Applying kaizen to the schedule in a concurrent environment

Not only ETO (Engineering to Order), but even serial production industry should know how to deal with projects and their schedule: plant commissioning, shutdown, introducing new products and similar circumstances should be managed with adequate planning and resource allocation techniques to create a schedule useful in decision making during the execution. The current complex reality, with evolving technologies and fierce pressure to reach the market as soon as possible, pushes the project managers to use more advanced techniques than waterfall planning, such as agile or lean. It also requires them to take a holistic view and manage concurrent tasks in complex projects. The contributions of this paper are two: the proposal to control specific parallel groups of waterfall activities under uncertain environments, which can lead to iterations and reworks, as a single concurrent Activity Managed by Kanban Methods (AMKM). This activity can be subsequently embedded into traditional scheduling approaches as CPM-PERT. The second contribution is the feasibility of its application in industrial environments due to the affordability of simulation software. Two use cases are shown as evidence. It is not a disruptive proposal, but a kaizen action based on very mature technologies. Finally, it is suggested some improvements to be implemented in Project Management Software due to this ‘kaizen’ proposal.     

Family Ties and Peso Signs: Challenges for Career Counseling in the Philippines

The article's 1st section provides an overview of the historical development of career counseling in the Philippines from an economic‐political perspective. The 2nd section raises current challenges and concerns, highlighting the need for a career counseling model that would address, among other things, Filipinos' valued characteristics of close family ties and desire for economic progress.     

International and intercultural issues in English teaching textbooks: the case of Spain

The sociocultural content of foreign language textbooks has become a concern of scholars and practitioners owing to the fact that the traditional emphasis on purely linguistic issues has been expanded to embrace a language in context approach. This paper studies the English‐speaking communities that are described in English language teaching textbooks marketed in Spain. It examines to what extent an international and/or intercultural approach is a constituent element in their design.     

对联之对偶英译初探——从望城黑糜峰长联的英译谈对联英译的一些问题

对联是中华民族独有的文化瑰宝，但人们一直以为原对句不能译作外语对偶句，以致不懂汉语的人至今不能欣赏。通过对望城黑麋峰长联的英译探索证明，只要原对句语法结构相同，翻译成对偶句是完全可能的。对联能英译成对偶句，译成其他语言的对偶句也应当可能。对联这个问题可以解决，诗词曲的对仗句也应当可以解决。通过将望城黑麋峰长联英译成对偶句的三个步骤，以及在英译过程中得到的九个方面的认识作了初步的总结，希望有更多的人参与进来，共同努力，把我国的对联乃至诗词曲逐步介绍给其他民族的读者。     

高新技术园区社会创新环境的系统整合

今天的高新技术园区在发展的意义上 ,已经成为现实的社会实体。从这一理念出发 ,思考园区的建设和发展 ,其创新环境是个非常重要的问题 ,也可以说它是各类高新技术园区得以发展的基本条件。创新环境状况的好坏直接关系到园区内高新技术产业的发展。从严格意义上讲 ,缺少这个基本条件 ,高新技术园区难以形成 ,创新环境不完善 ,即便是已经建立起来的园区 ,也难以得到真正的发展。由此决定了建设高新技术园区必须重视对园区社会创新环境的研究 ,通过精心培育创新环境 ,推动我国高新技术园区在 2 1世纪得到健康、持续的发展。     

Computing maximum likelihood estimates from type II doubly censored exponential data

It is well-known that, under Type II double censoring, the maximum likelihood (ML) estimators of the location and scale parameters, θ and δ, of a twoparameter exponential distribution are linear functions of the order statistics. In contrast, when θ is known, theML estimator of δ does not admit a closed form expression. It is shown, however, that theML estimator of the scale parameter exists and is unique. Moreover, it has good large-sample properties. In addition, sharp lower and upper bounds for this estimator are provided, which can serve as starting points for iterative interpolation methods such as regula falsi. Explicit expressions for the expected Fisher information and Cramér-Rao lower bound are also derived. In the Bayesian context, assuming an inverted gamma prior on δ, the uniqueness, boundedness and asymptotics of the highest posterior density estimator of δ can be deduced in a similar way. Finally, an illustrative example is included.     

我国就业制度的演变及其对妇女发展的影响

文章着重研究不同的就业制度对妇女发展的深刻影响 ,阐述就业制度的选择与男女平等观念实现的关系 ,以期能为当前就业政策的制定提供一些理论思考     

Multivariate distributions defined in terms of contours

The paper deals with the problem of using contours as the basis for defining probability distributions. First, the most general probability densities with given contours are obtained and the particular cases of circular and elliptical contours are dealt with. It is shown that the so-called elliptically contoured distributions do not include all possible cases. Next, the case of contours defined by polar coordinates is analyzed including its simulation and parameter estimation. Finally, the case of cumulative distribution functions with given contours is discussed. Several examples are used for illustrative purposes.