A robust approach to design a single facility layout plan in dynamic manufacturing environments using a permutation-based genetic algorithm

During the past few decades, developing efficient methods to solve dynamic facility layout problems has been focused on significantly by practitioners and researchers. More specifically meta-heuristic algorithms, especially genetic algorithm, have been proven to be increasingly helpful to generate sub-optimal solutions for large-scale dynamic facility layout problems. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of the manufacturing factors in addition to the scale of the layout problem calls for a mixed genetic algorithm–robust approach that could provide a single unlimited layout design. The present research aims to devise a customized permutation-based robust genetic algorithm in dynamic manufacturing environments that is expected to be generating a unique robust layout for all the manufacturing periods. The numerical outcomes of the proposed robust genetic algorithm indicate significant cost improvements compared to the conventional genetic algorithm methods and a selective number of other heuristic and meta-heuristic techniques.

"En plan för jämställdhet borde kanske utarbetas, men förekommer det ett behov?" : En kartläggning av 26 svenskspråkiga kommuners främjande av jämställdhet

Jämställdhetslagen från 1995 kräver att både myndigheter och arbetsgivare med aktiva och målinriktade åtgärder främjar jämställdheten, och denna pro gradu-avhandling undersöker närmare hur denna lag implementerats i de finlandssvenska kommunerna (kommuner med majoritetsspråk svenska) under en 10årsperiod. I kommunerna jobbar 80% kvinnor, och 38% av alla kvinnliga arbetstagare hittas i arbeten inom den offentliga sektorn. Kommunens skyldighet att trygga dessa kvinnors lika villkor inom kommunorganisationen ingår både som en del i arbetsgivaransvaret, men även som del i statens demokratiska utövande genom myndighetsansvaret. De tre planer som ingår i mitt material innehåller en kartläggning av jämställdhetsområdet i olika omfattning, definierade mål och åtgärder och ingen av planerna har följts upp efter att de godkänts. Planerna varierar både i utformning och omfattning men också i ansvarsspecificering och åtgärdernas konkretisering, vilken ger en varierande kvalitet och därmed även varierande förutsättning att genomdrivas och därmed uppfylla lagens ålägganden. Två av kommunerna har eller har haft en jämställdhetskommitté. I de 26 inkomna svarsformulär görs en närläsning av hur begreppet jämställdhet används och hur jämställdhetslagen tolkas och orsakerna till frånvaron av jämställdhetsåtgärder. På frågan om varför jämställdhetsarbetet inte genomförts helt eller delvis utkristalliserade sig sex olika argumentationsteman: 1. Myten om den jämställda kommunen, innebär en hänvisning till att det inte förekommit några problem med jämställdheten. 2. Den naturligt integrerade jämställdheten, är kommunens policy och sker utan planer, men en liten kritik av problematiken med frånvaron av planer framförs av några kommuner. 3. Könens komplettering, utgår jämställdhetsbegreppet ifrån i några kommuner. 4. Den matematiska jämställdheten, är argument där man genom hänvisningar till kvinnor på olika högre positioner visar på att jämställdheten är uppnådd. 5.En fråga om resurser, används som ett argument till jämställdhetsarbetets frånvaro i kommunen. 6. Avsaknad av intresse, hos personalen och allmänheten är ett annat argument för ogenomförda jämställdhetsåtgärder. Det framkommer tydligt i materialet att kommunerna anser sig följa jämställdhetslagen, samtidigt som det blir tydligt att det råder en oklarhet om vad jämställdhetslagen från 1995 egentligen innehåller. En tydlig sammanblandning mellan den lagstadgade kvoteringen och skyldigheten att aktivt främja jämställdhet träder fram i materialet. Det ofullständiga jämställdhetsarbetet strandar på olika punkter, men en avgörande anser punkt är oförståelsen inför begreppet jämställdhet och därmed också lagens syfte och innehåll. Avhandlingens slutsats är att frånvaron av en könsmaktanalys försvårar förståelsen av ojämställdhetens komplexhet, dvs. dess orsaker, mångskiftande funktion och olika uttryck i organisationens strukturer och i de handlande aktörerna.

The Google Online Marketing Challenge: A Transnational Comparison of Classroom Learning with Real Clients, Real Money, and Real Advertising Campaigns

In 2008, a collaborative partnership between Google and academia launched the Google Online Marketing Challenge (hereinafter Google Challenge), perhaps the world’s largest in-class competition for higher education students. In just two years, almost 20,000 students from 58 countries participated in the Google Challenge. The Challenge gives undergraduate and graduate students hands-on experience with the world’s fastest growing advertising mechanism, search engine advertising. Funded by Google, students develop an advertising campaign for a small to medium sized enterprise and manage the campaign over three consecutive weeks using the Google AdWords platform. This article explores the Challenge as an innovative pedagogical tool for marketing educators. Based on the experiences of three instructors in Australia, Canada and the United States, this case study discusses the opportunities and challenges of integrating this dynamic problem-based learning approach into the classroom.

Leafminer pest-generic incursion management plan

A contingency plan for exotic Liriomyza leafminers.

Productivity and marketing enhancement for peanut in Papua New Guinea and Australia

Enhance productivity of peanuts in Papua New Guinea and Australia. Also the application of remote sensing technologies to enhance profitability in peanut systems.

Rice flower integrating production and marketing

This book contains guidelines on market-driven production for export markets, with information on how the marketing chain operates and what risks are involved. Using rice flower as an example, the book gives growers strategies to enhance their market performance and improve the profitability of their enterprises. It outlines some practical suggestions for marketing rice flower in Japan, the United States, Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as in Australia, and also provides a draft standard for rice flower for export markets.

