International Differences in Lean Production, Productivity and Employee Attitudes

The study examines US-European productivity and worker attitude differences, focusing on changes in incentive structures. We analyze productivity and worker attitudes in five plants in the UK and US belonging to the same multinational producer of automotive sensors and actuators. We examine the firm's efforts to make complementary changes in product strategy and human-resource policies. In particular, we look at the impact of a Value-Added Gainsharing plan (VAG) that was introduced at different times among the four plants. Our analysis draws on multiple plant visits, surveys of almost all of the workforce, and confidential financial data. Our study offers a rare look inside a low-wage, non-union firm. We find that the VAG had an impact on productivity and profitability. We find that the UK plant's productivity and worker satisfaction was well below that of the US plants. However, neither our analysis nor interviews with managers suggest that differences in national institutions play a key role in explaining these results.

Reference Citations in B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior

This is the published version, reproduced here with permission from the publisher. This article is also available electronically from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2748462/.Abstract not available for this item

Low temperature synthesis study of metal-organic framework CPO-27 : investigating metal, solvent and base effects down to -78 °C

We thank the EPSRC (EP/K005499/1) (EP/K503162/1) for their financial support of this project and the EPSRC Capital for Great Technologies (EP/L017008/1).CPO-27-M (M = Co, Mg, Ni, Zn) metal-organic frameworks have been successfully synthesized at temperatures down to -78 °C in a range of solvent systems and their crystallinity and morphology analyzed by powder X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. CPO-27-Mg and -Zn could be synthesized at lower temperatures using MeOH-NaOH as the solvent with CPO-27-Zn showing the most crystalline material at -78 °C. CPO-27-Zn afforded the most crystalline samples of all studies in MeOH-TEA. However, in MeOH a non-porous monomeric [Zn(H2dhtp)(H2O)2] complex was formed when no base was present. In THF with base (NaOH, TEA) the reaction produced crystalline MOFs in a controlled and stable manner at low temperatures, whilst the reagents were insoluble in THF at low temperature when no base was present. SEM was used to analyze the morphologies of the products.PostprintPeer reviewe

Analyzing Compensation Methods in Manufacturing: Piece Rates, Time Rates, or Gain-Sharing?

Economists have often argued that "pay for performance" is the optimal compensation scheme. However, use of the simplest form of pay for performance, the piece rate, has been in decline in manufacturing in recent decades. We show both theoretically and empirically that these changes are due to adoption of "modern manufacturing" in which firms produce a greater variety of products to a more demanding quality and delivery standard. We further develop a theory of the type of compensation system appropriate for this kind of production, in which there is a high return to “multi-tasking”, where the same workers perform both easy-to-observe and hard-to-observe tasks and to “just-in-time” production, which entails a high cost of holding inventory. We test these predictions using detailed monthly information on firm outcomes and employee surveys from four plants in two companies that adopted modern manufacturing methods and changed their method of compensation from piece rates to either time rates or value-added gain-sharing. We find that time rates and gain-sharing are associated with reduced employee performance on easy-to-observe tasks, enhanced performance on hard-to-observe tasks, and improved firm profitability. Our analysis shows the importance of distinguishing types of incentive pay: we find that modern manufacturing is consistent with either group incentive pay (such as gain-sharing), or no incentives (such as hourly pay), but inconsistent with individual incentive pay (piece rates).

