Using AHP to evaluate the criteria of auto spare parts industry

Analytic hierarchy process method is applied by surveying auto spare parts suppliers in Taiwan to identify the importance of 7 major criteria and 30 sub-criteria. Quality is the most essential criterion whereas production is the least important criterion identified in this study. Unlike the traditional viewpoints that local auto spare parts makers tend to emphasize on production, quality, service, technological capability, and price are relatively more important. In addition, four of five sub-criteria under the criterion of quality play an important role for the local suppliers to gain competitive advantages. By identifying the most essential criteria and sub-criteria, the performance based on those criteria and sub-criteria should be closely monitored and relentlessly improved under such competitive business environment.     

基于DEA的宁波企业技术创新载体产出效率评价

近年,宁波市企业技术创新载体数量不断增加,R&D经费投入稳步提高,并呈现向制造业投入集中的特征,但是经费投入中基础研究和应用研究经费投入不足,发明专利比例偏低。总体来说,与国内其他城市相比宁波科技创新载体发展基础还比较薄弱,技术创新机构规模效益递减,其总体创新效率不容乐观。     

Aggregating the DEA prospect cross-efficiency with an application to state key laboratories in China

With growing investments in the state key laboratories (SKLs) of China, it is essential to assess the efficiency of the administrative departments regarding managing the SKLs of China. However, few studies have been conducted about the evaluation of the performance of Chinese administrative departments in managing SKLs. To fill this gap, this paper investigates the performance within 22 SKL administrative departments in China, based on a data envelopment analysis cross-efficiency prospect aggregation approach incorporating the risk preference of decision maker. The empirical results show the major findings: (a) serious imbalance exists regarding the investment of 22 SKL administrative departments; (b) there are great differences among the performance of 22 SKL administrative departments; (c) some SKL administrative departments face an insufficient situation regarding the outputs; (d) different risk attitudes of decision maker have the significant impact on the evaluation results of the 22 SKL administrative departments. Based on these findings, we provide several policy suggestions for the development of SKLs in China.     

用DEA方法评测知识生产中的技术效率与技术进步

本文以1996~2003年我国29个省区市大中型工业企业面板数据为样本,运用数据包络分析技术将知识生产率分解为技术效率变化和技术进步,并检验了各省份知识生产中技术效率和技术进步的收敛情况。研究发现,1996~2003年期间我国工业企业知识生产中的技术效率有所提高、技术进步出现下降,知识生产率下降主要源于技术进步的下降。研究还表明,知识生产中的技术效率和技术进步存在着条件收敛,但不存在绝对收敛。     

Using data envelopment analysis to evaluate efficiency in the economic performance of Chinese cities

This paper studies the use of DEA (data envelopment analysis) as a tool for possible use in evaluating and planning the economic performance of China's cities (28 in all) which play a critical role in the government's program of economic development. DEA promises advantages which include the absence of any need for the assignment of weights on an a priori basis (to reflect the supposed relative importance of various outputs or inputs) when evaluating technical efficiency. It is also unnecessary to explicitly specify underlying functions that are intended to prescribe the analytical form of the relations between inputs and outputs. Finally, as is illustrated in the paper, DEA can be used to identify sources, and estimate amounts of inefficiencies in each city's performance as well as to identify returns-to-scale possibilities in ways that seem well-suited to the mixture of centralized and decentralized planning and performance that China is currently trying to use.     

Qualitative analysis of the process of restoring social esteem by the women with multiple sclerosis

The present study has been conducted with the purpose of analyzing the process of restoring the social esteem of the women with multiple sclerosis (MS) in the Iranian society through the approach of grounded theory. To this end, a number of 10 women with MS who had referred to Sina Hospital and Iranian MS Society were selected through theoretical sampling. The data collection was conducted through semi-structured interview, on-field note taking, investigating the documents, and memoing. Based on analyzing data, six processes emerged which, according to the order of occurrence, are: (1) seeking and finding treatment, (2) change of the perceived social esteem, (3) struggle to preserve or regain possessions, (4) seeking support and sponsorship, (5) attempt to achieve a desirable consistency, and ultimately, (6) restoring social esteem. The results obtained from this study indicated that though a considerable number of the cases feel changes in their social esteem due to rejection, being abandoned by their spouses, emergence of a co-wife, feeling of burden, financial shortages, and divorce, depending on interventional and contextual conditions including belief in spirituality and supernatural, patient and society’s awareness of the nature of the disease, and the extent of social support, they have experienced varied circumstances. Ultimately, a central level titled “repeated and recurring adjustment of goals” was proposed to reflect the process of restoring the social esteem of the women with MS in Iran.     

The long-run cost of job loss as measured by consumption changes

We consider the measurement of the cost of job displacement. With a Canadian panel survey we compare the consumption growth of households that experienced a permanent layoff to a control group of households that experienced a temporary layoff with known recall date. Because the firms employing the latter group are providing insurance, these workers approximate a benchmark of full insurance against job loss shocks. We estimate that permanent layoffs experience an average consumption loss of between 4% and 10%. Older workers and workers with high job tenure have losses closer to the top of this range.     

Using DEA to improve the management of congestion in Chinese industries (1981–1997)

Congestion is said to be present when increases in inputs result in output reductions. An “iron rice bowl” policy instituted in China shortly after the revolution led by Mao Tze Tung resulted in congestion that ultimately led to bankruptcy in the textile industry, and near bankruptcy in other industries. A major policy shift away from the “iron rice bowl policy” in 1990 led to massive layoffs and increasing social tensions. Were these massive layoffs necessary? Extensions of data envelopment analysis models effected in the present paper identified inefficiencies in the management of congestion. Using textiles and automobiles for illustration, it is shown how elimination of such managerial inefficiencies could have led to output augmentation without reducing employment. Thus, even in the presence of congestion, it proved to be possible to identify additional (managerial) inefficiencies that provided opportunities for improvement. In the heavily congested textile industry, these output augmentations could have been accompanied by reductions in the amounts of capital used (as an added bonus). In any case, we show how to identify and evaluate new types of efficiency—viz., the efficiency with which needed (or desired) inefficiencies are managed.     

