Improving business performance through TPM method: The evidence from the production and processing of crude oil

Nowadays, customers expect manufacturers to supply high quality products, on-time deliveries and competitive prices. The consequence of the increased market requirements is the need to maintain high reliability and efficiency of machines and the production process. The existing methods of production management have proved to be inefficient enough to maintain the company’s competitive position on the market. The Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) concept is one of the tools to maximize equipment efficiency by establishing an optimal relationship between people and machines. The aim of the article is to present the issues related to TPM and demonstrate in the process of empirical research that it serves the purpose of improving efficiency and supports quality in the enterprise. The considerations are based on the thesis that TPM is an economical variant of maintenance and guarantees stability, quality and maximization of production efficiency. The article presents the results of empirical research in an enterprise extracting and processing pre-crudes and gas from Caspian Sea. The data from the SAP management system of the investigated enterprise were used. Based on 146 maintenance orders for 40 devices, a correlation between preventive and corrective maintenance was determined using statistical tools. The main goal of the study was to show whether preventive maintenance reduces the occurrence of failures contributing to the elimination of disturbances in the production process. In addition, we analyzed real cases of equipment failures to answer the question whether the procedure of preventive maintenance of equipment in the studied population would prevent the occurrence of these defects. The empirical study demonstrated a clear impact of Preventive Maintenance on limiting the occurrence of equipment failures, and thus production disturbances

Addicted to the Holocaust – Bernice Eisenstein’s ways of coping with troublesome memories in "I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors"

In her I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors published in Canada in 2006, Bernice Eistenstein undertakes an attempt to cope with the inherited memories of the Holocaust. As a child of the Holocaust survivors, she tries to deal with the trauma her parents kept experiencing years after WWII had finished. Eisenstein became infected with the suffering and felt it inescapable. Eisenstein’s text, which is one of the first Jewish-Canadian graphic memoirs, appears to represent the voice of the children of Holocaust survivors not only owing to its verbal dimension, but also due to the drawings incorporated into the text. Therefore, the text becomes a combination of a memoir, a family story, a philosophical treatise and a comic strip, which all prove unique and enrich the discussion on the Holocaust in literature. For these reasons, the aim of this article is to analyze the ways in which Eisenstein deals with her postmemory, to use Marianne Hirsch’s term (1997 [2002]), as well as her addiction to the Holocaust memories. As a result of this addiction, the legacy of her postmemory is both unwanted and desired and constitutes Bernice Eisenstein’s identity as the eponymous child of Holocaust survivors

Bosphorus Case: The Balancing of Property Rights in the European Community and the Public Interest in Ending the War in Bosnia

This Comment argues that the European Court of Justice ( ECJ ) should choose not to follow its holding that Regulation 990/93 applied to the aircraft that Bosphorus leased from Yugoslavian National Airline ( JAT ), because it is not clear that the language of Resolution 820 and Regulation 990/93 provides for the impounding of aircrafts whose Yugoslavian owner leased them to non-Yugoslavian businesses in which no Yugoslavian entity has a majority or controlling interest. This Comment further argues that in so holding, the ECJ violated Bosphorus\u27 fundamental right to property because the impounding of the aircraft was disproportionate to the concrete purpose of preventing Yugoslavia and Yugoslavian nationals from having recourse to aircrafts that they could use to violate the embargo. Part I discusses the structure of the European Community and sources of fundamental rights in Community law, specifically property rights, including important ECJ and European Court of Human Rights property rights cases. Part I also presents the background of the Bosphorus case, including the historical background of the war in Bosnia, the U.N. Security Council Resolutions instituting the embargo on Yugoslavia, and the EC Council regulations implementing those resolutions. Part II discusses the procedural history and facts of the Bosphorus case, including an analysis of the decisions of the Irish High Court (the “High Court”), the Advocate General of the ECJ, and the ECJ. Part III advocates a more narrow and concrete interpretation of Regulation 990/93, affording greater weight to Bosphorus\u27 property rights. This Comment concludes that the ECJ should adopt a more narrow and concrete interpretation of Regulation 990/93 and should refrain from following its holding that Regulation 990/93 did not apply to Bosphorus\u27s aircraft, thereby further strengthening and clarifying the European Community\u27s commitment to the protection of property rights

‘And yet, what would we be without memory?’ Visualizing memory in two Canadian graphic texts

Since “we live in a culture of confession” (Gilmore 2001: 2; Rak 2005: 2) a rapidly growing popularity of various forms of life writing seems understandable. The question of memory is usually an important part of the majority of autobiographical texts. Taking into account both the popularity of life writing genres and their recent proliferation, it is interesting to see how the question “what would we be without memory?” (Sebald 1998 [1995]: 255) resonates within more experimental auto/biographical texts such as a graphic memoir/novel I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors (2006) by Bernice Eisenstein and a volume of illustrated poetry and a biographical elegy published together as Correspondences (2013) by Anne Michaels and Bernice Eisenstein. These two experimental works, though representing disparate forms of writing, offer new stances on visualization of memory and correspondences between text and visual image. The aim of this paper is to analyze the ways in which the two authors discuss memory as a fluid concept yet, at the same time, one having its strong, ghostly presence. The discussion will also focus on the interplay between memory and postmemory as well as correspondences between the texts and the equally important visual forms accompanying them such as drawings, portraits, sketches, and the bookbinding itself.This work was partially supported by the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki) under Grant UMO–2012/05/B/HS2/0400

Forgetful Recollections: Images of Central and Eastern Europe in Canadian Literature

