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Article
Publication date: 22 November 2011

Shusuke Okamoto and Masaki Kohana

The purpose of this paper is to propose a load distribution technique for a web server. It utilizes Web Workers, which is a new feature of Javascript.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a load distribution technique for a web server. It utilizes Web Workers, which is a new feature of Javascript.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors have been implementing a web‐based MORPG as an interactive, real‐time web application; previously, the web server alone was responsible for manipulating the behavior of all the game characters. As more users logged in, the workload on the server was increased. Hence, the authors have implemented a technique whereby the CPU load of the server is distributed among the clients.

Findings

The authors found that some caching mechanism is useful for utilizing client‐side calculation. The caching suppresses the increase of communication load. A performance evaluation reveals that the technique plays a role in decreasing the CGI latency of both low‐end server and high‐end server. The average latency is reduced to 59.5 percent of the original system.

Originality/value

Web Workers allows scripts to be executed with keeping the page response on a web browser. It is intended to be used for raising user experience. This technique utilizes Web Workers for a web server to distribute the load to its clients.

Details

International Journal of Web Information Systems, vol. 7 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1744-0084

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 June 2017

Wayne Gordon Macpherson and James C. Lockhart

For the past three decades, the dominant economic policy environment across the Anglosphere has assumed that industrial performance results from increasing national…

Abstract

Purpose

For the past three decades, the dominant economic policy environment across the Anglosphere has assumed that industrial performance results from increasing national competitiveness. The US Government and others have extensively used the tools of deregulation that emerged from the influential frameworks of Michael Porter and the Chicago School. That both the contributing analysis and attendant policy environment largely neglected the very source of national disadvantage, mostly Japanese industry in the 1970s and 1980s, remains surprising. What was going on in Japan at the time, and to some extent continues today, remains largely hidden. The aim of this paper is to expose one source of Japan’s influential competitive advantage – the human resource.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper, through the translation of a Japanese-language paper by Professor Emeritus Masaki Saruta, introduces the Japanese phenomenon of managed education in Aichi Prefecture, home of the Toyota Motor Corporation, and provides insight into the lifestyles of the Japanese workers who live and work in corporate castle towns that feed Toyota. Inductive content analysis was used to identify four themes that can be identified as the strategies used to produce a homogenous pool of labor that sustains the Toyota Way philosophy and Toyota Production System.

Findings

The content analysis identified four major themes: Toyota’s abnormal level of influence over local government, a unique education system of education management, a closed labor market and the homogeneity of labor. It is only now that business leaders in the Anglosphere are able to comprehend the vastness and depth of inculcation and nurturing policies of Toyota and other Japanese industrial giants – something business leaders in the Anglosphere today can only dream. It now becomes evident that Chandler’s visible hand remains alive and well, but critical drivers of its success in Japan and Toyota were largely invisible to the West.

Research limitations/implications

The research required the knowledge of one of Saruta’s works that is only published in Japanese, and therefore, inaccessible to researchers in the Anglosphere. The translation process and development of themes is reported in detail. The findings are then located in the broad context of national competitive advantage.

Practical implications

With the insight presented in this paper, business and government leaders may now be empowered to implement policies and practices to nurture a pool of labor more conducive with the organizational strategic policy. While leaders in the Anglosphere are able to implement policy, there also remains a new threat to economic sovereignty – the nurturing of human resources in the dormitories, refectories and shopping malls of industrial China.

Social implications

The development of a company-focused workforce to support corporate castle towns, one of the sources of national advantage, has been identified in this paper. The social implications are twofold. First, in Japan, the nature and influence of these towns are accepted and heralded by the community. Second, outside of Japan, and especially across the Anglosphere, these towns are a major source of competitive advantage.

