustainable or not crucially depends on the extent to which the capital endowment of the medium‐sized country is similar to that of the large or small country. The most noteworthy finding is that the closer the capital endowment of the median country is to the average one, the less likely the tax harmonization including the median country is to prevail and the more likely the partial tax harmonization excluding the median country is to prevail. We also show that partial tax harmonization makes the member countries of the tax union better off and non‐member countries worse off, which stands in sharpe contrast with previous studies, such as Konrad and Schjelderup (1999) and Bucovetsky (2009).     

Unifying Rule Induction and Rule Refinement—Towards Discovering Anomaly from Granville's Law in a Stock Market Technical Analysis

This paper discusses a framework for refining an initial object-level rule base with a rule induction to learn meta-level rules which find a data set applicable to an object-level rule. A rule induction process such as ID3 tries to learn meta-level rules and classifies given training data sets into positive data sets and negative ones. The rule refinement process tries to refine an initial object-level rule base on classified data sets by using four refinement strategies. Unifying these two processes, one can obtain a refined object-level rule base with high performance where a meta-level rule selects a data set applicable to it. In order to evaluate the framework, an experiment on real Japanese stock price data shows that a refined object-level rule base, which comes from the initial object-level rule base for representing Granville's Law, has a performance beyond that of the average stock price. The performance is difficult for human technical analysts in a stock market to achieve. The result implies that the framework could create an anomaly from Granville's Law in a stock market technical analysis.     

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.     

Intangible Asset Valuation Model Using Panel Data

In this paper, we design a valuation model for intangible assets using panel data, and empirically investigate the model validity. The approach using panel data is an evaluation method that uses unobserved firm-specific effects based on panel analysis. Our model first estimates production function using panel analysis, and then develops cost function using a duality approach. Next, we discount added value and costs resulting from intangible assets using fixed effects. Empirical analysis using the model compares the estimated parameter values in the nonlinear profit function consisting of production function and cost function with those in the production function alone, which becomes linear after logarithmic conversion, and finds that the two are generally similar. Additionally, the market value of equity is more closely associated with both the book value of equity and the value of intangible assets than with the book value of equity alone. These results support the validity of the model for evaluating intangible assets. This model is easy to apply in practice and is based on a simple idea. Further discussion of this model is warranted given the increasing importance attached to the value of intangible assets.     

Discounting,Distribution and Disaggregation: Discount Rates for the Rich and the Poor with Climate as a Source of Utility

To consider the implications of disaggregated consumption and discounting in the context of climate change, we study discounting in a world composed of the rich and the poor; a standard setting in the literature of cost–benefit analysis with distributional considerations. We derive several discount rates for different numéraires, which allow us to discuss intergenerational and intragenerational equity in common terms. In the example of CES‐CRRA utility, we also show that disaggregated discount rates may vary owing to several factors. One important parameter, inequality aversion, can be determined in the weighting of intergenerational and intragenerational concerns.     

Technological Constraints,Firm Heterogeneity,and Location Choice of Multinational Enterprises

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the location choices of multinational enterprises and their productivity considering the North–South differences in regard to technological constraints. We find that home firms with the highest level of productivity choose to undertake foreign direct investment (FDI) in the developed countries and they choose to export to, rather than do FDI in, developing countries. This result explains why not many high tech industries exist in developing countries. Using Japanese firm level data, we also confirm that Japanese high tech firms tend to undertake FDI in developed countries, but hesitate to invest in developing countries empirically.     

Who explores further? Evidence on R&D outsourcing from the survey of research and development

Building off the resource‐based view and the knowledge‐based view, our study aims to examine determinants of firms’ R&D outsourcing, using annually‐conducted firm‐level survey data of Japanese R&D companies from 1984–2012. This survey allows us to measure strategic R&D outsourcing, isolated from those more for cost‐reducing, such as prototyping, testing and inspecting. The results corroborate the argument of complementarity in scale between internal R&D and R&D outsourcing. We also find that firms employing more doctorate holders and diversifying in knowledge spaces tend to make more use of R&D outsourcing. This study sheds light on firms’ absorptive capacity, associated both with higher‐order R&D human capital and diversified knowledge spaces, as determinants of R&D outsourcing.