SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY AND MATHEMATICAL MODELS FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

This paper first introduces a new discipline knowledge science and the role of systems science in its development. Then, after the discussion on current trend in systems science, the paper proposes a new systems methodology for knowledge management and creation. Finally, the paper discusses mathematical modeling techniques to represent and manage human knowledge that is essentially vague and context-dependent.

COMPLEX ECO-ECONOMY SYSTEM

In the past there were a lot of researches on the topic of economic growth. Nevertheless, the environment has been a bit abstracted by standard economics. Scarce natural resources and our choices to protect them or exploit them jointly determine the economic and environmental systems. In this paper we describe a model with a particular focus on the relationship among income, pollution, and non-renewable resources. We want to combine both economic and environmental sectors. The system dynamics approach is used in analyzing these complex relationships. This paper gives an insight into the possibilities for replacing non-renewable resources with more renewable ones. Next, we present the simulation runs of the model that are conducted with the help of existing system dynamics modeling tools. Only the relationships simulated so far between the variables ought to be put under yet more cautious examination.

KNOWLEDGE SCIENCES AND NANATSUDAKI： A NEW MODEL OF KNOWLEDGE CREATION PROCESSES

The paper starts from a discussion of the concepts of knowledge management versus technology management, and the emergence of knowledge sciences. This is followed be a summary of recent results in the theory of knowledge creation. Most of them concern diverse spirals of creative interplay between rational （explicit） and intuitive or emotional （tacit） aspects of knowledge. Some of them concentrate on organizational （market or purpose-oriented） knowledge creation, other describe academic （research-oriented） knowledge creation. The problem addressed in this paper is how to integrate diverse spirals of knowledge creation into a prescriptive or exemplar model that would help to overcome the differences between organizational （market-oriented） and normal academic knowledge creation. As such prescriptive approach, the JAIST Nanatsudaki Model of knowledge creation is proposed. It consists of seven spirals, known from other studies, but integrated in a sequence resulting from the experience of authors in practical management of research activities. Not all of these spirals have to be fully utilized, depending on a particular application, but all of them relate to some essential aspects of either academic or organizational knowledge creation. The paper presents Nanatsudaki Model in detail with comments on consecutive spirals. The results of a survey of opinions about creativity conditions at JAIST indicate the importance of many spirals constituting the Nanatsudaki Model. Directions of further testing the Nanatsudaki Model are indicated.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MULTIMEDIA PRINCIPLE AND EMERGENCE PRINCIPLE FOR THE KNOWLEDGE CIVILISATION AGE

The paper discusses two basic principles derived from results of studies concerning foundations of micro-theories of knowledge creation; these are Multimedia Principle and Emergence Principle. Their epistemic, systemic and metaphysical importance is discussed, together with their relations to the episteme of technology treated as a separate cultural sphere. A spiral of evolutionary knowledge creation is presented, in which an extended Falsification Principle plays the role of an objectifying feedback; this spiral is related to an episteme of Evolutionary Constructive Objectivism proposed earlier for the coming knowledge civilisation age.

KNOWLEDGE-SCIENTIFIC EVALUATION OF COMMUNITY SERVICE SYSTEMS

This paper proposes a knowledge-scientific approach to evaluation of community service systems from the viewpoints of knowledge creation, consciousness reform, and value co-creation. A concrete example of the commtmity service system treated here is an education program for old men to find their reason for living after the retirement. After introducing this program and the traditional evaluation methods for such a program, the paper emphasizes the necessity of developing new evaluation methods for such a community service system based on knowledge science. The paper proposes a new evaluation framework and reports an actual evaluation result using the interview data from participants in that program.

A PROPORTIONAL 3-TUPLE FUZZY LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATION MODEL FOR SCREENING NEW PRODUCT PROJECTS

It is critically important for companies to screen new product projects before they are launched to the market. So far, many approaches have been developed for tackling the process of screening product innovations. Due to uncertain, vague and incomplete information as well as dynamically complex process regarding to new product development （NPD）, a fuzzy linguistic approach employed linguistic assessments and the fuzzy-set-based computation is reasonable for screening new products. However, such a fuzzy linguistic approach faces with various defects and limitations, such as loss of information, failing in considering the aspects related to human nature on uncertain subjective judgments etc. These defects and limitations lead to a dilemma, i.e., it＇s very difficult to screen new product projects reasonably and precisely. In this paper, we propose a notion of proportional 3-tuple to represent a linguistic assessment and related ignoring information, and a preference-preserving proportional 3-tuple transformation for the unification of linguistic assessments represented by proportional 3-tuples between two different linguistic term sets. On this basis, a proportional 3-tuple fuzzy linguistic representation model for screening new product projects is developed. It is shown that the proposed model is flexible to handle uncertain, vague and incomplete information related to screening new product projects. It not only allows evaluators to express their subjective judgments with different confidence levels, but is also able to deal with incomplete linguistic assessments. Ultimately, the proposed model also improves the precision and reasonability of the screening result.

