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This paper proposes a model for detecting unexpected examination scores based on past scores, current daily efforts and trend in the current score of individual students. The detection is performed soon after the current examination is completed, which helps take immediate action to improve the ability of students before the commencement of daily assessments during the next semester.

The scores of past examinations and current daily assessments are analyzed using a combination of an ANOVA, a principal component analysis and a multiple regression analysis. A case study is conducted using the assessment scores of secondary-level students of an international school in Japan.

The score for the current examination is predicted based on past scores, current daily efforts and trend in the current score. A lower control limit for detecting unexpected scores is derived based on the predicted score. The actual score, which is below the lower control limit, is recognized as an unexpected score. This case study verifies the effectiveness of the combinatorial usage of data in detecting unexpected scores.

Unlike previous studies that utilize attribute and background data to predict student scores, this study utilizes a combination of past examination scores, current daily efforts for related subjects and trend in the current score.

This study aims to build on the well-documented case of the Olympus scandal to dissect how social networks and corporate culture enabled corporate elites to commit fraud across multiple generations of leaders.

A flexible pattern matching approach was used to identify matches and mismatches between behavioural theory in corporate governance and the patterns observed in data from diverse sources.

The study applies the behavioural theory of corporate governance from different perspectives. Social networks and relationships were essential for the execution of the fraud and keeping it secret. The group of corporate elites actively created opportunities for committing misappropriation. This research presents individuals committing embezzlement because the opportunity already exists, and they can enrich themselves. The group of insiders who committed the fraud elaborated the rationalizations to others and asked outside associates to help rationalise the activities, while usually individuals provide rationalizations to themselves only.

The social processes among actors described in this case can inform the design of mechanisms to detect these behaviours in similar contexts.

This study provides both perspectives on the fraud scandal: the one of the whistle-blowers, and the opposing side of the transgressors and their associates. The extant case studies on Olympus presented the timeframe of the scandal right after the exposure. The current study dissects the events during the fraud execution and presents the case in a neutral or a negative light.

This study investigates the relationship between foreign ownership, earnings quality and overinvestment in Japanese zombie firms.

The study makes use of data from Japanese firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange from 2009 to 2019. The study employs logistic and multinomial logistic models to test whether the overinvestment behavior of zombie firms is mitigated by foreign shareholdings and earnings quality.

The results show that (1) zombie firms tend to overinvest; (2) an increase in foreign ownership mitigates the overinvestment of zombie firms and (3) the mitigation of zombie firms' overinvestment by foreign ownership is stronger with higher earnings quality.

This study extends the discussion of earnings quality and investment efficiency to the zombie firm setting. Previous studies in accounting suggest that high earnings quality enhances firms' investment efficiency. The findings suggest that both a change in ownership structure and high-quality accounting information are necessary to mitigate the inefficiency of zombie firms.

The availability of daily assessment data in a centralized monitoring system at school provides the opportunity to detect unusual scores soon after the assessment is carried out. This paper introduces a model for the detection of unusual scores of individual students to immediately improve performances that deviate from a normal state.

A student's ability, a subject's difficulty level, a student's specific ability in a subject, and the difficulty level of an assessment in a subject are selected as factor effects of a linear ANOVA model. Through analysis of variance, a case study is conducted based on 330 data points of assessment scores of primary grade students retrieved from an international school in Japan.

The actual score is below the lower control limit, which is recognized as an unusual score, and the score can be detected immediately after sitting for an assessment and is beneficial for students to take immediate remedies based on daily assessment. This is demonstrated through a case study.

The detection of unusual scores based on a linear model of individual students soon after each assessment benefits from immediate remedy aligns with a daily management concept. The daily assessment data in a school system enable detection based on individual students, subject-wise and assessment-wise to improve student performances in the same academic year.

Comparative education research in Japan is strongly oriented toward emphasizing fieldwork, unlike Western methodologies that aim for theorization. For this reason, it is sometimes regarded as peripheral research without a theorizing orientation or as a counterstrategy to Western research. This study examines why Japanese comparative education research emphasizes fieldwork, focusing on discussions at the Japanese Society of Comparative Education from the 1990s to the present, and considers whether the discussion far from aimed at theorizing. It can be said that Japanese comparative educational research, while characterized by a field-oriented orientation, has been trying to analyze the subject with sincerity through more in-depth fieldwork and is aware of the back and forth between theorizing and differentiation. Furthermore, recently, an international, agenda-based approach and the concept of transboundary fieldwork based on triangulation and Border Studies as a new way of looking at the field itself have also emerged. Therefore, it can be said that Japanese comparative educational research, while characterized by a field-oriented orientation, is increasingly aiming for a multilayered and relative analysis of the field, which is an argument autonomously derived from a focus on the field rather than being a strategy or a challenge to Western universalization-oriented methodologies.

