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Monday, September 30, 2019

Jose Garcia Villa Essay

Jose Garcia Villa (August 5, 1908 – February 7, 1997) was a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter. He was awarded the National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in 1973,[1] as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing by Conrad Aiken.[2] He is known to have introduced the â€Å"reversed consonance rime scheme† in writing poetry, as well as the extensive use of punctuation marks—especially commas, which made him known as the Comma Poet.[3] He used the penname Doveglion (derived from â€Å"Dove, Eagle, Lion†), based on the characters he derived from himself. These animals were also explored by another poet e.e. cummings in Doveglion, Adventures in Value, a poem dedicated to Villa. Early life Villa was born on August 5, 1908, in Manila’s Singalong district. His parents were Simeon Villa (a personal physician of Emilio Aguinaldo, the founding President of the First Philippine Republic) and Guia Garcia (a wealthy landowner).He graduated from the University of the Philippines Integrated School and the University of the Philippines High School in 1925. Villa enrolled on a Pre-Medical course in the University of the Philippines, but then switched to Pre-Law course. However, he realized that his true passion was in the arts. Villa first tried painting, but then turned into creative writing after reading Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Writing career Villa was considered the leader of Filipino â€Å"artsakists†, a group of writers who believe that art should be â€Å"for art’s sake† hence the term. He once pronounced that â€Å"art is never a means; it is an end in itself.† Villa’s tart poetic style was considered too aggressive at that time. In 1929 he published Man Songs, a series of erotic poems, which the administrators in UP found too bold and was even fined Philippine peso for obscenity by the Manila Court of First Instance. In that same year, Villa won Best Story of the Year from Philippine Free Press magazine for Mir-I-Nisa. He also received P1,000,000 prize money, which he used to migrate to the United States. He enrolled at the University of New Mexico, wherein he was one of the founders of Clay, a mimeograph literary magazine.He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and pursued post-graduate work at Columbia University.Villa had gradually caught the attention of the countryâ€℠¢s literary circles, one of the few Asians to do so at that time. After the publication of Footnote to Youth in 1933, Villa switched from writing prose to poetry, and published only a handful of works until 1942. During the release of Have Come, Am Here in 1942, he introduced a new rhyming scheme called â€Å"reversed consonance† wherein, according to Villa: â€Å"The last sounded consonants of the last syllable, or the last principal consonant of a word, are reversed for the corresponding rhyme. Thus, a rhyme for near would be run; or rain, green, reign.† In 1949, Villa presented a poetic style he called â€Å"comma poems†, wherein commas are placed after every word. In the preface of Volume Two, he wrote: â€Å"The commas are an integral and essential part of the medium: regulating the poem’s verbal density and time movement: enabling each word to attain a fuller tonal value, and the line movement to become more measures. Villa worked as an associate editor for New Directions Publishing in New York City between 1949 to 1951, and then became director of poetry workshop at City College of New York from 1952 to 1960. He then left the literary scene and concentrated on teaching, first lecturing in The New School|The New School for Social Research from 1964 to 1973, as well as conducting poetry workshops in his apartment. Villa was also a cultural attachà © to the Philippine Mission to the United Nations from 1952 to 1963, and an adviser on cultural affairs to the President of the Philippines beginning 1968. Death On February 5, 1997, at the age of 88, Jose was found in a coma in his New York apartment and was rushed to St. Vincent Hospital in the Greenwich area. His death two days later was attributed to â€Å"cerebral stroke and multilobar pneumonia†. He was buried on February 10 in St. John’s Cemetery in New York, wearing a Barong Tagalog. New York Centennial Celebration On August 5 and 6, 2008, Villa’s centennial celebration began with poem reading at the Jefferson Market Library, at 425 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) at the corner of 10th St. In the launch of Doveglion, Collected Poems, Penguin Classics’ reissue of Jose Garcia Villa’s poems, edited by John Edwin Cowen, Villa’s literary trustee, will be read by book introducer Luis H. Francia. Then, the Leonard Lopate Show (on WNYC AM 820 and FM 93.9) will interview Edwin Cohen and Luis H. Francia on the â€Å"Pope of Greenwich Villages† life and work, followed by the Asia Pacific Forum show. Personal In 1946 Villa married Rosemarie Lamb, with whom he has two sons, Randy and Lance. They annulled ten years later. He also has three grandchildren. Works As an editor, Villa first published Philippine Short Stories: Best 25 Short Stories of 1928 in 1929, an anthology of Filipino short stories written in English literature English that were mostly published in the literary magazine Philippine Free Press for that year. It is the second anthology to have been published in the Philippines, after Philippine Love Stories by editor Paz Mà ¡rquez-Benà ­tez in 1927. His first collection of short stories that he has written were published under the title Footnote to Youth: Tales of the Philippines and Others in 1933; while in 1939, Villa published Many Voices, his first collection poems, followed by Poems by Doveglion in 1941. Other collections of poems include Have Come, Am Here (1942), Volume Two (1949), and Selected Poems and New (1958). In 1962, Villa published four books namely Villa’s Poems 55, Poems in Praise of Love, Selected Stories, and The Portable Villa. It was also in that year when he edited The Doveglion Book of Philippine Poetry in English from 1910. Three years later, he released a follow-up for The Portable Villa entitled The Essential Villa.Villa, however, went under â€Å"self-exile† after the 1960s, even though he was nominated for several major literary awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This was perhaps because of oppositions between his formalism (literature)formalist style and the advocates of proletarian literature who misjudged him as a petty bourgeois. Villa only â€Å"resurfaced† in 1993 with an anthology entitled Charlie Chan Is Dead, which was edited by Jessica Hagedorn Several reprints of Villa’s past works were done, including Appasionata: Poems in Praise of Love in 1979, A Parliament of Giraffes (a collection of Villa’s poems for young readers, with Tagalog language Tagalog translation provided by Larry Francia), and The Anchored Angel: Selected Writings by Villa that was edited by Eileen Tabios with a foreword provided by Hagedorn (both in 1999). Among his popular poems include When I Was No Bigger Than A Huge, an example of his â€Å"comma poems†, and The Emperor’s New Sonnet (a part of Have Come, Am Here) which is basically a blank sheet of paper.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Admitting diagnosis: Egtopic pregnancy Essay

