Applying kaizen to the schedule in a concurrent environment

Not only ETO (Engineering to Order), but even serial production industry should know how to deal with projects and their schedule: plant commissioning, shutdown, introducing new products and similar circumstances should be managed with adequate planning and resource allocation techniques to create a schedule useful in decision making during the execution. The current complex reality, with evolving technologies and fierce pressure to reach the market as soon as possible, pushes the project managers to use more advanced techniques than waterfall planning, such as agile or lean. It also requires them to take a holistic view and manage concurrent tasks in complex projects. The contributions of this paper are two: the proposal to control specific parallel groups of waterfall activities under uncertain environments, which can lead to iterations and reworks, as a single concurrent Activity Managed by Kanban Methods (AMKM). This activity can be subsequently embedded into traditional scheduling approaches as CPM-PERT. The second contribution is the feasibility of its application in industrial environments due to the affordability of simulation software. Two use cases are shown as evidence. It is not a disruptive proposal, but a kaizen action based on very mature technologies. Finally, it is suggested some improvements to be implemented in Project Management Software due to this ‘kaizen’ proposal.     

International and intercultural issues in English teaching textbooks: the case of Spain

The sociocultural content of foreign language textbooks has become a concern of scholars and practitioners owing to the fact that the traditional emphasis on purely linguistic issues has been expanded to embrace a language in context approach. This paper studies the English‐speaking communities that are described in English language teaching textbooks marketed in Spain. It examines to what extent an international and/or intercultural approach is a constituent element in their design.     

Activity patterns and temporal niche partitioning of dogs and medium-sized wild mammals in urban parks of Xalapa,Mexico

Urban Ecosystems - Free-ranging domestic dogs are the world most common exotic carnivore species that could negatively interact with the native wildlife as predators, competitors, and disease...     

Calibration estimation in dual-frame surveys

Survey statisticians make use of auxiliary information to improve estimates. One important example is calibration estimation, which constructs new weights that match benchmark constraints on auxiliary variables while remaining “close” to the design weights. Multiple-frame surveys are increasingly used by statistical agencies and private organizations to reduce sampling costs and/or avoid frame undercoverage errors. Several ways of combining estimates derived from such frames have been proposed elsewhere; in this paper, we extend the calibration paradigm, previously used for single-frame surveys, to calculate the total value of a variable of interest in a dual-frame survey. Calibration is a general tool that allows to include auxiliary information from two frames. It also incorporates, as a special case, certain dual-frame estimators that have been proposed previously. The theoretical properties of our class of estimators are derived and discussed, and simulation studies conducted to compare the efficiency of the procedure, using different sets of auxiliary variables. Finally, the proposed methodology is applied to real data obtained from the Barometer of Culture of Andalusia survey.     

“Migrant Capital” and Domestic Work: Labour Trajectories of Immigrant Women in Spain

This article analyses the labour trajectory of migrant women in domestic service. The research considers women's working conditions upon arrival, or their “migrant capital” (i.e. their human, social and economic capital) as the defining factors in their labour trajectories. The study, conducted on a sample of migrant women in domestic service, reveals the different value each type of capital has at each stage of a labour trajectory. The social network is the core capital in their first job. Nevertheless, the key factors in labour mobility are human capital and a household's financial needs. The processes of administrative regularization and family reunification prompt far‐reaching changes in these women's labour trajectories. Finally, labour trajectories during the economic crisis have been shaped by financial needs, leading to a decapitalization of the human capital acquired, with even legal status surrendering its value.     

Improving citizens’ online engagement via community managers: an explanatory study

The role of community manager is gaining importance as the proper usage of social media becomes a key factor for achieving more active involvement of citizens in social and political issues. Focused on Spanish local governments and in line with the literature of Excellence Theory, this paper aims to analyze whether some characteristics of the community manager function are determinant in their fostering of citizens’ online engagement via social media. In particular ‘independence’, ‘having access to the dominant coalition’, ‘gender diversity’, ‘continuous training’ and ‘culture of the organization’ are the characteristics considered in this paper. As to the main findings, this study confirms that community managers have not as yet achieved their goal of embedding the use of social media by citizens as a means of establishing more direct contact with their local governments. Moreover, in line with Excellence Theory, community managers of local governments should be aware of the importance of having direct access to key managers of the organization in order to better achieve the objectives of the organization and, more specifically, to increase citizens’ engagement. Furthermore, continuous training in issues related to social media truly helps develop the skills and potential of community managers. Likewise, an excellent communication department should rely on good professionals no matter their gender, and, in this sense, the gender of community managers is not a significant factor in their performance. However, the results of this study also reveal that in the case of public sector community managers, an authoritarian culture seems to be a determining factor for obtaining better results in enhancing citizens’ engagement.     

