International Journal of Service and Knowledge Management

Gender Differences in the Effects of Online Visual and Audio Combinations on Credibility

Kayoko Yashiro — 2024-03-10

Since the Covid-19 pandemic occurred, salespeople using online tools have been facing difficulties conveying credibility to their customers, which is considered essential for business. This study focused on the combination of visual and audio cues, not individual cues, and evaluated salesperson credibility from a gender difference perspective. Each male and female salesperson gave a business presentation using Zoom with eight patterns of visual and audio combinations: three kinds of still images as visual (Name only /Profile photo with no expression/Profile photo with a smile) x two kinds of voices as audio (Dull/Bright) and two kinds of videos (with no facial expression and dull voice/ with facial expressions and bright voice), and his /her credibility was evaluated by participants from a customer perspective. As a result, it suggests that the female salesperson decreases her credibility significantly using the “Name” & dull voice” combination, and that visual cues are significant factors in conveying credibility. In the case of the male salesperson, it suggests that any visual images with a bright voice mostly increase his credibility and that audio cues are significant factors. The findings from this study indicate the potential for further improving salesperson credibility in online communication by gender.

Countermeasure Portfolio Management of Silent Cyber Risks for Suitable Return of Investment

Shigeaki Tanimoto — 2024-03-15

In recent years, with the continuing development of the Internet of Things (IoT), various devices are now connected a huge number of networks and are being used for diverse pur-poses. The IoT has the potential to link cyber risks to actual property damage, as cyberspace risks are connected to physical space. With this increase in unknown cyber risks, the demand for cyber insurance is increasing. One of the most serious emerging risks is the silent cyber risk, and it is only likely to increase in the future. However, at present, security countermeas-ures against silent cyber risks are insufficient. In this paper, we propose a countermeasure portfolio management of silent cyber risk for organizations with the objective of contributing to the development of risk management methods against new cyber risks. Specifically, we modeled silent cyber risk by focusing on state transitions to different risks. We newly defined two types of silent cyber risk, Alteration risk and Combination risk, and conducted a risk assessment that identified 23 risk factors. After analyzing them, we found that all were clas-sified as Risk Transference. We clarified that the most effective risk countermeasure for Al-teration risk was insurance and for Combination risk was countermeasures to reduce the im-pact of the risk factors themselves. Our evaluation showed that the silent cyber risk could be reduced by about 50%, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed countermeas-ures. We also investigated the risk assessment results of silent cyber risk from the operational perspective. Specifically, we applied portfolio management based on the return on invest-ment of risk countermeasures for silent cyber risks and found that proactive countermeasures tended to have higher priority.

Chronology and Geospace Design in Virtual Reality for Archaeological Data Exhibition

Vincenzo Lombardo — 2024-05-20

The digital information that is collected during an archaeological investigation concerns all of its phases: the recording of the excavation process, the archaeological and the archaeometric analyses of the stratigraphic units and the findings, the interpretation of the results and their dissemination. All the digital materials can be displayed for a wide audience in a museum context as well as support further investigations by the researchers. This is especially applicable for 3D surveys of excavations (trenches and site surroundings) and
the findings, which require some suitable applications for their display. Though there exist many digital archaeological projects and archaeological data abound in repositories, each display is a unique endeavor.
This paper describes the VR system developed for the BeArchaeo project. It specifically addresses the design metaphor, based on chronology and geospace, two major dimensions in archaeology. The novelty of the system is its ability to exploit such dimensions in order to support ongoing archaeological projects, providing access to both researchers and the general public. The goal of the digitally born BeArchaeo project is a thorough archaeological and archaeometric investigation of the Kofun period in Japan, also including materials
related to adjacent chronological periods. The VR system described here, called BeA-ViR, is a virtual exhibition of the ongoing project findings, deployed for both a screen-gamepad installation as well as a CAVE platform, with abstract and physical structures that concur to provide access to heterogenous materials. It also includes the realization of a central informative infrastructure that relies on a semantic database for the metadata description.

Modeling Historical Landscape and Architectures Utilizing Open Data for Enhanced Sightseeing Experience

Nao Okada — 2024-05-20

In this paper, we explore an application of digital twin technologies to the field of digital heritage preservation, focusing on the historical city of Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan.
Leveraging open data and freely available software, we considered a methodology for the digital reconstruction of historical landscapes and architectural features, employing historical GIS data, 3D modeling, and virtual reality techniques. We applied our methodology to constructing a virtual representation of Aizu-Wakamatsu in the past time, with a specific attention to Tsuriga-jo, the latter being a famous castle in the North-Eastern Japan. These reconstructions enhance the cultural and educational experience of visitors, but also contribute to the broader goals of heritage conservation. We discuss the potential of virtual tours to offer enriched, immersive, and interactive narratives of the past. Our study underscores the importance of preserving cultural heritage through digital technology and demonstrates the potential of digital twins in understanding and experiencing historical landscapes. The methodology and findings of this paper contribute to the emerging field of digital humanities and offer a scalable framework for future research in digital heritage preservation and virtual tourism.

Social Impact Simulation Including Social Capital, Based on Current Status of Multi-Agent Simulation

Tomoichi Ebata — 2024-06-10

In recent years, there has been growing interest in social impact bonds (SIB), one of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investments. However, the motivation for SIB investments has not been so high because the purposes of SIBs are difficult to evaluate. In particular, social capital (SC), one of the factors for SIB evaluation, is trust and a network of human relationships. Still, it is an invisible resource and is not easy to calculate. This paper proposes a "social impact simulation (SIS)" that makes SC visible and enables quantitative evaluation of SIBs. We survey the trends and status of multi-agent simulations over the past 30 years, examine the implementation of new agent modeling and behavior required for SIS, and discuss methods that enable the analysis and prediction of complex social impacts. In addition, we introduce the social impact simulator for a case and report on how to make the simulator effective for social impact visualization.