An Analysis of Time Study Based on Studies Made in the United Kingdom and Israel

Experienced time study analysts in the United Kingdom and Israel analyzed a series of motion pictures of a simple manual task. Comparison of the analyses of the two groups showed no significant differences between results. Furthermore, none of these men was able to detect partially trained workers or variations in the micro-method. Variations between observers were minimal where the observations concerned a very specific task situation.     

Public attitudes towards motorcyclists’ safety: A qualitative study from the United Kingdom

The aim of the reported research was to examine the perceptions of road user safety amongst different road users and examine the link between attitudes, empathy and skill in motorcycle safety behaviour. Motorcyclists were perceived by the study participants, members of the public at four different locations at the UK (including motorcyclists and non-motorcyclists), as a group be at a high risk of accidents on the road. This was due to perceived behavioural characteristics of motorcyclists – who were viewed as ‘thrill seekers’ – as well as observed behaviours on the road. This, coupled with the physical vulnerability and excessive speeds, meant that motorbike driving was considered by the study participants as the least safe form of road use. There was broad agreement that motorcycling was dangerous as a whole, but not all motorcyclists were necessarily risky riders. The issue of ‘competitive space’ emerged between car drivers and motorcyclists in particular and it was suggested that there was a lack of mutual awareness and considerations between the two groups. Generally, greatest empathy comes from drivers who are motorcyclists themselves. Engineering, education, enforcement interventions were investigated. These were aimed at two main areas: normalising safer driving behaviours for motorcyclists and increasing awareness of bikes for motorists—particularly in relation to reducing speed limits at urban junctions. Finally, the idea of risk mapping and reduced speed limits on rural roads was seen as potentially effective—particularly as certain motorcyclists highlighted that they changed their riding behaviours by increasing speed and taking greater risks on these roads.     

英国实现包装展览大联合

英国四大著名展会经过多时磋商,日前实现大联合。联合后的展会全称为“TOTAL P&P加工与包装综合展”,将包括:PPMA设备展(加工与包装机械)、PAKEX包装展(包装设备及包装材料)、EUROCHEM欧洲化工技术展(化工加工技术)以及INTERPHEX国际医药技术展(生物、医药     

基于Agent的装备采购供应商仿真模型研究

装备采购合同管理是一项复杂系统工程,目前常用的管理科学和系统工程的方法难以对其进行建模仿真并量化分析。基于Agent的仿真技术是研究复杂系统的一种有效、重要的方法。针对装备采办合同管理中的供应商选择问题,运用多Agent仿真技术建立模型并进行仿真。通过对仿真结果的分析,提出了有效选择供应商的合理建议。     

英国高校材料研究现状

综述了英国高校材料研究的现状,重点介绍了牛津大学、剑桥大学、伯明翰大学、利物浦大学、利兹大学、萨利大学和诺丁汉大学等七所大学材料研究的主要方向、内容和发展动态。     

Research performance of academic psychologists in the United Kingdom

Scientometrics - Research performance metrics inform decision making across the higher education sector. In this study we calculated up-to-date lifetime bibliometric research performance norms for...     

The search and advisory service of the United Kingdom Patent Office

As part of its policy of continually improving the facilities available to the public for retrieval of patent and trade mark information, the UKPO has launched the ‘Search and Advisory Service’. Initial emphasis has been on trade marks and service marks, including searching online the UKTM database supplied by the Office's Trade Mark Registry and hosted by Pergamon InfoLine. Activities are being extended further into the online patents field, including services based on the Office's patents database which will shortly also be available online via InfoLine. State-of-the-art and related patent searches carried out through the Office's own hard copy collection of British and foreign patent specifications arranged, primarily, according to the United Kingdom Classification Key are also embraced.     