Chief Complain: The patient presents in the emergency this morning, complaining of lower abdominal pain. HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS: the patient states that she has been having vaginal bleeding more like spotting over the past month, she denies the chance of pregnancy although she states she is sexually active and using no birth control. Gynecologic History: Patient is graved to par 1 abortus 1. her only child is a year old 15 year old daughter who lives in Texas that lives with her grandmother. PAST MEDICAL HISTORY: Positive for hepatitis B PAST SURGICAL HISTORY: Pilonidal cyst removed in the remote past, has plastic surgery on her ears child. SOCIAL HISTORY: Married, has 1 daughter, patient works as a substitute teacher, smokes 1 pack of cigarettes on a daily basis. Denies EtOH. Smoked marijuana last night, no iv drug abuse. ALLERGIES: Tetanus MEDICATION: None REVIEW OF SYSTEMS: Patient complains of lower abdominal pain for the past week. Apparently got much worse last night, and by this morning wasn’t tolerable. She is also having some nausea and vomiting, denies hematemesis and mel She has had vaginal spotting over the past month with questionable vaginal discharge as well. denies the frequency, urgency and hematuria and denies arthralgia. Review of systems is otherwise essentially negative. PHYSICAL EXAM: Vital signs show temperature 97 degrees. pulse 53 respirations 22. blood pressure 108/60. GENERAL: Physical exam revels a well developed, well nourished 35 year old white female is the moderate amount of distress the time of the examination, HEENT are all remarkable except poor indentation. neck is soft and supple. CHEST: Lungs are clear in both fields. HEART: Regular rate and rhythm. ABDOMEN: soft but positive  tenderness of her lower abdominal area. Fundus was not palpable. above the pubic area. Left andexal are more than tender than the right. VAGINAL: The cervix is closed. a moderate amount of motherapulient vaginal discharge is noted. the patient wouldn’t allow me to perform a bimanual examination due to her pain. so the speculum was withdrawn. EXTERMITIES: No clot or edema. NUEROLOGICAL-in tact urea x3, no nuerologica defictest. DIAGNOSTIC: Dr. on admission hemoglobin 12.8 grams, hemaocrit is 36.6%. urine analysis is essentially negative. beta hcg is positive wit the WBC count of 23,278 RADIOLOGY: Pelvic ultrasounds shows a 7 week 4 day off viable ectopic pregnancy per radiologist. the patient was given Demerol 25mg and Phenergan 25mg iv for the pain after her report was obtained. she was also given Claforan 1 gram iv, I paged Dr. Gerald GYN, physician as soon as they received the ultrasound report at approximately 10 am he was not in his north Miami office. I paged the south Miami office and reached Dr. Gerards office at approximately 10:15am. his office personnel advised me that he is not on call, Dr. Vonbeck is on call. I spoke with Dr. Vonbeck at approximately 10:25 am and she will be here to take the patient to the operating room. ADMITTING DIAGNOSIS: Left Ectopic 1st trimester pregnancy. The patient received and iv of lactated ringer’s upon the arrival in the emergency room. This was normal saline while we were awaiting Dr. Vonbecks arrival. The surgical procedure was explained the patient and her husband all the risk and benefits were discussed. Then assessing in immediate surgery and informed consent was signed. no old records are available for review. Dr McClure end dictation. Rosemary Bumbak dictating a OPERATIVE REPORT Patient Name: Brenda C. Seggerman Patient ID: 903321 Date of Admission: 03/27/2012 Date of Surgery: 03/27/2012 Surgeon: Rosemary Bumbak, MD Assistant: Michael Gerard , DO Anesthesiologist: General and tracheal by Dr. Avalon Estimated Blood Loss: approximately 1000ml required transfusion of 2 units of whole blood. specimen removed portion of left fallopian tube containing the ectopic pregnancy. Preoperative Diagnosis: left tubectoipc pregnancy Postoperative Diagnosis: 1 rupture let tubal ectopic pregnancy 2. Hemoperiteoneum 3-pelvic adhesions Surgical Procedures: 1-exploratory laperotomy 2-partial salpingectomy 3-evauation of hempopatium 4-lisis of adhesions Procedure in detail: The patient was prepped and draped in the usual manner and placed under adequate general anesthesia, Pfannenstiel incision was preformed and carried through skin and subcutanous tissue, fascia and peritoneum. the paritenial cavity was entered. the hemoparituim was noted, and approximately 500 ml of blood was rapid evacuated from the pelvic cavity, as were large cloths, following this, the bowel was packed away the pelvic area with packing lapse. A retaining retractor was introduced. The left fallopian tube was noted. A large tubalectopic pregnancy was noted effecting approximately the distal half of the fallopian tube. Following this Heaney clamp was placed and the mesosalpinx cell and another curver clamp was paced in the proximal aspect of the left fallopian tube beyond the area of ectopic pregnancy. A patial salpiingectomy was preformed. removing the portion of the left fallopian tube containing the ectopic pregnancy. Heaney clamps were replaced with sutures with #1 micro. Hemostasis was checked again and no bleeding was detected. Further evacuation of blood and blood clots was then preformed. the right fallopian tube was noted to be covered with adhesions both tubular variatand tubal uterine The adhesions were then sharply lysed freeing the right fallopian tube. Hemostasis was checked again. No bleeding was detected. Mild cirrhosis abrasion was noted was noted where the area of the ectopic pregnancy was apparently attached to the bowel and not bleeding and was very superficial. hemostasis was checked and no bleeding was detected. The peritoneum was closed continuously was homeochinoc suture. The facsia was approximated was inntrupted with  figure of 8 stitches of micro and the skin was approximated with staple gun. The patient tolerated the procedure well and left the operating room in satisfactory condition. All counts were correct. Blood loss was estimated at 1000ml which was replaced with 2 untis of whole blood while in recovery. Rosemary Bumpbak, MD OBGYN DIAGNOSTIC REPORT Dr Donna Harrison dictation Patient Name: Brenda C. Seggerman Patient ID: 903321 Date of Admission: 3-27-2012 ER Physician: Alex McClure MD Transvaginal ultrasound on 3-27-14 Patient History: Serve left pelvic pain rule out ectopic pregnancy. Pregnancy test is positive. Findings-transabdominal imaging demonstrates utures with small amount of fluid within it Psudodecidual sign. There is a large amount of hemorrhage seen within the left adnexa. no embryo is seen. The right ovary is unremarkable Endovaginal examination was performed in searched of viable ectopic. One is seen with crown length with 1.3cm corresponding to 7 weeks and 4 days. A large amount of free fluid is seen, esooudo gestuational sac is noted within the uterus which is oblong. IMPRESSION: A left sided ectopic pregnancy is found with large amount of hemorrhage is noted and extending into the cul-de-sac the hemorrhage measures 13x6x10cm. Dr. McClur and the emergency room was notified which notified the surgeon and is on her way, end of report Dr Harrison. (Contiuned) _________________________ Dr. Donna Harrison NN:EF D: 3/27/2012 T: 3/27/2012 Please send a copy of this report to Rosemary Bumbak, MD OBGYN DISCHARGE SUMMARY Rosemary Bumbak, MD OBGYN Patient Name : Brenda C. Seggerman Patient ID: 903321 Date of Admission: 03/27/2012 Date of Discharge: 03/30/2012 Admitting Diagnosis: ectopic pregnancy Surgical procedures: 1-expoloratory laparotomy 2-partioal salpingectomy 3-evacation of hemoparitoneum 4-lises of adhesions Complication-blood loss requiring transfusion x2 History: This 35 year old white female Gravida 3 para 10121 had her last menstrual cycle in early January. Prior menstrual cycles had been regular. She reported no contraceptives but not attempting pregnancy. Patient presented to the emergency room complaining of vaginal bleeding with pain in lower pelvic area. ultrasound preformed in the emergency room showed a 13.8 cm left adnexall mass with positive cardiac activity compatible with ectopic pregnancy. Hospital Course: On 3-27-2014 the patient underwent exploratory laparotomy, left partial salpingectomy, evacuation of hemoparitoneum, and lyses of adhesions. Blood loss was approx 1000ml and was replaced with transfusion of 2 units of red blood cells the blood type was noted to be ORH negative and RhoGAM was provided. The patient was discharged on post operative on day number 3 on after having a normal bowel movement she was discharged with complaints on no medications. She understood her instructions regarding follow up, wound care a nd limitations Rosemary Bumbak ,MD OBGYN PATHOLOGY REPORT Berry J Lzano, dictation for PATIENT NAME: Brenda C. Seggerman. PATIENT ID: 903321 Date of Admission: 3/27/2012 Surgery: 3-27-2014 Admitting diagnosis: Ectopic pregnancy Surgeon: Rosemary Bumback, MD OBGYN Pathological Findings: 03-s-965 specimen received 3/27 specimen report 3-320 Procedure: left partial salpingectomy The patient has a ectopic pregnancy as proven by pelvic ultrasound. tissue received left fallopian tube. GROSS PATHOLOGY: desc examination of designated â€Å"left fallopian tube† reveals a left fallopian tube measuring 6cm in length and 2.3 cm in normal width. Sectioning of the tube reveals a distending of the tube with blood clot and possible field tissue. reprehensive sections are places in 1-c for embedding MICROSCOPIC: Microscopic examination was preformed

