Performance measurement system for warehouse activities based on the SCOR® model : A research study in collaboration with Consafe Logistics AB, Sweden

Background: SCOR is a worldwide accepted and renowned process reference model that is developed and endorsed by the non-profit organization Supply Chain Council. It’s a cross-industry diagnostic tool for supply chain management. Consafe Logistics wanted to know if a performance measurement system for warehouse activities could be developed based on the SCOR model, and how it could be applied in their organization to offer enhanced customer satisfaction. Research issue: Previously, there’s been no standardized model used to define warehouse metrics at Consafe Logistics. If more relevant and standardized metrics would be used, Consafe Logistics could arguably be more efficient, give better support to customers and consequently generate greater customer satisfaction. The research should investigate if the SCOR framework can be applied to the company’s services within warehouse management. Furthermore, Consafe Logistics would like to gain a comprehensive picture of what metrics their customers currently measure in order to identify if metrics from the SCOR portfolio are applicable. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a performance measurement system for warehouse activities; the system should be based on the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model. Method: The method used in this study was a combination of many elements. First a situation analysis were performed to clarify the initially vague information and to be able to construct the research issue, the purpose and the delimitations for this study. Then a literature study was conducted to make sure enough knowledge was gained about warehouse management, performance measurements and the SCOR model. The empirical data was gathered in a combinatory approach between a qualitative pre-study and a quantitative and qualitative web-based survey. The main purpose of the prestudy was to gain relevant and in depth information from practitioners. The survey was a broader investigation and thereby gave more opportunity for generalization. The information was then analyzed and a performance measurement system for warehouse activities was developed. Conclusions: This study has reached its purpose to develop a performance measurement system based on SCOR. A process model that focuses on the operational tasks within warehousing was designed. If Consafe Logistics implements this warehouse process model, a relevant set of metrics can be achieved for each customer. In this way Consafe Logistics could save a lot of resources in trying to figure out what clients want to measure

Claudie Weill, Les cosmopolites

How did the “non-Jewish Jews” (to use Isaac Deutscher’s well-known term) in the Russian revolutionary parties relate to their Jewish origins, their “Jewishness”? Such is the primary question which Claudie Weill explores in this short but thought-provoking book. The importance of even concealed ethnicity has been dramatically illustrated, she suggests, by the way in which the Communist efforts to create a new supra-national society culminated in the eventual emergence of innumerable nation-sta..

NHS waiting lists and evidence of national or local failure: analysis of health service data.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the national distribution of prolonged waiting for elective day case and inpatient surgery, and to examine associations of prolonged waiting with markers of NHS capacity, activity in the independent sector, and need. SETTING: NHS hospital trusts in England. POPULATION: People waiting for elective treatment in the specialties of general surgery; ear, nose and throat surgery; ophthalmic surgery; and trauma and orthopaedic surgery. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Numbers of people waiting six months or longer (prolonged waiting). Characteristics of trusts with large numbers waiting six months or longer were examined by using logistic regression. RESULTS: The distribution of numbers of people waiting for day case or elective surgery in all the specialties examined was highly positively skewed. Between 52% and 83% of patients waiting longer than six months in the specialties studied were found in one quarter of trusts, which in turn contributed 23-45% of the national throughput specific to the specialty. In general, there was little evidence to show that capacity (measured by numbers of operating theatres, dedicated day case theatres, available beds, and bed occupancy rate) or independent sector activity were associated with prolonged waiting, although exceptions were noted for individual specialties. There was consistent evidence showing an increase in prolonged waiting, with increased numbers of anaesthetists across all specialties and with increased bed occupancy rates for ear, nose and throat surgery. Markers of greater need for health care, such as deprivation score and rate of limiting long term illness, were inversely associated with prolonged waiting. CONCLUSION: In most instances, substantial numbers of patients waiting unacceptably long periods for elective surgery were limited to a small number of hospitals. Little and inconsistent support was found for associations of prolonged waiting with markers of capacity, independent sector activity, or need in the surgical specialties examined

