The Impact of Foreign Competition and New Technologies on the Demand for Heterogeneous Labor

This paper investigates the impact which foreign competition, investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) and investment in capital goods other than ICT-related have on the demand for heterogeneous labor. A dynamic interrelated factor demands model serves as the theoretical framework and is estimated by an ordered probit model. Cross-sectional data from a business survey in the service sector are used in the empirical analysis.It turns out that skill-biased technological change is adeterminant of the recent decline in relative demand for lowskilled labor in the business-related services sector.Expected foreign competition positively affects the demandfor unskilled workers and for workers with completed vocationaltraining, while it leaves the demand for the other skill groupsunchanged.     

Enhancing Technological Practice: An Assessment Framework for Technology Education in New Zealand

The stated aim of technology education in New Zealand is to develop students' level of technological literacy. This paper introduces the Technology Assessment Framework (TAF) as an organisational tool for the development and delivery of technology programmes that focus on increasing students' technological literacy through the enhancement of their technological practice across technological areas and contexts. The TAF was developed and refined in 1999 and 2000 as part of a two year New Zealand Ministry of Education funded research project, and integrated within a national professional development programme in 2000 designed for preservice and inservice teacher educators in New Zealand.This paper backgrounds the sociocultural theoretical position of the TAF and explains how it reflects and furthers the aim of technology education in New Zealand. The TAF is then presented and explained with the aid of illustrative examples from classroom practice.     

树立煤炭企业职工教育培训新理念

树立"以人为本"的培训理念,完善培训管理机制,提升师资水平,提高培训质量。     

利用新技术、新工艺提升规避工程检验HSE风险能力

介绍了在海底管线接长及钢管卷制接长中，应用自动／手动超声波探伤替代射线探伤工艺，对焊缝质量进行无损检验的成功案例。说明通过科技进步对原有的工艺进行技术革新，或通过引进先进的技术设备等多方面、多视角的技术工艺创新活动，可达到安全、环保、健康与石油工业的协调发展。     

The Story Is As Good As the Real Thing: Early Customer Input on Product Applications of Radically New Technologies

Early customer input on applications that use radically new technologies is crucial for gaining an understanding of the benefits and value of these new technologies. Potential customers should have a clear understanding of a new technology application before they give their input on it. Prototypes provide a clear picture to the customer, but are seldom available in the early (predevelopment) stage. Therefore, a customer research technique that provides valuable input is needed. The aim of the study is to show that product narratives provide valuable input from customers in the predevelopment phase of a discontinuous new product development (NPD) process. This study compares a product narrative with a benchmark condition of a working prototype, a nonnarrative, and two conditions that have been added to make a comparison possible. Confirming this study's prediction, the analysis of variance results show that no differences are present between the narrative text with drawn images and a prototype demonstration on all dependent variables (i.e., evaluations of the product, interaction, ease of use, and aesthetics). Differences in customers' evaluations are only present when the narration is removed from the text with drawn images. Regression analysis confirms that narration is the key variable that predicts the evaluations of the product, interaction, ease of use, and aesthetics. The mediating role of narrative transportation provides explanation of these findings. Narrative transportation is a mixture of attention, imagery, and feelings that people experience when they watch a movie or read a narrative. According to narrative transportation theory, transported consumers immerse themselves in what they watch or read and have vivid images in their mind, see themselves in the scene of the action, experience emotions, and forget the world around them. This study shows that without narration, texts with drawn images are insufficiently vivid to transport the reader to enable him or her to imagine using the really new product, and consequently, provide evaluations similar to prototype evaluations. The narrative character of the utilized technology application presentation provides vivid imagery of the technology application, thereby compensating for a lack of realism. To conclude, an easy‐to‐apply product narrative successfully explains a technology application that uses a radically new technology to a customer before prototypes have been completed.     

Marketing/R&D Interaction in New Product Development: Implications for New Product Success Rates

A growing body of literature has evolved which deals with the interaction between marketing and R&D in new product development. Much of this research, unfortunately, fails to associate various variables with new product success levels. Thus, it cannot suggest consensus guidelines for marketing's involvement to increase the performance levels of new products in the market place. Richard Hise, Larry O'Neal, A. Parasuraman and James McNeal report results of their analysis of the new product development procedures of 252 large manufacturing companies. The authors conclude that collaborative efforts between marketing and R&D during the actual designing of new products appear to be a key factor in explaining the success levels of new products, that management effort should focus on the design stage of the new product development process rather than on the earlier and later stages and that R&D's contributions cannot be ignored while decisions are made about marketing's role in developing new consumer and industrial products.     

Technologies in caregiving: professionals’ strategies for engaging with new technology

This article explores the adoption of new technology in organisations that provide senior citizen care. Inspired by Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, we study how technology reduces complexity by identifying client needs and ensuring predictability in service delivery. However, how technologies are adopted in practice is not determined by technology since it is also structured by care-workers' continuous decision-making. Against this backdrop, we explore how technologies alter the conditions for decision-making in two settings of elderly care, and we describe how care workers seek to adapt technologies to their practical needs as well as conception of care ethics. Developing a systems theory approach, the article eschews a priori assumptions of technological constraint on care-workers’ professional autonomy, offering a more open-ended exploration of diversified strategies for coping with new technology. Our case studies show that employees develop diversified strategies for technology adoption, including both non-usage, heated resistance, excessive embrace, and creative adaption.     

