Book reviews

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Transitioning to a Lean Enterprise: A Guide for Leaders, Volume I, Executive Overview

This Transition-To-Lean Guide is intended to help your enterprise leadership navigate your enterprise’s challenging journey into the promising world of “lean.” You have opened this guide because, in some fashion, you have come to realize that your enterprise must undertake a fundamental transformation in how it sees the world, what it values, and the principles that will become its guiding lights if it is to prosper — or even survive — in this new era of “clock-speed” competition. However you may have been introduced to “lean,” you have undertaken to benefit from its implementation

The role of gold as a safe haven against economic policy uncertainty in major economies

This research sought to understand the role of gold as a safe haven against economic policy uncertainty in the United States, Europe, China and Japan. In 2008 the world stared into the abyss of credit fuelled economic ruin. The outcome of that crisis was further financial engineering on a massive scale. How long before the solutions to the previous disaster become the next disaster? In the face of this, does gold still play the role as a safe haven against EPU? Extant literature has used the nascent economic policy uncertainty index (EPUI) to model the effect of United States (US) and European EPU on gold priced in US dollars, using multivariate linear regression (Jones and Sackley, 2016). The effect of EPU in China, Europe and Japan has not been tested, nor has a more advanced approach than linear regression been applied. This research set out to examine the role of gold as a safe haven in major economies: US, China, Europe and Japan. It did so expanding the multivariate linear regression approach of previous work with additional variables, and by estimating models using the ARIMAX methodology. The study found evidence that gold was used as a safe haven against EPU in Europe, but not in the US or Japan. Further, evidence suggested that the Chinese economy dominates the gold price. The findings of this research have implications for gold mining companies, and investors and speculators, through the contribution to the understanding of drivers of the gold price. Moreover, this study highlighted the need for further research into the supply and demand dynamics of gold in China.Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2018.Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)MBAUnrestricte

A latent capture history model for digital aerial surveys

Funding: This work was part-funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden grant UOA-1418, Leverhulme grant RF-2018-213\9 and EPSRC IAA grant ‘High Definition digital aerial survey software’.We anticipate that unmanned aerial vehicles will become popular wildlife survey platforms. Because detecting animals from the air is imperfect, we develop a mark‐recapture line transect method using two digital cameras, possibly mounted on one aircraft, which cover the same area with a short time delay between them. Animal movement between the passage of the cameras introduces uncertainty in individual identity, so individual capture histories are unobservable and are treated as latent variables. We obtain the likelihood for mark‐recapture line transects without capture histories by automatically enumerating all possibilities within segments of the transect that contain ambiguous identities, instead of attempting to decide identities in a prior step. We call this method “Latent Capture‐history Enumeration” (LCE). We include an availability model for species that are periodically unavailable for detection, such as cetaceans that are undetectable while diving. External data are needed to estimate the availability cycle length, but not the mean availability rate, if the full availability model is employed. We compare the LCE method with the recently developed cluster capture‐recapture method (CCR), which uses a Palm likelihood approximation, providing the first comparison of CCR with maximum likelihood. The LCE estimator has slightly lower variance, more so as sample size increases, and close to nominal coverage probabilities. Both methods are approximately unbiased. We illustrate with semisynthetic data from a harbor porpoise survey.PostprintPeer reviewe

Transitioning to a Lean Enterprise: A Guide for Leaders, Volume III, Roadmap Explorations

Volume III of this guide may be used as an in-depth reference source for acquiring deep knowledge about many of the aspects of transitioning to lean. Lean change agents and lean implementation leaders should find this volume especially valuable in preparing their organizations for the lean transformation and in developing and implementing an enterprise level lean implementation plan. The richness and depth of the discussions in this volume should be helpful in charting a course, avoiding pitfalls, and making in-course corrections during implementation. We assume that the reader of Volume III is familiar with the history and general principles of the lean paradigm that are presented in Volume I, Executive Overview. A review of Volume II, Transition to Lean Roadmap may be helpful prior to launching into Volume III. For those readers most heavily involved in the lean transformation, all three volumes should be understood and referenced frequently

Detecting morphed passport photos : a training and individual differences approach