Saturday, September 28, 2019

A Telephone Based Wireless Remote Controller

Abstract—A telephone based wireless system for the remote operation of the home appliances is proposed. The telephone, acting as a remote controller, generates a DTMF signal corresponding to each dialed digit which is converted to a BCD code by the Telephone interface circuit. This is given as input to the transmitter module which is then used to control various home appliances through a receiver module. Data processing stages of the transmitter and receiver modules have been implemented using digital components, thereby avoiding possible use of conventional devices like monostable multivibrators.Due to the fully digital nature, the proposed design is less complex and hence the implementation is cost effective. I. INTRODUCTION With the advancement in science and technology, human beings have developed a tendency to make their everyday life amply luxurious with the aid of technology. This has led to the development of many sophisticated gadgets and equipments that assist them p artially/fully in their daily activities. Operating all such electronic/electrical instruments in a modern house might be difficult for the elderly as well as disabled people.Our primary motivation to build a simple and low cost system which remotely operates all the home appliances stems from this point. We integrate our system with a standard telephone set so that the telephone can be used for the dual purpose of telephony and remote controller for various home appliances. The proposed system mainly consists of 3 modules, viz. , telephone interface circuit, transmitter and receiver. The transmitter module is in turn made up of a digital data processing block and a wireless (infrared) transmitter block and the eceiver module is made up of a wireless (infrared) receiver block, digital data processing block and a decoding block. In the scheme, a telephone receiver acts as a remote terminal to provide input Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) signals to the telephone interface circuit wh ich converts them to corresponding 4 bit Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) codes. The transmitter generates an 8 bit frame using this BCD code to facilitate asynchronous communication. The receiver decodes the received signals after checking for any transmission errors (single bit) in the frame. These decoded bits act as control signals for the operation of home appliances.The system employs an asynchronous type of communication [1] in which the transmitter and receiver clocks are independent. The receiver clock does not have any prior information regarding the phase of the transmitter clock [2]. This leads to the problem of choosing the correct sampling instants at the receiver [3]. Hence the data is transmitted in the form of frames instead of individual bits. Each such frame consists of start bits, information bits, and stop bits [1]. This is explained in detail in the subsequent sections. When the system is idle, the data processing block of he transmitter gives constant logical high o utput. Since the transmitter consumes more power in transmitting logical high than logical low, the output of data processing block is negated before transmission to save power in the idle state. The receiver module also senses this and remains idle whenever the transmitter is transmitting continuous logical low. The reception of a start bit changes the state of the receiver from an idle to an active state. It then has to sample the remaining data bits in the frame at proper sampling instants. Most of the standard hardware schemes involve the use of monostable ultivibrators at the receiver to recover the data bits following the start bit. The monostable multivibrators commonly rely on variable components such as resistance and capacitance values, as well as they often account for a major part of the propagation delays associated with the receiver. We have extended this treatment to a fully digital design that presents more challenging tasks including a digital output feedback. Moreo ver, use of all digital components in the data processing stages reduces the propagation delay considerably. The complete design outline of all the modules of the roposed system is presented in Section II. Results and discussions are given in Section III. Finally, we present our conclusions in Section IV. II. DESIGN OUTLINE The block diagram of the proposed telephone based wireless remote control system is shown in Fig. 1. In the proposed system, the telephone set performs the dual functions of telephony and remotely controlling various devices. The remote control mode of the telephone can be activated by pressing ‘#’ from the keypad of the telephone. After the desired tasks are accomplished, ‘#’ should be pressed again to deactivate the control system.This is one of the functions of the telephone interface circuit, which is discussed next. A. Telephone Interface Circuit The telephone interface circuit integrates the designed system with the standard teleph one system. As shown in Fig. 2, it basically performs the job of receiving the signals from the local loop and converting them to the standard digital signals in the BCD format. When any telephone button is pressed, a unique DTMF signal is produced for a short duration [4] which is converted to corresponding BCD code by a standard DTMF to BCD converter (KT-3170) [5].The dual tone frequencies and the BCD codes associated with each dialed digit are shown in Table 1. The system remains in the idle state until ‘#’ button is pressed which sets the telephone to remote control mode. This mode remains activated until ‘#’ button is pressed again. This is realized in the hardware by using the BCD code corresponding to ‘#’ as the clock to toggle the J-K flip-flop (74112). The flip-flop output toggles whenever the ‘#’ button is pressed and this is directly used to control the mode of operation of the telephone. The DSO output of KT-3170 [5] is used to generate a start it for the system as it is logical high whenever a received tone pair has been registered and the output latch is updated. As the latched 4-bit BCD code is directly available at the output of KT-3170, it is given as such to the data processing block of the transmitter. These data bits are then processed to facilitate asynchronous communication as explained below. B. Transmitter The 4-bit output of KT-3170 can not be directly transmitted as individual bits as the proposed system employs asynchronous mode of communication. The 4-bit BCD code is thus transmitted as frames for proper reception [1].We have chosen an eight bit frame for our system which consists of a start bit followed by four data bits, a parity bit and two stop bits. Parity bit enables the system to detect any single bit error during transmission. Stop bits mark the ending of the frame. The frame is then transmitted using infrared (IR) transmitter. As shown in Fig. 2, the transmitter mainly con sists of two blocks which are explained below. 1) Fully Digital Data Processing Block: This block performs the function of converting individual bits to 8-bit frames in order to carry asynchronous communication.First bit of the frame is the start bit (taken as 0) which is generated when any of the buttons is pressed. The succeeding 4 bits are the data bits (BCD code) generated by the telephone interface circuit as explained before. Next bit is taken as parity check bit generated by XORing the first 5 bits of the frame. Last 2 bits, termed as stop bits, are taken as 1. Following the generation of the start bit, the data bits are loaded in the parallel to serial converter (74165) using a D-type flip-flop (7474) and the frame is transmitted serially. 2) IR Transmitter Block: This module transmits the frames enerated in the previous section using an IR emitting diode. The data to be transmitted is modulated using Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) with a carrier square wave of 38 kHz. The tra nsmission range of the system is thus highly improved over the case when data is transmitted without modulation. As the data processing stage gives logical high output in the idle state, it is negated before transmission to save power. Thus, a logical low is actually transmitted whenever the system is in idle state. C. Receiver The receiver also has 2 working states, viz. , idle and active.It remains in the idle state until it detects a start bit. It then receives the frame starting from the start bit and checks for a single bit error. If error is detected, no action is taken and the information has to be transmitted again by the user. The received data bits are then decoded which act as control signals for the operation of various appliances. As is evident from Fig. 3, receiver circuit can be subdivided into 3 blocks which are explained below. 1) IR Receiver Block: This block receives the transmitted frames and converts the signal back to Transistor Transistor Logic (TTL) levels.A standard 38 kHz IR receiver (TSOP 1738) [6] is used for this purpose. 2) Sampling Clock Generator: The main function of this block is to generate a sampling instant at approximately the middle of the transmitted bit interval. The start bit activates this block and loads counter 1 (4-bit up-counter) with value ‘0’. The clock frequency of this counter is 16 times the bit rate. When the output of this counter changes from 7 to 8, the most significant bit changes from ‘0’ to ‘1’ and this rising edge is used as the sampling instant for the data.Start bit also loads the counter 2 (4-bit down-counter) with the frame size i. e. , 8. When this reaches the value ‘0’, the whole block is disabled and is reactivated only when next start bit arrives. 3) Data Sampler and Decoder: The serial input data is sampled according to the sampling instant generated in the previous stage and is converted to parallel form using serial to parallel converter ( 74164). This data is then checked for any 1-bit errors by XORing the bits. If error is found, no action is taken and the data has to be retransmitted. If no errors are found, the data is decoded using 4-16 decoder (74154) and he signal is given to the appliance for the completion of the corresponding task. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The proposed system has been fully implemented and successfully tested in the standard telephone local loop. The transmitter, kept near the telephone set, taps the DTMF signal from the local loop and transmits the corresponding data frame wirelessly. This signal is received by the receiver installed at the switch board. It decodes the data and takes the corresponding action. At least ten control signals, corresponding to each digit from 0 to 9, can be generated using a standard telephone set.The transmitter was previously implemented without a modulator where the IR LED was kept ON for transmitting logical high and OFF for transmitting logical low. Thi s limited the distance between the transmitter and receiver to a maximum of 30 cms for proper reception. The range of the wireless system has increased to several meters after modulating the data using 38 kHz square wave. This range also depends on the current flowing through the infrared diode which has to be properly tuned to maximize the range. A standard TSOP 1738 receiver is used in the proposed ystem, which requires a minimum burst length of 10 cycles for proper detection. This puts an upper limit on the data rate supported by our system which is practically observed to be 2. 8 kbps [5]. The IR transmitter is highly directional and requires the receiver to be in line of sight of the transmitter. The reception angle of the receiver is observed to decrease with increasing distance between the transmitter and receiver. This is because of the fact that the power is not uniformly distributed and is concentrated in narrow transmission angle.Moreover, the signal power reduces when th e distance between the transmitter and the receiver is increased. So, the receiver has to be highly aligned with transmitter when operating at some substantial distance from it. This problem is of not much concern for our system because the transmitter and receiver, being static in nature, can be properly aligned at the time of installation. The data processing blocks of both the transmitter and the receiver are fully digital in nature. This comprehensively reduces the propagation delays involved and increases the rate at which data can be processed in these blocks.Though, data rate is not very important in the present application but this feature makes the design of our data processing blocks suitable for high data rate applications which are commonly seen in wired communication. IV. CONCLUSIONS A wireless system has been proposed to operate the home appliances remotely using a standard telephone set. This has been successfully tested and is found to be working satisfactorily withi n a distance of 10 meters. The telephone receiver performs a dual-function of telephony and remotely controlling various devices with the help of its ‘#’ button on the keypad.The telephone interface circuit is easily integrated with the standard local loop thus avoiding any changes in the telephone set. Hence, the proposed system is compatible with any type of telephone working on standard local loop. The system employs asynchronous mode of communication which avoids the need to synchronize the transmitter and receiver clocks, thus making our system less complex and hence cost effective. The proposed fully digital innovative design of the data processing blocks reduces the propagation delay and makes them useful for even high data rate applications.Moreover, the system is capable of detecting the single bit errors occuring during transmission. The proposed system can be used in a wide range of practical applications such as speed control of motors, switching of applianc es, control of robots, etc. The above discussed characteristics like simple design, high practical utility and easy installation makes our system highly marketable. REFERENCES [1] Gorry Fairhurst. Asynchronous Communication [Online]. Available: http://www. erg. abdn. ac. uk/users/gorry/course/phy-pages/async. html. [2] D. Comer, Computer Networks and Internets with Internet Applications.Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2004. [3] A. Subramanian, V. P. S. Makh and A. Mitra, â€Å"A New Digital Transceiver Circuit for Asynchronous Communication†, Enformatika Trans. , vol. 8, pp. 237-241, Oct. 2005. [4] DTMF Background [Online]. Available: http:// www. ece. utexas. edu/mason/codesign/dtmf. html. [5] Samsung Electronics Datasheet. KT3170 Low Power DTMF Receiver [Online]. Available: http://www. ortodoxism. ro/datasheets/SamsungElectronic/mXuusvq. pdf. [6] Vishay Semiconductors Datasheet. Photo Modules for PCM Remote Control Systems [Online]. Available: http://www. vishay. co m/docs/82030/82030. pdf

Friday, September 27, 2019

Strategic Management Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Strategic Management Accounting - Essay Example This point of view is well supported with both early (Solomons, 1952) and contemporary researches (Boyns and Edwards, 1997a). Needless to say, standard costing has come a long way before it became generally accepted. Originally, cost accounting systems were mainly concerned with variable costs, such as labour and raw materials expenditures. This trend reflected the nature of businesses of that time, which had their variable costs dominating over fixed costs. It was found that before the First World War standard costing system largely interacted with organizational structure and strategic decision making (Boyns and Edwards, 1997b). Still, no evidences were found that costing system had been used in eliminating wastes and inefficiencies. Moreover, costing practices at that time were limited only to basic industries, such as coal and iron. Later, in 1900-1950 cost accounting at large, and standard costing in particular expanded further in the UK. Although still being under a strict control at engineering (state policy prohibited profiteering in that sector), it developed into government departments and business generally. Standard costing was promoted with accountants connecting theory with practice and a considerable variation was found in perception of standard costing between different times and places of that period in Britain (Boyns and Edwards, 1997c). Therefore standard costing system was not still implemented widely throughout the industries in Britain. It began to grow in popularity as a rather simple and accurate way of improving internal efficiency of a business. Nevertheless, issues of considering fixed assets, especially, depreciation created ambiguities for users of standard costing. These difficulties were strengthened with the trend of fixed costs (depreciation, maintenance, tooling, production control , purchasing, storage, etc.) increasing in value and variable costs decreasing. Accounting historians indicate that the

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Identify three of the course learning outcomes that you will apply to Essay

