Assessing the Counseling Needs of High School Students: The Role of Needs Assessments in Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (CSCPs) and the ASCA National Model

The purpose of this study is to identify student counseling needs at the high school level. Furthermore, the role of these needs and the role of needs assessments were explored in the context of the current movement towards Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (CSCPs) and the ASCA National Model. In other words, this study aimed to examine how counselors should use data and student feedback in the implementation and maintenance of their counseling programs. Students were asked to identify their counseling needs in three categories of the career, academic, and personal/social domains. Students reported the most need in the career domain with secondary emphasis on the academic domain, while reporting little need in the personal/social domain. Differences were found among gender and grade level needs as well. Possible interpretations and the implication of these results are discussed

Strategies for Manufacturing in Southern China

This paper investigates the structure of industrial and business network strategies in the global manufacturing environment based on empirical data from 87 manufacturing firms in the Pearl River Delta of Southern China. Relevant data was collected using a questionnaire approach and analyzed using appropriate statistical techniques. Hierarchical cluster analysis was employed to devise taxonomy for industrial network strategies. Three distinct clusters were identified: Network Integrators, Network Learners and Network Conformists. Results indicate that the former two clusters, though differing in the extent of scale, adopt a holistic approach in developing both intra- and inter-firm strategies and that the third cluster can be described as static in terms of the network strategies used

Business process modelling in small- to medium-sized enterprises

Data flow analysis is used in a novel context for business process modelling. A framework is presented together with its enterprise modelling concepts and the associated modelling tools. The framework was specifically developed for small- to medium-sized industries. The strengths and weaknesses of the general data flow analysis approach are discussed in terms of its suitability for Hong Kong's small- to medium-sized industries. A case example is also presented to illustrate the methodology.published_or_final_versio

Exploring how to develop customer-oriented business strategies in a clothing supply chain: a study in Southern China

Understanding customer expectations is one of the keys to success for today's clothing manufacturers. Previous studies have explained how operational performance can be improved by a better understanding of customer-perceived values. This paper presents an analysis of data collected through a questionnaire from 62 clothing manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) of Southern China. The data collected was first classified into three groups using cluster analysis. The classification is based on how well the respondents recognize the expectations of their customers, including both industrial customers and consumers. The paper then empirically explores the characteristics of each group and how such characteristics are related to the internal operations performance; internal operations are grouped into two major types: planning processes and operational processes. The paper concludes by presenting a relationship model that can be used as a reference tool by those organizations operating in the PRD clothing industry to improve internal operations performance by enhancing customer satisfaction.published_or_final_versio

Commodity procurement risk management with futures contracts: a dynamic stack-and-roll approach

Procuring material from commodity spot markets can flexibly fulfil a forward production demand, but increase the risk of high procurement cost due to spot price volatility. In this paper, a dynamic stack-and-roll hedging approach using futures contracts is proposed. The approach aims at mitigating the procurement cost risk and optimising the terminal revenue received from the procurement and hedging activities. It separates the procurement planning horizon into multiple stages, along with varying hedging positions in the nearby futures contracts. Hedging positions are adjusted in response to commodity price behaviour and contemporary perceived information about forward production demand. Guided by the mean-variance criteria over the terminal revenue, dynamic programming is applied to derive a closed-form solution for optimal hedging positions in a discrete-time Markovian setting. Numerical experiments are carried out to assess the proposed approach with explicit solution in a realistic stochastic environment. The price processes are modelled by a fractal nonlinear regression model using real price data of China’s commodity market, while demand information process is modelled by Bayesian formula. The results show that the proposed approach outperforms naive hedging strategy, and effectively mitigates the procurement cost risk.postprin

The effects of crew resource management on teamwork and safety climate at Veterans Health Administration facilities

Communication failure is a significant source of adverse events in health care and a leading root cause of sentinel events reported to the Joint Commission. The Veterans Health Administration National Center for Patient Safety established Clinical Team Training (CTT) as a comprehensive program to enhance patient safety and to improve communication and teamwork among health care professionals. CTT is based on techniques used in aviation’s Crew Resource Management (CRM) training. The aviation industry has reached a significant safety record in large part related to the culture change generated by CRM and sustained by its recurrent implementation. This article focuses on the improvement of communication, teamwork, and patient safety by utilizing a standardized, CRM‐based, interprofessional, immersive training in diverse clinical areas. The Teamwork and Safety Climate Questionnaire was used to evaluate safety climate before and after CTT. The scores for all of the 27 questions on the questionnaire showed an increase from baseline to 12 months, and 11 of those increases were statistically significant. A recurrent training is recommended to maintain the positive outcomes. CTT enhances patient safety and reduces risk of patient harm by improving teamwork and facilitating clear, concise, specific and timely communication among health care professionals.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145421/1/jhrm21292_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145421/2/jhrm21292.pd

Features of Born-Global Processing Plants under the Global Economy

A Born-Global Processing Plant (BGPP) is the formation of a new manufacturing plant specifically for the world-wide outsourcing industry and is a unique product of the global economy. The concept of a Born-Global entity has been mainly associated with high-tech industries and high-tech products. In this paper we extend the term BGPP to cover the concept of Born-Global to mature/low-tech and labor intensive processing plants that produce many of the traditional manufactured products. Such processing plants form the backbone of Southern China’s economic development. The conventional view regards a BGPP as playing a minor role in a traditional multinational enterprise (MNE), and for this reason the role of BGPP’s in traditional MNE’s has not received any significant attention from researchers. In this paper we examine the BGPP and its related global supply chain from the viewpoint of the global economy, using case examples from mature/low-tech and labor intensive processing plants in Pearl River Delta (PRD) of Southern China

Il ruolo dell'Archeozoologia nei Musei e nelle Esposizioni: analisi applicativa della didattica archeozoologica

Studio sull'applicazione della materia archeozoologica all'interno delle strutture museali. Analisi di diverse tipologie museali in cui è possibile trovare esposizioni di tipo faunistico

The virtual organizing process—A critical tool for enterprise competitiveness in the information era

The term virtual enterprise has generated considerable confusion because of its rather liberal interpretation. This paper argues that the successful establishment of a virtual enterprise is mainly dependent on the virtual organizing processes of an enterprise\u27s strategies ( VOPES), rather than on the actual manifested transformation of the whole into a single virtual organization. A three-dimensional dynamic framework for VOPES is presented, with the aim of providing a coherent model for positioning the various virtual organizing strategies, and at the same time giving VOPES dynamic tendencies towards market negotiation, co-operation, co-ordination and collaboration. To achieve a competitive advantage, the top management of an enterprise operating in an intense information environment can organize their enterprise virtually by using the three-dimensional framework of: virtual customer relationship, virtual outsourcing, and virtual knowledge and expertise. The generic IT architecture of VOPES is also described and discussed

B-quark mediated neutrinoless μ−−e−\mu^--e^- conversion in presence of R-parity violation

We found that in supersymmetric models with R-parity non-conservation the b-quarks may appreciably contribute to exotic neutrinoless muon-electron conversion in nuclei via the triangle diagram with two external gluons. This allowed us to extract previously overlooked constraints on the third generation trilinear R-parity violating parameters significantly more stringent than those existing in the literature.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur