A framework for the integration of green and lean six sigma for superior sustainability performance

Evidence suggests that Lean, Six Sigma and Green approaches make a positive contribution to the economic, social and environmental (i.e. sustainability) performance of organizations. However, evidence also suggests that organizations have found their integration and implementation challenging. The purpose of this research is therefore to present a framework that methodically guides companies through a five stages and sixteen steps process to effectively integrate and implement the Green, Lean and Six Sigma approaches to improve their sustainability performance. To achieve this, a critical review of the existing literature in the subject area was conducted to build a research gap, and subsequently develop the methodological framework proposed. The paper presents the results from the application of the proposed framework in four organizations with different sizes and operating in a diverse range of industries. The results showed that the integration of Lean Six Sigma and Green helped the organizations to averagely reduce their resources consumption from 20% to 40% and minimize the cost of energy and mass streams by 7-12%. The application of the framework should be gradual, the companies should assess their weaknesses and strengths, set priorities, and identify goals for successful implementation. This paper is one of the very first researches that presents a framework to integrate Green and Lean Six Sigma at a factory level, and hence offers the potential to be expanded to multiple factories or even supply chains

Sex Differences in the Brain: A Whole Body Perspective

Most writing on sexual differentiation of the mammalian brain (including our own) considers just two organs: the gonads and the brain. This perspective, which leaves out all other body parts, misleads us in several ways. First, there is accumulating evidence that all organs are sexually differentiated, and that sex differences in peripheral organs affect the brain. We demonstrate this by reviewing examples involving sex differences in muscles, adipose tissue, the liver, immune system, gut, kidneys, bladder, and placenta that affect the nervous system and behavior. The second consequence of ignoring other organs when considering neural sex differences is that we are likely to miss the fact that some brain sex differences develop to compensate for differences in the internal environment (i.e., because male and female brains operate in different bodies, sex differences are required to make output/function more similar in the two sexes). We also consider evidence that sex differences in sensory systems cause male and female brains to perceive different information about the world; the two sexes are also perceived by the world differently and therefore exposed to differences in experience via treatment by others. Although the topic of sex differences in the brain is often seen as much more emotionally charged than studies of sex differences in other organs, the dichotomy is largely false. By putting the brain firmly back in the body, sex differences in the brain are predictable and can be more completely understood

The examination of marriage ritual among selected groups in South India

This thesis is concerned with variations in the traditional Hindu marriage ceremony as practiced by the several Tamil-speaking castes on the east coast of South India, The primary objective is to survey the descriptions of marriage ritual which are available in the current literature, rather than to attempt a sociological analysis of any particular problem. The intention has been to organize and examine the existing material with a view to additional field research in person in the near future. In the following pages we point out several significant differences in the nuptial rituals as they are performed at different levels in the caste hierarchy and these facts are interspersed with a discussion of the relation of the marriage ceremony to South Indian ritual in general. Because information on this topic is relatively abundant, the area to be considered in detail has been limited to three districts of Madras State: South Arcot, Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur. Continued in thesis ...</p

Todos somos monstruos: retos de la literatura de horror en un mundo espantoso

Tema del mesArtículo el cual enumera algunos textos breves, denominados terroríficos que ha leído el autor, entre ellos de Charles Bowden, Pepe Rojo, Joe Hill, entre algunos más autores mencionados