Equine road user safety: public attitudes, understandings and beliefs from a qualitative study in the United Kingdom

Horse riders represent a significant group of vulnerable road user and are involved in a number of accidents and near misses on the road. Despite this horse riders have received little attention both in terms of academic research and transport policy. Based on literature on vulnerable road user safety, including attitudes to road user safety and behaviour of drivers and their relationship with cyclists and motorcyclists, this paper examines the attitudes and reported behaviour of drivers and horse riders. A total of 46 participants took part in six focus groups divided into four groups of drivers with little or no horse riding experience and two groups of frequent horse riders. Each group investigated five key topic areas stemming from the literature review on vulnerable road users including hazard perception, risk perception, emotion, attitudes to sharing the road and empathy. It was found that drivers and horse riders are not always aware of the same hazards in the road and that this may lead drivers to under-estimate the risk when encountering horses. Drivers often had good intentions to overtake horses safely, but were unaware of how vulnerable passing very wide and slow made them feel until they had begun the manoeuvre and hence quickly reduced such feelings either by speeding up or cutting in too soon. However, other than this, drivers had good skills when encountering horses. But these skills could be impeded by frustration when encountering a slow moving horse which was further compounded by a feeling, mainly by younger drivers, that horse riding was for leisure and as such should not get in the way of necessary work journeys. There is a need for drivers to be more aware of the potential hazards a horse rider faces on the road and these could be achieved through inducing empathy amongst drivers for horse riders, creating nudges for drivers in the environment and better education for drivers.     

A survey of commercial meat block freezing in the United Kingdom and Fire

The results of a survey of meat block freezing in the UK and Eire have been compared with experimental and calculated data. This comparison showed that only 58% of the throughput is being frozen within ±20% of the actual time required. There was little standardization of block size, type of wrapping and carton, freezing and storage conditions. The weight of the majority of blocks was between 25 and 30 kg and 80% of the meat was frozen in cartons between 14.6 and 15.9 cm thick. The survey concludes that refrigeration and meat companies must aim for more realistic freezing times and conditions in order to avoid either incomplete freezing or wasting energy by freezing for longer than necessary.     

Aerosol Metrology Supporting Air Quality Monitoring in the United Kingdom and Europe

Regulatory measurements of particle mass concentration in air, such as PM₁₀ and PM_2.5, have been required in Europe for many years, but have been problematic as issues affecting the comparability of measurements, even when made by the reference method, have become apparent. The importance of airborne particulate matter for human health, and the complexity of the atmospheric processes affecting it, have led to many other parameters, such as particle number concentration, size distribution and composition being monitored, in some cases also as a regulatory requirement. Generally the metrological aspects have been covered by the monitoring network operators, with little involvement from National Metrology Institutes (NMIs). The United Kingdom (UK) National Physical Laboratory is unusual in being an NMI that also operates air quality networks on behalf of the government, directly involved in the full range of activities from fundamental metrology, standardisation of methods, and field operation. More recently, some of the measurement issues have started to be addressed by a group of NMIs within the European Metrology Research Programme. This paper outlines some of the key metrological problems in this area, and the current position in dealing with them from a UK and European perspective.     

The effects of climate change on storm surges around the United Kingdom

Coastal flooding is often caused by extreme events, such as storm surges. In this study, improved physical models have been used to simulate the climate system and storm surges, and to predict the effect of increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases on the surges. In agreement with previous studies, this work indicates that the changes in atmospheric storminess and the higher time-average sea-level predicted for the end of the twenty-first century will lead to changes in the height of water levels measured relative to the present day tide. However, the details of these projections differ somewhat from earlier assessments.Uncertainty in projections of future extreme water levels arise from uncertainty in the amount and timing of future greenhouse gas emissions, uncertainty in the physical models used to simulate the climate system and from the natural variability of the system. The total uncertainty has not yet been reliably quantified and achieving this should be a priority for future research.     

Labour productivity in modular assembly: a study of automotive module suppliers

Modular assembly is being applied to an increasing number of vehicles and part manufacturers to manage the ever-changing demands of the automotive industry. In spite of many researches performed on the supply chain management and logistics aspects of modular production, there is no research discussing modular production line concepts used by module suppliers. In this paper, labour productivity of two assembly line concepts including the conveyor line and box assembly line is studied under modular production environment. Both line concepts and respective assembly processes are described in detail. Mathematical models showing the total work faced by these two assembly line concepts are developed and compared. Two productivity scales are defined: the maximum achievable productivity and the actual productivity. The labour productivity rates of these assembly line concepts on above productivity scales obtained from calculations and a simulation are compared as a performance measure.     