High calcium chemically defined culture medium

A high calcium chemically defined animal cell culture medium including vitamins A and D and a fatty acid or its ester. The medium is particularly adapted for the primary or secondary culture of epithelial cells. However, the medium may be utilized for establishing and maintaining cell lines, in particular myelomae and hybridomae.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

The role of governing boards in improving patient experience: Attitudes and activities of health service boards in Victoria, Australia

The authors sought to determine the attitudes of public health service board members and senior executives toward patient experience and to describe the governance activities of the boards in this area. The study was based on an online survey of 322 board members from 85 public health services and semi-structured interviews with 35 board members and senior executives from 13 public health services in Victoria, Australia. The results showed that while some health service boards had high aspirations and clear plans for improving patient experience, others remained sluggish or even cynically resistant to changing their existing models of care. Interviewees associated with highly active boards described initiatives to improve patient experience at multiple levels in the organisation - from boardroom to bedside. Among less active boards, efforts to improve patient experience tended to be more ad hoc and there was greater uncertainty about how to scale up or systematise. The authors conclude that addressing the gap between the responsibility of boards to address patient experience, and the reality of their governance activities, requires a nuanced understanding of the attitudes and activities of board members. The approaches taken by “positive attitude, high activity” boards could be showcased as exemplars for others

Expression of RUNX1 correlates with poor patient prognosis in triple negative breast cancer

The RUNX1 transcription factor is widely recognised for its tumour suppressor effects in leukaemia. Recently a putative link to breast cancer has started to emerge, however the function of RUNX1 in breast cancer is still unknown. To investigate if RUNX1 expression was important to clinical outcome in primary breast tumours a tissue microarray (TMA) containing biopsies from 483 patients with primary operable invasive ductal breast cancer was stained by immunohistochemistry. RUNX1 was associated with progesterone receptor (PR)-positive tumours (P<0.05), more tumour CD4+(P<0.05) and CD8+(P<0.01) T-lymphocytic infiltrate, increased tumour CD138+plasma cell (P<0.01) and more CD68+macrophage infiltrate (P<0.001). RUNX1 expression did not influence outcome of oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive or HER2-positive disease, however on univariate analysis a high RUNX1 protein was significantly associated with poorer cancer-specific survival in patients with ER-negative (P<0.05) and with triple negative (TN) invasive breast cancer (P<0.05). Furthermore, multivariate Cox regression analysis of cancer-specific survival showed a trend towards significance in ER-negative patients (P<0.1) and was significant in triple negative patients (P<0.05). Of relevance, triple negative breast cancer currently lacks good biomarkers and patients with this subtype do not benefit from the option of targeted therapy unlike patients with ER-positive or HER2-positive disease. Using multivariate analysis RUNX1 was identified as an independent prognostic marker in the triple negative subgroup. Overall, our study identifies RUNX1 as a new prognostic indicator correlating with poor prognosis specifically in the triple negative subtype of human breast cancer

A polygenic basis for birth weight in a wild population of red deer ( Cervus elaphus )

The genetic architecture of traits under selection has important consequences for the response to selection and potentially for population viability. Early QTL mapping studies in wild populations have reported loci with large effect on trait variation. However, these results are contradicted by more recent genome-wide association analyses, which strongly support the idea that most quantitative traits have a polygenic basis. This study aims to re-evaluate the genetic architecture of a key morphological trait, birth weight, in a wild population of red deer (Cervus elaphus), using genomic approaches. A previous study using 93 microsatellite and allozyme markers and linkage mapping on a kindred of 364 deer detected a pronounced QTL on chromosome 21 explaining 29% of the variance in birth weight, suggesting that this trait is partly controlled by genes with large effects. Here, we used data for more than 2,300 calves genotyped at >39,000 SNP markers and two approaches to characterise the genetic architecture of birth weight. First, we performed a genome-wide association (GWA) analysis, using a genomic relatedness matrix to account for population structure. We found no SNPs significantly associated with birth weight. Second, we used genomic prediction to estimate the proportion of variance explained by each SNP and chromosome. This analysis confirmed that most genetic variance in birth weight was explained by loci with very small effect sizes. Third, we found that the proportion of variance explained by each chromosome was slightly positively correlated with its size. These three findings highlight a highly polygenic architecture for birth weight, which contradicts the previous QTL study. These results are probably explained by the differences in how associations are modelled between QTL mapping and GWA. Our study suggests that models of polygenic adaptation are the most appropriate to study the evolutionary trajectory of this trait