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The paper illustrates a system for man‐machine interaction in quasi‐natural language. The scope of the interaction is in the description of the sequence of tasks to be executed by an industrial robot for the assembly of mechanical systems.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the implication of Japanese government venture capital (VC) policies for future research and to provide basis for policymakers and practitioners.

This is an academic literature review of available peer-reviewed publications on government VC policies. This paper discusses and analyses the current state and issues of the Japanese government VC policies regarding three research questions: What do Japanese government VCs do? Do they contribute to their portfolios? and Do they contribute to the development of VC market?

There are mainly two findings in this paper: It is effective to establish a complementary relationship with private VCs for Japanese government VCs to contribute to their portfolios; Japanese government should simultaneously continue to make and review policies for the VC market, the stock market, the entrepreneur sector and the environment surrounding them by its strategic long-term commitment to contribute to the development of VC market and new technology-based firms in Japan.

As there are only a few studies on recently strengthened Japanese government VC policies, this paper provides an in-depth discussion on these Japanese VC policies, which can be used for future research and as a valuable resource for policymakers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an intuitionistic fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) multi-criteria decision making method for the selection of start-up businesses in a government venture capital (GVC) scheme. Most GVC funded start-ups fail or underperform compared to those funded by private VCs due to a number of reasons including lack of transparency and unfairness in the selection process. By its design, the proposed method is able to increase transparency and reduce the influence of bias in GVC start-up selection processes. The proposed method also models uncertainty in the selection criteria using fuzzy set theory that mirrors the natural human decision-making process.

The proposed method first presents a set of criteria relevant to the selection of early stage but high-potential start-ups in a GVC financing scheme. These criteria are then analyzed using the TOPSIS method in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment. The intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging Operator is used to aggregate ratings of decision makers. A numerical example of how the proposed method could be used in GVC start-up candidate selection in a highly competitive GVC scheme is provided.

The methodology adopted increases fairness and transparency in the selection of start-up businesses for fund support in a government-run VC scheme. The criteria set proposed is ideal for selecting start-up businesses in a government controlled VC scheme. The decision-making framework demonstrates how uncertainty in the selection criteria are efficiently modelled with the TOPSIS method.

As GVC schemes increase around the world, and concerns about failure and underperformance of GVC funded start-ups increase, the proposed method could help bring formalism and ensure the selection of start-ups with high potential for success.

The framework designs relevant sets of criteria for a selection problem, demonstrates the use of extended TOPSIS method in intuitionistic fuzzy sets and apply the proposed method in an area that has not been considered before. Additionally, it demonstrates how intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS could be carried out in a real decision-making application setting.

The study compares the impacts of mixed syndication venture capital (VC) investment and private VC (PVC) investment on the transitional performance indicators of intangible assets, fixed assets, liabilities and number of employees in Estonia. It also examines the impact of mixed syndication on investees' sales and profit.

This study conducted panel data regression analyses based on the dataset consists of yearly data from 2006 to 2015 for more than 187,000 unlisted firms in Estonia.

Results showed that mixed syndication had a significant positive effect on the number of employees of investees but not on investees' sales and profit. PVC investment had a significant positive effect on investee sales but not on the transitional performance indicators of investees.

The study has two unique research contributions. First, it investigates the impact of syndicated investment on investees' transitional performance indicators in addition to performance indicators. Second, it focuses on Estonia, an emerging country that has somewhat achieved success in fostering information and communications technology startups and is one of the earliest emerging countries to implement a mixed syndication VC investment policy.

This paper aims to investigate German bank-affiliated venture capitalists’ investment practices and the emergence of their investment logics. Most studies focus on the investment behaviour of independent venture capitalists and little is known about dependent venture capitalists’ investment behaviour. The present study contributes to filling this gap in entrepreneurial finance literature.

The paper uses an exploratory qualitative research approach based on 27 semi-structured interviews with the top management of German bank-affiliated venture capitalists and industry experts to develop a conceptual model that explains the investment logics of bank-affiliated venture capitalists. A large amount of archival data has also been collected and used for the analysis.

The results indicate that bank-affiliated venture capitalists either follow an autonomous, contingent or hybrid investment logic. A bank-affiliated venture capitalist’s isomorphic focus – whether they feel isomorphic to the external venture capital environment or the internal parent bank’s environment – explains the emergence of multiple investment logics.

The paper encourages banks to get a better understanding of how the venture capital industry works and what they need to do to compete again independent venture capitalists. Banks and their affiliated venture capital units can improve their deal flows by recognising that they need to get accepted as an on-par investor in the venture capital environment.

The current study is the first of its kind investigating multiple investment logics by focussing on the link between different isomorphic habits and the specific context of bank-affiliated venture capitalists.

