Epistemic modesty,ostentatiousness and the uncertainties of epigenetics: on the knowledge machinery of (social) science

Epigenetic processes are garnering attention in the social sciences, where some scholars assert their importance for theorizing social life. I engage with such ideas here by drawing on interviews with leading bioscientists. To begin with, I underscore the (productive) uncertainties of those working in and around epigenetics; I describe these as a manifestation of ‘epistemic modesty’, and suggest that dissensus helps to propel biomedical innovation. Then, drawing on the concept of ‘alien science’, I detail some researchers’ ambivalences regarding the notion of ‘transgenerational inheritance’; their dissatisfaction with the (public) communication practices of other scientists (situated in what I term a regime of ‘epistemic ostentatiousness’); and the challenges faced when moderating societal discussion of epigenetics in ways that expand excitement whilst deflating (what researchers regard as) unrealistic expectations. The paper concludes with reflections on the knowledge machinery of the (social) sciences, and employs the study data to interrogate sociological engagements with epigenetics.     

气候变化背景下中国低碳制造发展研究

制造业是我国经济发展的重要支柱,也是实现低碳减排的主要战场。建立低碳制造评价指标体系,结合主成分分析法和层次分析法,可对我国制造业的低碳发展进行定量的研究评价,并从制造业低碳经济、低碳技术和低碳环境三方面分析对碳排放的影响。我国的低碳制造水平整体呈上升趋势,未来,我国的制造业既要保持高速发展,同时也要向低碳经济转型,发展低碳技术,调整能源结构。     

零部件进口对中国制造业技术进步的影响

在中国制造业转型时期,零部件进口对促进我国技术进步至关重要,将出口品国内技术含量作为衡量技术进步的标准,对零部件进口与中国制造业技术进步的关系进行量化分析。研究结果表明:扩大零部件进口规模对技术进步有正向影响,但发挥作用存在一定时滞,且在高技术行业中促进作用尤为显著;扩大零部件进口种类能显著促进技术进步,主要体现在低技术行业;外商直接投资、人均资本和研发投入均对技术进步有正向影响,但对不同技术层次行业的影响程度存在差异。     

高端装备制造业知识网络有效性影响因素分析

分析影响高端装备制造业知识网络有效性的五个因素,构建知识网络有效性模型并进行仿真分析,得出结论:企业为提高知识吸收能力和知识释放意愿所做投入在一定范围内可以提升知识网络有效性,投入超过一定值后,这种提升作用不再明显;企业较高的知识水平、企业间良好的合作关系与适当的知识势差可以提高知识网络有效性,并根据仿真结果提出相关建议。     

《机械原理》多媒体教学软件设计与实现

针对高等院校工科机械类专业《机械原理》CAI教学,利用多媒体制作软件Authorware进行素材的集成,并融合声、光、文本、数字、图像及动画等信息,完成了《机械原理》CAI课件的设计和制作。此课件为提高《机械原理》教学质量,改革教学模式、教学内容和教学方法有一定意义。     

The Effect of Language Differences and National Culture on Operational Process Compliance

With increasing frequency, firms are locating their operations in disparate countries with distinct national cultures and languages. This study develops and empirically tests hypotheses relating an operation's process compliance performance to (1) the presence of a language difference between the location of the operation and that of headquarters and (2) the national culture of the location of the operation and that of headquarters. Employing an international sample of pharmaceutical manufacturing plants located primarily in Western nations, the analysis reveals that a language difference between the location of a plant and the firm's headquarters is consistently related to decreased process compliance at the plant level. Regarding national culture, only limited evidence of a direct relationship between national cultural dimensions (at either the plant or headquarters location) and process compliance exists. However, the analysis does suggest that cultural congruence between the location of the plant and that of headquarters can relate to improved compliance performance. Such a relationship depends on the specific national cultural dimension studied. While these results are obtained in a specific manufacturing setting, they potentially have implications for process compliance in any global operation.     

Demand and Production Management with Uniform Guaranteed Lead Time

Recently, innovation‐oriented firms have been competing along dimensions other than price, lead time being one such dimension. Increasingly, customers are favoring lead time guarantees as a means to hedge supply chain risks. For a make‐to‐order environment, we explicitly model the impact of a lead time guarantee on customer demands and production planning. We study how a firm can integrate demand and production decisions to optimize expected profits by quoting a uniform guaranteed maximum lead time to all customers. Our analysis highlights the increasing importance of lead time for customers, as well as the tradeoffs in achieving a proper balance between revenue and cost drivers associated with lead‐time guarantees. We show that the optimal lead time has a closed‐form solution with a newsvendor‐like structure. We prove comparative statics results for the change in optimal lead time with changes in capacity and cost parameters and illustrate the insights using numerical experimentation.     

基于核心制造规范的外包决策模型及实证研究

本文将制造规范概念引入外包决策,从考虑企业长期绩效和长期竞争力的角度提出了一个以制造规范核心度和流失度为控制变量的二维外包决策模型。决策模型将外包环境分为九种类型,涵盖了从内部制造、各种形式的外包,到简单采购等所有"买或做"的决策,尤其是对介于自制与简单采购之间灰色地带的外包,给出了考虑提供制造规范主体和供应商类型的不同类型合作和联盟治理结构策略。对四个不同类型的企业典型产品近1000个零件的外包决策进行了统计分析,实证了模型的有效性。模型对现实世界观察到的制造企业由于没有按照其中规律行事而导致失败的原因做出了合理而明确解释。     

生产性企业组织学习最优控制模型及其理论分析

运用最优控制理论研究生产性企业组织学习活动的动态最优决策问题.以企业的概念性学习投资率和操作性学习投资率为决策变量,累积知识量、生产率、单位成本和废品率等为状态变量,计划期内的总利润为指标函数,建立了一个最优控制模型,其特点在于规范地描绘概念性学习和操作性学习对企业累积知识量、生产率、单位成本、质量以及企业利润的动态影响.根据生产性企业组织学习和生产经营的实际情况,提出了一些定量化表达的假设和定义.在假设和定义的基础上利用最大值原理分析了所建立的模型,获得了关于动态最优概念性学习投资策略和操作性学习投资策略性质的一些结论,将这些结论与实际问题相结合,指出了在生产性企业组织学习实践上的含义.     

A reference activity model for smart factory design and improvement

Smart manufacturing systems (SMSs) are envisioned to contain highly automated and IT-driven production systems. To address the complexity that arises in such systems, a standard and holistic model for describing its activities and their interrelationships is needed. This paper introduces a factory design and improvement (FDI) activity model and illustrates a case study of FDI in an electromechanical component factory. In essence, FDI is a reference activity model that encompasses a range of manufacturing system activities for designing and improving a factory during its initial development and also its operational phases. The FDI model shows not only the dependency between activities and manufacturing control levels but also the pieces of information and software functions each activity relies on. We envision that the availability of these pieces of information in digital form to integrate across the software functions will increase the agility of factory design and improvement projects. Therefore, our future work lies in contributing to standards for exchanging such information.