Effectiveness of planning and control systems: An empirical study of US and Japanese firms

Both researchers and practitioners have investigated the effectiveness of manufacturing planning and control systems (MPCS) in an attempt to justify the investment in MPCS. This study uses the Wight's (1981) detailed questionnaire to measure the degree of planning and control implementation in a manufacturing system, which is referred to as MPCS rating. The MPCS rating is then used to study the relationship between the self-assessed manufacturing competitiveness (cost, quality, delivery and flexibility) and the objective performance measures of manufacturing performance such as production cost, productivity change, customer reject percent, manufacturing lead time, etc. The results show that there is a strong relationship between MPCS ratings and objective performance measures as well as self-assessed competitiveness in both Japanese and US firms. The results are important since they indicate that fundamental manufacturing planning and control procedures improve a firm's performance on both its internal operations as well as external competitiveness goals.     

An efficient method for dynamic-demand joint replenishment problem with multiple suppliers and multiple vehicles

How to improve competitive edges to meet rapidly changing market environment and dynamic customer needs is critical for the survival and success of firms these days. A good supply chain and inventory management is a necessity in the intensive competitive market. This paper considers a dynamic-demand joint replenishment problem with multiple vehicle routing. The problem is first formulated as a mixed integer programming model with an objective to minimise total costs, which include ordering cost, purchase cost, production cost, transportation cost and holding cost, under a prerequisite that inventory shortage is prohibited in the system. A particle swarm optimisation model is proposed next to solve large-scale problems which are computationally difficult. A case study of a touch panel manufacturer is presented to examine the practicality of the models.     

Modularisation of first degree courses in the United Kingdom:threat to standards or opportunity for improvement?

Modularisation of degree courses, together with credit accumulation and transfer, is proceeding in universities in the United Kingdom. The claimed benefits and disadvantages are explored in this article and the North American experience is used for comparison. The nature of other changes in the UK educational scene is noted and the possible patterns for modularisation discussed     

The carbon footprints of home and in‐center maintenance hemodialysis in the United Kingdom

Climate change presents a global health threat. However, the provision of healthcare, including dialysis, is associated with greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study was to determine the carbon footprints of the differing modalities and treatment regimes used to deliver maintenance hemodialysis (HD), in order to inform carbon reduction strategies at the level of both individual treatments and HD programs. This was a component analysis study adhering to PAS2050. Emissions factors were applied to data that were collected for building energy use, travel and procurement. Thrice weekly in‐center HD has a carbon footprint of 3.8 ton CO₂ Eq per patient per year. The majority of emissions arise within the medical equipment (37%), energy use (21%), and patient travel (20%) sectors. The carbon footprint of providing home HD varies with the regime. For standard machines: 4 times weekly (4 days, 4.5 hours), 4.3 ton CO₂ Eq; 5 times weekly (5 days, 4 hours), 5.1 ton CO₂ Eq; short daily (6 days, 2 hours), 5.2 ton CO₂ Eq; nocturnal (3 nightly, 7 hours), 3.9 ton CO₂ Eq; and nocturnal (6 nightly, 7 hours), 7.2 ton CO₂ Eq. For NxStage equipment: short daily (5.5 days, 3 hours), 1.8 t CO₂ Eq; 6 nightly nocturnal (2.1 ton CO₂ Eq). The carbon footprint of HD is influenced more by the frequency of treatments than by their duration. The anticipated rise in the prevalence of home HD patients, dialyzing more frequently and for longer than in‐center patients, will increase the emissions associated with HD programs (despite reductions in patient travel emissions). Emerging technologies, such as NxStage, might offer a solution to this problem.     

维护消费者的生命健康权 开拓消费者权益保护事业新局面——访中国消费者协会秘书长母建华

生命健康问题一直关系广大人民群众最现实、最关心、最直接的利益。为了保护消费者生命健康权、培养消费者生命健康消费意识,更好地维护消费者的合法权益,中国消费者协会在2005年开展了“健康·维权”的年主题活动,以促使包括消费者在内的社会各界从落实可持续科学发展观、构建     

Some Aspects of the Control of Medicines in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The main aspects of the control of medicinal products in the United Kingdom following the publication of the Medicines Act 1968 are shown against the background of the work of the Medicines Division, Department of Health and Social Security, and its consultative and advisory bodies. Brief mention is made of the cooperation with international bodies.