Investment in Facility Changeover Flexibility for Early Entry into High‐Tech Markets

A model is introduced to analyze the manufacturing‐marketing interface for a firm in a high‐tech industry that produces a series of high‐volume products with short product life cycles on a single facility. The one‐time strategic decision regarding the firm's investment in changeover flexibility establishes the link between market opportunities and manufacturing capabilities. Specifically, the optimal changeover flexibility decision is determined in the context of the firm's market entry strategy for successive product generations, the changeover cost between generations, and the production efficiency of the facility. Moreover, the dynamic pricing policy for each product generation is obtained as a function of the firm's market entry strategy and manufacturing efficiency. Our findings provide insights linking internal manufacturing capabilities with external market forces for the high‐tech and high‐volume manufacturer of products with short life cycles. We show the impact of manufacturing efficiency and a firm's ability to benefit from volume‐based learning on the dynamic pricing policy for each product generation. The results demonstrate the benefits realized by a firm that works with its manufacturing equipment suppliers to develop more efficient and flexible technology. In addition, we explore how opportunities afforded by pioneer advantage enable a firm operating a less efficient facility to realize long term competitive advantage by deploying an earlier market entry strategy.     

我国居民消费变动与经济增长的实证分析

消费需求对于我国经济增长及景气周期具有决定性影响 ,既是拉动经济增长的最大动力 ,又是防止经济萧条的稳定力量。近几年来政府通过扩大投资启动经济的政策效果不尽如人意的主要原因在于居民消费倾向明显下降。导致居民消费倾向下降的主要因素是各项社会保障制度同时出台 ,使居民预期支出不稳定。启动新一轮景气周期的政策重心应是提高居民消费倾向 ,激活消费需求。一方面 ,要认真研究居民消费心理和消费行为 ,制定消费政策并将其纳入经济增长长期政策之中 ;另一方面 ,政府应加大对社会保障资金的支持力度 ,改变居民对未来前景的不确定预期 ,使居民消费倾向逐渐转为正常     

Overcoming a collective action frame in the remaking of an antinuclear opposition

Recent research on social movements considers collective action frames and collective identities to be resources or achievements of social movement activity because they symbolicly link individuals to a collective cause. This paper maintains that a collective action frame operates at a sociocultural level and can be redefined by groups external to a movement. Nuclear power proponents worked to suppress the first cycle of protest against nuclear plants by redefining the movements' collective identity, such that individuals were unable to recognize movement organizations as representative of their interests. Citizens within the Ten Mile Radius, a group opposed to the licensing of the Seabrook nuclear power plant, initiated a second cycle of protest by overcoming the collective action frame imposed on the movement. This case suggests that the articulation and the representation of dissent is constrained due to the inability of social movement groups to retain control over their own collective identity. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, April 1994.     

从《牛棚小品》论丁玲晚年创作的个性

《牛棚小品》是丁玲晚年的创作,从其刊出背景及内容分析可以看出丁玲晚年创作的个性特色:一方面以高度的社会责任感进行小说创作,真诚地歌颂党、歌颂社会主义;另一方面从主体感受出发,创作了以《牛棚小品》为代表的美学价值很高的一类作品.尤其是她的后一类作品表现了积极向上的人生态度,有着"武将军"的豪迈洒脱,同时,作品进行了探幽入微的心理描写,有着"文小姐"的细腻柔婉.丁玲晚年并没有失去创作个性.     

Job Creation and Destruction over the Business Cycles and the Impact on Individual Job Flows in Denmark 1980-2001*