CONSTRUCTING AN ACCESS SYSTEM FOR UNBANKED IN MYANMAR TO A MICROFINANCE INSTITUTION

In Myanmar, the formal financial institution does not provide uncollateralized credits. The rural unbanked under the poverty line is depending on the informal money-lenders with high interest rate. Private Agency Collaboration Together is only one microfinance institution providing the credits without collateral and with low interest rate to the unbanked in Myanmar. Half of the unbanked are unable to borrow the loans from the microfinance institution because of the weakness of the information contribution and the strict legal policies of the microfinance institution. Therefore, the objective of this study is to construct a system to improve the relationship between the microfinance institution and the unbanked by reducing the obstacles in the current system ofmicrofinance institution. The legal policy is studied from the vision of the local unbanked as the originality of this research and the /-System methodology is applied to accomplish the research. The current system comprises the information contribution, loans and legal policies. The current system is only one relationship between the microfinance institution and unbanked. When the ten obstacles occurred in the current system, the unbanked cannot approach to the microfinance institution. An access system including four sub-systems is developed depending on the collected ideas to solve these obstacles and intend to improve the relationship between microfinance institution and the unbanked.

PRODUCTS RECOMMENDATIONS USING EMOTIONAL INFORMATION

Kutani-ware is a famous traditional craft which is so significant not only from the economic perspective, but also from the cultural viewpoint. It had a prosperous time in the last decades; however it has been shrinking recently due to the changes of lifestyle or the appearance of more functional products. Compared with the function, the brand image and style of products have become much more important in purchasing; ＂moreover, technology is no longer the sole driving force in the development of products. As the spread of marketing appealing to consumers＇ emotion, many methods treating human＇s feeling have been developed and applied in many fields. Since human＇s emotion has both linear and non-linear characteristics, and it is changing by every moment, a method which fits better is essential. This paper develops a new evaluation model by comparing statistical, fuzzy and pseudo-fuzzy approaches based-on an emotional evaluation database to find a better approach for recommendation of products.

Fusing Systems Thinking with Knowledge Management

This paper introduces the background and purpose of the International Society for Knowledge and Systems Sciences and considers new developments in systems science in the knowledge society.First,in connection with the reason why the name of the society includes knowledge and systems,this paper argues that it is important to support each other for the development of both systems science and knowledge science.Next,this paper introduces three approaches that have tried to combine systems thinking and knowledge management in this academic society.They are Knowledge Systems Engineering,Informed Systems Approach,and Knowledge Construction Systems Methodology.This paper suggests new developments in systems science and engineering that incorporate the concept of knowledge management through explanations of these significances.

KNOWLEDGE SYNTHESIS IN TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

This paper introduces a knowledge construction model called the i-System for knowledge integration and creation and its relation to the new concept of the Creative Space. The five ontological elements of the i-System are Intelligence, Involvement, Imagination, Intervention, and Integration corresponding to five diverse dimensions of the Creative Space. The paper discusses the meanings and functions of these dimensions in knowledge integration and creation, and presents applications of the i-System to technology roadmapping and archiving.

CONNECTING INFORMAL NETWORKS TO MANAGEMENT OF TACIT KNOWLEDGE

The relationship between tacit knowledge and informal networks has not been fully explored. Tacit knowledge cannot be well managed directly, because it is deeply embedded in individual actions and experiences. This study proposes an approach to managing informal networks as a new middle way to facilitate the sharing and transferring of tacit knowledge, owing to the fact that tacit knowledge is mostly shared and transferred through informal networks. To support the idea of the approach, an empirical case study of applying the approach to management of a large scientific project is also included. Our findings suggest that informal networks play essential roles for management of tacit knowledge, and thus good management of informal networks can lead to efficient sharing and transferring of tacit knowledge.

