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.     

Modeling the Knowledge Creation Process of Graduate Research

Graduate students who are beginning academic research want to learn how to create and verify new knowledge in their research. Their supervisors, on the other hand, are seeking appropriate research environments including effective research guidance methods. In order to meet these demands, this paper proposes a knowledge creation model that supports the objectives of both graduate students and their supervisors. This is an academic knowledge creation model for individuals supported by a group and its origin can be traced back to a famous organizational knowledge creation model. Since this type of model is constructed from empirical knowledge, it is not easy to prove its objective significance. But, this paper tries to show the effectiveness of the proposed model as an initial stage of model validation based on a questionnaire survey of students in a graduate school in China.     

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.     

Establish a creative environment for roadmapping in academy—From the perspective of <Emphasis Type="Italic">i</Emphasis>-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.     

AN AGENT—BASED SIMULATION ON MARKET CONSIDERING KNOWLEDGE TRANSITION AND SOCIAL IMPACT

In this paper, an agent-based simulation about knowledge transition associated with social impact in market is introduced. In the simulation, the genetic algorithm is used to generate the next generation products and a dynamic social impact model is used to simulate how customers are influenced by other customers. The simulation and its results not only show some features and patterns of knowledge transition, but also explore and display some phenomena of business cultures. On the basis of the innovation model of knowledge-based economy, the transition between technical knowledge and products knowledge is discussed, and a fuzzy linear quantification model which can be used to simulate the transition is introduced.     

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.