Summary: Job creation and destruction should be considered as key success or failure criteria of the economic policy. Job creation and destruction are both effects of economic policy, the degree of out- and in-sourcing, and the ability to create new ideas that can be transformed into jobs. Job creation and destruction are results of businesses attempting to maximize their economic outcome. One of the costs of this process is that employees have to move from destroyed jobs to created jobs. The development of this process probably depends on labor protection laws, habits, the educational system, and the whole UI-system. A flexible labor market ensures that scarce labor resources are used where they are most in demand. Thus, labor turnover is an essential factor in a well-functioning economy. This paper uses employer-employee data from the Danish registers of persons and workplaces to show where jobs have been destroyed and where they have been created over the last couple of business cycles. Jobs are in general destroyed and created simultaneously within each industry, but at the same time a major restructuring has taken place, so that jobs have been lost in Textile and Clothing, Manufacturing and the other “old industries”, while jobs have been created in Trade and Service industries. Out-sourcing has been one of the causes. This restructuring has caused a tremendous pressure on workers and their ability to find employment in expanding sectors. The paper shows how this has been accomplished. Especially, the paper shows what has happened to employees involved. Have they become unemployed, employed in the welfare sector or where? * First draft of this paper was presented at Deutsche Statistische Woche, Frankfurt, September 2004. Thanks to two referees for instructive comments. Financial support from The Danish Social Science Research Council through CCP is acknowledged.     

考虑冷凝器等不可逆因素的制冷设备的优化分析

本文综合考虑了循环和冷凝器等设备的不可逆损失,对单级蒸汽压缩制冷设备进行了优化分析,从中得到了所采用的冷凝器的几何结构和尺寸对制冷设备最佳工作参数及其不可逆损失的影响。文中还对按常规方法和本文方法进行设计所得的结果进行了性能比较。结果表明本文提出的优化方法是合理的,在设计时,宜结合迎风面积布置的可能,采用本文的优化方法进行设计,以达到节能的目的。     

The Use of Landscape Chemical Cycles for Indexing the Health Risks of Toxic Elements and Radionuclides

Analysis of energy-system impacts requires quantifications of short- and long-term local, regional, and global modifications. This paper describes and illustrates an approach for assessing long-term health risks due to dispersion of naturally occurring radionuclide series and chemical toxins by normal and altered landscape-chemical cycles. Health hazards are expressed as dose factors which convert environmental concentrations into a corresponding dose field (organ doses in rad for radionuclides; daily intake for toxic elements). The dose field is translated into a population health risk. The external environment is modelled by considering the manner in which elements are distributed and mobilized within the earth system. The landscape prism is presented as a tool for visualizing and mapping toxic material cycles near the crustal surface. An approach is provided for dividing the landscape into a set of compartments consistent with patterns of element circulation observed in the global environment. We investigate the response of regional landscapes to increases of ²³⁸U, ²²⁶Ra, arsenic and lead in soil and groundwater. It is found that each decay series or element imposes a hazard by its behavior in the total environment that cannot be quantified by a simple measure of toxicity.     

Paradigm Warriors: Regress and Progress in the Study of Contentious Politics

Paradigm warfare is a well-worn way of engaging in the polemics of research, but it frequently reduces paradigms to caricatures and turns complex reports of empirical research into cartoons. This is illustrated by two one-sided accounts of the Chiapas rebellion: one based on a simplistic political opportunity cartoon and the other on a foreshortened culturalist one. Reducing the many-sided (and in some ways ambiguous) approaches of the political process model to a supposedly hegemonic paradigm neglects many substantive contributions and cuts with too broad a stroke at social movements while ignoring the many-branched contributions of research and theory on contentious politics.     

从大足宝顶石刻"牧牛道场"谈大学生心性培育

大足宝顶石刻“牧牛道场”所展现的人牛十次的育心过程,实际上就是一个系统的育人过程。育人育心是一项长期性的浩大工程。重视挖掘传统心性育人的价值,特别是重视传统心性育人理论对确立人的道德基础和终极价值系统的意义,将会使“以德治国”更具有中国特色并取得实效。     

Contracts, livestock, and the Bernoulli process: an application of statistics to B. Traven's 'Cattle Drive'

One of the pivotal devices B. Traven employs in his short story 'The Cattle Drive' is a contract between the cattle owner and the trail boss who brings the livestock to market. By specifying a per-diem rate, the contract appears to encourage a wage-maximizing trail boss to delay the delivery of the cattle. However, a statistical model of the contract demonstrates that a rational trail boss has an incentive to maintain a rapid rate of travel. The article concludes that statistics can be applied in non-traditional ways such as to the analysis of the plot of a fictional story. The statistical model suggests plausible alternative endings to the story based on various parameter assumptions. Finally, it demonstrates that a well-crafted story can provide an excellent case study of how contracts create incentives and influence decision-making.