Higher education outcomes, graduate employment and university performance indicators

Summary.  Official employment-related performance indicators in UK higher education are based on the population of students responding to the 'First destination supplement' (FDS). This generates potentially biased performance indicators as this population of students is not necessarily representative of the full population of leavers from each institution. University leavers who do not obtain qualifications and those who do not respond to the FDS are not included within the official analysis. We compare an employment-related performance indicator based on those students who responded to the FDS with alternative approaches which address the potential non-random nature of this subgroup of university leavers.     

New imperfect rankings models for ranked set sampling

Ranked set sampling is a sampling approach that leads to improved statistical inference in situations where the units to be sampled can be ranked relative to each other prior to formal measurement. This ranking may be done either by subjective judgment or according to an auxiliary variable, and it need not be completely accurate. In fact, results in the literature have shown that no matter how poor the quality of the ranking, procedures based on ranked set sampling tend to be at least as efficient as procedures based on simple random sampling. However, efforts to quantify the gains in efficiency for ranked set sampling procedures have been hampered by a shortage of available models for imperfect rankings. In this paper, we introduce a new class of models for imperfect rankings, and we provide a rigorous proof that essentially any reasonable model for imperfect rankings is a limit of models in this class. We then describe a specific, easily applied method for selecting an appropriate imperfect rankings model from the class.     

区域工业循环经济发展的综合评价研究——以西安市为例

依据工业循环经济发展的理论和目标以及减量化、资源化和无害化的基本原则，构建区域工业循环经济发展评价指标体系，运用层次分析法测算指标权重，并以西安市为例进行实证研究。研究结果表明，西安市的工业循环经济发展水平与世界发达国家具有明显差距，接近全国平均水平。     

可持续发展动态评价研究——以湖北省为例

在阐明可持续发展基本理论的基础上，根据省情，从经济、社会、资源、环境四方面构建湖北省可持续发展指标体系，针对小样本数据特点，运用灰色关联分析法、偏最小二乘回归对其可持续发展状况进行动态评价。     

基于成本核算的政府绩效评价指标体系构建与应用

政府绩效评价是政府评价主体运用一定的评价方法对政府绩效进行考核评价的过程。由于我国政府绩效评价起步较晚,部分地方还存在重投入轻管理、重支出轻绩效的问题,绩效考核结果的导向作用不强,成本核算成为提升政府绩效的核心。因此,文章在成本核算的基础上对政府绩效进行评价,采用层次分析法从经济发展、社会管理、教育科技、资源环境、成本管理、公共服务六大方面构建基于成本核算的政府绩效评价指标体系,将其应用于H市政府的绩效评价工作,从而有效地提高政府的公信力和执行力,同时也有助于推进我国政府绩效评价工作的发展。     

A Tiered Framework for Risk‐Relevant Characterization and Ranking of Chemical Exposures: Applications to the National Children's Study (NCS)

A challenge for large‐scale environmental health investigations such as the National Children's Study (NCS), is characterizing exposures to multiple, co‐occurring chemical agents with varying spatiotemporal concentrations and consequences modulated by biochemical, physiological, behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental factors. Such investigations can benefit from systematic retrieval, analysis, and integration of diverse extant information on both contaminant patterns and exposure‐relevant factors. This requires development, evaluation, and deployment of informatics methods that support flexible access and analysis of multiattribute data across multiple spatiotemporal scales. A new “Tiered Exposure Ranking” (TiER) framework, developed to support various aspects of risk‐relevant exposure characterization, is described here, with examples demonstrating its application to the NCS. TiER utilizes advances in informatics computational methods, extant database content and availability, and integrative environmental/exposure/biological modeling to support both “discovery‐driven” and “hypothesis‐driven” analyses. “Tier 1” applications focus on “exposomic” pattern recognition for extracting information from multidimensional data sets, whereas second and higher tier applications utilize mechanistic models to develop risk‐relevant exposure metrics for populations and individuals. In this article, “tier 1” applications of TiER explore identification of potentially causative associations among risk factors, for prioritizing further studies, by considering publicly available demographic/socioeconomic, behavioral, and environmental data in relation to two health endpoints (preterm birth and low birth weight). A “tier 2” application develops estimates of pollutant mixture inhalation exposure indices for NCS counties, formulated to support risk characterization for these endpoints. Applications of TiER demonstrate the feasibility of developing risk‐relevant exposure characterizations for pollutants using extant environmental and demographic/socioeconomic data.     

Measuring operational excellence: an operational excellence profitability (OEP) approach

The pursuit of operational excellence in the manufacturing industry is at rise but its measurement still lacks of appropriate indicators to determine its financial benefits. The ambiguity is due to the impact arisen from manufacturing fluctuations such as price and cost, production mix and direct and indirect parameters variations. Manufacturing fluctuations distort the cost benefit of operational excellence. This paper, therefore, proposes the OEP (Operational Excellence Profitability) indicators to isolate the impact of manufacturing fluctuation and distinctly identify the payback of operational excellence strategies and initiatives through cost benefits of achieving higher efficiency and yield. The paper presents the conceptual and mathematical development of the proposed OEP indicators and the formulas used for their calculation. Hypothetical and industrial-based investigations and applications of the OEP indicators are conducted for their validation. The results obtained from the hypothetical exercise and industrial case suggest that OEP indicators can provide an effective cost-benefit analysis of operational excellence. This would contribute in providing manufacturing organizations with more complete information regarding the performance of their processes, which will allow their directors and managers to take better decisions related to the management and improvement of their processes.     

Multivariate Approach for Comparative Evaluations of Customer Satisfaction with Application to Transport Services

In problems related to evaluations of products or services (e.g. in customer satisfaction analysis) the main difficulties concern the synthesis of the information, which is necessary for the presence of several evaluators and many response variables (aspects under evaluation). In this article, the problem of determining and comparing the satisfaction of different groups of customers, in the presence of multivariate response variables and using the results of pairwise comparisons is addressed. Within the framework of group ranking methods and multi criteria decision making theory, a new approach, based on nonparametric techniques, for evaluating group satisfaction in a multivariate framework is proposed and the concept of Multivariate Relative Satisfaction is defined. An application to the evaluation of public transport services, like the railway service and the urban bus service, by students of the University of Ferrara (Italy) is also discussed.     

The limitations of using school league tables to inform school choice

Summary. In England, so-called 'league tables' based on examination results and test scores are published annually, ostensibly to inform parental choice of secondary schools. A crucial limitation of these tables is that the most recent published information is based on the current performance of a cohort of pupils who entered secondary schools several years earlier, whereas for choosing a school it is the future performance of the current cohort that is of interest. We show that there is substantial uncertainty in predicting such future performance and that incorporating this uncertainty leads to a situation where only a handful of schools' future performances can be separated from both the overall mean and from one another with an acceptable degree of precision. This suggests that school league tables, including value-added tables, have very little to offer as guides to school choice.     

The application of a performance management system in hospitals: A hypothetical example

Abstract

The central theme of this article is performance management, defined as activities of organizations aimed at an effective and efficient use of their human resources. The organization focused on in particular is the hospital. Three principles taken from motivation theory are dealt with which are basic to performance management: goal setting, feedback and reinforcement. Next, a recently developed procedure (Pritchard 1990, Pritchard et al. 1988, 1989) for the design of performance management systems is described. This procedure, ProMES: Productivity Measurement and Enhancement Systems, is explained using a team of ward nurses as a hypothetical example. In addition to the nursing wards example, other potential applications of the ProMES technique to several hospitals areas are mentioned. Finally, some conditions that should be fulfilled in order to successfully start a ProMES project are discussed.