Human Behavior and the Social Environment: Models,Metaphors and Maps for Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Practice

From Diagnosis to Treatment in Child Psychiatry. Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. (New York: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1974.)

Psychotherapeutic Approaches to the Resistant Child. Dr. Richard Gardner. (New York: Jason Aronson, 1975.)     

EC anti-dumping laws as a barrier to trade

Anti-dumping (AD) laws in the EC are intended to establish ‘fairness’ between trading partners. But there are negative effects, in particular, firms with weak firm specific advantages can shelter behind AD laws; they can even follow shelter-based strategies and lobby for protection.Alan Rugman and Michael Gestrin explain how shelter can be used as a management strategy, and how AD laws have grown up in the EC since 1979 to affect sectors of industry and geographic regions. They conclude by pointing out that a shelter-based strategy by a strong firm can undermine the very competitive pressures in its home market that made it internationally competitive in the first place.     

Population statistics] as of January 1, 2000

This table presents the population statistics of Thailand as of January 1, 2000. Thailand has a total population of 61,737,000; 30,726,000 are males and 31,011,000 are females. The urban areas have a population of 18,972,000, while the rural areas have a population of 42,765,000. The population numbers, by region, are the following: northern, 12,117,000; northeastern, 20,164,000; southern, 7,957,000; central (excluding Bangkok Metropolis), 13,654,000; Bangkok Metropolis, 7,845,000. Children (under age 15) numbered 14,764,000; labor force participants (ages 15-59), 41,647,000; the elderly (ages 60-79), 4,974,000; those aged 80 and above, 352,000; the school-age population (ages 6-21), 16,703,000; reproductive-age women (ages 15-44), 16,697,000; and the voting population (ages 18 and over), 43,691,000. The crude birth rate (per 1000 population) is 16.4, and the crude death rate is 6.5. Thailand has a natural growth rate of 1.0% and an infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) of 22.4. Life expectancy at birth among males and females is 69.9 and 74.9, respectively. The total fertility rate is 1.9/woman, the contraceptive prevalence rate is 72.2%, and the ratio of females per 1 male is 1.0 for ages 0-59, 1.1 for ages 60-79, and 2.0 for ages 80 and over.     

New contracts: The key to change

Successfully managing change in an organization is very difficult. Paul Strebel sets out a new way of doing this, based on contract theory which states that stakeholders have both an explicit and implicit individual contract with their companies. These contracts must be modified if corporate change is to proceed.The author develops five propositions about the role of contracts in change management. Change can only succeed if these five propositions are satisfied and the operational implications fully understood and implemented.     

Lessons from the ‘made in Switzerland’ study: What makes a world-class manufacturer?

Many executives are currently striving to develop world-class manufacturing operations to ensure that they remain competitive in increasingly global markets. To do this, they are adopting a range of practices, from organisational changes such as empowerment and teamwork to the use of techniques such as pull production. Their goal is to substantially improve performance: faster cycle times, reduced manufacturing costs and greater customer satisfaction.The question of how far companies have moved towards world-class manufacturing is at the heart of the ‘Made in Switzerland’ project, a major benchmarking study of Swiss manufacturing practice and performance. The study was carried out in 1995 by IMD faculty and researchers working with consultants from IBM Switzerland. It is part of the internationally-based ‘Made in Europe’ project comprising similar studies in the UK, Germany, The Netherlands and Finland.The central hypothesis of the studies is that the adoption of best practice leads to high performance. The objective is to establish a benchmarking database for participating manufacturers around the world. The studies, which are highly structured, examine six areas of manufacturing practice and performance in detail and assess the relationship between them at individual plants. The areas covered in the study are quality, organisation and culture, concurrent engineering, logistics, lean production and manufacturing systems.Plants in each country are grouped according to their position on the practice and performance indices and then studied in order to pinpoint the issues and challenges facing the manufacturers within that group. Less than three per cent of the 800 plants currently on the ‘Made in Europe’ database are considered ‘world-class’. Yet for manufacturers striving to reach this level of performance, this small minority can provide some valuable insights for the way ahead.This article discusses many of the issues raised by the analysis described above, with particular reference to the ‘Made in Switzerland’ study. In the first section, it looks at the key lessons arising from the Swiss study and what insights these can provide for manufacturers, not only in the Swiss market, but across Europe. In the second section, it looks at how the study can be used for benchmarking and provides manufacturers with some general recommendations to help them focus their improvements and move closer to becoming world-class.     

理想气体微观状态数的计算及其统计性质的研究

本文借助自由粒子的量子能态分布理论,利用3n维空间球体模型,实现了对理想气体（N,V,E）系统微态数的计算,在此基础上,给出了理想气体热力学量的统计结果。     

Food security, consumption diversification and foreign exchange balances in Indonesia: Results from a multi-commodity simulation

Many countries adopt economic development strategies, within which an important element is the maintenance of low and stable food prices. In Indonesia, this is achieved principally through government subsidies to consumers of imported rice, the total cost of which fluctuates considerably from year to year, depending on world price movements and domestic production performance. Higher and possibly less stable domestic food prices appear inevitable in Indonesia, however, as the spectre of reduced oil revenues increases the government's concern with the cost of its food policy. Results from a stochastic simulation model of the agricultural sector show that the food price risk to which consumers and producers would be exposed in the absence of the stabilizing component of Indonesia's food policy would be considerable, rendering this component an unlikely area for significant change. A viable policy option appears to be the continuance of rice and wheat price stabilization, but with a graduated increase in the relative price of rice, reaching a total of 10% by 1985. Such a policy could result in net self-sufficiency in foreign exchange from staple food trade by 1990 and an improvement in aggregate economic surplus, although the expected decade improvement in food-energy consumption per capita would fall from 10% to 8%.