BROADENING THE APEC VISION

April 30th, 2010 by Madison

Globalization and the New Economy have transformed the global and regional economy significantly since the Bogor Goals, bringing forward extraordinary opportunities as well as challenges. APEC's vision needs to reflect these changes. While trade liberalization is at the core of APEC agenda, Leaders also agree that the Bogor Goals need to be placed within the context of an updated and expanded vision that addresses trade and investment liberalization and facilitation and economic and technical cooperation in an integrated manner to maximize the benefits for all economies in the region. One of the greatest challenges to materialize such a vision is to intensify the collective and individual actions that economies take at domestic and international levels on reforms and capacity building across a range of areas.

The strategic goals of the Finance Ministers' Process should also be reflected in a broader vision for APEC, given the important role of sound macroeconomic policies, good economic governance, stable financial systems and greater economic interaction have in improving prosperity for the region.

Posted in : Others

objective: To study and analyze the relationship between child's intelligence level and sixteen influence factors.

methods: An intelligence test was performed among 420 aged 3 — 6 years old healthy children in Changsha. The data was analyzed by using poly basic stepwise regression.

jaunts: The results showed that the mother's educational level is the first important factor related to the child's intelligence quotient (IQ), and the father's educational level is the second important one. The results also showed that the breadth of the child's forehead from top to bottom is the third important factor. There was no relationship to the parent's occupation.

connclusions: From these results, it is concluded that the development of intelligence in children is influenced not only by inheritance, but also by environment especially, the educational level of the mother and father. Environment is more important than inheritance. r words: intelligence; factor analysis; statistics; child

Dictions: Please go to the library to select several articles with the in-native abstracts, structured abstracts or indicative abstracts and study writing methods of the abstracts.

Posted in : Others

Dangerous Descent

April 28th, 2010 by Madison

In future, astronauts will be required to descend from a spaceship while it is still in space and to return to it. The ability to do this will be necessary in future flights to distant planets. Scientists are now trying to discover if this is possible.

The spaceship Astra which left the earth a short time ago, will be travelling three under miles into space. At a certain point, the Astra will stop for a short time and an astronaut will attempt to leave the stationary spaceship and then return to it discover if this is possible

We shall not know whether the experiment has been successful until We have received a radio message. The first message is expected to arrive at o'clock this evening. By that time, the Astra will have been flying through spate for seventeen hours and will have circled the earth a great many times. When the first radio messages have been received, the results of the trip will be announced immediately.

Posted in : Others

A Cold Welcome

April 27th, 2010 by Madison

On Wednesday evening, we went to the Town Hall. It was the last day of the year and a large crowd of people had gathered under the Town Hall clock. It would strike twelve in twenty minutes' time. Fifteen frights passed and then, at five to twelve, the clock stopped. The big minute hand did not move. We waited and waited, but nothing happened. Suddenly someone shouted, 'It's two minutes part (twelve The dock has stopped!' I looked at my watch. It was true. The big clock refused to welcome the New Year. At that moment, everybody began to laugh and sing.

Posted in : Others

Drivers ' hours and tachographs

April 26th, 2010 by Madison

There are two sets of drivers' hours rule, domestic and European, and both contain lists of exemptions. The main factor determining which set applies to a given vehicle and operation is the vehicle's maximum gross weight (mgw) , also known as the gross vehicle weight. This means the most the vehicle can legally weigh when fully loaded. The mgw will be shown on Department of Transport (DOT) and manufacturers' plates. The former prevails in the event of a conflict and the latter is sufficient if the vehicle is not subject to DOT plating.

If the new exceeds 3.5 toner, the European drivers' hours and tachograph rules (EU rules) will apply unless the vehicle or operation is exempt. The rules and exemptions are contained in European Regulations 3820 and 3821 of 1985. Additional requirements relating to the keeping of records are contained in the Transport Act 1968.

If the mgw does not exceed 3. 5 tonne or the vehicle or operation is exempt from the EU rule, the domestic rules will apply unless a relevant exemption from those rules can be found.

Posted in : Others

Performance measures

April 24th, 2010 by Madison

As with any management exercise, performance measures are useful for evaluating the progress or otherwise of a given initiative. Most business managers will be concerned with costs and benefits because businesses are concerned with making a healthy return on investment. Very often best environmental practice will result in financial benefits in return. For example, investment in driver training may deliver savings in the form of reduced accident figures and better fuel consumption.