Identify three of the course learning outcomes that you will apply to achieve your personal and professional goals and provide a - Essay Example Ethical values are also important factor for the effective leadership. The paper also demonstrates the effective application of personal leadership perspectives. Learning outcomes are the educational aims and objectives. The learning outcomes are the skills and goals that a learner achieves after a period of specified and supported study. At the end of the course program student can reliably demonstrate his skills. University of Warwick (2004) categories the learning specifications into four categories: Subject knowledge and understandings Subject specific skills are practical skills, practice of which is integral to the course, e.g. laboratory skills, language skills and counseling skills. Cognitive skills, intellectual skills such as an understanding methodologies, synthesis, evaluation or ability in critical analysis. Key skills are skills that are readily transferable to employment in other contexts, such as written and oral communication, working within a team, problem solving, numeric and IT skills. The learning outcomes broadly specify the: needs of the learner, needs of the society, learner knowledge about the particular subject. During my studies, under the supervision of my teachers/instructors the personal skills I acquire are: Ability to work in team, Effective communication, Ability to solve problem. As a student of business administration my professional skills are related to the business planning and management. The basic course learning outcomes of my studies which help me in my profession are: I will be able to 1. Explain the important terminology, theories, principles, concepts and analytical techniques used in leadership. 2. Apply the known terminology, theories, principles, concepts and analytical techniques used in leadership when analyzing complex and complicated managerial situations 3. Effectively synthesize important terminology, theories, principles, concepts and analytical techniques used in leadership when solving the sophisticated p roblems in complex managerial solution. These outcomes help me to achieve my personal and professional goals successfully in my field. Now I highlight one by one on the benefits of these outcomes Primary leadership theories for profit and non-profit organizations There are number of leadership theories which fall into following categories: 1. Trait theory of leadership. 2. Behavioral theory of leadership 3. Contingency theory of leadership. 4. Transformation theory of leadership 5. Invitational theory of leadership. 6. Transactional theory of leadership. 1. Trait theory of leadership. Early trait theories argued that the leadership qualities are innate and instinctive qualities. You either have these qualities or not. These are inherited Like Great man theory. Early studies assumed that leaders are born not made. But now trait theory refers to the external behavior, particular personality and behavioral characteristics much depending on the internal beliefs and thinking power of a l eader. Their main examples are: self-assurance, self-confidence, feelings and good decision making skills. Traits are the key features of the leadership. Edwin Ghiselli (1971) identified six traits for an effective leadership. These are: supervisory ability, need for occupational achievement, intelligence, decisiveness,

Theme 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Theme 2 - Essay Example The â€Å"Tale of Kieu† is a typical example that exemplifies the concept of morality within a literary piece. The poem tackles the concept of morality in differing dimensions as displayed by different characters in the play. Depending on one’s school of thought in evaluating the concept of morality, â€Å"The Tale of Kieu† can largely be considered as an immoral piece that exposes the societal immoral acts through relationships and promises in a larger societal set up. My argument to justify this line of thought is largely influenced after examining the characters and behaviors of the main protagonist, Kieu, Kim and Thu and their liberal actions in the entire poem. I therefore strongly argue that â€Å"The Tale of Kieu† points out the conflicting merits imposed on people and the way these merits affected their immoral lives in the years to come. (Du) Morality is one of the key themes in controversy of events surrounding â€Å"The Tale of Kieu†. It is a usual thing that fundamental moral acts largely involve the keeping of promises, being steadfast during times of opposition, and due unselfishness concerning being accommodating to others opinions and suggestions. Emanating from that basic understanding one may be at a crossroads in solving the moral equation of Kieu and other characters as exemplified in this poem. As such, one would commonly ask, is â€Å"The Tale of Kieu† an ideal moral poem? In my personal opinion, the poem just displays how many people in the real world can do â€Å"whatever they can get their hands on† so that they get what they desire even if their actions considerably affect those around them. The fascinating evidence in the story undoubtedly justifies my line of thought, as â€Å"The Tale of Kieu† is not that moral piece as some may argue. For instance, Kim Throng is displayed as a young, brilliant of mind man who desires Kieu. He is riches and sets out to love Kieu. In one instanc e, we are told how the two lovebirds go out to bond their relationship. Kim pours out his heart to Kieu and asserts, â€Å"Let's pledge our troth with something† (line 341) which Kieu responds, â€Å"to your kind bosom†¦ I’ll etch your word, our troth, in stone and bronze.† (Line 352) The above statement sought to re-affirm each other’s promise. Kieu further consolidates this promise by saying that â€Å"while am alive you’ll sometimes get your due† (line 522) suggesting a long trusted mutual relationship between the two lovers, and their intention of keeping the promise and living by the morality principle they swore. However, on their first date, we see Kim making sexual advances towards Kieu, was this action justified, being that both of them were not married? Keeping this purity until marriage was a noble thing to do as they both made vows to each other. In fact, it takes the efforts of Kieu to remind Kim of the noble vow they swore that they would keep the sexual affair issue until marriage. Immediately two issues emerge from the above analysis, Kim considerably displays immoral acts while Kieu is the moral one trying to live by the principles of their vow. The moral principle requires making a promise and keeping that particular promise irrespective the social circumstances and situations one finds him or herself. Kim and Kieu had made a promise to marry each other and

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

How Does Nikes Questionable Manufacturing Practices in Asia Affect Dissertation

How Does Nikes Questionable Manufacturing Practices in Asia Affect Their Brand Image - Dissertation Example Critics accuse Nike for malpractices and gaining fame and success without any Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in its own manufacturing plants. Instead of improving the working conditions in its manufacturing plants the company spends more on marketing by using faces of high profile celebrities such as Michael Jordan to popularize its brand and attract customers (Mujtaba et al. pg. 1, 2005). With Jordan, the company’s sales went through the roof. After him a number of celebrities were heavily paid to endorse the brand. These included Tiger Woods, Ken Griffey Jr., Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi (Sporting Goods Companies: Nike, n.d.). The issue of malpractices by Nike was disclosed in the 90s decade. The issue of low paid foreign factory workers first became prominent when the world renowned celebrity, Kathy Lee Gifford, was accused for endorsing garments that were manufactured by low wages workers in the developing countries. Gifford promised to participate in improving the condi tion of the workers. The famous brand, Nike, also became a subject of similar controversy. Nike was accused of having sweatshops in the developing countries where workers were paid even below the minimum wages standard (Mujtaba et al. pg. 1, 2005). ... The social activists criticized the unethical practices of the firm in public and exerted pressure on the firm to take a look at their corporate responsibility. Nike customers all over the world criticized the malpractice by the firm. Social activists called on the customers to boycott Nike products until necessary actions were taken by the firm to improve the working conditions of the workers all over the world, especially in Asia (Mesarosch, pg. 1. 2008). While these charges might be true or simple perceptions, the accusations did affect the brand image of Nike in a negative way as not being a socially responsible firm. Since then Nike has been battling with such charges and trying to improve its image as a socially responsible firm (Mujtaba et al. pg. 1, 2005). The aim of this paper is to highlight how Nike has suffered due to its malpractices in Asia. I shall also discuss in brief the history of the brand and the malpractices for which it received criticism. For that matter relev ant literature and peer reviewed articles will be explored to evaluate the situation. Towards the end a conclusion shall be made which will be based on the research. Nike and Its Brand Image: Nike is a massive billion dollar firm that produces sports products. It factories are situated all over the world and likewise its products are sold all over the world. Since 1990’s Nike has expanded its product range and has started producing clothes, watches, bags and golf gear. It has also gained partnership with an electronic company to produce Nike electronics. Nike has achieved tremendous success which is evident from the fact that it has taken over ALL STAR CONVERSE which was one of the biggest rivals of the firm (Hossain, pg. viii, 2010). For the past four decades,

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

The Issues When Using Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies in Essay

The Issues When Using Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies in Research and Is A Comparison between These Two Methodologies - Essay Example Furthermore, it will compare and contrast the two key approaches and its significance to obtain an in-depth understanding to the ideologies. Discussion According to Creswell, a researcher, while developing a proposal, should focus on the three key elements, namely, the philosophical hypothesis about the factors behind the knowledge claims, the general procedures for performing the research with due consideration towards the strategies of inquiry, and the development of comprehensive processes for data collection and data analysis often categorised as research methodology (3-6). The three approaches, i.e. the quantitative approach, qualitative approach and mixed approach include each of these three elements differently for formulating the research methods (Creswell 3-6). Thus, it can be stated that the researcher should emphasise on the three main elements irrespective of whatever approach preferred. Furthermore, the philosophical and social factors should also be considered while dev eloping the processes of analysing the opinions of the respondents to evaluate both the quantitative and the qualitative values of the research. As observed by Shadish, Cook & Campbell, quantitative research were those that raised the perspectives of the positivist (13-19). The research includes real and less accurate experiments which are known as quasi-experiments along with the philosophies of parallel studies which are related to specific single-subject experiments. However, the authors further stated that recently, the strategies of quantitative approach involved various complex experiments with numerous variable factors and conducts such as factorial designs and continuous measure developments. In other words, it can be concluded that researchers have been implementing various methods to the quantitative approach which were further diversified from the traditional process. Moreover, modern researchers have instigated elaborate structural models that have contributed towards th e identification of the collective strengths of the numerous variable factors engaged in a research process (Shadish, Cook & Campbell 13-19). In this respect, Walcott identified 19 strategies that could be implemented for conducting qualitative research approach (4-13). Thereby, the author emphasised more on the ethnographic procedures in which the researcher studies an integral cultural group in a natural situation over a long-lasting period of time principally collecting observational data. Such kind of research processes, are often termed to be flexible and normally evolve around the contextual responses from the respondents encountered in the field of research (Walcott 4-13). Thus, it can be stated that modern day researchers have identified numerous ways for measuring the qualitative value of the research question which have evidently rewarded a wide scope of conducting researches. According to Creswell, a quantitative approach is considered to be a unique framework in which th e researcher attempts to study the positive responses from the respondents for analysing the information gathered (118-178). The author also states that the researcher employs various strategies for performing the enquiry sessions in order to collect adequate information on predetermined processes which are further quantified and thus result in statistical data (Creswell 118-178). Accordingly,

