Many emerging applications such as collaborative editing, multi-player games, or fan-subbing require to form a team of experts to accomplish a task together. Existing research has investigated how to assign workers to such team-based tasks to ensure the best outcome assuming the skills of individual workers to be known. In this work, we investigate how to estimate individual worker’s skill base...

The ability to work in an effective team has been identified by employers as a key skill for students entering the work force. Furthermore, a desire for active learning by both students and faculty has also increased the use of team-based learning. However, team-based learning also has its drawbacks – notably, managing conflict among team members, reconciling differing levels of effort by stude...

The number of companies producing software has grown constantly, and it seems that we need software more and more everyday. Lately, several authors have discussed about the importance of cost efficiency and value creation in software development as well in software process and product improvement (SPI). It also seems that several companies have noticed that competition is increasing and cost-ef...

Division of Biotechnology and Macromolecular Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, N13-W8, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan Enzyme research team, Biomass engineering program, RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, 2-1, Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama 351-0198, Japan Bioplastic research team, Biomass engineering program, RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, 2-1, Hirosawa, Wako-shi,...

The proximate analysis is the most common form of coal evaluation and it reveals the quality of a coal sample. It examines four factors including the moisture, ash, volatile matter (VM), and fixed carbon (FC) within the coal sample. Every factor is determined through a distinct experimental procedure under ASTM specified conditions. These determinations are time consuming and require a signific...