Intra-cultural and Inter-cultural Contact Orientation of International Students in Japan: Uncertainty Management by Cultural Identification

The lack of exchange between international students and host nationals in Japan has long been a pressing issue, yet very little progress has been made to rectify this situation. This study examined this issue by focusing on how international students in Japan perceive intercultural contact with their host and home culture members during their sojourn. The study applied a qualitative approach based on grounded theory, collecting data through semi-structured interviews with 41 international students from China, the UK, and the USA, and tenets of Social Identity Theory and Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory were adopted. We analyzed the data on a framework of how international students manage uncertainty in the Japanese environment by identifying with the host and their own home cultures, which we distinguished as inter-cultural or intra-cultural contact orientation. International students demonstrated an intra-cultural rather than inter-cultural contact orientation due to the host nationals reacting to them as “foreigners.”

Fuzzy Logic Theory and Applications in Uncertainty Management of Linguistic Evaluations for Students

Fuzzy logic can deal with information arising from perception and cognition that is uncertain, imprecise, vague, partially true, or without sharp boundaries. Fuzzy logic can be used for assigning linguistic grades and for decision making and data mining with those linguistic grades by teachers, instructors, and professors. Many aspects of fuzzy logic including fuzzy sets, linguistic variables, fuzzy rules, fuzzy math, fuzzy database queries, computational theory of perceptions, and computing with words are useful in uncertainty management of linguistic evaluations for students. This chapter provides many examples of this after describing the theory of fuzzy logic.

Akomodasi Komunikasi Aparatur Sipil Negara Magang di Perusahaan Manufaktur

Magang merupakan salah satu upaya Kementerian Perindustrian (Kemenperin) untuk mendorong pegawainya mampu mencermati berbagai dinamika kondisi aktual dan melakukan berbagai penyesuaian untuk melakukan langkah-langkah proaktif dalam mendukung industri nasional. Perbedaan budaya pada kedua jenis instansi dapat menjadi hambatan yang menimbulkan ketidakpastian dan kecemasan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui akomodasi komunikasi yang dilakukan oleh peserta magang dan hambatan-hambatan yang dialami dalam proses akomodasi komunikasi tersebut. Studi ini menggunakan Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) yang merujuk pada empat tahapan model Giles dan Anxiety Uncertainty Management (AUM). Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah kualitatif interpretif dengan metode studi kasus, dan teknik pengumpulan data dengan wawancara mendalam. Penelitian menemukan bahwa peserta magang melakukan akomodasi kovergensi, divergensi, dan sedikit akomodasi berlebihan untuk dapat menyesuaikan komunikasi dengan pegawai PT X. Akomodasi komunikasi bertujuan untuk proses penyesuaian antarbudaya agar terbentuk saling pengertian di antara individu yang terlibat, tercipta perasaan nyaman, menurunkan hambatan komunikasi, dan mereduksi ketidakpastian dalam berinteraksi untuk mencapai komunikasi yang efektif. Internships are one of the efforts of the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) to encourage employees to observe various dynamics of actual conditions and make multiple adjustments to take proactive steps to support the national industry. Cultural differences in the two types of institutions can be obstacles that cause uncertainty and anxiety. This study aims to determine the communication accommodation made by interns and the barriers experienced in the communication accommodation process. This study employed Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) which refers to the four stages of the Giles model and Anxiety Uncertainty Management (AUM). It used is a qualitative interpretive approach with a case study method and data collection techniques with in-depth interviews. The study found that the interns accommodated convergence, divergence, and a little excessive accommodation to adjust their communication style to PT X employees. Communication accommodation aims at the intercultural adjustment process to form a mutual understanding between the individuals involved, create a feeling of comfort, lower communication barriers, and reduce uncertainty in interacting to achieve effective communication.

On the Dynamic Cumulative Past Quantile Entropy Ordering

In many society and natural science fields, some stochastic orders have been established in the literature to compare the variability of two random variables. For a stochastic order, if an individual (or a unit) has some property, sometimes we need to infer that the population (or a system) also has the same property. Then, we say this order has closed property. Reversely, we say this order has reversed closure. This kind of symmetry or anti-symmetry is constructive to uncertainty management. In this paper, we obtain a quantile version of DCPE, termed as the dynamic cumulative past quantile entropy (DCPQE). On the basis of the DCPQE function, we introduce two new nonparametric classes of life distributions and a new stochastic order, the dynamic cumulative past quantile entropy (DCPQE) order. Some characterization results of the new order are investigated, some closure and reversed closure properties of the DCPQE order are obtained. As applications of one of the main results, we also deal with the preservation of the DCPQE order in several stochastic models.

Uncertainty in Unit Commitment in Power Systems: A Review of Models, Methods, and Applications

The unit commitment problem (UCP) is one of the key and fundamental concerns in the operation, monitoring, and control of power systems. Uncertainty management in a UCP has been of great interest to both operators and researchers. The uncertainties that are considered in a UCP can be classified as technical (outages, forecast errors, and plugin electric vehicle (PEV) penetration), economic (electricity prices), and “epidemics, pandemics, and disasters” (techno-socio-economic). Various methods have been developed to model the uncertainties of these parameters, such as stochastic programming, probabilistic methods, chance-constrained programming (CCP), robust optimization, risk-based optimization, the hierarchical scheduling strategy, and information gap decision theory. This paper reviews methods of uncertainty management, parameter modeling, simulation tools, and test systems.