Originality/value

Through the translation of original research published in the Japanese-language medium, this research provides otherwise inaccessible insight into the inner workings and effectively the “black box” of what was Japan Inc. in an era when business people in the West were playing catchup. As the debate on globalization extends to sovereignty across the Anglosphere, it is beholden on the academic community to provide effective solutions for industrial competitiveness.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. 23 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1982

Hiroko Shiramizu

A survey of Japan's new religions (1) shows “ancestor worship” (2) to have played an important part in various religious bodies (3), as a means for attaining happiness for the…

Abstract

A survey of Japan's new religions (1) shows “ancestor worship” (2) to have played an important part in various religious bodies (3), as a means for attaining happiness for the living. Generally speaking, new religions advocate that the adequate veneration of ancestors leads them to enter a “blissful state”, as a result of which they can bring happiness to their living descendants (4). At the same time, the new religions also teach that lack of proper consolation for ancestors results in misfortune for the living (5). This tendency to put importance on ancestor worship is a particular feature of the Reiyu‐kai group of new religions which denotes those religious bodies which were established by schism within Reiyu‐kai (lit. the Spirit Friends' Society) and by the subsequent re‐splitting of those bodies (6) which resulted. The parent organization, Reiyu‐kai, is a large‐scale new religion of lay Nichiren origin (7), which was founded by Kakutaro Kubo and Kimi Kotani in 1925, and its doctrine of memorial rites for ancestors, concentrating on the combination of ancestor worship and faith as found in the Lotus Sutra, draws upon that of the Bussho Gonen movement founded by Toshizo Nishida (8).

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 2 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Book part
Publication date: 4 July 2016

Anthony R. Hatch, Marik Xavier-Brier, Brandon Attell and Eryn Viscarra

This chapter uses Goffman’s concept of total institutions in a comparative case study approach to explore the role of psychotropic drugs in the process of…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter uses Goffman’s concept of total institutions in a comparative case study approach to explore the role of psychotropic drugs in the process of transinstitutionalization.

Methodology/approach

This chapter interprets psychotropic drug use across four institutionalized contexts in the United States: the active-duty U.S. military, nursing homes and long-term care facilities, state and federal prisons, and the child welfare system.

Findings

This chapter documents a major unintended consequence of transinstitutionalization – the questionable distribution of psychotropics among vulnerable populations. The patterns of psychotropic use we synthesize suggest that total institutions are engaging in ethically and medically questionable practices and that psychotropics are being used to serve the bureaucratic imperatives for social control in the era of transinstitutionalization.

Practical implications

Psychotropic prescribing practices require close surveillance and increased scrutiny in institutional settings in the United States. The flows of mentally ill people through a vast network of total institutions raises questions about the wisdom and unintended consequences of psychotropic distribution to vulnerable populations, despite health policy makers’ efforts regulating their distribution. Medical sociologists must examine trans-institutional power arrangements that converge around the mental health of vulnerable groups.

Originality/value

This is the first synthesis and interpretive review of psychotropic use patterns across institutional systems in the United States. This chapter will be of value to medical sociologists, mental health professionals and administrators, pharmacologists, health system pharmacists, and sociological theorists.

Details

50 Years After Deinstitutionalization: Mental Illness in Contemporary Communities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-403-4

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Inside Major East Asian Library Collections in North America, Volume 1
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-234-8

Abstract

Details

Inside Major East Asian Library Collections in North America, Volume 1
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-234-8

Book part
Publication date: 9 December 2016

Theodosios Sapounidis, Ioannis Stamelos and Stavros Demetriadis

This chapter examines the existing work on tangible user interfaces (TUIs) and focuses on tangible programming with the scope to enlighten the opportunities for innovation and…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter examines the existing work on tangible user interfaces (TUIs) and focuses on tangible programming with the scope to enlighten the opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship in this particular domain.

Methodology/approach

In the first section, we start by presenting in short the history of TUIs and then focus on tangible programming presenting the different design approaches. Then we present the opportunities for innovation and guidelines for future products.

In the second section, we review the entrepreneurial activities that combine educational toys and TUIs.

Findings

The main finding of this chapter is that although TUI design and research are still in its infancy and more design guidelines and research are required to further bridge the digital and the physical world, the first signs of entrepreneurship promise a bright future.