This chapter presents a mediation model that aims to disentangle the indirect from the direct effects of retirement on health, considering the mediating role of lifestyles. The model is applied to the risk of depression, and physical inactivity is assumed to potentially mediate the effect of retirement. The results indicate that there is a significant indirect effect via the mediator, albeit relatively small in comparison to the direct effect. The analysis highlights the importance of further exploring the influence of lifestyle factors in the relationship between retirement and health, in order to gain a better understanding of the potential pathways through which retirement impacts health.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some considerations about the problem of Natural Language Understanding with respect to the particular semantic domain of Robotics. The goal that makes realistic this research direction is the programming of a robot in Natural Language. A system called DONAU (Domain Oriented NAtural Language Understanding system) written in LISP and in MICROPLANNER has been developed on the UNIVAC 1108 computer of the MP‐AI Project, and experimental results have been obtained. This system represents an advanced contribution in the domain of Robotics and it is also a base for developing a more general Natural Language Understanding System.

This paper addresses the phenomenon of venture capital firms which are also family businesses (VCFBs). The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand the phenomenon of VCFB by answering the following questions: What are the features of professionalization in VCFBs? And, how do professionalization and types of family businesses explain the strategies and governance of VCFBs?

As an explorative case study, it maps the Swedish venture capital (VC) industry and compares two VCFBs and their business investments with regard to strategy and governance.

By suggesting two major configurations, the study explains how family business development and levels of professionalization relate to differences in VCFBs’ strategies, which in turn, affect their governance. The personal VCFB features active owners who personally take responsibility roles and strongly focus on customers and relationships. The administrative VCFB strongly focuses on predetermined financial metrics, high ethical awareness among board members, and ongoing interplay between the active family board members and minority shareholders.

The study was conducted in Sweden and concerns Swedish VCFBs. The paper contributes to the literature by combining the two currently separate research streams, i.e. family business and VC, highlighting the importance and consequences of family ownership in VC businesses.

The present study provides stock market investors and stock analysts with a deeper understanding of VCFBs’ strategy incentives. By identifying the kind of VCFB and its relation to strategy, more reasonable assessments and analyses of the VCFBs’ actions will be possible. Family firms willing to accept VC-finance should consider the type of VC and the potential consequences of family ownership.

This study is the first to classify VC firms as family businesses. Moreover, it shows the features of professionalization in VCFBs by suggesting a set of configurations.

Supplier evaluation and selection is an essential (multi-criteria decision-making) MCDM process that considers qualitative and quantitative factors. This research work attempts to use a MCDM technique based on merging fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (F-TOPSIS) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) ideas. The study attempts to find the supplier's attributes (HOWs) to accomplish its goals after determining the product's characteristics to suit the company's needs (WHATs).

The proposed research methodology comprises the following four steps: Step 1: Determine the product purchase requirements (“WHATs”) and those pertinent to supplier evaluation (“HOWs”). In Step 2, the relative importance of the “WHAT-HOW” correlation scores is determined and also the resulting weights of “HOWs”. In Step 3, linguistic evaluations of possible suppliers in comparison to subjective criteria are given to the decision-makers. Step 4 combines the QFD and F-TOPSIS techniques to select suppliers.

A fuzzy MCDM method based on fusing and integrating fuzzy information and QFD is presented to solve the drawbacks of conventional decision-making strategies used in supplier selection. Using the F-TOPSIS method, fuzzy positive ideal solution (FPIS) and fuzzy negative ideal solution (FNIS), the relative closeness coefficient values for all alternatives are computed. The suppliers are ranked by relating the closeness of coefficient values. This method permits the combination of ambiguous and subjective data expressed as fuzzy-defined integers or linguistic variables.

QFD and TOPSIS, two widely used approaches, are combined in this article to rank and evaluate suppliers based on the traits that the suppliers choose to prioritize. This study demonstrates that the method employed could address multiple-criteria decision-making scenarios in a computationally efficient manner. The effectiveness and applicability of the method are illustrated using an example.

This study aims to revise the weights in the interrelationship matrix of the house of quality.

After determining customer requirements (CRs) and product design characteristics (PDCs), a house of quality (HoQ) has been developed and the interrelationships between CRs and PDCs have been determined and classified using the Kano model. The PDCs have been prioritized based on the classic HoQ and the revised HoQ. Finally the results have been compared and discussed. The television design of Entekhab Industrial Group, the largest producer of home appliance products in Iran has been selected as a case study.

Results indicated different sets of priorities derived from the two approaches. Particularly, the difference between the revised HoQ and the classic approach was due to the nonlinear relationship between CRs and PDCs.

This study was performed merely on a single product of a company, and the case study results cannot be generalized to all of the home appliance industries.

Developing the application of the Kano model in computing and revising the weights of the cells in the interrelationship matrix of HoQ is the main contribution of this paper.