The present study is an attempt to explore the position of the memory and postmemory of Central and Eastern Europe in contemporary Canadian literature. The analysis is inspired by Simona Škrabec’s concept of the 20th century Central Europe seen as diverse and evolving “space of dispersion.” In this context, the book situates the novels and memoirs, published in Canada at the turn of the 20th and 21st century and written by immigrants and their descendants from Central and Eastern Europe, as the texts which try to recreate the images of 'Old Places' filtered through the experience of living in transcultural Canada. The analyses of the selected texts by Janice Kulyk Keefer, Lisa Appignanesi, Irena F. Karafilly, Anne Michaels, Norman Ravvin, and Eva Stachniak are predominantly based on Marianne Hirsch’s idea of “postmemory” and Pierre Nora’s “lieux de mémoire". These two concepts capture the broad spectrum of attitudes to the past, remembering and forgetting, and sites of memory as exemplified in the discussed texts. While all of the chosen novels and memoirs explore the problem of post/memory and un/belonging caused by immigration, poverty, and the trauma of World War Π, they try to address the question of identity of immigrants (or their descendants) created on the border between the memory and postmemory of the past and the contemporary reality of transcultural Canada. As a result of this, the post/memory and the recreated after/images of Central and Eastern Europe offer both therapy and consolation as well as testimony to the past and its sites of memory

Changing Traditions in Non-fictional Jewish-Canadian Writing – the Study of Selected Texts by Eva Hoffman, Elaine Kalman Naves and Bernice Eisenstein

Recent years have witnessed a substantial growth of interest in various forms of non-fictional writing. Canadian literature has also abounded in a range of non-fictional texts. Among the different forms of such texts are memoirs and life narratives. This paper aims at tracing the changes within formal trends and tendencies in these narratives. Therefore, the article offers an examination of a selection of non-fictional texts from the perspective of paratextual elements such as photographs, maps, drawings, illustrations, ekphrasis and other graphic aspects as well as metatextual, self-conscious remarks on the process of writing included in the texts. The texts chosen for analysis are written by contemporary Canadian authors of Jewish origins (or authors identified with Canada and more broadly with North America as it is in Eva Hoffman’s case). The authors of the chosen memoirs are all first or second generation immigrants whose experiences of migration, changing countries and cultures have shaped their identities formed through their own or inherited post/memories. Family histories combined with personal accounts can be found in all selected texts such as: Eva Hoffman’s seminal “Lost in Translation” (1989) a text partly devoted to her Canadian experiences, Elaine Kalman Naves’ “Journey to Vaja. Reconstructing the World of a Hungarian-Jewish Family” (1996) and “Shoshanna’s Story. A Mother, a Daughter, and the Shadows of History” (2003), as well as Bernice Eisenstein’s “I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors” (2006) which is one of the first graphic memoir in Canadian life writing. All of these texts were published in Canada within the last few decades (it needs to be noted that it is only Eva Hoffman’s book that is available in Polish) and they all take up a discussion concerning the problem of immigrant identity and offer a range of paratextual and metatextual remarks whose appearance contributes to the inquiry into the contemporary developments in Jewish-Canadian life writing.Grant UMO–2012/05/B/HS2/04004 from the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki)

Bosphorus Case: The Balancing of Property Rights in the European Community and the Public Interest in Ending the War in Bosnia

This Comment argues that the European Court of Justice ( ECJ ) should choose not to follow its holding that Regulation 990/93 applied to the aircraft that Bosphorus leased from Yugoslavian National Airline ( JAT ), because it is not clear that the language of Resolution 820 and Regulation 990/93 provides for the impounding of aircrafts whose Yugoslavian owner leased them to non-Yugoslavian businesses in which no Yugoslavian entity has a majority or controlling interest. This Comment further argues that in so holding, the ECJ violated Bosphorus\u27 fundamental right to property because the impounding of the aircraft was disproportionate to the concrete purpose of preventing Yugoslavia and Yugoslavian nationals from having recourse to aircrafts that they could use to violate the embargo. Part I discusses the structure of the European Community and sources of fundamental rights in Community law, specifically property rights, including important ECJ and European Court of Human Rights property rights cases. Part I also presents the background of the Bosphorus case, including the historical background of the war in Bosnia, the U.N. Security Council Resolutions instituting the embargo on Yugoslavia, and the EC Council regulations implementing those resolutions. Part II discusses the procedural history and facts of the Bosphorus case, including an analysis of the decisions of the Irish High Court (the “High Court”), the Advocate General of the ECJ, and the ECJ. Part III advocates a more narrow and concrete interpretation of Regulation 990/93, affording greater weight to Bosphorus\u27 property rights. This Comment concludes that the ECJ should adopt a more narrow and concrete interpretation of Regulation 990/93 and should refrain from following its holding that Regulation 990/93 did not apply to Bosphorus\u27s aircraft, thereby further strengthening and clarifying the European Community\u27s commitment to the protection of property rights

Between the global and the private: the Second World War and the Cold War in two novels by Lithuanian-Canadians

This article offers an analysis of selected texts of Lithuanian-Canadian literature which concentrate on different perceptions of war. It explores the secret war of the 1940s led by the Lithuanian underground during the Second World War, as presented in Antanas Sileika’s Underground (2011), and the Cold War period analyzed by Irene Guilford in The Embrace (1999). Since these texts present certain marginalized, multicultural perspectives on conflicts and highlight the tensions in locations situated outside Canada, it is the ethnic perspective which allows the authors to introduce their stories into the Canadian literary scene. The article also raises questions concerning the links between family members torn apart by conflicts as well as dilemmas regarding heroism and betrayal. Finally, the influence of global conflicts on personal choices and identities is examined