Communicating Global Activism

Many observers doubt the capacity of digital media to change the political game. The rise of a transnational activism that is aimed beyond states and directly at corporations, trade and development regimes offers a fruitful area for understanding how communication practices can help create a new politics. The Internet is implicated in the new global activism far beyond merely reducing the costs of communication, or transcending the geographical and temporal barriers associated with other communication media. Various uses of the Internet and digital media facilitate the loosely structured networks, the weak identity ties, and the patterns of issue and demonstration organizing that define a new global protest politics. Analysis of various cases shows how digital network configurations can facilitate: permanent campaigns; the growth of broad networks despite relatively weak social identity and ideology ties; transformation of individual member organizations and whole networks; and the capacity to communicate messages from desktops to television screens. The same qualities that make these communication-based politics durable also make them vulnerable to problems of control, decision-making and collective identity.     

To be or not to be valid in testing the significance of the slope in simple quantitative linear models with autocorrelated errors

In this article, the validity of procedures for testing the significance of the slope in quantitative linear models with one explanatory variable and first-order autoregressive [AR(1)] errors is analyzed in a Monte Carlo study conducted in the time domain. Two cases are considered for the regressor: fixed and trended versus random and AR(1). In addition to the classical t -test using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimator of the slope and its standard error, we consider seven t -tests with n-2\,\hbox{df} built on the Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimator or an estimated GLS estimator, three variants of the classical t -test with different variances of the OLS estimator, two asymptotic tests built on the Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimator, the F -test for fixed effects based on the Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML) estimator in the mixed-model approach, two t -tests with n - 2 df based on first differences (FD) and first-difference ratios (FDR), and four modified t -tests using various corrections of the number of degrees of freedom. The FDR t -test, the REML F -test and the modified t -test using Dutilleul's effective sample size are the most valid among the testing procedures that do not assume the complete knowledge of the covariance matrix of the errors. However, modified t -tests are not applicable and the FDR t -test suffers from a lack of power when the regressor is fixed and trended ( i.e. , FDR is the same as FD in this case when observations are equally spaced), whereas the REML algorithm fails to converge at small sample sizes. The classical t -test is valid when the regressor is fixed and trended and autocorrelation among errors is predominantly negative, and when the regressor is random and AR(1), like the errors, and autocorrelation is moderately negative or positive. We discuss the results graphically, in terms of the circularity condition defined in repeated measures ANOVA and of the effective sample size used in correlation analysis with autocorrelated sample data. An example with environmental data is presented.     

An evaluation of product commonality and group technology production methods in a pre-defined multiple-machine scenario

Group technology has been used successfully for a number of years as a setup reduction tool. It is especially valuable in low-volume high-mix manufacturing environments where products and machines may be partitioned into product families and machine cells. The partitioning of machines or processes into cells may be limited by practical constraints, and the partitioning of products is complicated as the number of products and processes increases. In this paper, the authors examine the behaviour of various grouping strategies lauded as being appropriate in situations where machine partitioning and product routeing are determined by technological constraints. Of specific experimental concern in this paper is the effect of the mean and variance of component part commonality between products on system performance under various grouping strategies in a multiple-machine environment.     

Manufacturing management strategies for environmental protection: Toward the environmental upgrading of management and manufacturing systems to cope with environmental laws

Recent environmental problems have been caused by business activities and a lifestyle based on mass production, mass consumption and mass disposal. These problems have also become global in scale. Increasingly, global efforts are being applied to preserve and improve the environment. NEC, a worldwide electronics manufacturer, created its own environment action plan called Eco-Action 21. This is a continuously evolving plan applied throughout the NEC group and subsidiaries. Globally, 34 NEC manufacturing sites have received ISO 14001 certification. NEC Tohoku in Japan and NEC Ireland obtained BS 7750 certification even before this. NEC improves subcontractors' environmental behaviour with our accumulated expertize and technology derived from our ISO experience and our own development. Input for this paper was not only from NEC Tohoku and the NEC group, but also from outside NEC.     