Monday, September 23, 2019

Personal Financial Planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Personal Financial Planning - Essay Example Jeff has now 5 years of job remaining. The best way to utilize his resources to save the money for his retirement is to invest the amount to get a good return. So that he may have enough money to complete his post-retirement plans. Jeff is also having full National Insurance contributions and has some savings. He has won the lottery ticket prize of ï ¿ ¡800,000. Now he has to use the entire amount wisely because he has various plans to be fulfilled. These plans can only be completed by having proper use of the available cash. For that purpose, Jeff needs complete personal financial planning. Now Jeff needs to be very careful to use the money in such a way that he may fulfill his plans after retirement. Obviously he would like to use his money to earn some profit on it. The financial institutions are there to help such people. They offer different rates for the investment of 5-10 years and so on. They have different policies so one should be aware enough to choose his required package of investment according to the rates. He should deposit the amount for annuity and get the reward at the end of fiscal periods. In UK market, the present rate of pension annuity is about 40% and it also varies by institution to institution. So if Jeff starts investing his money for pension annuity then this activity will be fruitful at the time of his retirement. Moreover, statistics shows that there are chances of increase in the annuity rate in coming years. Normally the pension annuity period goes to the age of 75 in UK but mostly people avail the opportunity at the time of retirement i.e. 65. Though some people go for other options to hold their finance or maximize it. That is the remedial measure to adopt such steps during the job to secure the life after retirement. During the job, this may be the best way to save money for future. But there is another fact that if anyone at the age of 65, wants to utilize his annuity amount then there will be surely reduction of 1% in profit. This is the reason people go for other options. More the time will be; more the chances to get higher profit for annuities (Murthi, July 2000). All the people whether they are skillful or not, consider the financial planning a very important thing. With the passage of time people became aware of its importance. It’s not necessary that they have the knowledge to plan perfectly for their selves or not. The thing is that they have vision of the importance o f financial planning and they want develop a financial plan for themselves to save their financial resources for the future life. The advice of an expert financial advisor also helps the individual lot. A research study shows that only 13% people are known with the skills of financial planning. Everybody has his own preferred resources to identify the needs to plan for future life (Murphy, 2010). In Jeff’s case, we need to consider the rates of different institutions and compare their rates of annuities. The highest rate of return will be considered. Basically, the rates are linked with the period of time you are investing money for. If the time period is longer, the rate will be higher and vise versa. The investor gets the highest rate in the later years so that is the main purpose of pension annuity. This thing helps the individual to secure their future after retirement. So this will be beneficial for Jeff to invest money in pension annuity and make it more of the original . We can go for fixed annuity. In such annuity, the annuity is sure for some years e.g. we say that we have an annuity for 5 years. So it is the annuity in which number of years is fixed. The financial institution will make the payment at the end of that period. Jeff can get more of this plan. Another option is the Maximum Investment Plan offered by different

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Stereotypes in Film Essay Example for Free

Stereotypes in Film Essay Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary clearly defines ethnocentrism as the â€Å"characterization by or based on the attitude that ones own group is superior. † To address the deeper issues associated to ethnocentrism requires a more explicit definition. In this sense, ethnocentrism can be defined as the making of false assumptions regarding others ways based on our own limited experience. The key word is assumptions, because oftentimes we are not even aware that we are being ethnocentric we dont understand that we dont understand. These mannerisms lead to seeing other ways of life through a slanted perspective which can lead to unhealthy feelings of haughtiness and self-righteousness. A variety of cultures can appear differently, depending on our perspective. In many ways we are like the blind men in the fable written by the Persian poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, The Blind Men and the Elephant. â€Å"A beast of mystery appeared in the land of the blind. The raja sent his advisors out to investigate. Waiting until the mysterious beast was sleeping, they touched it. When the blind men had felt the creature, the raja went to each of them and said to each, Well, blind man, have you seen this beast? Tell me, what sort of thing is the creature? There upon the men who were presented with the body answered, Sire, this beast is like a wall. While the men who had observed the ear replied, No, this animal is like a fan. Those who had touched the tusk said, ‘The beast is like a spear. ’ Those who knew only the trunk said it was a snake; others said the leg was a tree; the tail, a rope. All of these blind men described parts of the same thing a sleeping elephant. As you can see, the blind men had only a partial view of the elephant. There moral here is that if you put together your partial views in proper order, you will get an idea of what an elephant looks like. As Americans we seem to be limited by our own perspectives of given cultures and groups of people and fail to see the variety of viewpoints present. Assumptions can also reflect false positive attitudes about others ways. For example, we in an urban industrial society frequently think of other cultures as being free of the stresses of modern society. Unfortunately this view fails to recognize that many stresses are present in their way of life, including the threat of disease, risk of starvation, and lack of transportation to name a few. False positive assumptions are just as misleading as false negative assumptions. Ethnocentrism leads to misunderstanding others and the generalization regarding a person or group of persons, stereotyping. We falsely distort what is meaningful and functional to other peoples through our own point of view. We see their ways in terms of our life experience, not their context. We do not understand that their ways have their own meanings and functions in life, just as our ways have for us. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. In the absence of the total picture, stereotypes in many cases allow us to fill in the blanks. Our society often innocently creates and perpetuates stereotypes, but these stereotypes often lead to unfair discrimination and persecution when the stereotype is unfavorable. For example, if you were walking downtown late at night and come upon three senior citizens walking with canes and wearing fur coats, you may not feel as intimidated as if you encountered three college-aged boys wearing leather jackets. Why is this so? In each case we have made a generalization. These generalizations have been formed based on experiences we have had ourselves, read about in books and magazines, seen in movies or television, or have had related to us by friends and family. In many cases, these stereotypical generalizations are reasonably accurate. Yet, in virtually every case, we are resorting to prejudice by ascribing characteristics about a person based on a stereotype, without knowledge of the total facts. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we have stereotypes about individuals who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand contact. So here we have a paradox: we falsely assume because we are not even aware we are assuming and furthermore it is the normal thing to do. We cannot not be ethnocentric, and we cannot will it away or make ourselves have a completely open attitude. Is it ever possible not to be ethnocentric?

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Power And Conflict In The Workplace Management Essay