Research limitations

Limitations arise from the fact that many companies keep many of their financial data confidential. Thus, it was impossible to include and validate all the information that we intended to present.

Practical implications

Initially, this chapter motivates and challenges scientist to find novel innovative solutions in the field. Then, reveals the entrepreneurial opportunities and potential customers. Finally, shows the funding sources and how tangible products are offered in the market.

Social implications

We propose a new kind of toys that might alter and expand science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in education.

Originality/value

This chapter appears to be unique in the sense that is the first that reports simultaneously on TUIs, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

Details

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-068-8

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 26 November 2019

Napoleon Kurantin and Bertha Z. Osei-Hwedie

In recent years, the global economy has undergone major transformations involving the liberalization of markets for traditional goods, services, and capital flows. This has led to…

Abstract

In recent years, the global economy has undergone major transformations involving the liberalization of markets for traditional goods, services, and capital flows. This has led to the emergence of a world financial market underpinned by digital platforms, innovative and the rapid growth of integrated digital platforms, integration, investment, economic growth, development, and the potential for poverty reduction, especially, in the Global South and, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of this chapter is to investigate the increasing accessibility and relationship between digital (e-economy) financial integration and poverty alleviation since the era of structural adjustment programs in sub-Sahara Africa with Ghana as a case study. The emphasis is on the New Digital Economy (NDE) relative to new sources of data from mobile and ubiquitous Internet connectivity. The processes of digitalization and financial sector integration and inclusion become increasingly contestable, decomposable, and reconfigurable, and the capacity to innovate will be a key success factor in policies geared toward poverty alleviation. The multiple linear regression model and its estimation using ordinary least squares (OLS) is doubtless the most widely used tool in econometrics. It helps to estimate the relation between a dependent variable and a set of explanatory variables. An OLS model for macro data set relative to a regression model is applied to provide the empirical estimations of the increasing accessibility and the relationship between digital financial integration, investment, economic growth, development, and poverty alleviation.

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1989

Brian Parsons

‘Making our mark worldwide’ is the corporate aim of a small, high technology firm based on the outskirts of Cambridge, UK. In its brief, 10 year history the company, Domino…

Abstract

‘Making our mark worldwide’ is the corporate aim of a small, high technology firm based on the outskirts of Cambridge, UK. In its brief, 10 year history the company, Domino Printing Sciences PLC, has acquired an enviable track record of new product development, growth and success the world over in supplying industrial ink‐jet printing systems. It has sustained a growth rate in excess of 30% per annum, and along the way picked up the Queen's Award for Technology in 1985 and for Exports in 1987.

Details

The TQM Magazine, vol. 1 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0954-478X

Book part
Publication date: 12 June 2020

Masaki Hosomi, Tomoki Sekiguchi and Fabian Jintae Froese

While mentoring plays an important role in Japanese working places, formal mentoring programs have only recently been introduced. This chapter provides an overview of the…

Abstract

While mentoring plays an important role in Japanese working places, formal mentoring programs have only recently been introduced. This chapter provides an overview of the development of mentoring in Japan and presents a conceptual model to comprehend mentoring in Japan and beyond. The chapter begins with the illustration of how the characteristics of Japanese organizations and Japanese-style human resource management (HRM) promoted the naturally occurring informal mentoring in the Japanese workplace in early years. In response to the stagnating economy and declining demographics during the last few decades, many Japanese firms adopted Western-style HRM practices, including formal mentoring programs. We provide statistical data to demonstrate the widespread adoption of formal mentoring programs in recent years. We then report the results of the systematic review of the academic literature on mentoring in Japan, suggesting that research on mentoring in Japan is still in the early stage. Based on the historical overview, current data and the systematic review of the academic literature, we develop a conceptual model of how the socio-cultural and economic context as well as organizational characteristics influence the adoption of Japanese-style naturally occurring informal mentoring and/or Western-style formal mentoring practices. We conclude this chapter with practical and theoretical implications.

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