Our reliance on face photos for identity verification is at odds with extensive research which shows that matching pairs of unfamiliar faces is highly prone to error. This process can therefore be exploited by identity fraudsters seeking to deceive ID checkers (e.g. using a stolen passport which contains an image of similar looking individual to deceive border control officials). In this study we build on previous work which sought to quantify the threat posed by a relatively new type of fraud - morphed passport photos. Participants were initially unaware of the presence of morphs in a series of face photo arrays, and were simply asked to detect which images they thought had been digitally manipulated (i.e. “images that didn’t look quite right”). All participants then received basic information on morph fraud and rudimentary guidance on how to detect such images, followed by a morph detection training task (Training Group, N = 40), or a non-face control task (Guidance Group, N = 40). Participants also completed a post-guidance/training morph detection task, and the Models Face Matching Test (MFMT). Our findings show that baseline morph detection rates were poor, that morph detection training significantly improved the identification of these images over and above basic guidance, and accuracy on the mismatch condition of the MFMT correlated with morph detection ability. The results are discussed in relation to potential counter-measures for morph-based identity fraud

A single session of resistance exercise does not reduce postprandial lipaemia

This study investigated the effect of a single session of resistance exercise on postprandial lipaemia. Eleven healthy, normolipidaemic men aged 23 (SE 1.4) years performed two trials at least one-week apart in a counterbalanced randomized design. In each trial participants consumed a test meal (1.2g fat, 1.1g carbohydrate, 0.2 g protein and 68 kJ per kg body mass) between 08.00 and 09.00 following a 12 hour fast. The afternoon before one trial participants performed an 88 minute bout of resistance exercise. Prior to the other trial participants were inactive (control trial). Resistance exercise was performed using free weights and included 4 sets of 10-repetitions of each of 11 exercises. Sets were performed at 80% of 10 repetition maximum with a 2 minute work and rest interval. Venous blood samples were obtained in the fasted state and at intervals for 6 h postprandially. Fasting plasma triacylglycerol (TAG) concentration did not differ significantly between control and exercise trials (mean SE: 1.03 0.13 mmol•L-1 versus 0.94 0.09 mmol•L-1; respectively). Similarly the 6 h total area under the plasma TAG concentration versus time curve did not differ significantly between control and exercise trials (9.84 1.40 mmol•L-1•6 h versus 9.38 1.12 mmol•L-1•6 h; respectively). These findings suggest that a single session of resistance exercise does not reduce postprandial lipaemia

Behaviour of New Zealand ironsand during iron ore sintering

Titanium-bearing burdens are commonly introduced into blast furnaces to protect the hearlh because the so-called titanium bear which is a precipitate of carbide, nitride and carbonitride of titanium may form in the blast furnace hearth if Ti02 is present in the feed [1 , 2J. New Zealand ironsand is a titanomagnetite, containing around 60 wt.% iron, 8 wt.% titanium and other substances such as silica, phosphorus and lime [3, 4]. Since it is competitive in price, introduction of the ironsand into the ferrous feed can reduce the production cost and potentially increase blast furnace campaign life. An appropriate method of inlroduction of ironsand is as a component of the sinter as the small size of ironsand precludes direct charging into the blast furnace. Although the effect of introducing titanomagnetite into iron ore blends has been investigated [1,,2, §],little is known about the detailed sintering mechanism. The present study is aimed at identifying the sintering behaviour of New Zealand ironsand as well as the interaction between New Zealand ironsand and CaO to gain better understanding of sintering mechanism of titanomagnetite

Segmented flow coil equilibrator coupled to a proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometer for measurements of a broad range of volatile organic compounds in seawater

We present a technique that utilises a segmented flow coil equilibrator coupled to a proton-transferreaction mass spectrometer to measure a broad range of dissolved volatile organic compounds. Thanks to its relatively large surface area for gas exchange, small internal volume, and smooth headspace-water separation, the equilibrator is highly efficient for gas exchange and has a fast response time (under 1 min). The system allows for both continuous and discrete measurements of volatile organic compounds in seawater due to its low sample water flow (100 cm3 min-1) and the ease of changing sample intake. The equilibrator setup is both relatively inexpensive and compact. Hence, it can be easily reproduced and installed on a variety of oceanic platforms, particularly where space is limited. The internal area of the equilibrator is smooth and unreactive. Thus, the segmented flow coil equilibrator is expected to be less sensitive to biofouling and easier to clean than membrane-based equilibration systems. The equilibrator described here fully equilibrates for gases that are similarly soluble or more soluble than toluene and can easily be modified to fully equilibrate for even less soluble gases. The method has been successfully deployed in the Canadian Arctic. Some example data from underway surface water and Niskin bottle measurements in the sea ice zone are presented to illustrate the efficacy of this measurement system