Forecasting the Market Penetration of New Technologies Using a Combination of Economic Cost and Diffusion Models

Forecasting market penetration is an essential step in the development, assessment, and commercialization of new technologies. Among the many forecasting approaches available are the economic cost model and the diffusion model. Separately, each of these approaches has been used in many applications of market penetration forecasting. In this article, A. P. S. Teotia and P. S. Raju briefly review these two approaches and then describe a methodology for forecasting market penetration using both of these approaches sequentially. They illustrate this approach with an example of market penetration forecasting for energy-efficient electric motors. A combination approach, which incorporates the strengths of two or more approaches, may be superior in many instances to the use of any one approach alone.     

应对世界新秩序:油气行业面临新挑战--第十届亚洲石油和天然气大会综述

第十届亚洲石油和天然气大会于6月13至14 日在马来西亚首都吉隆坡召开.来自世界各地的石油天然气公司、政府部门和研究机构的1200多名代表参加了这次石油天然气盛会.始于1996年的亚洲石油和天然气会议,每年都在吉隆坡举行,它为各国的能源问题决策者、专家和行业人员提供了一个交流和磋商的平台.在本届大会上,马来西亚总理巴达维到会并致开幕词.大会以“应对世界新秩序：石油天然气行业面临挑战”为主题。     

钻井队柴油机余热回收利用技术

井队柴油机余热回收利用作为一项节能技术,在塔里木油田钻井队冬季保温过程中取得了突出的节能效果,同时还创造了较大的经济效益。对塔里木油田钻井队柴油机现状、冬季保温情况及采用余热回收利用装置实施冬季保温取得的效果等方面进行了论述。     

Implementing Technologies for Financial Service Innovations in Base of the Pyramid Markets

This study examines how information communications technologies (ICTs) can be implemented effectively to provide financial service innovations to the poor who live in developing countries, a market collectively known as the “Base of the Pyramid” or BOP. The BOP needs—but commonly lacks—basic financial services, a situation that perpetuates poverty. With a dearth of formal banks especially in rural areas of developing countries, the BOP has almost no access to savings accounts, credit lines, and other necessary services. However, ICTs have the potential to overcome cost, infrastructure, and other barriers to service delivery, and are being used to offer new financial services such as mobile phone banking to the BOP. The purpose of this study is to determine ways of successfully implementing these technology‐enabled service innovations. The study draws on the Socio‐Technical View for theoretical girding, and uses case method to examine multiple ICT implementation projects in five sub‐Saharan African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Uganda). The projects, which were carried out by a leading microfinance banking organization named Opportunity International, provided mobile banks, point‐of‐service, and mobile phone banking services to the BOP. Several techniques were applied to gather data in the field over a two‐year period: depth interviews, direct observations, and internal document and data analysis. Multiple forms of evidence were triangulated against one another, and analyzed across cases until themes emerged and converged. In doing so, two specific forms of analysis, explanation building and cross‐case synthesis, were employed to make sense of the data. The findings, summarized as research propositions, collectively conclude that implementation is effective when the unique socio‐human, governmental‐regulatory, and market conditions of the BOP are accounted for, such that fit is achieved between the technologies and environments they are situated in. More specifically, effectiveness comes when implementation (1) addresses customer and agent limits with the technologies, and is accepted and supported by trained staff who monitor technology use and make responsive system adjustments; (2) exploits and promotes supportive governmental regulations and actions, as well as leverages sound electronic fund transfer (EFT) switches, whether government or bank established; and (3) accounts for low business capabilities and evolving market competition, along with the underdeveloped financial sector and financial literacy of the population. In sum, there are multiple factors that should be considered in the design and installation activities surrounding these technologies to ensure they provide cost‐effective, quality financial services to the poor.     

Innovative Work Practices,Information Technologies,and Working Conditions: Evidence for France

We investigate the impact of new work practices and information and communication technologies (ICT) on working conditions in France. We use a unique French dataset providing information on individual workers for the year 1998. New work practices include the use of quality norms, job rotation, collective discussions on work organization, and work time flexibility. Working conditions are captured by occupational injuries as well as indicators of mental strain. We find that individuals working under the new practices face greater mental strain than individuals who do not. They also face a higher probability of work injuries, at least for benign ones. In contrast, our results suggest that ICT contribute to make the workplace more cooperative and to reduce occupational risks and injuries.     

适应新世纪素质教育 积极提高教师素质

实施素质教育,其核心是培养学生的创造力,使学生得到全面发展,其关键在于教师。这就需要教师彻底摆脱应试教育的观念的束缚,树立现代教育观念;要注重提高教师的人格素养,形成有助于培养学生创新能力的师生关系;要不断提高教师个人素质,适应新时期的要求;要形成与素质增长率相适应的知识结构和创新能力。