Process evaluation of an environmental walking and healthy eating pilot in small rural worksites

Small Steps are Easier Together (SS) was a pilot environmental intervention in small rural worksites in Upstate New York in collaboration with Extension educators. Worksite leaders teamed with co-workers to select and implement environmental changes to increase walking steps over individual baseline and to choose healthy eating options over 10 weeks. Participants were 226 primarily white, women employees in 5 sites. A mixed methods process evaluation, conducted to identify determinants of intervention effectiveness and to explain differences in outcomes across worksites, included surveys, self-reports of walking and eating, interviews, focus groups, and an intervention log. The evaluation assessed reach, characteristics of recruited participants, dose delivered, dose received, and context and compared sites on walking and eating outcomes. Emergent elements of participant-reported dose received included: active leadership, visible environmental changes, critical mass of participants, public display of accomplishments, accountability to co-workers, and group decision making. Participants at sites with high reach and dose were significantly more likely than sites with low reach and dose to achieve intervention goals. Although this small pilot needs replication, these findings describe how these evaluation methods can be applied and analyzed in an environmental intervention and provide information on trends in the data.     

吉林省四平地区老年人健康影响因素及对策探析

为了解吉林省四平地区老年人的健康状况及其影响因素,制定有效的防治对策,采用现场体检及问卷调查的方式,对该地区1 059位60岁及以上老年人的健康现状进行调查。老年人健康状况不容乐观,慢性病患病率较高。其中慢性病患病率位于前五位的依次为心脏病、高血压、糖尿病、骨关节病、脑血管病。老年人健康影响因素包括吸烟、饮酒、饮食、睡眠、锻炼身体等。提出注重健康影响因素、提高老年人健康水平的具体对策。     

A study of DEA models without explicit inputs

In performance evaluations, data without explicit inputs (such as index data, pure output data) are widely used. To directly use such data, this paper presents a study on building DEA models without explicit inputs, so-called DEA-WEI models, which are applicable to the evaluation applications where inputs are not directly considered. We provide an axiom foundation of these kinds of models, and further discuss how to incorporate value judgments of decision makers into these DEA-WEI models. Several such models are derived. Finally, applications of the DEA-WEI models are presented.     

Shop floor control system for tool rooms

A shop floor control system (SFCS), which is the most important component of any production control system, ff has a direct e ect on the productivity of a tool room. The SFCS presented in this paper aims at streamlining various tool room activities, such as process planning, operations scheduling, loading, progress monitoring, and performance monitoring. The system discussed in this paper is characterized by simplicity and is user friendly. Basic information, consisting of three types of information (order details, process details, and part details), is input through interactive dialogue sessions. On-line updating of the process information is carried out, again through interactive dialogue sessions. The basic input to the system along with the on-line updating enables a number of useful and important reports and documents to be generated ff by the system for e ective control of the shop floor. The reports generated include operations scheduling, process sheet, part list, ffi job card, load pending report, e ciency report, etc. This SFCS is developed for a medium sized tool room in an automotive company and its successful implemention reduced paperwork and improved resource management and has resulted in productivity. It can be said that this system offers a first venture into computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) for a tool room.     

Denn sie wissen was sie tun!

Information and communication technologies (IT) permeate both the business and the private world. They cause profound changes for companies in terms of structure, leadership, culture, education and the position of individuals within the context of the company. Established structures, decision making habits and methods of communication are being called into question. This means that communication is neither explicitly controllable nor in some cases even specified, but it also should not be viewed as arbitrary. Structures which are treated as contingent require meta-management, reflection and determination. Leaders are forced to act within a constellation of tensions between the reduction and the expansion of complexity as basic functions of structuring. Ideally this type of steering takes place consciously and with a view toward the future, taking into account the increasing complexity and dynamics of the environment and the corporate culture. Empirical studies of our four intervention research projects show that the situation for many companies is sobering. Companies cannot always entirely interpret the rapid development of communication technologies and the consequences it brings with it, nor can they completely make use of its potential advantages. Companies and individuals are forced to think actively within the networked economy. The demand for further education shifts between the company (expertise, employee loyalty) on the one hand and the responsibility of the individual for his or her own development on the other. Agreements are the key to bringing harmony and new solutions to the conflicts among the differing interests of individuals, subsystems and the company as a whole. Considering the complex requirements for companies and management caused by IT, this article shows that reflective observation of intervention research, guided by theory and with a focus on targeted change of management practice, is a process which provides new opportunities for action in both theory and practice. In this process, focusing (systemization) and reflection (enhancement of perspectives) are fundamental keys for dealing with complexity.     

SPECIAL ISSUE： DIALOGUE,INTERACTION AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN PHILOSOPHY IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA- SPECIALIST FORUM ON CHINESE,WESTERN AND MARXIST PHILOSOPHIES：Convergence of Chinese,Western and Marxist philosophies： reflections on a metaphilosophy and methodology for innovation in contemporary Chinese philosophy

当代中国哲学创新，是根据所要构建的新哲学理所当有的时代性以及由其时代性所决定的新哲学所必有的学术特征，凭由综合中、西、马各种不同哲学观而加以灵活变通的处理与转换得来的具体方法，建造出一个在研究范围上向原始哲学回归，在研究路径上走马克思主义哲学之路，在研究内容上对以往中、西哲学有继承性扩展，以和谐精神为内核的马克思主义后现代哲学。