This study explored whether the creation of an illustrated picturebook could explain the terms and practicalities of participatory, multi-method qualitative research to children aged four to eight years and their parents/carers, creating conditions to seek agreement to their participation, by using an age-appropriate design whilst adhering to ethical guidelines. The purpose of this paper is to explore how this was done addressing these issues.

Drawing on the researcher's previous professional experience working in children's publishing and taking an innovative and collaborative approach to giving information to child and parent/carer co-researchers, the researcher and an illustrator created a picturebook both as an eBook and a paperback book to recruit and explain research and co-researchers’ roles to young children and their parents/carers.

The picturebook successfully recruited 30 children and their parents/carers. Other children expressed their wish not to participate. These findings suggest that greater consideration should be given to the ways information is given to potential research participants, particularly the visual, material and paratextual elements of the information sheets and consent forms routinely used in research.

This paper offers insight into the publishing practicalities of creating innovative ways of giving information about research participation to children and parents/carers and how these ways might foster rich data collection.

This paper aims to develop a framework for critical information infrastructure (CII) protection in smart government, an alternative measure for common cybersecurity frameworks such as NIST Cybersecurity Framework and ISO 27001. Smart government is defined as the government administration sector of CII due to its similarity as a core of smart technology.

To ensure the validity of the data, the research methodology used in this paper follows the predicting malfunctions in socio-technical systems (PreMiSTS) approach, a variation of the socio-technical system (STS) approach specifically designed to predict potential issues in the STS. In this study, PreMiSTS was enriched with observation and systematic literature review as its main data collection method, thematic analysis and validation by experts using fuzzy Delphi method (FDM).

The proposed CII protection framework comprises several dimensions: objectives, interdependency, functions, risk management, resources and governance. For all those dimensions, there are 20 elements and 41 variables.

This framework can be an alternative guideline for CII protection in smart government, particularly in government administration services.

The author uses PreMiSTS, a socio-technical approach combined with thematic analysis and FDM, to design a security framework for CII protection. This combination was designed as a mixed-method approach to improve the likelihood of success in an IT project.

This study aims to compare the humanitarian supply chains and logistics of two countries in earthquake preparedness by modifying and using a previously established preparedness evaluation framework.

A European flood emergency management system (FEMS) is a seven-dimensional framework to assess a country’s preparedness for flood emergencies. The FEMS framework was modified to apply to earthquakes. Leveraging a multiple explanatory case study approach with data analysis, the authors reconstructed the events of the earthquakes in Pakistan (2005) and Japan (2011) with an applied grading (1–5). Findings were evaluated within the adopted FEMS framework. From a practitioner’s perspective, the framework is applicable and can accelerate support in the field.

Pakistan lacked emergency plans before the 2005 earthquake. In contrast, Japan possessed emergency plans before the disaster, helping minimise casualties. Overall, Japan demonstrated considerably better emergency management effectiveness. However, both countries significantly lacked the distribution of responsibilities among actors.

Practical factors in the humanitarian supply chain are well understood. However, synthesising individual factors into a comprehensive framework is difficult, which the study solves by applying and adopting the FEMS framework to earthquakes. The developed framework allows practitioners a structured baseline for prioritising measures in the field. Furthermore, this study exemplifies the usefulness of cross-hazard research within emergency management and preparedness in a real-world scenario.

The purpose of this paper is to create a numerical technique to tackle the challenge of selecting software reliability growth models (SRGMs).

A real-time case study with five SRGMs tested against a set of four selection indexes were utilised to show the functionality of TOPSIS approach. As a result of the current research, rating of the different SRGMs is generated based on their comparative closeness.

An innovative approach has been developed to generate the current SRGMs selection under TOPSIS environment by blending the entropy technique and the distance-based approach.

In any multi-criteria decision-making process, ambiguity is a crucial issue. To deal with the uncertain environment of decision-making, various devices and methodologies have been explained. Pythagorean fuzzy sets (PFSs) are perhaps the most contemporary device for dealing with ambiguity. This article addresses novel tangent distance-entropy measures under PFSs. Additionally, numerical illustration is utilized to ascertain the strength and authenticity of the suggested measures.

This chapter describes the business goals, purpose, and strategy of public defense and military services. It reinforces defense and military organizations’ fundamental bureaucratic administrative culture (Tier 1). The authors describe the influence that political appointees as leaders may play in shaping public sector cultures. The bureaucratic culture of diplomacy is deconstructed, and each of the five layers is described in detail. Additionally, the authors explain why focusing on the beliefs layer is the dominant layer and the essential starting point for analysis in military cultures. The public service culture (Tier 2) is a mediating and grounding culture for the military. It is firmly grounded in the foundational values of the state. The chapter outlines the landscape of external influencing cultures (Tier 3) in the defense and military landscape. Finally, the potential value and challenges of developing internal knowledge, learning, and collaboration (KLC) cultures are explored.