Technological change in the military aircraft industry

This paper analyzes technological change in the U.S. military aircraft industry. It divides this technological change into two components, methods of production and product quality innovations. The basic findings of this paper are obtained from a comparison of the F-4 and F-15 technologies. The results show that new production technologies reduce the costs of manufacturing a weapon system, but that product improvements substantially increase costs.     

Forecasting system thermal efficiencies in technology importing countries

Forecasting the thermal efficiency of a set of power plants belonging to a country is important for energy, water, and environmental planning.In this article an analysis of the way in which the system thermal efficiency (STE) changes is provided, and a forecasting model for the electric utilities of technology importing countries is developed.The model is based on the identification of the speed with which technology is transferred from abroad and of the adjustment process of the system's efficiency to that of the best plant's.The application of the calculation to the South African utility shows that the STE in the year 2015 will be 20 to 25 percent higher than that in the year 1983.     

Land fragmentation as an index of history in the Virginia Military District of Ohio

This paper investigates the process of land fragmentation for several counties and townships in the Virginia Military District of Ohio in the early part of the nineteenth century. It reports the ultimate patterns or configurations arising from individual decisions about properties, that is, conveyances of all or part of original large holdings to children by inheritance or to new settlers by sale. The distribution of land holdings rapidly stabilizes as lognormal with a Gini coefficient of about 0.6. An explanation for this result is offered based on breakage theory, the distribution of male offspring, and the behavior of the lognormal distribution with truncated inheritance distributions.     

The future employment impacts of industrial robots : An input-output approach

An input-output framework is employed to estimate the indirect as well as direct effects of industrial robots on employment by industry sector and occupation. Net employment impacts are defined as the combined effects of the production and the use of industrial robots under the assumption that the demand for goods produced with this new technology is unaffected. These employment effects are estimated as the difference between a base economy (1977) and the same economy with an additional robot-producing sector and given (1990) stocks of robots installed in manufacturing industries. Six scenarios are defined by alternative levels of Robotics sector output and installed robots. The results show that job displacement is 4.5 to 6.2 times greater than job creation, that under the most extreme scenario the aggregate net job loss is 718,000, about 0.7 percent of total 1984 employment, and that the growth occupations (engineers) are highly skilled and white-collar while the declining occupations (welders, painters, machine operators, laborers) are relatively low skilled and blue-collar.     

A comparison of Japanese and American business negotiations

The determinants of the outcomes of business negotiations in two cultures are investigated in a laboratory experiment. The most important causal factor in Japanese negotiations was found to be the role (i.e., buyer or seller) of the negotiator. Japanese buyers consistently achieved higher bargaining solutions than Japanese sellers. The primary causal factor in negotiations between Americans was the information content of bargaining strategies. Americans to whom bargaining partners gave information more freely achieved higher bargaining solutions.     

提高体育教育专业学生教学能力水平的对策研究

运用文献资料法、理论分析法,对陕西高校体育教育专业学生教学能力培养现状进行分析。发现:校内实习培训内容缺乏完整性和系统性、培训目标缺乏针对性;缺乏有效地评价等诸多问题;教学实习基地的作用没有充分发挥等诸多问题。最后提出针对性建议,希望能为体育教育专业学生教学能力培养和发展奠定基础。