However, some environmental projects may have to be undertaken because of legal requirements, and will not generate commensurate cost savings for the business. For example, a noise abatement order generated because local residents have objected to the noise screens, landscaping or restrictions on operating hours. Clearly any of these measures will simply add cost and no financial benefit to the business concerned, although some pubic relations benefits may accrue. Obviously it would be desirable to avoid this kind of problem by selecting operating sites carefully, but some sites, through no fault of their own, have over time been slowly surrounded by residential dwellings. Unfortunately, being first is not enough to make them immune from this kind of problem.

Organizations with environmental management systems, whether formal or informal, will attempt to monitor their performance in certain areas of their operation. Simple measures might include:

• Miles per gallon of fuel used;

• Percentage of fleet using less polluting fuels;

• Average life of tyres expressed in miles;

• Percentage of types remoulded or regrooved;

Posted in : Others

Non — competitive benchmarking

April 23rd, 2010 by Madison

This type of benchmarking involves benchmarking against other companies in different industries. This has the advantage of excluding market competition from the process of comparison. By the same token it does make it more difficult to identify specific areas of comparison between non—competitive benchmarking partners. Many companies see the advantages of continuing benchmarking activities on a regular basis and so they have set up benchmarking clubs as a forum to continue the activity.

Posted in : Others

Vehicle routing

April 22nd, 2010 by Madison

Because transportation costs typically range between one- third and two -third of total logistics costs, improving efficiency through the maximum utilization of transportation equipment and personnel is a major concern. The length of time that goody are in transit reflects on the number of shipments that can be made with a vehicle within a given period of time and on the total transportation cost for all shipments. To reduce transportation costs and also to improve customer service, finding the best paths that a vehicle should follow through a net-work of roads, rail lines, shipping lanes, or air navigational routes that will minimize time or distance is a frequent decision problem. Although there are many variations of routing problems, we can reduce them to a few basic types. There is the problem of finding a path through a net-work where the origin point is different from the destination point. 1 here is a similar problem where there arc multiple origin and destination points. And, there is the problem of routing when origin and destination points are the same. Consider how each type might be solved.

Posted in : Others

One needs only to contrast the economies of a "developed' nation with those that are" developing" to see the part that transportation plays in creating a high level of economic activity. It is typical in the developing that production and consumption take place in close proximity, much of the labor force is engaged in agricultural production, and a low proportion of the total population lives in urban areas. With the advent of inexpensive and readily available transportation services, the structure of the economy changes toward that of developed nations. Large cities result from the migration of the population to urban centers, geo-graphical areas limit production to a narrow range of products, and the economic standard of living for the average citizen usually rises. More specifically, an efficient and inexpensive transportation system contributes to greater competition in the marketplace, greater economies of scale in production, and reduced prices for goods.

Posted in : Others

Order picking systems

April 20th, 2010 by Madison

Order picking is a crucial operation within warehousing, being critical to order timeliness and order accuracy. Many order picking operations however are monotonous and labor - intensive, and require clerical effort from the pickers. They are often carried out during unsociable hours of work and in uncongenial environments, all of which militate against quality.

In recent years a number of "advanced" system have been developed for faster picking with high levels of accuracy, and minimum clerical and manual work input. Some of these are based on high levels of mechanization, and all rely totally on the use of IT. They include:

• operator - controlled cranes working in aisles between racking or shelving;

• carousel and miniload picking - the required goods are brought to the operator working in a static location;

• dispensing , with stock - holding magazines feeding automatically onto aconveyor belt;

robotic applications in which guided trucks fitted with robot arms are used for small-item picking, e.g. pharmaceutical products;

• gantry robots used for larger- item picking ,e. g. case picking of brewery products;

• pick by lights, using computer - controlled indicator lights on each picking stock location to guide picking operators along optimum picking routes, and to indicate the required quantities of items to be picked.

Picking by lights has found numerous applications, especially for small and medium - sized items picking, including the picking of tape cassettes, videotapes, pharmaceutical products, and dairy products such as cheeses. The benefits include high rates of picking and hence productivity, little or no requirement for clerical input from the picking, and very high levels of picking accuracy.

Robotic picking expensive, but is fairly well established in the German pharmaceutical industry. Other robotic picking applications are beginning to appear, for example case picking of beer in the brewing industry.

Posted in : Others