The family caregiving context among adults with disabilities: A review of the research on developmental disabilities,serious mental illness,and traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACT

A majority of adults with serious disabilities are cared for in the home by family members. Guided by an ecological framework, this article presents the findings of a literature review of research on family caregiving and family support for adults with disabilities. This review included 33 research studies published between 2000 and 2015 focused on three disabilities: Developmental disabilities, serious mental illnesses, and traumatic brain injury. A synthesis of the findings underscores the critical role that family caregivers occupy in addressing the needs of their loved one with a disability; however, the needs of the caregiver are insufficiently met by existing service approaches. A better understanding of the unique needs and strengths of the family support context of caregivers and care recipients is needed, giving greater attention to ethnic, racial, and cultural considerations in future research.     

A Multidimensional Approach to Precarious Employment Among Young Workers in EU-28 Countries

This article uses a new multidimensional indicator to measure precariousness among young workers across all EU-28 countries. This indicator measures both the incidence and intensity of precariousness. The analysis has involved five dimensions: wages, type of contract, type of working day, disempowerment, and job insecurity. Our database is the European Union Labour Force Survey for the period 2009–2016. The main indication of precariousness is low wages. We find high rates of precariousness for Mediterranean countries (because of low wages and temporary contracts), Denmark (low wages), and the Netherlands (expansion of involuntary part-time jobs). Central European countries have moderate rates, and most Continental and Eastern countries have low rates. We also find that a higher level of education is related to a lower probability of having a precarious job. Finally, we find a greater probability of having a precarious job among women in most countries, and non-statistically significant differences by country of birth.

     

Skills Heterogeneity Among Graduate Workers: Real and Apparent Overeducation in the Spanish Labor Market

This paper takes account of skills heterogeneity among workers with a higher education degree and proposes a new measure to differentiate between real and apparent overeducation based on the level of cognitive skills actually achieved by the individuals. This proposal is applied to the study of the wage effects of overeducation in the Spanish labor market using data from PIAAC. The results suggest that between a quarter and a half of the graduate workers who appear to be overeducated in the Spanish labor market could be considered as being only apparently overeducated since they show a lower level of skills than that corresponding to their educational level or, alternatively, a level of cognitive skills which is commensurate with their job. Different returns are found for each group of overeducated individuals both when compared with adequately educated peers within a similar level of education (with greater wage penalties for apparently overeducated workers) and when the comparison is done with well-matched co-workers doing a similar job (with a wage premium for real overeducation but no significant returns for apparently overeducated workers). These different returns by skill levels beyond what overeducation measures implies that the market distinguishes between education and skills and that educational attainment per se does not perfectly align with acquired skills, meaning that traditional measures of overeducation would overstate the actual level of skills mismatch in the labor market.     

Descriptive Analysis of Foster Care Adoptions in New South Wales,Australia

This paper describes the population of children in care in New South Wales, Australia, who were adopted by their foster families (N?=?372) from 2003 to 2014. Data pertaining to 370 of these adoptees were available and obtained from administrative records accompanying adoption applications. Most of these children had been placed with their subsequent adoptive family during infancy. However, adoption orders occurred much later in their lives. According to the available information at the time of adoption, these children did not suffer the high levels of mental health problems typically identified in populations of children in foster care. Though the data do not include follow-up to determine if the contact agreed upon at the time of adoption orders translated into practice, the most frequently postadoption arrangement recorded was face-to-face contact, four times a year with mother and siblings. The high levels of openness and face-to-face contact in Australian adoptions from care are a significant point of difference with other adoption models, and presents a need for research in the area.

IMPLICATIONS

• Following the change of legislation in New South Wales, Australia, that prioritises open adoption over foster care, social workers in the field of child protection are well placed to assist in this process.

• Social workers can assess children entering care to identify those who will benefit from adoption in a timely manner; undertake casework and administrative aspects of the adoption process; work closely with the child, and birth and adoptive families by delivering pre- and post-adoption supports; and conduct longitudinal research on the outcomes for children adopted from care.