Power And Conflict In The Workplace Management Essay For at least the past century, experts have been debating whether power and conflict are good or bad for organisational effectiveness. The purpose of this report is to highlight the importance of conflict and power by identifying the types, and clarifying the effects it has on an organisation. Conflict researchers propose that task conflict tend to have a positive relationship with performance while relationship conflict tends to have a negative relationship with performance. Furthermore, it will explain how power can be beneficial for an organisation, and how it can also destroy it. This report will give an understanding of both negative and positive sides of power and conflict. Introduction The purpose of this report is to identify how power and conflict can negatively affect modern workplaces, and how it can be seen as a positive for the organisation. Past studies have had many discussions on whether these two factors actually benefit the organisation, or affects in a negative way. Regardless, in todays society, being at work requires you to interact and communicate with others in the workplace; therefore understanding workplace conflict and conflict resolution theories is an important concern for many organisations. For a better understanding, this report will explain in depth what conflict and power is, then following; the causes and types of power and conflict. This can help organisations by identifying the causes of conflict; it can help find the best approach to resolve it. For example, having scarce resources; this can help organisations ensure that there are enough resources available for employees before any conflict arises. Preventing the situation before it a rises is the best approach as minor situations can escalate into major conflict. In relation to power, this report will explain how it will benefit the organisation by providing direction and better team work. Furthermore it will discuss how it will affect the organisation if it is misused, and how to prevent this from occurring. What is Power? Power, defined as the capability of one party to exert influence on another to act in a prescribed manner is often a function of both dependence and the use of that dependence as leverage. (Panteli, N Tucker, R 2009, p.113). The most basic prerequisite of power is that one person or group believes it is dependent on another person or group for a resource of value; for example, having power over others by controlling a desired job assignment, useful information, important resources or even the privilege of being associated with you. (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 382). Generally, power can be categorised in five sources. Legitimate Power Refers to an agreement among organisational members that people in certain roles can request certain behaviours of others ( McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 383). This associates with having a position of power in an organisation such as a manager. This power comes when employees in the organisation recognises the authority of the individual. Reward Power Reward power is conveyed from the persons ability to control the allocation of rewards valued by others and to remove negative sanctions. (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 384).This can be done by giving bonuses, promotions and raises, extra time off work and so on. Coercive Power Coercive Power is the ability to apply punishment. (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 385). This type of power is conveyed through fear of losing ones job, receiving a poor performance review, being demoted, having projects delegated to someone else etc Expert Power This type of power refers to an individuals or work units capacity to influence others by possessing knowledge or skills that they value. Employees are gaining expert power as our society moves from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy. The reason is that employee knowledge becomes the means of production and is ultimately outside the control of those who own the company (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 385). Referent Power Referent Power refers to the capacity to influence others on the basis of an identification with and respect for the powerholder. It is largely a function of the persons interpersonal skills and tends to develop slowly. (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 386). In addition, it is evident that legitimate, reward and coercive power originate from the position. In contrast, expert and referent power comes from within the person (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 385). 2.0 How can Power negativity affect modern workplaces? The misuse of power or the lack thereof also results in an organization that is unresponsive to innovation and change and usually relatively powerless. (Seperich, G.J McCalley, R.W 2006, p.15). In todays society, peoples use of power can revolve around trying to use power they dont have and using the wrong kind of power to achieve results. In most cases, people misuse their power due to the fact that they have it and arent aware of it. As a manager or leader, it is important to know how to correctly use the power. Misuse of power can lead to employees feeling stressed, if there is the delegation of work-overload, which can eventually lead to high levels of absenteeism, turnovers, resignations, low performance levels and low job satisfaction. All these events will affect modern workplaces as they will have to spend time and money in order to resolve the situation. In addition, organisations that ensure their power is not misused, they adopt behaviours that build healthy relationships . This can be justified by not only having the ability to get the job done, but also having a positive behaviour and attitude around co-workers. Another tactic is to not play favourites. This can be seen as unfair to employees. Also being a good role model for your organisation is also very important. To have a respectable and good behavioural team, management and leaders need to set a good example. Lastly, those whos got the power should know that with great power come great responsibilities. This includes dealing with hard conversations. Management should use compassion to deliver hard messages, in which this comes back to making employees feel comfortable and building healthy relationships. 3.0 How can Power be seen as a positive? Power is seen to play a major role in team dynamics and interactions. According to Niki Panteli and Robert Tucker, a study of 18 distributed teams within an organisation was established in order to encourage the interviewees to recall their experiences from working in a team. Open-ended questions were asked to explore the background of the team, the performance levels, the distribution of power amongst the team members, the levels of trust within the team, and how trust changed over time. The interview also enabled the members to judge and describe whether they worked well, or did not work well in teams. Results showed that 11 teams worked well, 7 had good trust relationships, 7 did not work well and lastly, 4 teams developed trust over time. During the interview, power differentials were acknowledged in all of the teams; including those who considered themselves to have worked well. This isnt necessarily a negative action for the team. What differentiates the teams that worked well against collocated teams in terms of how the power differentials were used is that the team used it to their advantage; by having shared goals in order to create a higher level or an overriding goal or vision. These goals were focused on the success of the team as a whole; enabling the members to not feel like they are in a position to alter the power due to the situation. Therefore, allowing time to look for something that was more important than their individual needs. The study also found that in the high trust teams, power differentials does not disappear, however it shifts from one member to another. Power can originate from knowledge, therefore at any given point in time; the most powerful was the individual with the most relevant information (cited in Panteli, N Tucker, R 2009, p. 114). In this case, it is expert power that is being established. In modern workplaces, this is seen a positive due to the reason that power tends to move based on whatever the activity is going at that time. This will lead the power following those that are most knowledgably at any point in time; providing the organisation with the most efficient information, from those who expertises in that department. Generally, having power within a team or organisation can be very beneficial, not only can it voice expert power and opinions, but it can also provide direction. For example, when working in teams, there can be individuals who feel lost and unaware of what to do, therefore by having power, it can give the individual a sense of direction as they know who to report to and discuss their issues with. It can also help with quick decision making. For example, when a quick decision is to be made, power can speed up the process as generally, individuals who have legitimate, expert and referent power automatically have authority to make the decision, rather than having to discuss with other co-workers. Everyone recognizes the need to be organized in order to plan activities, assign r esponsibilities, and identify a common goal to be reached. Once everything is in place, power must be used to give direction and control the process. (Seperich, G.J McCalley, R.W 2006, p.14). Furthermore the power in an organization must be used as a resource to stimulate intelligent decision making, encourage problem solving, motivate sustained energy in its people, and foster the pursuit of excellence (Seperich, G.J McCalley, R.W 2006, p.15) What is Conflict? Conflict is a process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party. (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 414). Disagreement or conflict, risk, and time can be either assets or liabilities depending on how they are managed by you and the members of your team. (Troester, R Mester, C 2007, p.185). Personality of managers affects their managerial style and their conflict management method (Salimi, S.H Karaminia, R Esmaeili, A.A 2011, p.11), therefore styles should be thoroughly assessed in which the appropriate method should be chosen. When managing conflict, it is important to work together as it is extremely common for conflicts to escalate regardless of what type of conflict. Generally, there are three types of different conflict; Task conflicts, Relationship conflicts and Process conflicts. Torrance refers task conflict as primarily related to performing tasks, which is often proposed to improve the quality of group work by encouraging more alternative ideas and to help a group avoid conformity traps (cited in Choi, K Cho, B 2011, p.1106), while relationship conflict refers to the types of conflicts in which people focus on the characteristics of other individuals, rather than on the issues, as the source of conflict. They are not task-related; they focus on personal values, gossip, individuals styles or personality and personal tastes. (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 416). Last of all, Jehn describes process con ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å¡icts as arguments about logistics (how to best achieve the agreed-upon solution to a work problem) and delegation (how and to whom to delegate which tasks)- (cited in Romer, M et al. 2012, p. 255). Managing conflict in organizations has long been a topic of interest to researchers because of its impact on performance, whether its a negative, positive impact, or both (Williams, F 2011, p. 148). Though, as mentioned earlier, if possible, it is best to prevent the over all conflict before it escaluates. Conflict prevention  refers to actions seeking to address the underlying permissive conditions to prevent a conflict from turning violent in the first place. (Rodt, A.P 2012, 378). It is just as important to prevent the issue as well resolving it. However the six main conditions that cause conflict in organisational settings are incompatible goals, value differences, interdependence, scarce resources, ambiguous rules and communication problems Incompatible Goals Goal incompatibility is where the goals of one person or department seem to interfere with another persons or departments goals can be a source of conflict in organisations (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 418). Differentiation This refers to the differences among people, departments and other entities regarding their training, values, beliefs and experiences. Differentiation and incompatible goals can be linked together as two people or departments may agree on a common goal but have profound differences in how to achieve the goal. (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 418). Interdependence Interdependence exists when team members must share common inputs to their individual tasks, need to interact in the process of executing their work, or receive outcomes (such as rewards) that are partly determined by the performance of others. Higher interdependence increases the risk of conflict because there is a greater chance that each side will disrupt ot interfere with the other sides goal (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 418). Scarce Resource This refers to the availability of resources. Scarce resources causes conflict between each person or unit requiring the same resource necessarily undermines others who also need that resource to fulfil the their goals. For that reason, these conflicts occur simply because there isnt enough financial, human capital and other resources for everyone to accomplish their goals, therefore employees need to justify why they should receive the resources. Furthermore, the more resources one project receives, the fewer resources another project will have available to complete its goals. (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 419). Ambiguous Rules Ambiguous Rules refers to the complete lack of rules in which it causes conflict. This occurs due to the reason that uncertainty increases the risk that one party intends to interfere with other partys goal. Nevertheless, when clear rules exist, employees know what to expect from each other and have agreed to abide by those rules (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 419). Communication Problems In terms of communication problems, there are three factors that can cause conflict; lack of opportunity, ability and motivation. When parties lack the opportunity to communicate, they tend to reply on stereotyping. This can negatively distort the meaning of an opponents actions, escalating perceptions of conflicts. Furthermore, when parties lack the skills to communicate in a diplomatic manner, the opposing party can view the situation differently in which it will likely heighten their perception to conflict. Lastly, it is in our nature as humans to feel uncomfortable when interacting with others in a conflicting relationship. Therefore avoiding the situation and distinguishing minimal communication can further escalate the conflict. How can Conflict negatively affect modern workplace? According to a survey by Pace, 85% of employees deal with conflict to some degree, 49% believe that the primary causes of workplace conflict are the personality clashes and warring egos between employees, 34% (believe that the conflict is) related to stress and 33% (consider it to be) due to heavy workloads (cited in Singleton et al. 2011, p.149). Therefore it is highly recommended to study workplace conflict, conflict management theories, and how organisational leaders can control conflict as a stimulus to creativity which causes their organisations to thrive (Singleton et al. 2011, p.149). As a result, it is evident that conflict not only affects the organisation, but the employees and their psychological well-being. What is most alarming is that workplace conflicts may have a long-lasting effect on individuals and the organisation, even after they have left. Past studies show that conflict increases negative emotions, affecting the well being of individuals, withdrawing satisfacti on and causing emotional exhaustion. What is seen to be affecting the individual, is also affecting the organisation. This emotional exhaustion from employees can lead to increase of absenteeism and employee turnover. Turnover is the rate at which an employer gains and loses employees. (Vijaya, T.G Hemamalini, R 2012, p. 577). Although all types of conflicts are associated with decreased well-being, past studies show that relationship conflicts seem to do more negative and detrimental effects on individual well-being; this is due to the fact that it affects morale which is likely to result in decreased satisfaction with the job, group and organisation as well as threatening ones identity, self-esteem and generating more intense emotion (Romer, M et al. 2012, p. 256). In terms of performance and team satisfaction relationship conflicts have a bigger impact than task relationships. For these reasons, it is why relationship conflicts are seen as always dysfunctional and more difficult to resolve. How can it be seen as a positive? In todays society, despite which career path is taken, it is important to understand conflict and conflict resolution as everyone in the workplace needs to work and interact with others in the organisation. Conflict is part of the normality and is manifested with varying degrees of intensity, occurring when people feel they have created inconsistencies between their goals, aspirations and expectations (Cojocaru, C 2010, p.429). Conflict is unavoidable whether it is in the workplace, or in social life. Hatch and Cunliffe states that learning to deal effectively with conflict and making it functional is a critical investment for good intrapersonal and interpersonal relations in organizations well as setting the tone for a positive climate and culture for success (cited in Judonoo, E Schroeder, K Boysen-Rotelli, S 2012, p.52). It is beneficial for organisations to promote a culture of healthy conflicts by creating the right atmosphere. This is the best approach for organisations as co nflict will occur regardless, in which time and money are spent in resolving them. However, in todays society, modern workplaces can sometimes see conflict as a positive. According to the Model of the Conflict Process the positive conflict outcomes include better decisions, responsive organisation and team cohesion (McShane, Olekalns Travaglione 2010, p. 415). In modern workplaces, conflict can be seen as having a lack of understanding about differing needs. This can result in disagreements and arguments. Furthermore, this is not necessarily negative. When organisations recognize the conflict, they become willing to examine the situation and environment, in a more compassionate manner, understanding all options. This conflict can be an asset for organisations as it gives the opportunity to discuss and explore other options while opening pathways to different ways of problem solving and team building. Conflict can be beneficial for organisations as it enables individuals to discuss the pros and cons of each scenario or situation; in which it will provide the organisation with the most relevant and important information. Therefore, if conflict hadnt occurred, further discussions and research wouldnt have been accomplished, leaving the organisation with limited options. Jehn states that task conflicts, on the contrary, are thought to benefit performance by leading to deep thinking and thorough consideration of information'(cited in Long, C Zhong-Ming, W Wei, Z 2011, p. 191). Lastly, another important positive factor of conflict is improved relationships. Although this factor mainly benefits individuals, it is also evident that it also positively affects the organisation. When individuals have a positive relationship with co-workers, the organisation benefits from this as there will be an increase of high performance, decrease employee stress and decrease turnover and absenteeism. In modern workplace, conflicts may lead to an awareness of many important issues in an organisation, and thus, a search for solutions, development of creative and new ideas and formations as well as effective and permanent decisions. The diverse and complicated nature of conflicts imposes a critical and important role on conflict management due to the fact that conflicts may contribute to the improvement of organizational effectiveness when they are managed well. (Altun, O.S Argon, G 2011, p.725) Conclusion The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that it is important for managers to put effort when dealing with power and conflict. As mentioned earlier, minor conflict can easily be escalated into a major situation. Furthermore in relation to power, organisations need to recognise that the misuse of power can be easily adopted, even without realisation.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Production Planning Incorporate with Job Rotation and Work

