According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Out of the Crisis

Recent studies of eye movements in reading and other information processing tasks, such as music reading, typing, visual search, and scene perception, are reviewed. The major emphasis of the review is on reading as a specific example of cognitive processing. Basic topics discussed with respect to reading are (a) the characteristics of eye movements, (b) the perceptual span, (c) integration of information across saccades, (d) eye movement control, and (e) individual differences (including dyslexia). Similar topics are discussed with respect to the other tasks examined. The basic theme of the review is that eye movement data reflect moment-to-moment cognitive processes in the various tasks examined. Theoretical and practical considerations concerning the use of eye movement data are also discussed.

/pdf/eye-movements-in-reading-and-information-processing-20-years-3z5ay8hdwc.pdf

Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research.

This article consists of three parts. Part 1 discusses the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ), designed to measure scales assessing psychological demands, decision latitude, social support, physical demands, and job insecurity. Part 2 reports the cross-national validity, for men and women, of the JCQ scales in six broadly representative populations from four advanced industrial societies: the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and Japan. JCQ scale means, standard deviations, reliabilities and correlations are compared. Part 3 reviews comparison of the intercountry and interoccupation differences in the scales, discusses specific scales issues and discusses the implications of the study for interpretation of psychosocial job asessment questionnaires.

The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ): an instrument for internationally comparative assessments of psychosocial job characteristics.

This chapter discusses leading problems linked to energy that the world is now confronting and to propose some ideas concerning possible solutions. Oil deserves special attention among all energy sources. Since the beginning of 1981, it has merely been continuing and enhancing the downward movement in consumption and prices caused by excessive rises, especially for light crudes such as those from Africa, and the slowing down of worldwide economic growth. Densely-populated oil-producing countries need to produce to live, to pay for their food and their equipment. If the economic growth of the industrialized countries were to be 4%, even if investment in the rational use of energy were pushed to the limit and the development of nonpetroleum energy sources were also pursued actively, it would be extremely difficult to prevent a sharp rise in prices. It is evident that it is absolutely necessary to pursue actively the development of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power if a physical shortage of energy is not to block economic growth.

World energy outlook

Framework Convention on Climate Change

As aircraft and other systems become more automated, a shift is occurring in human operator participation in these systems. This shift is away from manual control and toward activities that tap the higher mental functioning of human operators. Therefore, an experiment was performed in a moving-base flight simulator to assess mediational (cognitive) workload measurement. Specifically, 16 workload estimation techniques were evaluated as to their sensitivity and intrusion in a flight task emphasizing mediational behavior. Task loading, using navigation problems presented on a display, was treated as an independent variable, and workload-measure values were treated as dependent variables. Results indicate that two mediational task measures, two rating scale measures, time estimation, and two eye behavior measures were reliably sensitive to mediational loading. The time estimation measure did, however, intrude on mediational task performance. Several of the remaining measures were completely insensitive to mediational load.

Evaluation of 16 Measures of Mental Workload using a Simulated Flight Task Emphasizing Mediational Activity

Techniques in mental workload assessment.

This research identified and analysed a number of inland port sites in the five counties surrounding Los Angeles, using a location-allocation methodology. It also considered the inland ports' potential for integration into a more efficient regional intermodal goods movement system served by the southern California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. GIS was used to map the sites where international cargo is processed in the five counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura. One hundred transportation zones were determined from a truck travel survey conducted by the ports. These zones represent density points for distribution/processing centres. First, a single facility location model was used to define the proximal location of an inland port that minimises the total truck-miles travelled. Then, we extended this model to a series of location-allocation models with up to six inland port locations included. With no inland port (current system), the total daily vehicle-miles travelled (VMT) is 220,100 miles, and the average trip length is 11.6 miles. As more inland ports are added to the location-allocation model, the total truck-miles travelled is reduced significantly. The new system follows the concept of a ‘satellite inland port’, which is based on a hub-and-spoke configuration. Also, with significant reductions in VMT, a proportional amount of congestion relief and air pollution reduction is expected from this new goods movement framework. The results show that the mathematical approach is a useful platform for initial investigations into inland port site selection.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fmel.2008.17.pdf

An Inland Port Location-Allocation Model for a Regional Intermodal Goods Movement System

In certain fleet systems, the environmental impacts of operation are, to some extent, a controllable function of vehicle routing and scheduling decisions. However, little prior work has considered environmental impacts in fleet vehicle routing and scheduling optimization, in particular, where the impacts were assessed systematically utilizing life-cycle impact assessment methodologies such as those described by the Society of Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology. Here a methodology is presented for the joint optimization of cost, service, and life-cycle environmental consequences in vehicle routing and scheduling, which we develop for a demand-responsive (paratransit or dial-a-ride) transit system. We demonstrate through simulation that, as a result of our methodology, it is possible to reduce environmental impacts substantially, while increasing operating costs and service delays only slightly.

Mansour Rahimi

Papers

Evaluation of 16 Measures of Mental Workload using a Simulated Flight Task Emphasizing Mediational Activity

Techniques in mental workload assessment.

An Inland Port Location-Allocation Model for a Regional Intermodal Goods Movement System

Jointly optimizing cost, service, and environmental performance in demand-responsive transit scheduling

Merging strategic safety, health and environment into total quality management