Musashi University

About: Musashi University is a education organization based out in Tokyo, Japan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supply chain & Frugivore. The organization has 125 authors who have published 328 publications receiving 3844 citations.

Regional Impacts of Energy Conservation Policies

Abstract: This chapter assesses the impact of applying critical peak pricing (CPP), in-home displays (IHDs), and home energy reports (HERs) to consumers living in the Kansai region based on the empirical results of field experiments presented in the previous chapters. For CPP, households with standard and all-electric contracts in the Kansai region are assumed to have paid peak prices ranging from 65 to 105 U.S. cents/kWh (1 U.S. dollar = 100 yen) for 16 days in summer 2013 and 21 days in winter 2013/2014. On these days, these households are assumed to use IHDs once a day. The combination of CPP and IHDs would have reduced residential electricity usage during the peak period by approximately 15.0 % in summer 2013 and 19.7 % in winter 2013/2014. Overall, the effects of CPP together with IHD usage on the peak electricity demand (kilowatt) would be far larger than the effects of the government’s call for a voluntary reduction. HERs are expected to reduce residential electricity consumption, thus, by applying HERs that include a peer comparison of electricity usage and personalized conservation tips to households contracting all-electric in the Kansai region in June 2013, a household would have saved 4.9–8.3 %. The cost effectiveness of HERs, which is defined as the implementation costs of HERs per electricity saving, would have been far larger in the region than that in the United States.

The “Transfer of skill” and the “Transfer of human relations” to machines

Abstract: The necessity and opportunity for face-to-face contact with other colleagues is being increasingly reduced as a result of factory automation (FA) or office automation (OA). This means that human functions which are a result of human contact and relationships are substituted for by the function of machine systems. This “transfer of relations” from the human “system” to the machine system causes isolation of the individual in the process of work. This chapter considers some reasons for “isolation” with particular reference to the computerisation of production systems. The paper addresses the serious consequences for the environmental situation in Japan and the fabric of Japanese society.

Mixing washington consensus with beijing consensus and corruption in africa

Abstract: In theory, trade intensity should positively affect the quality of domestic institutions and governance; the higher the economic openness, the lower the corruption. In practice, however, the growth of economic openness has not been accompanied by the expected improvements in corruption for 34 African countries between 1990 and 2009. This paper presents a plausible explanation for this conundrum. Results from panel data regression analyses indicate that a switch from trading with the Advanced Economies to trading with China increases the perceived corruption level. For instance, in a “representative” African country, a 10% point substitution from trading with the Advanced Economies to trading with China makes its ICRG corruption score decline—indicating increased corruption—by 29%.

Method for Assessing the Applicability of AI Service Systems.

Abstract: In this study, we consider the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to enterprise functions and evaluate the viability of the AI service system. To assess applicability, we introduced conditions by modeling the business task and the AI service system by using the Enterprise Architecture approach. Through investigation, we confirmed that the proposed conditions were appropriate to the target business domain to ensure that the AI service system is relevant.