Engendering Global Democracy

The inadequacies of hegemonic liberal democratic ideas and institutions have been exposed by feminist theorists focusing on the marginalisation of women and by global theorists examining the impact of globalisation. These theorists have developed two distinct sets of reconstructive strategies that, until very recently, have remained in ignorance of each other. Further, both feminist and global democratic schemes have been dogged by problems in terms of their theorisation of power, politics, agency and change. Recent feminist arguments about citizenship and governance go some way to bringing together concerns about gender inequality and globalisation, but they remain centred on states and the states-system as vehicles for democratic representation and participation. This article argues that a more radical reconstructive strategy can be derived from debates about the democratisation of feminism itself. Drawing on the responses of black and third world feminists to racism in the white-dominated feminist movement, and examining their influence on efforts to organise transnationally, the article points to innovative ways of thinking about power, politics, agency and change. Together these amount to a democratic framework which has applicability beyond feminist organising and which confronts the marginalisations of both gender and globalisation.     

Modern Myths

This article outlines some basic characteristics of modern myths that fundamentally differ from the traditional myths on which most myth research is based, namely: their relation to time, and their relation to themselves. The article also takes a closer look at the implications these differences have for our present state of Being. The aim is not to offer yet another variation on the academic discussion of myths, but rather to provide a starting point for further discussion about the peculiarities and impacts pertaining to modern myths.     

A new prototype system for optimized job shop scheduling

Optimal scheduling of shopfloor activities in an environment of discrete part manufacturing is discussed. The scheduling problem is a well known NP complete one. The main part, the sequencing problem, has been tackled using two techniques: virtual resources identification and taboo search heuristics. The first approach allowed the authors to reduce the complexity of the sequencing from a job shop to a general flow shop problem. On the other hand, the search for an optimal solution, with respect to a fixed strategy, has been achieved via the taboo search. A synthesis of the results of a large number of tests is presented as well as the results of an application to a real case. The latter is shown in comparison with the output of the system being presently used in the examined factory.     

Supply chain management: a supplier perspective

A new way of researching into supply chain management is introduced by adopting a supplier perspective. Details are given of mixed integer linear planning and simulation models. The planning model takes into consideration firm and forecast orders (customer's forecast purchasing orders) and the behaviour of the supplier's suppliers and suppliers' subcontractors. The simulation model takes into account the dynamic behaviour of the supply chain and includes the planning production behaviour of a supplying company based on the planning model. The supplier manager can use the simulation model to determine what kind of parameters most affect company performances and then propose new management rules. Quantitative results that prove the benefits of integrating forecast orders for an aeronautic supplier have been provided.     

优化进出口商品结构转变外贸增长方式

近时期我国外贸工作的重点是,加快转变外贸增长方式,优化进出口商品结构,鼓励高新技术产品和机电产品出口,继续限制资源性、高耗能、高污染产品出口,提高利用外资质量,促进国内产业升级.我国贸易增长方式的转变关键在于国内产业结构的转变,而产业结构的转变是一个比较长期的过程.要优化进出口商品结构,着力提高对外贸易的质量和效益.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TIME IN THE INTERNET ERA: FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES AND CHALLENGES

This paper examines the gender matrix of time, arguing for cross-disciplinary consideration of political economy, globalization and technology to achieve a detailed understanding of gendered hierarchies of time and the ways in which public/private identifications of social space and time have variously constructed and maintained them. It is argued that women are alienated from their own time, which is identified as most legitimately allocated to the service of others both in the home and at work. The inter-relationship of technologies and gendered identities is explored in relation to public/private divisions and the political-economic and scientific-technological knowledge processes that contribute to upholding them. ICTs reflect these historically established gendered patterns, but international projects such as 'Women on the Net' also demonstrate the capacities of these technologies for disrupting the gender matrix of time through their use by women for women.