Internet marketing capabilities and international market growth

The Internet has been shown to facilitate elements of internationalisation such as information accumulation and network opportunities. However, there is limited understanding of how the Internet combined with marketing capabilities drives international market growth. This study, based on a sample of 224 Australian firms, develops and tests, using structural equation modelling (SEM), a conceptual model of Internet marketing capabilities and international market growth. Results indicate that firms deploying Internet marketing capabilities will benefit due to the reduction of information uncertainty and increased capacity to develop international network capabilities. Moreover, Internet marketing capabilities indirectly lead to international market growth when the firm has a high level of international strategic orientation and international network capabilities. Overall, Internet marketing capabilities enhance the firm's ability to generate other internal capabilities within the firm, which in turn have a positive impact on the international market growth of the firm.

Merestä Metsäksi - yhteistoimintaverkostohankkeen sosiaaliset ja taloudelliset vaikutukset

The object of this study was to find out which factors made landowners interested in From Sea to Forest co-operation network. Co-operation networks protect biodiversity across boundaries and among groups of landowners with different kind of protection contracts. The social effects of From Sea to Forest - project are studied by analyzing the experience of co-operation and trust. Furthermore the possibility to influence decision making when choosing the pilot areas and doing the contracts was surveyed. Economical effects are estimated for those landowners, who signed a protection contract for ten years. The study is part of The Finnish Forest Research Institute s Ecological considerations in landscape-level collaborative planning of private forestry project. The material of the study comprises 13 interviews done in January 2006; seven interviewed were landowners and six forest professionals. The interviews were transcripted and analyzed with Atlas.ti programme. The economical effects were estimated with MOTTI forest simulation programme. From Sea to Forest project interested the landowners for similar reasons: the voluntariness of participation, compensation, fixed-term contracts and the possibility to protect forests so that the proprietary right remains. It was possible to form four different groups of interviewed landowners according to trust: networkers , opportunists , carefuls and selfemployed . Only in the group of opportunists the project created so much trust that a significant increase of interest to participate in the project was noticed. In all the other groups the project didn t create remarkable trust, so trust didn t have an effect on landowners decisions to participate. Other factors, like compensation and voluntariness were decisive for their interest to participate. From Sea to Forest project wasn t a network based on landowners co-operation, the communication was directly with the project worker. The effects on landowners income by signing a ten year ´Natural value trading´ -contract was analyzed by comparing the protection income with predicted forestry income in case that the protection contract wouldn t have been agreed on. For two landowners there was no suggested forestry work within ten years, so their protection income might be an additional income, if they decided to log their forests later. For three landowners delayed thinning of the sapling stand would cause income losses in the future, if they decided to move to active forestry after ten years of protection. For eight landowners the effect of protection is positive to income if they moved to active forestry after the ten years protection period. This occurred, because the tree stand is now mature for final felling on behalf of its age, but ten more years of growth increase the net present value. Longer term protection might diminish the net present value. The protection was profitable because hectare specific forestry income grew compared to forestry cutting plan income.

Balancing entertainment and behaviour value: M-games as a social marketing agent of change

In a marketplace where millions of dollars are spent on the design of mobile games (m-games), social marketers are now using this technology as a tool for behaviour change. Despite high expenditure by governments and non-profits on social marketing m-games, little is known about their effectiveness in terms of creating value. Value creation has been demonstrated to have an important impact on satisfaction and behaviour. This paper reports the results of a qualitative study involving four focus groups with 23 participants to reveal two categories of experiential value, entertainment and behaviour. Additionally, it was discovered that entertainment could be characterised by amusement and social value dimensions. Whereas, behaviour could be made up of information, simulation and distraction value dimensions. The categories of value, as well as the dimensions of information, simulation and distraction are entirely new to the social marketing literature and thus represents a unique contribution to social marketing.

Social marketers playing to win? Experiential value creation in social marketing mobile games

The rapid change of technological trends in the marketplace has increased the difficulty for social marketers to reach consumers using traditional marketing channels (Della et al., 2008). Traditionally, social marketing interventions have typically used more conventional supporting products and services such as water counters for water conservation or condoms for sex safety. However, recently social marketers are witnessing the diminishing effectiveness of more traditional social products and services in encouraging the uptake and maintenance of behaviour. In light of the technological trends in the marketplace and diminishing effect of previous social products and services (Lefebvre, 2009), social marketers have been encouraged to look to alternate means of delivering valuable offerings...

Disguising the performance of M-games in social marketing

Despite the explosion of mobile games (m-games) and the uptake of games as a social marketing tool for behaviour change, little is known about which game attributes (design factors within a game) are preferred by consumers for social marketing m-games. This research reports the findings of four focus groups (n=23) to propose three new categories of game attributes along with seven preferred game attributes for social marketing m-games. These results provide a unique contribution to social marketing theory given the goal of a social marketing m-game game is both entertainment and behaviour change. Further, the findings suggest strategies for practitioners seeking to develop, design and build social marketing m-games.

Plan U.S.R.R. Melitopol'skogo okruga Genicheskogo raiona poluostrova Chongar vymezhevannogo v poriadke chastichnogo izmeneniia ustroistva kolfonda s ustroistvom poselkov, razbivkoiu na polia sevooborota, gony soglasno nakazu N.K.Z dnia 1927, n 52-2825. Izmerenie v nature proizvedeno i plan etot sostovlen X. partieiu po ustroistvu kolfondov

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Skhematicheskii plan uchastkov pereselencheskogo fonda v Krymu

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