Determining Six Sigma success factors in Turkey by using structural equation modeling

Since it includes strong statistical and executive techniques, Six Sigma (SS) succeeded in many countries and different sectors. Especially successful SS applications of many international companies have increased the interest of other companies. As a result of this, the number of implemented SS projects in various countries has increased. Although successful SS projects are often in mind, the number of failed projects because of various reasons is not as low as to be ignored. As well as there are many factors that affect the success level of SS projects, and these factors vary according to countries. In this study, a survey was applied to 117 people who have 1 of SS belts in order to determine success levels of the SS projects in Turkey. By using explanatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, critical success factors were determined. According to the results, project selection and its scope, quality culture and defining and measuring of metrics were determined as the top factors that are affecting success levels of SS projects applied in Turkey. The results of the study were also compared with the results of similar projects implemented in other countries.     

Heteroscedasticity Robust Panel Unit Root Tests

This article proposes new unit root tests for panels where the errors may be not only serial and/or cross-correlated, but also unconditionally heteroscedastic. Despite their generality, the test statistics are shown to be very simple to implement, requiring only minimal corrections and still the limiting distributions under the null hypothesis are completely free from nuisance parameters. Monte Carlo evidence is also provided to suggest that the new tests perform well in small samples, also when compared to some of the existing tests. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

The internalising and externalising problems of adolescents in Croatia: Socio‐demographic and family victimisation factors

This study assessed Croatian adolescents' problems in relation to socio‐demographic characteristics and experienced family violence in early and late adolescence. A national representative sample of 1,780 Croatian students (45.3% males) in two age groups representing early (M = 13.20; SD = 0.42) and late adolescence (M = 18.14; SD = 0.38) participated. The questionnaire included the Youth Self‐Report, modified version of ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool – Children's Version, and socio‐demographic data. Results show that internalising problems were more present in female adolescents, in adolescents who perceived family financial hardship and in those whose biological parents did not live together. More externalising problems were reported in late adolescence by students who were living in large cities and whose families had either low, or above‐average, financial status. Adolescents who have experienced family violence were at higher risk of developing internalising and/or externalising problems.     

The finite-time ruin probability of a discrete-time risk model with GARCH discounted factors and dependent risks

The finite-time ruin probability of a discrete-time risk model with dependent stochastic discount factors and dependent insurance and financial risks is investigated in this paper. Assume that the stochastic discount factors follow a GARCH process and the one-period insurance and financial risks form a sequence of independent and identically distributed random pairs, which are the copies of a random pair with a bivariate Sarmanov dependent distribution. When the common distribution of claim-sizes is heavy-tailed, we establish an asymptotic estimate for the finite-time ruin probability. Applying the result to a special case, we also get conservative asymptotic bounds. A numerical simulation is given at the end of the paper.     

浅谈制约海南民族地区英语基础教育的主要因素

本文从历史渊源，民族文化心理，学校教学质量等多层面探讨制约和影响海南民族地区黎族英语基础教育的主要成因。     

How Do Women in Developing Countries Increase Political Representation in National Assemblies? A Longitudinal Analysis of South Korea

Previous studies have found that political, socioeconomic, and ideological factors are critical determinants of gender equality in political representation. However, these studies have not explained the combined effects of these factors over time in each country. Furthermore, because they focus primarily on Western, developed countries, the experiences of non-Western developing countries have been overlooked. To fill this gap, this article uses data on South Korea from 1948 to 2008 to examine the effects of political, socioeconomic, and ideological factors on the level of women’s political representation. Results indicate that, compared to socioeconomic factors, political and ideological factors are more critical determinants of gender equality in political leadership.     

Cross‐Training with Imperfect Training Schemes

Cross‐training workers is one of the most efficient ways of achieving flexibility in manufacturing and service systems for increasing responsiveness to demand variability. However, it is generally the case that cross‐trained employees are not as productive on a specific task as employees who were originally trained for that task. Also, the productivity of the cross‐trained workers depends on when they are cross‐trained. In this work, we consider a two‐stage model to analyze the effects of variations in productivity levels on cross‐training policies. We define a new metric called achievable capacity and show that it plays a key role in determining the structure of the problem. If cross‐training can be done in a consistent manner, the achievable capacity is not affected when the training is done, which implies that the cross‐training decisions are independent of the opportunity cost of lost demand and are based on a trade‐off between cross‐training costs at different times. When the productivities of workers trained at different times differ, there is a three‐way trade‐off between cross‐training costs at different times and the opportunity cost of lost demand due to lost achievable capacity. We analyze the effects of variability and show that if the productivity levels of workers trained at different times are consistent, the decision maker is inclined to defer the cross‐training decisions as the variability of demand or productivity levels increases. However, when the productivities of workers trained at different times differ, an increase in the variability may make investing more in cross‐training earlier more preferable.     

女性性别意识及其影响因素———以福建省为例

利用2000年全国第二期妇女社会地位抽样调查福建样本的相关统计资料,描述女性性别意识的时期变动及其与男性性别意识的差异,并在综述前人研究的基础上,提出解释性别意识的理论模型。多元回归分析结果表明,个人的年龄、受教育程度、职业性质、对工作的满意度、社会流动经历以及家庭婚姻状况对女性性别意识产生显著的影响。     

The influence of cohort effects on mortality trends in India

The inferences drawn from this study are as follows: The stagnation/ increase in mortality rates of adult ages in the recent years in India as well as for the major states may be attributed to food shortages and price hikes experienced in the country during 1960–74. In other words, all those who were adults during 1980s had experienced the crisis of hunger due to nonavailability of food as well as entitlement failure during their childhood. These persons would have had higher risk of dying in their life time and that may be one of the main reasons for the stagnation or increase in adult mortality in India and in most of the states. The findings of the study suggest that, the economic crisis experienced in India during the late eighties, may decrease the survival chances of those born during this period in their future life time. However, successful containment of increase in food prices during the period of crisis would be helpful in protecting the entitlement of vulnerable groups. The policy implication of the study is that it is essential to control the prices of food during the time of food shortages and or economic crisis and even in the period when food is available, measures should be undertaken to evolve efficient distribution system ensuring the supply of food to those vulnerable groups, who were unlucky to be born or were in infancy during the period of economic crisis. Thus, essentially this is a study in interaction of economic factors and demographic trends in an economy where large segments of the population are periodically subject to heightened food insecurities, compression of real wages and entitlement failures.     

新生代农民工与城市居民社会距离实证研究

本文根据抽样调查的结果,探讨新生代农民工与城市居民社会距离状况及影响因素。本研究发现,新生代农民工还没有完全融入城市居民的生活圈,存在着一定的社会隔离。回归分析结果表明,性别、是否独生子女、城市生活体验、社区参与程度、相对剥夺感对其与城市居民的社会距离感有显著性影响。