DESIGN OF A SOFTWARE AGENT FOR BUSINESS GAMING SIMULATION

This paper introduces a software agent as a virtual player of the business game called Bakery Game. The business game is a tool to understand business and management principles through experience in a virtual world. In order to construct software agents for the gaming simulation, which is able to participate in a game and become human players' worthy rival, we combine a simple model that considers the property of Bakery Game with a strategy adjustment model. The agent has so-called strategy parameters that are updated through the experience. The agent changes his strategy depending on particular situation. The agent participates in the game that is regenerated from log data in various situations.

ESTABLISH A CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR ROADMAPPING IN ACADEMY—FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF I-SYSTEM METHODOLOGY

Roadmapping, originated from industry as a strategic planning tool, is attracting increasing applications in academy. Based on the recognition that roadmapping is a knowledge creation process, this paper analyzes what kind of support is needed or helpful for establishing a creative environment for roadmapping in academy and reviews various types of such support from the perspective of i-system methodology. As case studies of such support, this paper further introduces roadmapping pratices in Janpan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Creating Promotion Stories with Knowledge Management Reinforced by Systems Thinking

This paper proposes a systematic approach to creating stories to promote research or business projects and examines its effectiveness through an actual story-making project.This approach can be used to create promotion stories for,not just projects,but also products or services.It originates in a knowledge construction systems methodology,which is a general knowledge-building methodology that systematically supports knowledge construction from validated objective knowledge,information spreading to society,and people's vivid inspiration.The effectiveness of the proposed approach was verified through a story creation project at a national institute in Thailand.Participants in the project,which lasted three months,and executives of the institute,were happy with the completed promotion stories.Because new ideas for promoting research or projects are often less universal,this paper provides justification principles for judging the practicability of new ideas as well as an evaluation method by people's sensibility.These were used to evaluate the created stories and confirmed to be effective.

A CLUSTERING ALGORITHM FOR MIXED NUMERIC AND CATEGORICAL DATA

Most of the earlier work on clustering mainly focused on numeric data whoseinherent geometric properties can be exploited to naturally define distance functions between datapoints. However, data mining applications frequently involve many datasets that also consists ofmixed numeric and categorical attributes. In this paper we present a clustering algorithm which isbased on the k-means algorithm. The algorithm clusters objects with numeric and categoricalattributes in a way similar to k-means. The object similarity measure is derived from both numericand categorical attributes. When applied to numeric data, the algorithm is identical to the k-means.The main result of this paper is to provide a method to update the 'cluster centers' of clusteringobjects described by mixed numeric and categorical attributes in the clustering process to minimizethe clustering cost function. The clustering performance of the algorithm is demonstrated with thetwo well known data sets, namely credit approval and abalone databases.

KNOWLEDGE RECONSTRUCTION AND JUSTIFICATION FOR REGIONAL VITALIZATION

This paper considers the regional vitalization problem and discusses the methodology to create regional vitalization plans, which include activating the local economy, enriching people＇s lives, and activating the feelings of people, by new initiatives. Activily underlying the methodology is the experience of implementing several actual projects with the local residents, and theory underlying the methodology is the knowledge construction and justification theory based on knowledge management and systems thinking. Introducing an actual vitalization project as an illustrative example, the paper proposes a knowledge reconstruction and justification procedure for regional vitalization.

ELECTRONIC SUPPORT FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION IN A RESEARCH INSTITUTE

This paper focuses on the question how to build an electronic support environment for knowledge creation in a research institute （JAIST）. In order to assess the importance of diverse conditions of scientific creativity, we performed a survey in JAIST, and extracted useful knowledge from the database of survey results. Following the analysis of the theory of academic processes of knowledge creation and the survey findings in JAIST, a computer-based integrated system is proposed. In the aspect of the system design, we postulate that an electronic support environment for academic creativity can be achieved through a seamless integration with Internet, Application Server, Middle Ware, Database and Data Warehouse. The paper addresses issues of knowledge representation in the Electronic Support System for academic research, testing and evaluation issues and conclusions.

AGENT-BASED SIMULATION FOR KANSEI ENGINEERING： TESTING A FUZZY LINEAR QUANTIFICATION METHOD IN AN ARTIFICIAL WORLD

This paper argues that agent-based simulation can be used as a way for testing Kansei Engineering methods which deal with the human reaction from sensory to mental state, that is, sensitivity, sense, sensibility, feeling, esthetics, emotion affection and intuition. A new fuzzy linear quantification method is tested in an artificial world by agent-based modeling and simulations, and the performance of the fuzzy linear method is compared with that of a genetic algorithm. The simulations can expand people＇s imagination and enhance people＇s intuition that the new fuzzy linear quantification method is effective.