Role of APOBEC3 in Genetic Diversity among Endogenous Murine Leukemia Viruses

The ability of human and murine APOBECs (specifically, APOBEC3) to inhibit infecting retroviruses and retrotransposition of some mobile elements is becoming established. Less clear is the effect that they have had on the establishment of the endogenous proviruses resident in the human and mouse genomes. We used the mouse genome sequence to study diversity and genetic traits of nonecotropic murine leukemia viruses (polytropic [Pmv], modified polytropic [Mpmv], and xenotropic [Xmv] subgroups), the best-characterized large set of recently integrated proviruses. We identified 49 proviruses. In phylogenetic analyses, Pmvs and Mpmvs were monophyletic, whereas Xmvs were divided into several clades, implying a greater number of replication cycles between the integration events. Four distinct primer binding site types (Pro, Gln1, Gln2 and Thr) were dispersed within the phylogeny, indicating frequent mispriming. We analyzed the frequency and context of G-to-A mutations for the role of mA3 in formation of these proviruses. In the Pmv and Mpmv (but not Xmv) groups, mutations attributable to mA3 constituted a large fraction of the total. A significant number of nonsense mutations suggests the absence of purifying selection following mutation. A strong bias of G-to-A relative to C-to-T changes was seen, implying a strand specificity that can only have occurred prior to integration. The optimal sequence context of G-to-A mutations, TTC, was consistent with mA3. At least in the Pmv group, a significant 5′ to 3′ gradient of G-to-A mutations was consistent with mA3 editing. Altogether, our results for the first time suggest mA3 editing immediately preceding the integration event that led to retroviral endogenization, contributing to inactivation of infectivity

Hypervelocity Impact of Unstressed and Stressed Titanium in a Whipple Configuration in Support of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle Service Module Propellant Tanks

Hypervelocity impacts were performed on six unstressed and six stressed titanium coupons with aluminium shielding in order to assess the effects of the partial penetration damage on the post impact micromechanical properties of titanium and on the residual strength after impact. This work is performed in support of the definition of the penetration criteria of the propellant tanks surfaces for the service module of the crew exploration vehicle where such a criterion is based on testing and analyses rather than on historical precedence. The objective of this work is to assess the effects of applied biaxial stress on the damage dynamics and morphology. The crater statistics revealed minute differences between stressed and unstressed coupon damage. The post impact residual stress analyses showed that the titanium strength properties were generally unchanged for the unstressed coupons when compared with undamaged titanium. However, high localized strains were shown near the craters during the tensile tests

"I'm a bit concerned" - early actions and psychological constructions in a child protection helpline

This article analyzes early actions in 50 calls reporting cases of abuse to a national child protection helpline in the UK (the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Helpline, NSPCC). It focuses on the early turns in the caller's reason for call, in particular, a class of constructions in which the caller describes himself or herself as "concerned about x" (or similar). Analysis of the corpus of calls suggests concern constructions are canonical early elements of the reason-for-call sequence. Concern constructions (a) are oriented to a pre-move in the caller's reason for call, (b) project the unpacking of concerns in a way oriented to the NSPCCs institutional role, (c) attend to epistemological asymmetries between caller and call taker and remove the requirement for disaffiliative next actions such as asking for the basis of claims, (d) provide a way for the Child Protection Officer to take abuse claims seriously while not presupposing their truth, and (e) display an appropriate caller stance. These observations are supported by an analysis of deviant cases. The broader implications of this study for the relation between psychology, interaction, and institutions are discussed

China's Capital Controls Through the Prism of Covered Interest Differentials

We study the renminbi (RMB) covered interest differential - an indicator of the effectiveness of capital controls. It is found that the differential is not shrinking over time and, in fact, appears larger after the global financial crisis than before. That is, capital controls in China are still substantial and effective. In addition to exchange rate changes and volatilities, the RMB covered interest differential is affected by credit market tightness indicators. The marginal explanatory power of these macroeconomic factors, however, is small relative to the autoregressive component and the dummy variables that capture changes in China's policy