A response to the critiques of DEA by Dmitruk and Koshevoy, and Bol

We here critique the articles by Dmitruk & Koshevoy (1991, J Econ Theory 55:121–144) and by Bol (1986, J Econ Theory 38:380–385) by showing how to solve the examples they erected to show the non-existence of functions for evaluating performance efficiencies in DEA. We also show that functions satisfying these criteria—and other important criteria as well—were already available prior to the publications of D&K and by Bol and have since been greatly extended to increase the power and scope of DEA.

Forecasting in social settings: The state of the art

This paper provides a non-systematic review of the progress of forecasting in social settings. It is aimed at someone outside the field of forecasting who wants to understand and appreciate the results of the M4 Competition, and forms a survey paper regarding the state of the art of this discipline. It discusses the recorded improvements in forecast accuracy over time, the need to capture forecast uncertainty, and things that can go wrong with predictions. Subsequently, the review classifies the knowledge achieved over recent years into (i) what we know, (ii) what we are not sure about, and (iii) what we don’t knowIn the first two areas, we explore the difference between explanation and prediction, the existence of an optimal model, the performance of machine learning methods on time series forecasting tasks, the difficulties of predicting non-stable environments, the performance of judgment, and the value added by exogenous variables. The article concludes with the importance of (thin and) fat tails, the challenges and advances in causal inference, and the role of luck.     

On the computability of quasi-transitive binary social choice rules in an infinite society and the halting problem

This paper investigates the computability problem of the existence of a vetoer and an oligarchy for quasi-transitive binary social choice rules (Mas-Colell and Sonnenschein in Rev Econ Stud 39:185–192, 1972) in a society with an infinite number of individuals (infinite society) according to the computable calculus (or computable analysis) by Aberth (Computable analysis, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1980; Computable calculus, Academic Press, Dublin, 2001). We will show the following results. The problem whether a quasi-transitive binary social choice rule which satisfies Pareto principle and independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) has a vetoer or has no vetoer in an infinite society is a nonsolvable problem, that is, there exists no ideal computer program for a quasi-transitive binary social choice rule which satisfies Pareto principle and IIA that decides whether it has a vetoer or has no vetoer. And it is equivalent to nonsolvability of the halting problem. We also show that if for any quasi-transitive binary social choice rule there exists an oligarchy in an infinite society, whether it is finite or infinite is a nonsolvable problem. A vetoer is an individual such that if he strictly prefers an alternative to another alternative, then the society prefers the former to the latter or is indifferent between them regardless of the preferences of other individuals, and an oligarchy is the minimal set of individuals which has dictatorial power and its each member is a vetoer. It will be shown that an oligarchy is a set of vetoers if it exists. This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), 20530165, and the Grant-in-Aid from the Zengin Foundation for Studies on Economics and Finance in Japan.     

社会空间特性对社会交往的影响——以长沙市为例

社会空间对社会交往的影响源于空间的特性。实证资料表明,社会空间与社会交往形式呈显著相关关系。实证研究表明:社会空间层次越高,无论是正式交往还是非正式交往,交往的频率越高;在非正式交往方面,社会空间层次越低,交往频率亦越高。在此基础上,认为社会空间与社会交往的关系在如下两点上值得进一步探讨:第一,社会空间对社会交往的影响源自文化内涵,但更源自经济内涵;第二,在社会空间分异的社会背景下,要获得丰富的社会资本,就必须加强社会交往。     

以生物矿物为原料制备磷灰石的方法

本文综述了水热法和化学浸泡法制备磷灰石的优缺点,讨论了反应温度、溶液浓度和pH值对转化速率和转化产物晶体结构的影响规律,介绍了电泳沉积-化学浸泡法制备磷灰石涂层及形成机理。同时,提出了本研究领域存在的问题。     

A model to evaluate the effectiveness of enterprise training programmes

This paper describes a model developed to measure customer satisfaction with enterprise training programmes. Based on developments in customer satisfaction and quality measurement, it is proposed as an alternative to the training evaluation model developed by Kirkpatrick (1959). A single indicator, a Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), quantifies the level of satisfaction with each training programme. The model also measures the individual parameters that contribute to the CSI, as well as their relative importance. It facilitates a benchmarking process regarding these parameters and between training programmes. The development process of the model is described, as is its use in practice.     

美国评价公共交通引导城市发展的效果的方法

在对美国近十年来衡量公共交通引导城市发展效果的评价研究进行概括介绍的基础上,重点从评价框架、评价内容与指标、指标的特性三方面对评价方法进行了归纳性研究,对其评价方法的经验进行了总结,以期对中国城市进行公共交通引导城市发展有所启示。     

Development of hybrid fuzzy multi-criteria decision approach to evaluate key factors for marketing strategic alliance formation based on multiple theories

This study integrates three methods for evaluating the interaction and importance of key factors, while mapping the differences between development and maintenance stages during the formation of marketing strategic alliances in the telecommunications industry. A systematic, quantitative, integrated measurement is proposed to evaluate the importance of factors. Moreover, it provides a holistic picture of similarities and differences across stages for establishing marketing strategic alliance relationships. The factors' evaluation results show that the maintenance stage is critical for the relationship as it relates to sustaining the collaboration and can determine whether a marketing strategic alliance will continue or terminate.