Production Planning Incorporate with Job Rotation and Work Thesis/Project Title: Production Planning Incorporate with Job rotation and Work Injury by  Multi-Objective Criteria Courses Taken/Grades: Course Name Grade ME 460 Automation and Robotics in Manufacturing 84 ME 887 Introduction to Microsystems 85 ME 886 Advanced Engineering Design Methodology 88 BIOE 898 Special Topic 88 STAT 845 Statistical Methods for Research 90 GSR 960 Introduction to Ethics and Integrity CR Average Grade to Date:87% ME 990 Seminar:January 27th, 2016 Expected Completion Date:December, 2016 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.1. Background and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.2. Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 LITERATURE REVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.1 Production Planning and Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.2 HUMAN FACTOR IN PRODUCTION PLANNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3.2.1. Human Scheduling in Technical System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3.2.2. Human Work Related Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3.2.3. Leading Factors for Work Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2.4. How We Reduce Work Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3.3 QUALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.3.1. Manufacturing Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.3.2. Dimensions of Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.4 JOB ROTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.4.1. Importance of Job Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3.4.2. Outcomes of Job Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.4.3. Job Rotation as a Cost Effective Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.5 WORK FORCE AGING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.5.1. Aging Effect Worker Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.5.2. Workforce Aging Effect on Production Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 TIMELINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background and Motivation In the last few years, the question of human well-being at the working place has come afore as a key issues in production planning and scheduling. The manufacturing productivity is affected by both the human and machine factors. However, much of the previous research has been focused on the machine aspect but the human aspect. The previous work considers not only the productivity but also the production cost, worker safety and machine utilization. Particularly, (Xu, 2015) demonstrated the significance of work injury to the total production cost. His work also showed that the effect of work injury can be reduced by designing a production system. Due to the increasing cost of work injuries as well as concern of health work place, both the government and industry have made an effort on preventing work injury occurrences. In 2005, the government of Canada paid approximately $6.8 billion dollars in benefits through its Workersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸ Compensation Boards (WCBs) organization. It is being realized that the cost incurred by work injuries contributes a large portion to the total production cost, and strategies are urgently required to tackle the problem of work injury. In 2000 to 2012 period, the total costs of occupational injuries to the Canadian economy was estimated to be more than $19 billion annually. The factors other than the production system design, which lead to work injury, are: employee boredom, fatigue, lack of motivation, lack of training, and mismatch of job and workforce age. Besides design of production systems, to remove or solve the issues related to work injury, there are three kinds of techniques: Engineering solutions, Administrative solutions and Personal safety equipment (Tayyari Smith, 1997). Job rotation comes in the category of administrative solution. It is about the rotation of workers among a number of non-similar workstations, where each worker requires different skills or techniques and responsibilities to do job (Azizi, Zolfaghari Liang, 2010). It enables operators to become multi-skilled by providing them with a greater ability to handle increased demand and large product variability (Michalos et al., 2010). When many jobs of different requirements and workers of different capabilities are involved, the job rotation problem becomes very complex. Due to the complexity of job rotation, there are implications of job rotation as well. If not done properly job rotation can increase the cost of production and also reduce the quality of the manufacturing system. Cost is a factor which is widely understood and studied but Quality is one of the most important but the least understood attribute of a system. Without quality, a system cannot comply with required goals and standards. Conventionally, production planning is mainly about materials resource planning. The materials include both the material for products and the machine tools for production of the products (Krajewski et al., 2005). Many techniques have been established to improve the effectiveness of production planning, to make a plan which meets the customer demand, satisfaction and cost with other features such as continuity and resilience of a system as referred to by Zhang and Lin (2010). Zhang defines resilience as a systems post-damage property i.e. the systems ability to recover its function from some damage. In the context of enterprises, Guelfi et al. (2008) defined the resilience as the capacity of a business process to recover and reinforce itself when facing changes. This calls for a scientific approach to solving this problem. 1.2 Research Questions The following questions come up: Question 1: How may job rotation significantly affect the cost of production especially with its connection to work injury (particularly related to the worker aging)? Question 2: How to define and model the quality of the operation of a manufacturing or production system particularly in terms of resilience or system disruption? Question 3: How to define and model job rotation in production planning and scheduling so as to make a balanced improvement in terms of the cost and resilience? 2. Objectives and Scope Objective 1 To model the job rotation for incorporating them into the production planning and scheduling. The model should consider the influence of job rotation to work injury (due to aging). Objective 2 To develop a model for the resilience of a production system with planning and scheduling in place. The resilience may simply refer to operation disruption. It is assumed that by meeting the customer requirement for products or jobs, the quality of a production system is guaranteed. It is also assumed that the product delivery time is satisfied by an effective production plan and schedule. Objective 3 To develop a production planning model for achieving the lowest cost and highest resilience. In this model, besides the decision variables such as production quantity, the variable for job rotation will be included. 3. Literature Review 3.1 Production Planning and Scheduling Production planning is a planning of production and manufacturing modules in any organization or industry. It utilizes the allocation of resources (employees, material and machines) in order to achieve the organizational goals. On the other hand production scheduling differs from production planning in that a schedule includes the information such as what system components (machines and/or humans) do what jobs at what times. Ideally, one may want to be the best for all the foregoing goals but in reality this is not possible as there may be conflicts among them. For instance, low cost production may likely lead to poor product quality. Nevertheless, an optimal trade-off among these elements does make sense. In fact, from a mathematical point of view, the problem is inherently a multi-objective optimisation problem. In practice, the multi-objective optimization problem is modeled as a single objective optimization problem while the rest of elements are considered as constraints or only implicitly assumed. For instance, often the quality is assumed to be fine as long as the production meets the quantity, and the time is implicitly represented in a way that the customer demand for a period of time say T is divided into a series of time segments (ti), and then on each time segment (ti), there will be the product quantity say di. Based on the foregoing discussion, the quality, quantity, and time are modelled. This research will further consider cost and resilience. The cost goal is conventional in the mathematical model for production planning and scheduling (Cramer, 2011). Elements that incur the cost are: material cost, machine utilization cost, human cost, human work injury cost, inventory cost, penalty cost, overhead cost, and so forth (Phruksaphanrat, Ohsato Yenradee, 2006; Swamidass, 2000; Gallego, 2001; Xu, 2015; Sule, 2008). The resilience goal is less known to the literature especially a joint consideration of the cost goal and resilience goal. There are some works on job rotation, which are categorized into the human factors in planning and scheduling, and will be discussed later in this document. Broadly, according to (Laperrià ¨re et al., 2014) Production planning does not work alone, it normally approaches with other production activities (Fig. 1) such as aggregate production planning, production scheduling and production control. Aggregate Production Planning (APP) determines what, when and how much the work force levels, inventory status and production rate required to achieve the market or customer demand. APP falls between the broad decisions of long-range planning and the highly specific and detailed short-range planning decisions (Chakrabortty Hasin, 2013).Production Scheduling determines the sequence of production for planned products on daily and weekly basis (Pinedo, 2005); see also the previous discussion. Production Controldeals with the real time information from the processes such as workforce and inventory level to take decisions to remove or avoid the system from disruption (Pinedo, 2005). In this thesis research, the scope is production planning and schedu ling. 3.2 Human factors in production planning Technological developments in the production system allowed the automation of the manufacturing processes and assembly lines, but employees or human operators still remain a serious factor in every production system (Chryssolouris, 2006). Employees or workers are the most important resources of any organization. The way in which workers are allocated to tasks can meaningfully affect a companys performance or productivity (Tharmmaphornphilas Norman, 2007). Therefore non-compatibility or mismatch of humans to technical systems may even cause injuries in the humans, which is the main concern of human factor engineering in production planning. To solve this problem, job rotation is the best technique to overcome this issue and it helps to increase the production efficiency or productivity (McKay Wiers, 2006). 3.2.1 Human Scheduling in Technical System Presently, industries assign tasks to employees according to their competence, skills or experience. This method helps to increase the system productivity and quality but it can results in worker to be assigned same task every time (Tharmmaphornphilas Norman, 2007). Performing the repetitive tasks may reason for musculoskeletal disorders, accrue stress, induce boredom, create fatigue and may lead to occupational illness and injury (Hagberg et al. 1995). 3.2.2 Human Work Related Injuries The behavior of a worker can be affected by several factors such as: (Digiesi, et al. 2009). Work Environment: (physical: microclimate, ergonomics, noise; social: human relationships, communication among the group). Nature of the Task: (discrete vs. continuous, repetitive vs. non-repetitive, motor vs. cognitive). Personal factors: (psycho-physical attitude, personal skill, age, sex). 3.2.3 Leading Factors for Work Injuries It has been noticed that there are some major factors which contributes to work injuries are: Employee Boredom: It can be related with performance reduction, general dissatisfaction, and accidents (Azizi, Zolfaghari Liang, 2010). Fatigue: Accumulation of fatigue causesmusculoskeletal disorders(Asensio-Cuesta et al., 2012) Repetitive Motions: Monotonous repetitive work has been identified as a major cause of work load related disorders (Michalos et al., 2010) Workforce Aging: In very repetitive short cycle operations, work-related musculoskeletal disorders tend to be more dominant in workers aged from 40 to 60 (Boenzi, et al., 2015). 3.2.4 How We Reduce Work Injuries There are three ways to reduce or overcome the work injuries (Tayyari Smith, 1997) .These are as follows: Engineering Solutions: It includes to redesign the work place, redesign tools and redesign job. Administrative Solutions: It includes the reconsideration of work schedules, workers rotation and career changes. Personal Protective Equipment:It includes safety shoes, hats, safety glasses and safety clothes. 3.3 Quality Quality is important property of any systems and usually refers to the degree to which a system lives up to the expectation of satisfying its requirements (Ivan et al. 2014). The definition of quality, standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) in 1978, is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy given needs. This definition suggests that we must be able to identify the features and characteristics of products and services that determine customer satisfaction and form the basis for measurement and control. 3.3.1 Manufacturing Quality In terms of manufacturing based quality, (Crosby, 1979) defined manufacturing quality as quality is about conformance to requirement. 3.3.2 Dimensions of Quality Garvin (1988) and Grady (1992) described the dimensions for quality analysis in their book are: Performance, Reliability, Conformance, Durability, Serviceability, Usability, Functionality and Supportability. Quality is often characterized in terms of attributes for system quality such as modifiability, durability, predictability (Ivan et al., 2014). 3.4 Job Rotation Job rotation is about the rotation of workers among a number of non-similar workstations where each worker requires different skills or techniques and responsibilities to do job (Azizi, Zolfaghari Liang, 2010). In other words job rotation can be defined as working at different operations or in different positions for particular set periods of time in a planned way (Jorgensen, 2005). 3.4.1 The Importance of Job Rotation Implementing Job Rotation as a manufacturing method is beneficial to increase production efficiency, operator satisfaction and helps to reduce Work-related musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs) and labor cost (Cramer, 2011). Job rotation using lateral transfers allows employees to gain a wide range of knowledge, skills and competencies (Jorgensen, 2005). It provides a benefit or increase the firms ability to deal with change (Kher et al., 1999). As a benefit of job rotation to workers, it may increase workers job satisfaction (Cunningham and Eberle, 1990). Job rotation also yields such benefits to workers as reducing the injuries due to performing repetitive tasks as well as the workers fatigue especially if the worker is exposed to various muscular loads during task operation in manufacturing (Hinnen et al., 1992; Henderson, 1992). Carnahan et al. (2000) studied several methods to integrate the safety criteria into scheduling algorithms to produce job rotation schedules that reduce the potential for work injury. Job design related applications began to take shape with a scientific management approach in the 1900s. The study of management scientists such as Taylor and Gilbreth on the subject of job design becomes a foundation for scientific management. Further, many models were developed, which are associated with job design, social information processing and job characteristics approach by Hackman and Oldman in 1976 (Hackman Oldham, 1976) and these models have enormously important effects on increasing the productivity of human resources. Job rotation prevents musculoskeletal disorders, eliminates boredom and increases job satisfaction and morale. As a result, an organization gains a skilled and motivated workforce, which leads to increases in productivity, employee loyalty and decreases in employee turnover (Asensio-Cuesta et al., 2012). Job rotation is considered as an appropriate organizational strategy to reduce physical workload (Paul et al., 1999; Boenzi et al., 2015) in human-based production systems and it is the most wide spread labor flexibility instrument in the case of repetitive assembly tasks (Paul et al., 1999). 3.4.2 Outcome of Job Rotation 3.4.3 Job Rotation as a Cost Effective Tool There are several appealing factors for job rotation but one major factor is the relatively low implementation cost. Job rotation policy is very effective tool to overcome or minimize the work injuries cost or helpful in reduction of repetitive tasks, which leads to work injuries. Job rotation itself cost effective to apply in any organization the cost which only related to job rotation is training cost. 3.5 Work Force Aging The phenomenon of population aging affects the ageing of work force which determines work force availability. Industrial and academic research are required to investigate the influence of workforce aging in formulating new working time models and job rotation planning solutions. Field investigations on the effect of workers aging on production performance were carried out at the BMW plant in Dingolfing, Bavaria (Loch CH et al., 2010). 3.5.1 Aging Effects on Worker According to (Tokarski, 2011) aging affects the workers performance in three aspects are: Physically: (physiological, perceptual and motor processes, and declines in abilities, such as dexterity, strength and endurance. Cognitive: (Decision making Skills, Learning skills and forgetting phenomena) Emotions:(Boredom, fatigue and lack of motivation) 3.5.2 Workforce Aging Effect on Production Performance Changes in workforce age structure may have an impact on production system performance or productivity. According to Sà ¼lzenbrà ¼ck et al. (2010) age-related impairments have a negative effect on working capacity and productivity. In assembly lines the higher the average age of the assemblers, the higher the risk they cannot meet all the requirements (Buck Dworschak, 2003). The effects of ageing on employees physical and cognitive performances negatively affects the flexibility of human based production system (Boenzi et al., 2015). The factors which may affect the performance of a worker with respect to ageing are: Muscular Strength. Dynamics Actions. Endurance (Aerobic Capacity). Reaction Time (Responses). Awkward Postures (Flexibility). 4. Proposed Methodology A mathematical model will be developed in terms of Production cost. Components of production cost will be work injury cost, work injury prevention cost, inventory cost and conventional production cost. Different Scenarios will be developed considering workers of different age groups and how they can be rotated between job positions, when there is a work related injury to one of them. When scenarios are made, mathematical model formulated in the earlier step will be applied on the scenarios. The mathematical model for each scenario will form the basis for the use of Multi Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA). This Aggregate production planning problem emphases on developing a Multi objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) method to find the optimum production plan for meeting forecasted customer demand by controlling the work injury during the production. Multi objective function will be inserted along with its constraints. A general description of steps for implementing MOGA are as follows: Step 1: Generate random population of n chromosomes (suitable solutions for the problem) Step 2: Evaluate simultaneously the Multiple fitness f(x) of each chromosome x in the population Step 3: Create a new population by repeating four steps (Selection, Crossover, Mutation and Acceptation) until the new population is complete. Step 4: Use new generated population for a further run of algorithm Step 5: If the stopping condition is satisfied, stop, and return the best solution in current population Step 6: If the stopping condition is not satisfied then go to step 2 follow loop. MOGA parameters will then be inserted. Assumptions No worker is working on full capacity. It is assumed that a worker only utilizes 60 percent of his/her work capacity to fulfil the job requirement. Material is always available during production. Trivial solutions will be ignored. No hiring and lay off during the planning horizon. It is assumed that age is not a contributing factor towards work injury. 5. Conclusion There has been some work done on the concept of production planning in terms of work injury cost. But upon doing literature review, I realized that there has been no work done when it comes to applying work injury cost and job rotation to make a production plan. My work will focus on developing a production model by considering work injury cost and job rotation. There are quite a few benefits of this approach. Firstly, it will give us a model where workers of different age can be used in an optimized way in a production based environment. Secondly, in case of any absentee or injuries, an organization can develop a plan in such a way that workers of older age (above 50) are minimally exposed to physically intensive work. Furthermore, a model for job rotation will be made considering age of the workers so as to reduce work injury by minimal exposure of aged work force to physically demanding work. Lastly, due to application of work injury and job rotation, a cost effective way to model and run a production line (in terms of manual labor) will be done. 6. Timeline MONTH ACTIVITY January (2016) Preparation of set of research objectives and scope. Literature review. Presentation preparation for Seminar ME 990. February (2016) Identification of appropriate decision variables and constraints for model. March (2016) Completion of research proposal. April- September (2016) Advisory committee Formulation of model. Validation of model. October-November (2016) Compiling the final results. Thesis preparation. December (2016) Defence of thesis 7. References Buck, H., Dworschak. B., (2003) Ageing and work in Europe. Strategies at company level and public policies in selected European countries, in: Demography and employment, IRB, DE. Carnahan, B.J., Redfern, M.S., Norman, B.A., 2000. Designing safe job rotation schedules using optimization and heuristic search. Ergonomics 43, 543-560. Chakrabortty, R., Hasin, M. (2013). Solving an aggregate production planning problem by using multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) approach. International Journal of Industrial Engineering Computations, 4(1), 1-12. Chryssolouris G (2006) Manufacturing Systems: Theory and Practice. Second edition. 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